the.com/coal
a fossil sunbeam, hoarded for 300 million years, then burned in an afternoon.
means A black or dark brown combustible rock, formed from ancient compressed plant matter, that has long been dug from the earth and burned for heat and power.
from From Old English 'col,' meaning a glowing ember or piece of charcoal — the burning thing first, the mineral that resembled it second. It belongs to a sturdy Germanic family, with cousins in Old Norse 'kol' and German 'Kohle.' For centuries 'coal' meant any live cinder; only later did it settle onto the buried black stone we now mine, the older sense surviving in words like 'charcoal' and the warm idiom 'coals of fire.'
- plant origin
- compressed ancient forests, not dinosaur remains
- diamond cousin
- both carbon, wildly different pressure stories
- fungus gap
- formed before microbes learned to rot wood
- black lung
- named a disease and a labor movement
- still kings
- powers over a third of global electricity
appalachian coal region — over 100,000 miners in kentucky, west virginia, and pennsylvania extracting bituminous coal
newcastle coal field — largest coal export port in australia, shipping 160 million tonnes annually
powder river basin — wyoming's subbituminous coal field producing 40% of us coal output
ruhr valley coalfield — german industrial heartland that powered 19th and 20th century europe