Excuse my ignorence, but when and where is COAL used in the UNITED STATES???

Question

Just read story about Greenpeace crashing a meeting on coal in NEW YORK, and since all I hear all the time it's our worry about gasoline and oil fuel, and hear about wishing to build more nuclear places for energy, and how China does indeed use a lot of coal, etc., reading about coal in the US I find it sort of strange!!!!

Answer 1

Right now a good part of my electrical supply is coming from four coal-fired electric generators located in the Moapa Valley in Southern Nevada, about an hour's drive north of my home. There are also other coal-fired electric generating plants in Utah, New Mexico and several other states. My son lives in Phoenix and he gets part of his electric power from a nuclear power station west of that city. I once lived for about four years in homes that were located south of the San Onofre Nuclear Plant in Southern California. I once attended a joint meeting of the Sierra Club and Greenpeace at a local library's meeting room. Their concern was air quality in the Las Vegas Valley. I was the only one who got there using public transit. Their hypocrisy sticks out like a nail from a floorboard!

Answer 2

Coal is generally use in parts of the United States where there are a great deal of variations between hignh and low temperatures during the year, because such extremes typically cause increased demand in heating and cooling.

It's also used in states with a large industrial base.

Answer 3

There are about 70 coal fired power generation plants in the United States, and 7 in Canada.

Answer 4

Coal is stall used by some trains and by some light company.

Answer 5

coal powers electric plants, emits carbon and puts mercury into the water system.  The fish in Lake Michigan is unsafe for pregnent women and kids to eat unless it is cleaned a certain way as to remove all the mercury build up in their bodies from the electric plants.

Answer 6

America still uses coal, because there is still coal to mine. A lot of countries still import it too, from Easter Europe/China. England's coal deposits are almost bare.

Just a correction to Treebeard: The industrial revolution didn't begin in the 17th century, or in the 18th century in America and Europe. It was late in the 18th century before it properly spread throughout England (mostly from the North where coal was plentiful).

Answer 7

most of the electricity in the US is generated by burning coal.

Answer 8

There are still a bunch of coal burning power plants back east

Answer 9

Well America has always used coal, ever since the 17th century or or so, basically, concurring with the time of the Industrial Revolution, and we've always used coal... a great part of American electricity comes from coal power, and we've got the largest reserves of coal on the planet... the question is how to use it cleanly and inexpensively.