Pub. 4 2014 Issue 1

17 MINING FOCUS If it Can’t Be Grown, It has to Be Mined! How does the process currently work? Coal goes on a conveyor belt to a mill where it can be pulverized. Once crushed, it is fed into a boiler where it is used to heat water that runs through tubes in the boiler until the water becomes steam. The steam is fed into a turbine with thousands of blades, and the power from the steam causes the turbine shaft to rotate extremely fast. There is a generator at the end of the turbine shaft with wire coils in a magnetic field. As the coils rotate, too, the rotation creates electricity that can be sent to a substation. The steam is condensed and fed back to the boiler where it can be heated up again, and up to 400,000 V of electricity are then sent along power line grids. Once the power gets closer to where it will be used, it is transformed into lower, safer voltages (100 to 250 V) and distributed where it is needed. Some countries use more coal to create electricity than others. According to a 2012 IEA report, South Africa had a 93 percent rate of creating electricity from coal; in comparison, the U.S. had 45 percent and Germany 41 percent. Some places don’t offer much access to electricity at all. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, for example, 89 percent are without it, and there are 400 million people in India who don’t have access to electricity. In other countries, access has improved dramatically. Between 1990 and 2005, China doubled the amount of energy it was producing, and access to electricity increased to more than 99 percent. In South Africa, only 36 percent had access in 1994, but 75 percent had access by the end of 2009. And in both China and South Africa, the large increase in access to electricity is made possible by coal. The energy-access goals set by the IEA’s World Energy Outlook 2011 are modest. For someone living in a rural setting, it translates to enough electricity for a floor fan, a cell phone, and two compact bulbs that could run for five hours a day. In a city, the electrical access would increase to enough energy for an efficient refrigerator, another cell phone, and one appliance, like a small television or a computer. These goals don’t even include the energy needs for business or industry; that’s just the energy for ordinary people. But for too many ordinary people, these extremely modest goals represent unimaginable luxury. The largest source of pollution in the world is poverty. Access to affordable energy is a ticket out of poverty, and coal is well-positioned to lead the way.  Recycling industrial-related scrap metal is one of the things we do best! www.umw.com | 801.364.5679 Utah Metal Works, Inc.