Press Release Source: ADA-ES, Inc.

On Tuesday June 29, 2010, 4:05 pm EDT

 LITTLETON, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Arch
Coal, Inc. (NYSE: ACI - News) (“Arch”) and ADA-ES, Inc.
(NASDAQ: ADES - News) (“ADA” or the “Company”)
today announced that the two companies have finalized
the previously announced exclusive development and
licensing agreement for a promising ADA-ES technology
aimed at reducing combustion-related emissions of
mercury and other metals from PRB coal. In
consideration for certain ADA development work and the
exclusive license to Arch, ADA-ES will receive an upfront
payment of $2 million and royalty payments that could
amount to as much as $1 per ton of coal sold by Arch,
depending upon the successful implementation of the
technology and Arch’s future sales of the resulting
enhanced coal product.
 ADA has been successful at developing technologies
that improve the performance of PRB coals, including
flue gas conditioning (FGC) chemicals used to aid in the
collection of ash from PRB coals. The Company also
developed a cost-effective brominated activated carbon
technology that provides a means of achieving 90%
removal of mercury emissions from PRB coals, as well as
CyClean technology, a proprietary coal additive that
improves combustion of PRB coals in cyclone boilers
resulting in enhanced efficiency and reduced emissions
of mercury and nitrogen oxides. Since 2004, ADA has
been working with Arch to explore certain unique
characteristics of some types of coals produced by Arch
that allow them to be burned with lower emissions. A
recent technical breakthrough provides a potential
means to obtain similar performance improvements
from all of Arch’s PRB coals.
 ADA-ES is a leader in clean coal technology
and the associated specialty chemicals. We develop and
implement proprietary environmental technology and
specialty chemicals that enable coal-fueled power plants to
enhance existing air pollution control equipment,
maximize capacity and improve operating efficiencies. We
supply activated carbon injection systems, mercury
measurement instrumentation, and related services.
Through our consolidated subsidiary, Clean Coal Solutions
(“Clean Coal”), we produce refined coal that we expect will
qualify for IRS Section 45 tax credits. To meet the needs of
the power industry for mercury control, we are a
participant in a joint venture, ADA Carbon Solutions
(“ADA-CS”), which is developing state-of-the-art facilities
to produce activated carbon (“AC”) with the first plant
projected to come on-line in 2010. Additionally, we are
developing technologies for power plants to address issues
related to emissions of carbon dioxide.
St. Louis-based Arch Coal is the second
largest U.S. coal producer, with
revenues of $2.6 billion in 2009.
Through its national network of mines,
Arch supplies cleaner-burning, low-
sulfur coal to U.S. power producers to
fuel roughly 8 percent of the nation's
electricity. The company also ships coal
to domestic and international steel
manufacturers as well as international
power producers.
 Coal is a combustible organic
rock composed primarily of
carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen.
Coal is burned to produce energy
and is used to manufacture steel.
It is also an important source of
chemicals used to make medicine,
fertilizers, pesticides, and other
products.
 Coal comes from ancient plants buried
over millions of years in Earth’s crust, its
outermost layer. Coal, petroleum, natural
gas, and oil shale are all known as fossil fuels
because they come from the remains of
ancient life buried deep in the crust.
Over millions of years, these
physical conditions caused coal to form from
the carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen,
sulfur, and inorganic mineral compounds in
the plant matter. The coal formed in layers
known as seams.
 HOW COALS FORM?
The coal we find today formed from
generations of plants that died in ancient
tropical swamps and accumulated on the
swamp bottoms. The plant material first formed
a compact organic material called peat. As
layers of sediment gradually accumulated over
the peat, the pressure and heat exerted by the
thickening layers gradually drove out the
moisture and increased the carbon content of
the peat, forming coal.
COAL FORMATION
 COMPONENTS OF COAL
Coal contains organic (carbon-containing)
compounds transformed from ancient plant
material. The original plant material was
composed of cellulose, the reinforcing material in
plant cell walls; lignin, the substance that cements
plant cells together; tannins, a class of compounds
in leaves and stems; and other organic
compounds, such as fats and waxes. In addition to
carbon, these organic compounds contain
hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and sulfur.
 Coal also contains inorganic
components, known as ash. Ash
includes minerals such as pyrite and
marcasite formed from metals that
accumulated in the living tissues of the
ancient plants. Quartz, clay, and other
minerals are also added to coal deposits
by wind and groundwater. Ash lowers
the fixed carbon content of coal,
decreasing its heating value.
 KINDS AND TYPES OF
1. COAL – highest ranked and the hardest
Anthracite
coal
2. Bituminous coal – ranked second highest
and can be metallurgical and thermal.
3. Sub-bituminous coal – softer than
bituminous coal.
4. Lignite – a soft, brown or black coal. Some
lignites contain significant amounts of
uranium.
 Peat deposits are made up
of wet, partially decomposed
organic matter, with low energy
content per unit weight.
Deposits are mainly in isolated
areas and the drying problem is
severe. It is not a significant
power source, even in developed
countries
 COAL MINING
TYPES OF COAL MINING:
A. Surface Mining
1. Open-pit Mining
2. Drift Mining
3. Slope Mining
4. Contour Mining
5. Auger Mining
6. Satellite Aids to Surface Mining
B. UNDERGROUND MINING

1. Conventional Mining
2. Continuous Mining
3. Longwall Mining
4. Room-and-Pillar Mining
Surface Mining techniques are used when the coal is
present near the surface, and the overburden is thin
enough. These techniques include contour mining, strip
mining, and auger mining.
Contour Mining – is used in hilly country side area where
the slope of the surface will permit only a narrow bench to
cut around the side of a hill.
Strip Mining – is used in flat gently rolling lands on the
Midwest and West where large and efficient equipment
can be used. In this technique, the coal is exposed by
removing the overlying strata, or overburden.
Auger Mining - is a supplementary method used to reach
coal in stripped areas where the over burden has become
to thick to be removed economically.
 Underground Mining techniques are somewhat more
labor-intensive than surface mining and are used to
remove coal located below too much overburden for
surface mining. However machines are used in most
instances to dig load, and haul the coal.
 Drift mine – is one of that enters a coal seam exposed
at the surface on the side of a hill or mountain. The
mine follows the coal horizontally.
 Slope mine – is one where an inclined turned is driven
through the rock to the coal, with the mined coal
removed by conveyors or truck haulage.
 Shaft mine – is one where a vertical shaft is dug
through the rock to reach the coal, which may be of
great depth below the surface.
Two General Underground
Mining System:
Room-and-pillar – mining is an open stopping
method where mining progresses in a nearly
horizontal or low-angle direction by opening
multiple stops or rooms, leaving solid material to
act as pillars to support the vertical load

Long-wall-mining – uses a machine that is pulled

back and forth across the face of the coal seam
in larger rooms.
 
COAL DEPOSITS AND RESERVES

Although coal deposits exist in nearly

every region of the world, commercially
significant coal resources occur only in
Europe, Asia, Australia, and North
America. Commercially significant coal
deposits occur in sedimentary rock
basins, typically sandwiched as layers
called beds or seams between layers of
sandstone and shale.
 Coal Around The
is widely distributedWorld
It is the world´s most abundant fossil fuel and
as compared with oil and
natural gas. China, United States, Poland and India
are among the world´s largest coal producers and
consumers. It is second to oil as an energy source in
the world.
About 70% of the worlds coal production is
used to generate 40% electricity, 12% is made to
coke t produce 70% of the world´s steel, and the
remaining 18% is used for industrial and domestic
purposes.
COMBUSTION EQIUPMENT
Stroke firing
Pulverized-coal firing
Fluidized-bed Combustion

Industrial and electric utility boilers are

fired with either strokers, pulverized-coal
fired burners or cyclone burners, the
choice depending on the kind of coal and
the amount of steam needed.
 WASTE TREATMENT
The emission of sulfur and
nitrogen oxides and particulates from
coal combustion has become a problem
of increasing concern and regulation.
The combustion of coal contributes
about 25% of the particulate matter,
25% of the sulfur oxides, and 5 % of the
nitrogen oxides in the atmosphere.
 A major concern about the particulate
matter, most of which is inorganic matter
derived from the mineral content of the coal,
is that the smallest particles are respirable
and may pose a health hazard. The collection
of a particulate matter is done in most power
plants by the use of electrostatic
precipitators, which have been developed to
very high efficiencies (>99%). Other
techniques for particulate removal include
bag-houses and cyclone collectors.
 The current technology for
removal of SO2 is Flue-Gas
Desulfuration (FGD), in units known as
scrubbers. The most common
scrubbers use a slurry of lime of
limestone to capture the sulfur oxides,
and the product is a sludge containing
calcium sulfite and calcium sulfate.
However the disposal of sludge is
another environmental problem.
 A more favorable
solution for newer plants is to
use fluidized-bed combustion
with a sulfur capture agent of
a combined-cycle system
where the sulfur can be more
easily removed from the
gasification stream.
 The major component of
nitrogen oxides emitted from coal is
nitrogen oxide (NO). Most of the
nitrogen formed from combustion of
coal does not originate from the coal
but from the reaction of nitrogen and
oxygen in the air that is used to burn
the coal. Consequently, the control of
nitrogen oxides can be most easily
achieved by changing the conditions
of the combustion process.
 This usually involves the use
of stage combustion where the
coal first is burned in a fuel-rich
flame that subsequently is made
fuel-lean. This is made viable
option for an existing plant by
changing the burner design or
by the addition of natural gas.
 Several techniques are being developed for
post-combustion scrubbing of NOx, such as
selective catalytic reduction. The use of fluidized-
bed combustor where the combustion is carried
out at lower temperature in the presence of a
sorbent will reduce both nitrogen oxides and
sulfur oxides.
Ash is purchased by some companies
for varoius purposes (e.g. cement). While water
for boiler feed passes through a demineralizer
water treatment system producing high purity
water.
Chemicals from coal were initially and
mostly obtained by destructive distillation
of coal, furnishing chiefly aromatics. In
recent years substantial production of
aromatics, particularly benzene, toluene,
xylene, naphthalene and
methylnaphthalenes, has been obtained
by processing petrochemicals. However,
coal chemicals, except for metallurgical
coke, are now in a very competitive field.
 Coal is not only the country’s
fundamental fuel, but shares with
petrochemicals the furnishing of the
basic raw materials for many essential
industries from dyes, medicines,
pesticides, and elastomers to modern
plastics. “ Coal also forms the world’s
largest reserve of concentrated
organic raw materials, and it serves
not only as a chemical supplier but as
a cheap source of heat and power
needed for processing.
 CHEMICALS FROM COAL
Chemical conversion
process
a.Carbonization, pyrolysis
of coal, lignite and
carbooniferous shales
(destructive distillation)
b.Reduction and refining of
ores.
c. Gasification
(blue and producer gas are
very minor)
Products and procedure
 Coal-tar aromatics, benzene and
homologs, phenol and homologs,
naphthalene, anthracene,
phenanthrene, etc. High-
temperature, low-temperature
coke, carbon for pigments, carbon
for electrodes
 Iron, ferroalloys, etc., aluminum,
magnesium.
 Coal gas, blue water gas, producer
gas, peak gas, synthesis gas,
carbon*2 liquid and dry ice.
d. Combustion for • Electric power utilities, comfort
comfort heating heating, retail deliveries, fly
and power ash, sintered ashes for filter and
generation concrete.
• Heat for manufacture of lime,
e. Combustion for cement, ceramics, steel and
process heating rolling mills.
• Sodium sulfite, sodiun sulfide,
f. reduction, chemical barium sulfide, phosphorous.
• Carbide process for aromatics,
hydrogenation of coal bergius
g. Hydrogenation and process, fischer-tropsch liquid
hydrogenolysis, fuels, catalytic methanation of
catalytic. synthesis and pyrolysis gases.
h. Demethylation  Benzene from toluene or
xylene, naphthalene from
methyl naphthalenes.
i. hydrolysis,
 Mixed aromatics
alkaline
j. oxidation,
 Synthesis gas for NH3,
partial(controlled)
CH3OH, etc., hydrogen,
and complete. coal acid, carbon
k. Electrothermal monoxide.
 Graphite and electrode,
abrasives: silicon carbide,
calcium carbide,
cyanamide, carbon
disulfide.
l. Sulfur  H2S from gas pyrite
recovery from coal

m. Sulfonation  Ion exchange water

softener
n. Solvent
extraction of  Ashless coal
coal montanwax, humic
acid, coumarone
resins.
 Although gas from coal and
aromatics from coal have had
production curtailed by
petrochemical and natural-gas
competition, much new research
and development is being
conducted by Bureau of Mines,
Office of Coal Research, and by
private industry.
 When coal is thermally
THE DESTRUCTIVE
pyrolyzed or distilled by heating
DISTILLATION OF COAL
without contact with air, it is
converted into a variety of solid,
liquid, and gaseous products.
 The nature and amounts of each product
depend upon the temperature used in the
pyrolysis and the variety of coal. In ordinary
practice, coke-oven temperatures are
maintained above 1650oF but may range
anywhere from 950 to 1800oF. The principal
product by weight is coke. If a plant uses
temperatures from 850 to 1300oF, the process
is termed low-temperature carbonization: with
temperatures above 1650oF it is designated
high-temperature carbonization. In low-
temperature carbonization the quantity of
gaseous product.
 In low-temperature carbonization the
quantity of gaseous product is small in that of
the liquid product is relatively large, where as
in high temperature carbonization the yield of
gaseous products is larger than the yield of
liquid products, the production of tar are being
relatively low. The liquid products are water,
tar, and crude light oil; the gaseous products
are hydrogen, methane, ethylene, carbon
monoxide, carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide,
hydrogen sulfide, ammonia and nitrogen.
 The products other than coke are
collectively known as coal chemicals
(coproducts or by-products).

The destructive distillation of

coal, or its carbonization is really a
striking example of chemical
conversion, or the unit process of
pyrolysis.
The chemical theory of the
pyrolysis of coal Indicates
the following step-by-step
decomposition:
1. As the carbon temperature is raised, the
aliphatic “ carbon to carbon bonds are the
first to break.”
2. “ Carbon to hydrogen linkages are served
next as the temperatures of 600oC (1100oF)
is approached and exceeded.”
3. “ The decompositions during carbonization
are essentially reactions effecting the
elimination of heterocycle complexes and
progressive aromatization.”
4. “ The average molecular weights
of the volatile intermediate
products constantly decrease as
the temperature of carbonization
rises. This decrease is marked by
the evolution of water, carbon
monoxide, hydrogen, methane,
and other hydrocarbons.”
5. “ Final decomposition are at a
maximum between 600 and 800oC
(1110oF and 1470oF).
 Hill and Lyon suggest that “ coal
consists of large heterocyclic nuclei-
monomers with alkyl side chains
held together by three dimensional
C-C groups, and includes functional
oxygen groups.”
HISTORICAL: it is known that
coke was an article of commerce
among the Chinese over 2,000 years
ago, and in the Middle Ages it was
used in the arts for domestic
purposes.
 Nevertheless, it was not until 1620
that the production of coke in an oven
was first recorded. Up until the middle
of the nineteenth century, coal-tar
color, by Sis William Perkin in 1856,
caused a great demand for crude coal
tar, and it became a commercial
product of increasing value. Perkin, with
his discovery of the brilliant violet dye
mauve, while attempting the synthesis
of quinine through oxidation of crude
aniline in England, laid the foundation
of the world’s coal-dye industry.
 In 1792, the first successful
experiment involving the production
of gas from coal was carried out by
William Murduck, who made it
possible to light the streets of London
with gas in 1812. The first battery of
Semet-Solvay ovens was erected in
Syracuse, N.Y in 1893.
Uses and Economics:
Coke is the product of
largest tonnage from the
distillation of coal. The
demand for coke depends on
the demand for steel, so the
amount of coal-tar
production reflects the
demand for steel.
 About 98% of coal-tar
production is from coproduct .
The Liquid products, comprising
coal tar and ammonia liquor, are
not so large in volume as the
solid products of coal distillation,
but are of importance to
chemical-recovery ovens.
 A considerable volume of coal tar is still used
as fuel in open-hearth furnaces and for roofing
and roads. Aromatics from petroleum and coal tar
are made into dyes, intermediates, medicinals,
flavors, perfumes, resins, rubber chemicals and
thousands of other useful products that are
almost indispensable in our present-day
civilization.

COKING OF COAL :
Two main types of coking procedures
the Beehive and the coproduct.
 Beehive is the old primitive method. In
coproduct ovens carefully blended coal charge
is heated on both sides so that heat travels
toward the center and thus produces shorter
and more solid pieces of coke than are made in
the beehive oven. No burning takes place
within the oven, the heat being supplied
completely from the flues on the sides. About
40% of the oven gas, after being stripped of its
coproducts, is returned and burned for the
underfiring of the battery ovens, and some is
used for fuel gas locally.
1). Beehive cooking – The beehive
oven consists of a beehive-shaped
chamber provided with a charging
hole at the top of the dome and a
discharging hole in the
circumference of the lower part of
the wall. The coal is introduced
through the hole in the dome and
spread over the floor.
 The gases given off from the coal mix
with the air entering at the top of the
discharge door and burn; the heat of
combustion is sufficient for pyrolysis
and distillation.
2). Coproduct coking – The coproduct
coke oven is a narrow chamber, usually
about 38 to 40 ft long, 13 ft high, and
tapering in with from 17 to 18 in. at one
end and to 15 or 16 in. at the other.
 The oven hold from 16 to 24 tons of
coal. These ovens are used for carbonizing
coal only in large amounts and are built in
batteries of 10 to 100 ovens. The general
arrangements for the operation of a product
coke oven with its various accessories,
followed by the initial treatment on its
coproducts, are depicted. The coproduct
coke oven is one of the most elaborate and
costly masonry structures and is erected with
the closest attention to engineering details,
so that it can withstand the severe strains
incurred in its use and remain gastight, even
after the great expansion during heating up.
 The oven block is built of
refractory brick, with heating flues
between the coking ovens.
The individual coproduct coke
oven operates intermittently, but
each oven started and stopped at
different times, so that the
operation of the entire block
continuously produces gas of good
average composition.
 Bituminous coal

Coal is transferredCrushed and screened

Coal is charged to a hot empty oven

Oven bin (at 2000oF)

Coal is chemically transformed to coke and

volatiles by pyrolysis
 Hot coke is pushed out of the oven, quenched,
and transported

Condensable products of distillation are liquefied

and collected in the hydraulic main.

Foul gas is cooled, and tar extracted.

Ammonia is removed from gas as ammonium

sulfate.a
Gas is cooled and subjected to benzol and
toluol removal by absorption in straw oil.

Hydrogen sulfide is removed.

Purified gas is metered and transferred to

consumers.
Recovery of coal chemicals:
The gaseous mixture leaving the
oven is made up of permanent
gases which form the final purified
coke-oven coal gas for fuel,
accompanied by condensable
water vapor, tar and light oils,
with solid particles of coal dust,
heavy hydrocarbons, and complex
carbon compounds.
Low-Temperature Carbonization:
In this century a large amount of
experimental work has been carried out on
the carbonization of coal at temperature
ranging from 750 to 1100oF, with the main
object of obtaining maximum yields of
liquid products and producing semicokes
containing from 8 to 20% volatile matter.
The characteristics and yields of the
various products depend upon the coal,
the temperature, and the treatment.
 The disco plant at Mc Donald, Pa.,
is the only plant in this country to
utilize a low-temperature
carbonization process and has a daily
capacity convert high-volatile coal into
800 tons of Disco char, a domestic fuel.
The tar is sold and refined to produce
tar-acid oil, tar acids, “creosote” and
fuel pitch. The gas, after liquid-product
removal, is used for firing.
 The maximum temperature
used in this process is 1050oF.
Low-temperature carbonization
has been important in several
European countries, especially
England, for many decades, but
has never been popular in the
United States.
DISTILLATION OF COAL TAR:
Coal tar is a mixture of many chemical
compounds, mostly aromatic, which
vary widely in composition. It is a
coproduct of the destructive distillation
or pyrolysis of coal. Most of the tar in
this country is produced by steel
companies as a coproduct from blast-
furnace coke production. The quality
and quantity of tar from this operation
will vary, depending on the rate of
production of the ovens and the nature
 The specific gravity will vary
from 1.15 to 1.2, and the quantity of
tar will vary from 8 to 12 gal of tar per
ton of coal. A typical light-tar
composition Fig. 5.9. The end product
of the distillation (Fig. 5.6) of coal tar
is pitch usually more than 60% of the
crude tar. The objects of the
distillation are to produce a salable
end product, with a separation of the
valuable products into useful cuts.
Methods of Distillation :
There have been many improvement in coal-
tar distillation over the years. These can be
divided into three general classification:
1. The 3,000 to 10,000-gal batch still which has
been much improved and used for special
end products such as pipe enamel.
2. The continuous still with a single distillation
column using side streams.
3. The continuous unit, using multiple colums
with reboilers.
Products of Distillation:
Modern practice, as exemplified by the
pipe still and fractionating columns, is
producing such clean cut fractions that
often little further purification is necessary.
The fractions obtained in an ordinary
continuous distillation, which will vary with
the coal and with conditions.
a. Light oils – usually comprise the cut up to
390oF. They are first crudely fractionated
and agitated at a low temperature with
concentrated sulfuric acid, neutralized with
caustic soda, and redistilled, furnishing
benzene, toluene, and homologs.
b. Middle oils - or creosote oils, generally
are the fraction 390 to 480 or 520oF,
which contains naphthalene, phenol, and
cresols. The naphthalene settles out
upon cooling, is separated by
centrifuging, and is purified by
sublimation. After the naphthalene
removed, phenol and other acids are
obtained by extraction with a 10%
caustic soda solution and neutralization,
or “springing,” by carbon dioxide. These
fractionally distilled.
c. Heavy oil - may represent the
fraction from 480 to 570 F, or it
may be split between the middle
oil and the anthracene oil.
d. Anthracene oil - is usually the
fraction from 520 to 570 F up to
660 or 750 F. It is washed with
various solvents to remove
phenanthrene and carbazole; the
remaining solid is anthracene.
MISCELLANEOUS OF COAL TAR:
In 1976 coal tar used as fuel amounted to
about 15 to 20% of the total consumption
of tar of the year. Coal tar is also utilized
for roads and roofs. For these purposes
the tar is distilled up to the point where
thermal decomposition starts. This “ base
tar” is then oiled back with creosote oil to
ensure satisfactory rapid drying.
Somewhat similar tars are used to
impregnate felt and paper for
waterproofing materials.
Fractionation and purification of coal tar
chemicals:
Largely because of the present competition
among aromatic chemicals from petroleum,
interest in aromatics from coal tar has
temporarily decreased. Also, synthetic
processes from acetaldehyde and ammonia
are supplying the increased demands for
pyridine, of which coal tar at one time was
the sole supplier. This is also true of phenol.
In Europe, which has much coal and little
petroleum, there is continued interest in
coal chemicals.
 The product of largest potential is
phenanthrene (the second most abundant in
coal tar), of which Franck estimates that
250,000 tons can be recovered in the Western
world yearly as soon as profitable uses can be
found. This is based on a total recovery of 10
million tons of crude tar and with a 50% yield.

COAL TO CHEMICALS:
Solvent extraction of coals and lignites
has been tried at temperatures below and
above 300 C and with and without mild
hydrogenation.
 Although various resins and waxes
result, the processes have meet only minor
commercial acceptance. Alkaline
hydrolysis has likewise been investigated,
with meager results. Partial oxidation
yields the tremendously important
synthesis gas. Dow has experimented with
caustic oxidation (oxygen), obtaining high-
molecular-weight poly-functional aromatic
coal acids, which have found limited use in
thermo setting resins and water-soluble
films.
 Sulfur recovery from coal is still small and
variable, but in foreign lands that lack the
U.S. sulfur raw materials (H2S from gases
and sulfur from salt domes), pyrite has
been recovered from coal and is used to
the extent of about 10,000 tons yearly in
England and Germany. Sulfonation has
been employed to a limited extent to
manufacture ion-exchange material for
water softening.
Hydrogenolysis (hydrogenation-
pyrolysis):
Many development investigation have
been carried out on direct and catalytic
hydrogenation of coal both in the United
States and abroad. Most of these
experiments are really hydrogenolyses or
hydrogenations (methanation) of the
pyrolysis products of coal. They were
designed to yield a high-Btu gas to complete
with natural gas (see peak gas) or to make
motor fuel in petroleum-poor countries.
 The results gave such a gas, but at a
high cost with much of the coal left as
residual carbon. The motor-fuel objectives
were largely for wartime demands. The
present attack on coal to secure other and
hopefully cheaper coal chemicals tends to
follow catalytic hydrogenation and other
processing, often grouped together as “cole
refining” and combined with liquid
separation, cooking, and hydrocracking in the
presence of hydrogen, without aiming for the
uneconomical total hydrogenation of carbon.
Coal research:
The office of coal research, created to conduct
research on mining, preparation, and
utilization of coal, including chemicals, is
financing industry in many efforts to upgrade
coal and coal chemicals.The energy crisis of
1973-1974, the increasing U.S. demand for fuel,
and the fourfold rise in oil cost greatly improve
the outlook for coal as a feedstock in place of
oil. It appears that it will be only a question of
time until coal replaces a significant amount of
oil as feedstock in the United States.
 World Energy Production

World Energy Production by Source

Although there is increasing interest in
alternate energy sources such as solar
power, almost two-thirds of the world’s
energy comes from oil and natural gas.
Other nonrenewable resources such as coal
are still heavily used in countries such as
China.
Coal-Burning Power Plant
This power plant burns coal to produce electricity.
The burning of coal and other fossil fuels releases carbon
dioxide into the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is the
second most abundant greenhouse gas, after water vapor.
Human activities have significantly increased the amount
of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and scientists
have linked this increase to global warming.
Coal Production and Consumption
A comparison of the top ten coal-producing countries and the top ten
coal-consuming countries shows that China is both the leading
producer and the leading consumer of coal. Coal is burned in power]
plants to produce electricity and in steel mills to make coke for the
production of steel.