Santa might give naughty kids a lump of coal, but coal is actually a very important material in your life.
Nova Scotia coal was first mined 350 years ago and today, coal is still an essential fuel in Nova Scotia and in most jurisdictions around the world.
Here is everything you ever wanted to know about ... COAL!
FAST FACTS
Sydney Mines used to be called Lazytown because farmers found few people awake when they came to sell food. They didn't know coal miners woke at dawn to get ready for the day shift! After the men went to work, wives would return to bed for some extra sleep.
A "colliery" is a coal mine and its associated buildings. Colliery only refers to coal mines, not other types of mines, because it's an alternate spelling of "coalery," which is no longer used. The word colliery first appeared in the 1500s.
Coal is the world’s most abundant energy source.
Proven coal deposits exist on every continent, including Antarctica.
Coal has been used for nearly as long as mankind has thrived. In fact, coal was used to provide heat in caveman times.
We first mined coal in Nova Scotia in 1672 in Cape Breton – about 350 years ago!
The first commercial coal mining venture in Canada was established by the French in 1720 in Cow Bay, Cape Breton, to supply the fortress of Louisburg.
The world-famous Cabot Links golf course in Inverness is built on a former coal mine. Coal was first discovered at the site in 1863 and was mined until 1958.
Canada is the world’s third largest exporter of metallurgical coal, after Australia and the United States. Metallurgical coal is used in the manufacturing of steel.
While Nova Scotia’s use of coal is declining, coal still generates over half of Nova Scotia’s electricity. Coal plays a major role in keeping our lights on, and in powering places like homes, hospitals and schools.
The Donkin coal mine, in Cape Breton, is mostly under the Atlantic Ocean. Its tunnels start on land and go under the ocean floor.
USES
HOW IS COAL USED?
The main use of coal is electricity generation. Coal is used to generate electricity because it is a reliable and low-cost energy source that is found throughout the world. Coal supplies about a third of all energy used worldwide. Here in Nova Scotia, coal supplies over half of our electricity. Thermal coal is the type used in power generation.
You can't make steel without coal. Steel is iron and carbon, and the carbon is derived from metallurgical coal. It takes 0.8 tonne of coal to make one tonne of steel. Global steel production is about 1.6 billion tonnes per year and it's everywhere - infrastructure, vehicles, machines, appliances, etc.
Coal at the Donkin mine in Cape Breton.
Other important users of coal include alumina refineries, paper manufacturers, and the chemical and pharmaceutical industries. Several chemical products can be produced from the by-products of coal. Refined coal tar is used in the manufacture of chemicals, such as creosote oil, naphthalene, phenol, and benzene. Ammonia gas recovered from coke ovens is used to manufacture ammonia salts, nitric acid and agricultural fertilisers.
Thousands of different products have coal or coal by-products as components: soap, aspirins, solvents, dyes, plastics and fibres, such as rayon and nylon.
Coal is also an essential ingredient in the production of specialist products:
Activated carbon - used in filters for water and air purification and in kidney dialysis machines.
Carbon fibre - an extremely strong but lightweight reinforcement material used in construction, mountain bikes and tennis rackets.
Silicon metal - used to produce silicones and silanes, which are in turn used to make lubricants, water repellents, resins, cosmetics, hair shampoos and toothpastes.
Coal ash, the materials that remain after coal is burned to generate electricity, is used to
make concrete stronger, less permeable and more durable. It helps strengthen our infrastructure. Ash is also used in wallboard manufacturing, roofing tiles and shingles, and snow and ice control.
As you can see, coal has many uses.
HOW IS IT FORMED?
Nova Scotia has been mining coal commercially for 300 years, since the French established a mine at Port Morien in 1720 to supply coal for Fortress Louisbourg. But how did our world-class coal deposits form?
Nova Scotia’s coal deposits started forming 300 million years ago when NS had a tropical climate – tectonic plate movement had us in the middle of supercontinent Pangea, down around the equator.
Swamps contained dense vegetation that died, drifted to the bottom of the swamps and gradually formed peat—a soggy, sponge-like material. As the peat accumulated, the weight of the top layers compacted the lower layers by squeezing out water.
The peat was buried over time by sediments and ocean water. Deeper burial increased pressure and heat on the vegetation, causing chemical and physical changes, and pushing out oxygen. Over thousands of years, this turned the peat into the coal that still provides over half of Nova Scotia’s electricity.
Because of how it is compacted, it takes approximately 3-7 feet of plant material to form one foot of coal.
A coal seam one metre thick can represent 2,500 to 5,000 years of plant accumulation in ancient swamps.
The thickest coal seam in Nova Scotia is the Foord seam in the Pictou Coalfield, which is 13.4 metres thick in places - representing 33,500 to 67,000 years of plant accumulation!
Coal is classified into four categories, or ranks, based on how it responded to increasing heat and pressure over long periods of time and how much carbon it contains:
Lignite
Lignite (soft):
This type of coal contains a lot of moisture and ash and breaks apart easily. Of the four types, lignite has the lowest carbon content and heating value. Also called brown coal, lignite is used mainly at electricity-generating plants.
Subbituminous
Subbituminous (medium-soft):
This dull black coal has less moisture than lignite. Subbituminous is generally used to produce steam for electricity generation.
Bituminous
Bituminous (medium-hard):
This type of coal, which contains very little moisture, has high heat value. It is used to generate electricity and to produce coke, a coal residue used in the steel industry. Nova Scotia coal is bituminous.
Anthracite
Anthracite (hard):
This type of coal has the highest carbon content anduminous.jpg the lowest moisture and ash content. Anthracite burns slowly and makes a good heating fuel for homes.
HOW IS COAL MINED?
There are two basic ways to mine coal:
Surface Mining
1. Surface Mining
Surface mining is used when coal is found close to the surface or on hillsides. It involves removing the topsoil and subsoil and setting them aside. Machines such as draglines, wheel excavators, and large shovels remove the earth and rock and uncover the coal. This removed material is called overburden. After the coal is removed and loaded into trucks, the area is refilled with the overburden, covered with the soils that were removed, and reseeded. To the extent possible, the area is restored to its original condition or improved.
Underground Mining
2. Underground Mining
Underground mining is used to extract coal that is deep beneath the surface or in seams exposed on hillsides. It involves drilling two openings called shafts into the coal bed—one to transport miners and equipment, and the other to bring coal to the surface.
Next, the coal is broken into manageable sizes and mined by:
conventional mining, or using explosives to break up a coal seam;
continuous mining, or using machines with large, rotating cutters that break into the coal and arms that scoop the coal onto a built-in conveyor; or
longwall mining, or using cutting machines that work along walls of coal up to 1,000 feet long to cut coal and drop it onto a conveyor belt.
Coal Mining in Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia coal was first mined in Sydney in 1672 and the first commercial coal mining venture in Canada was established by the French in 1720 in Cow Bay, Cape Breton, to supply the Fortress of Louisbourg.
Today, coal is an essential fuel in Nova Scotia, and in most jurisdictions around the world. It generates about half of Nova Scotia’s electricity. While Nova Scotia’s use of coal is declining, the electricity it provides cannot be replaced easily or quickly by any other source. Coal plays a major role in keeping our lights on, and in powering places like homes, hospitals and schools.
Mining coal here, instead of importing most of it as we do now, makes it less expensive and helps keep our energy bills down. It reduces the overall environmental footprint of the coal we use by eliminating the need to ship it from South America. It creates jobs and much-needed economic activity for the province.
Coal mining and the Environment
Burning coal used to produce a lot of carbon dioxide and sulfur emissions that polluted the air. By removing the sulfur and other impurities from coal, it burns cleaner today and is better for our environment.
Coal-fired power plants now have equipment installed called scrubbers. Scrubbers remove most of the sulfur from the smoke that is produced by burning coal so it does not get into the air.
The ash that is left over from the burned coal is also recycled. In earlier years coal ash was landfilled, but now it is being used to make materials to build roads and cement products.
Reclamation
Reclamation, or preparing a mine or quarry site for its next use, is key to ensuring future generations will continue to enjoy an area after we have taken from the ground the materials that we need to support our modern society.
For example, the Coalburn mine was reclaimed in 2005 and today it is beautiful rolling fields with a pond and lots of wildlife. Another example of a reclaimed coal mine is the world-famous Cabot Links golf course in Inverness. Coal was first discovered at the site in 1863 and was mined until 1958.
Mining and quarrying companies are committed to minimizing their environmental impact while working on a site, and then to reclaiming it in ways that maximize its use for communities.
