Coal Energy - Everything you need to know

If you're looking into energy, you’ve probably heard coal brought up pretty often. And you’ve probably heard it villainized as a terrible rock that produces toxic fumes and releases them into the environment. That might be an extreme way to paint the picture but it is true that coal has contributed to harming the environment in a major way. Unfortunately, we just didn’t know any better for a long time so it has been a mainstay in power production for generations. But now we know the dangers. Even the harvesting of coal is dangerous. In fact, coal mining itself has been responsible for over 100,000 deaths. So why were people doing it? Because energy was always in demand, which made coal miners in demand. And people need jobs because people need to eat.

What it is

Coal is a fuel created from the altered remains of very old vegetation. And we mean super old. Like dinosaur old. The plants accumulated in swamps and peat bogs. The interesting thing is that the energy we get from coal is thanks to the energy that plants had absorbed way back when.

What it does

We now know that producing electricity with coal comes at a cost. Coal power has been a big contributor to acid rain, smog, and global warming. And it can also be a major contributor to health concerns like asthma, cancer, and birth defects. So if you thought that the dangers of coal were regulated to the miners of the late 1800’s, you’d be wrong.

What’s being done

The government has implemented some regulations on the use of coal as a fossil fuel to make things somewhat better, specifically forcing companies to remove harmful substances from the stuff. But even with those changes, coal can never be a clean energy source--just a little less dirty. And the scary thing is that coal factories are often located in the heart of a lot of cities, not far from schools and neighborhoods. So you may be wondering why coal is even allowed as an energy source. Well, a large part has to do with the economy and government. Big energy transformations take a lot of time and there are some people who don’t want to see that transformation occur. So there’s resistance to doing away with the old ways, even though we know there are better options available.

What you can do

Make the change to all the way better options out there a lot faster. Today, we have clean energy options like solar and wind available to us. These solutions are more than enough to give most places all the power they need. And they are clean. Super clean. Maybe even clean enough to begin reversing the damage that coal has done over the last one-hundred-plus years.

So if you’re concerned about coal, and you should be, know you’re not alone. And you’re not without solutions. To start, participate in any initiatives that push for cleaner energy. Local legislation always moves faster with the voice of the people pushing it along. And until some major changes are made, you can also look into energy solutions for your individual home. Unfortunately, it’s not the easiest thing to set up a windmill turbine in your backyard, but there are residential solar energy options available in almost every city.