Related Coal Studies
Coal is abundant in the U.S., is relatively inexpensive, and is an excellent source of energy and byproduct raw materials. Because of these factors, domestic coal is the primary source of fuel for electric power plants in the U.S., and will continue to be well into the 21st century. In addition, other U.S. industries continue to use coal for fuel and coke production and there is a large overseas market for high-quality American coal.
Because humans have used coal for centuries, much is known about it. The usefulness of coal as a heat source and the myriad of byproducts that can be produced from coal are well understood. The continued and increasingly large-scale use of coal in the United States and in many other industrialized and developing nations has resulted in known and anticipated hazards to environmental quality and human health. As a result, there is still much to be learned about the harmful attributes of coal and how they may be removed, modified, or avoided to make coal use less harmful to humans and nature. These issues of coal quality have not been examined carefully until recently.
Archived Outside Coal Journal Articles
Download the free LizardTech DjVu Viewer here to view the archived DjVu files by year below:
1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987
1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994
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U.S. Department of the Interior |
U.S. Geological Survey
