An Epidemic Is Killing Thousands of Coal Miners

Re:An Epidemic Is Killing Thousands of Coal Miners by munk-a on Tuesday December 18, 2018 @09:00PM (#18712414)

Indeed, and to clarify "clean coal" isn't referring to cleaning the coal, it is referring to increased effort put into trying to reduce released pollutants when using the coal.

There was a hilarious quote from a while back where a politician referred to train loads of "cleaned coal" heading out of Montana which created a misunderstanding about what clean coal technologies are trying to do. There is no "cleaned coal".

(Aside, I believe calling those technologies "clean coal" is quite hyperbolic, but that is a separate issue)

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Re:An Epidemic Is Killing Thousands of Coal Miners by tlb on Tuesday December 18, 2018 @10:31PM (#18712800)

Coal mines vary widely in the amount of impurities in the coal they produce. Low-impurity coal requires less scrubbing to meet a give emissions target. Sulfur is the worst of the impurities -- it becomes sulfuric acid in the atmosphere and is precipitated by rain, causing concrete to erode.

The cleaner coal is called Anthracite [0]. The dirtier coal is Lignite [1]. Lignite is usually cleaned, by heating it up to drive out the water so it burns better (and weighs less during shipping.)

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthracite [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lignite

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