US Coal demand for electic power generation exceeds 1 billion tons.

[NNadir]

For the second year running the amount of coal burned in the United States to generate electricity has exceeded one billion tons.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/coal/page/special/feature.html

Consumption of coal rose in 2004 by 10 million tons. Roughly 90 million tons of coal were consumed by other industries such as the steel industry representing a rather small fraction of the overall demand.

Coal is typically about 10% ash, meaning that it has been necessary to dump 100 million tons of coal ash each of the last two years, some of this ash becoming "fly ash" that ends up in people's lungs.

As the carbon content is 90% of coal, to obtain the value for carbon dioxide released each year by burning coal, we need to multipl7 900 million tons by 3.67 accounting for the molecular weight of carbon dioxide. We see that the amount of carbon dioxide released by the power industry amounts to 3.3 billion tons per year.

Typical coals contain about 0.5% sulfur. The sulfur dioxide produced by burning coal is thus 50 million tons multiplied by 2 to account for the molecular weight or 100 million tons.

NOx varies with burning conditions.

One of the many troublesome heavy metals in coal ash and fly ash is mercury. (Others are lead and uranium.)

The following illustrative map represents the mercury content of coals from around the United States.



For reference, one trillion BTU of coal is about 42 million metric tons.

Note the high mercury content of southern coals. This may explain to some extent the propensity for voting for Bush in that area since it's increasingly clear that to have voted for Bush one needs to have been "as mad as a hatter."

[leveymg]

1. Clean coal. No, America doesn't contribute to global warning.

Not one little BTU of thermal energy or a single H2C4 ring.

[AZCat]

2. For ultimate and proximate analyses of coal...

the U.S. Geological Survey runs a project called . You can search for coal analyses in various areas around the U.S. where coal is mined and determine the % content of various elements.

There's also one for world coal reserves, but I don't have the link.

[AZCat]

4. Here's the missing link

The editing period expired before I noticed the link was missing, so here it is:

US Coal Quality Database

[NNadir]

5. Thanks. I'll check that out.

I am of course on a quest to ban coal. I hope it's not too quixotic.

[AZCat]

6. I don't know if I would call it quixotic

I generally associate Quixote with a romantic idealism. The elimination of coal I see as a necessary quest, albiet one on order with the "Odyssey" (and lasting much longer than seven years). To pursue it is a rational act, while pursuit of photovoltaics as a large-scale source of power is (IMHO) much more quixotic.

[NNadir]

7. I stand corrected. Thanx.

[Massacure]

3. That graphic will probably be handy some day. I'll bookmark it.

[philb]

8. There is no coal in Mississippi, S. Alabama, and Fla??

so how are they shown with high mercury coal?

Alabama coal is in N. Alabama
I've lived in Mississippi and Florida and never heard of coal in either. I assume they are talking about peat bogs, which do absorb mercury from atmospheric depositions.

But mercury is a huge problem in Florida Gulf Coast fish. Most have high mercury, those you get in resturants.
http://www.flcv.com/flhg.html