Coal

Coal has tuned into, and remains to be, a very important part of our lives in general. The truth is, however, that most people will never in point of fact see coal. Coal is number two only to oil when it comes to fulfilling the needs the world has for energy and is a critical input in the manufacture of steel. In certain countries such as Canada, coal meets around one seventh of our main energy needs, for the most part as a fuel for the generation of electricity. The industry has therefore additionally benefited from coal. For instance, the steel industry is dependent on coal in the production of more or less each tonne of steel. Coal is also one of the leading mineral export commodities in this country and is the leading export to the main Asian markets of Japan and South Korea.

The abundant resources of coal are most widespread in the three western provinces, and northward towards the Arctic Circle. In the west, coal can be found in the plains regions, the Rocky Mountain foothills, and in the Rocky Mountain range. In the east, there are under sea deposits off Cape Breton Island.

In the past the under sea deposits used to be mined through underground mines from Nova Scotia's Cape Breton Island for more than one hundred years. Nonetheless, surface mining has since a long time ago turned into the primary coal extraction method used in this country. Somewhere around ninety five percent of the coal production in Canada as a matter a fact, comes from the surface mines.

Something like half of the coal in this country is transported by rail. Coal from mines in eastern British Columbia and western Alberta is taken approximately 1100 kilometers to west coast ocean ports, or 2300 kilometers to Thunder Bay for shipment by lake to Ontario or the United States. The country as a matter a fact produces more coal than it actually needs and due to that around half of the production in this country is exported and this is the reason it is one of the leading exporters of coal in the world given that more than twenty countries import coal, and the principal markets consist of Japan and Korea. Even though the utilization of coal is escalating all over the world, there is a lot of attention being placed on the effects that coal mining can cause and on how it affects the environment.

There are certain countries that have some of the most severe standards in the world for mine operations, as well as the safety of the worker and protection of the environment. These regulations make certain that coal mining has reduced the effects on the environment in the quality of air and ground or surface water, and ensures that lands are put back into other productive employments after this area has been mined on.