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COAL

Coal in History
• Coal has been known for millennia.
• Archaeological evidence indicates that the use of coal as a source of
energy dates back to the Bronze Age China.
• Around 300 BC, the Greek scientist Theophrastus made the first
reference to the use of coal for the manufacture of iron.
• The Romans widely exploited coal and also created a lively trade of
the commodity, which they predominantly used to heat public baths and
the villas of wealthy individuals.
• The modern coal industry saw its inception at the end of the 18th
century, with the Industrial Revolution – and most notably with the
invention of the steam engine.
• Being cheaper and more efficient than wood fuel in most steam
engines, coal demand indeed rapidly surged.
• Coal powered not only factories, but also trains and ships, which led to a
rapid expansion of international trade, and therefore to a rapid acceleration
in the process of globalization. Since then, coal has had a central role in the
global energy system, and still today it accounts for around one fourth of
the global energy mix.

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Coal, Steam and Industrial Revolution

Dr. Farseem Mohammedy 3

Coal as the Solution of the First Energy

Crisis
• Growth in population and living standards after the Dark Ages
• Restart of glassmaking (“Dark” Ages lost the ability to make glass)
• Beginning and restart of metallurgy (wood as charcoal to remove oxygen
from ore)
• Deforestation in London 1200s and all of England 1500s (England was once
covered by forests)
• Glassmaking and metallurgy facilities were moved as neighboring forests
were exhausted
• Switching from wood to coal had an environmental consequence.

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First Energy Crisis

• The first energy crisis was associated with biomass in the form of firewood.
• One of several reasons why natural growth of forests could not keep up with the axe was glassmaking.
• Glassmaking has a long history, going back to about 3000–3500 BCE, as a glaze on ceramic objects and
nontransparent glass beads. The first true glass vases were made about 1500 BCE in Egypt and
Mesopotamia, where the art flourished and spread along the eastern Mediterranean.
• Glassmaking was a slow, costly process and glass objects were considered as valuable as jewels.
• The so-called Dark Age takes on new meaning with the disappearance of glassmaking. But vestiges of
glassmaking remained in Germany, where craftsmen around 1000 CE invented the technique for making
transparent or stained glass windows joined by lead strips to decorate palaces and churches.
• The second golden age of glass started in 1200s when Crusaders reimported glassmaking technology
from eastern Mediterranean. Centered in the Venetian island of Murano, glassblowers created Cristallo
glass, which was nearly colorless, transparent, and blown to extreme thinness in nearly any shape. In
1400s and 1500s, glassmaking spread to Germany and Bohemia (Czech Republic) and then to England:
Mirrors have a long history of relying on water and polished metals and stones to reflect the human
face, but the ubiquitous glass plate with a metallic coating on one side first appeared late in the
seventeenth century.

Dr. Farseem Mohammedy 5

How Glass made into Coal

• Glass is made from melting a mixture of mostly sand (silicon dioxide) plus limestone (calcium carbonate)
and soda ash (sodium carbonate) in a furnace at a temperature around 2,600°F–2,900°F.
• Considering what has to be heated to such high temperatures, clearly glassmaking was an energy
intensive process that consumed a lot of wood. As forests were cleared, glassmaking furnaces were moved to the source
of energy rather than moving the source of energy to the furnaces.

• The first energy crisis began when English manors for the rich and famous were built with wide
expanses of newly invented glass panes that opened up their interiors to sunlight. Glassmaking in England not
only put a strain on wood resources for making glass, but its unintended consequence was an even greater demand for firewood to heat
interior spaces since heat passes more easily through a glass pane than a stone wall covered with a heavy wool tapestry.

• Part of the blame lies with increased demand for charcoal for smelting iron, lead, tin, and
copper. Consumption of these metals increased from a growing population, greater economic activity,
advances in metallurgy that made these metals more available at a lower cost, and a rising standard of
living as humanity emerged from the deep sleep of the Dark Age.
• Deforestation started around London in 1200 and spread throughout the kingdom. By the 1500s metal ores had to be
shipped to Ireland, Scotland, and Wales for smelting, deforesting these regions in turn. Rapidly escalating firewood
prices, the economic consequence of deforestation, provided the incentive to search for an alternative source of
energy.
• One alternative source was to take advantage of the New World’s ready supply of trees to make glass for export to
England, one of the commercial reasons for the 1607 founding of Jamestown in the Colony of Virginia, which ultimately
failed.
• An alternative source of energy that succeeded in solving the energy crisis was not burning living biomass of the New
World, but long dead biomass found in the Old World – COAL.
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Coal in England
• Coal reigned supreme in England for nearly 300 years

% Coal
Year Energy England center of world coal consumption
Mix
1620 50% Result of deforestation
1650 67% Glassmaking & metallurgy
1700 75% Steam engines
1800 90% Coke for steel making
1850 98% Railroads & ship propulsion & town gas
1950 91% 700,000 coal miners
1960 77%
2000 16% 25,000 coal miners/”Coal to Newcastle”

Dr. Farseem Mohammedy 7

Bad Image
• Coal is a fossil fuel: formed from biomass over hundreds of million years:
Most coal was formed 300–400 million years ago during the Devonian and Carboniferous
geologic epochs when swamps covered much of the earth and plant life thrived in a higher
atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide than now.
• Coal has aa incredibly bad reputation except for those whose livelihoods
depend on coal
• For some, coal brings back the image of a young mane who “goes in hock to
buy a set of tools when coal miners were young and quit decades later with
aged body and black lung, still in hock to the company store”
• Another bad image could be the mangled bodies caught in mine mishaps or
trapped by cave-ins.

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Coal : Consumption, Reserve, Trade

• In the last half century, consumption of coal has increased
280%, but its share in energy mix declined from 37% in 1965
to 25–27% from 1990 to 2004. Since then its share has
increased to 30 percent.
• Annual growth in coal consumption was 1.6% from 1965 to 2002 and then
increased to 4.7% until 2011 when it slowed to 0.9%. Its relatively rapid
growth from 2002 to 2011 and its increasing share of the energy pie is
primarily caused by the economic development and industrialization of China
and to a lesser degree India.
• Global consumption of 3,880 mmtoe of coal [2015] is
equivalent to 8,165 million short tons of mined coal, with 2.1
short tons of coal having the same energy equivalence as a
metric ton of oil.
• China consumes half of global coal.

Dr. Farseem Mohammedy 9

Coal : Consumption, Reserve, Trade

• World coal reserves in 2018 stood at 1055 billion tonnes and
are heavily concentrated in just a few countries:
– US (24%),
– Russia (15%),
– Australia (14%) and
– China (13%).
Most of the reserves are anthracite and bituminous (70%).
• In 2017, world proved coal reserves were estimated at
1,035,011 million tonnes (mt), with approximately 40% being located
in Asia Pacific, 25% in North America, and 22% in CIS countries [2018].
• The reserves-to-production (R/P) ratio indicates that the world
has around 130 more years of coal consumption without
scarcity risk. At current reserves and production levels, Asia Pacific could
keep producing coal for around 80 years, North America for 330 years, CIS
countries for 397 years, Europe for 160 years.
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Coal : Consumption, Reserve, Trade

• Total proved reserves of coal – generally taken to be those
quantities that geological and engineering information
indicates with reasonable certainty can be recovered in the
future from known reservoirs under existing economic and
operating conditions. The data series for total proved coal
reserves does not necessarily meet the definitions,
guidelines and practices used for determining proved
reserves at company level, for instance as published by the
US Securities and Exchange Commission, nor does it
necessarily represent bp’s view of proved reserves by
country. [BP, 2021]
• Reserves-to-production (R/P) ratio – if the reserves remaining
at the end of any year are divided by the production in
that year, the result is the length of time that those
remaining reserves would last if production were to continue
at that rate.
Dr. Farseem Mohammedy 11

Proved Coal
Reserves

• Bangladesh
holds 323 million
tons (MMst) of
proven coal
reserves as of
2016, ranking 48th
in the world.

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BP, 2021

Dr. Farseem Mohammedy 13

Coal : Consumption, Reserve, Trade

• Coal can be transported to consumers, either via rail, truck, or ship.
• Transportation is often coal’s main cost item, being typically higher than the
mining cost itself.
• In order to abate transportation costs, coal-fired power plants tend to be
located, where possible, in proximity of a coal mine.

4,500 40%

4,000 35%
3,500
30%
3,000
25%
Global Coal 2,500 Coal MMToe Percent Share
Consumption 20%
(MMToe) and 2,000
Percentage Share 15%
1,500
10%
1,000

500 5%

0 0%
1965
1967
1969
1971
1973
1975
1977
1979
1981
1983
1985
1987
1989
1991
1993
1995
1997
1999
2001
2003
2005
2007
2009
2011
2013

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Coal : Consumption,
Reserve, Trade

Dr. Farseem Mohammedy 15

Coal: China and India

• China has led global coal production since 1985, and, in 2017, it accounted
for half of it, followed by India, the United States, Australia, Russia, and
South Africa.
• Two European countries, Germany and Poland, also ranked among the top-
10 global producers, before Kazakhstan and Canada.
• It is interesting to note how, over the last four decades, China and India
increased their coal production by a factor of six, while the United States,
Germany, and Poland substantially decreased their production over time.
• China and India have indeed made increasing use of coal over the last
decades in order to meet their booming energy demand in a cheap and
secure manner.
• In 2017, China and India were the bulk of global coal demand, respectively
accounting for 51% and 11% of global demand.
• In the same year, China’s coal-based electricity sector represented the
largest coal-consuming sector globally by far, as approximately one of every
four tonnes of coal consumed in the world was used in China to generate
electricity [IEA, 2018].
• Meanwhile, as natural gas prices substantially lowered in the country as a
result of the shale gas revolution, the United States precipitated coal-to-gas
switching in the electricity sector, which led to a sharp decrease in coal
consumption in the country.
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Coal and Electricity

• On a global basis, coal supplies 65% of the energy required to generate
electricity. [2017]
• Country wise, the following percentage is drawn from coal to produce
electricity – S. Africa
Poland

– South Africa 93%, China

Australia
– Poland 87%, Kazahkstan
India Share
– China 79% Czech Rep Electricity
Israel
– Israel 58% Greece
Generation
Morocco Supplied by
US Coal (2014)
Germany

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

• Whereas coal is primarily consumed in electricity generation and steel production in

the West, Asia also relies on coal as an industrial fuel, plus burning coal in homes,
along with biomass, for heating and cooking.
• Thus, coal plays a more pervasive role in the economic life in the East than
in the West.
Dr. Farseem Mohammedy 17

Coal and Electricity

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Coal and Electricity

Dr. Farseem Mohammedy 19

Coal and Electricity

• Note that, in developed economies the share of electricity and heat
produced from coal fell to 27% in 2017, from 44.4% in 1985.
• Meanwhile, in emerging economies in 2017, electricity production from coal
contributed to 46.5% of total electricity production [IEA, 2018].
• Coal is also essential for the iron and steel industry and its use there has
increased substantially during the last 40 years, driven primarily by
increased production in China.

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• Emerging economies account for 83% of the total global

consumption of coal within the iron and steel sector.

Dr. Farseem Mohammedy 21

Types of Coal
• Aside from peat, a precursor to coal, there are four types of
coal.
• The lowest quality coal is lignite, a geologically young, soft,
brownish-black coal, some of which retains the texture of
the original wood. Of all coals, it has the lowest carbon
content, 25–35 percent and the lowest heat content, 4,000–
8,300 Btu per pound.

• Lignite is burned to generate electricity even though it has a low heat content and emits
more pollution than other coals. Lignite is strip-mined in Germany, Poland, and the Czech
Republic.
• Lignite coal is plentiful and cheap in Germany, although more polluting than other forms
of coal. Lignite was brought into the energy picture as a consequence of Germany retiring
its nuclear reactor plants in the wake of the Fukushima tragedy. In 2015 Germany
announced its intention to phase out half of its lignite-fired generating plants (13 percent
of its electricity generating plant capacity).
• In 2014 lignite provided 25.4% of power, hard coal 18% , and renewables
26.2% . Lignite provides low-cost electricity, and counters high-cost sources
of electricity that drive away value creating investments and jobs.
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Types of Coal
• The next step up is sub-bituminous coal, a dull black coal with a carbon
content of 35–45 percent and heat content 8,300–13,000 Btu per pound.
• Both lignite and subbituminous coals, known as soft coals, are thermal coals
for generating electricity.
• Next are the hard coals: bituminous and anthracite.
• Bituminous is superior to soft coal in terms of carbon content, 45–86
percent, and energy content, 10,500–15,500 Btu per pound. Bituminous coal is
the most plentiful form of coal in the US and is mostly burned as thermal coal to generate
electricity. However, if the coal has the right physical properties, it is used as coking or
metallurgical coal for steel production. It is possible for a large bulk carrier to move thermal
coal from Australia to Europe with the vessel returning with a cargo of metallurgical coal from
the US or South Africa to Japan.

• Anthracite coal has the highest carbon content, 86–98 percent, and a heat
content of nearly 15,000 Btu per pound. Anthracite coal was closely associated with
home heating because it burned nearly smokeless. As desirable as anthracite is, anthracite coal
is scarce.
Dr. Farseem Mohammedy 23

Types of Coal

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Child labor in Coal mines

There was a time when women could legally work alongside

men in the coal mines. Unfortunately, the working conditions
became too dangerous for women and children. The Mines and
Collieries Act was passed in 1842 prohibiting all females and
young boys to work in the mines.

Dr. Farseem Mohammedy 25

Coal Mining

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Coal Mining
• Coal mines have historically been subterranean where accidents and black
lung have taken their toll.
• Mining coal in the twenty-first century is an activity carried out differently
than in the past.
• In developed nations, no gangs of men swing pickaxes to remove the over- and underburden of
rock to gain access to the coal, then again to chip out the coal. No gangs of men shovel rock or
coal into small wagons or carts for the trip to the surface.
• Now the most popular way of removing coal is continuous mining machines
with large, rotating, drum-shaped cutting heads studded with carbide-tipped
teeth that rip into a seam of coal. Large gathering arms scoop the coal directly into a
built-in conveyor for loading into shuttle cars or a conveyor for the trip to the surface.
Continuous cutters ripping and grinding their way through coal seams can do in minutes what
gangs of miners with pickaxes and shovels took days to accomplish.
• Another popular method for removing coal is a machine resembling an
oversized chain saw that cuts out a section of coal to allow for expansion in
preparation for blasting. Holes are then drilled for explosives that blast large
chunks of coal loose from the seam.

Dr. Farseem Mohammedy 27

Coal Mining
• An increasingly popular and efficient means of mining introduced
from 1950s is longwall mining, where a rotating shear moves back
and forth in a continuous, smooth motion for several hundred feet
across the face or wall of a coal seam.
• The cut coal drops into a conveyor and is removed from the mine.
Some of the rock on top of the coal also collapses, which is removed
either in the mine and piled where coal has been removed or is
removed at the surface.
• Main supports for rooms created by longwall mining are pillars of
solid coal, which are last to be mined before a mine is abandoned.
• An associated environmental problem in abandoning underground
mines of all types is that they may eventually fill with water that can
range from being nearly fit for drinking to containing dangerously
high concentrations of acids and metallic compounds. Abandoned
mine water may end up contaminating ground and drinking water.

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Coal Mining
• Regardless of type of mining technology, mine shafts for transporting miners
and coal either slope down to coal seams that are not too deeply located in
the earth or are vertical to reach coal seams more than 2,000 feet beneath
the surface. Huge ventilation fans on the surface pump air through the
mineshafts to reduce coal dust in the air, prevent accumulation of dangerous
gases, and ensure a fresh supply of air for miners.
• In recent decades, surface mining has gained prominence over
subterranean mining. In the western part of the US, 75 percent of coal is
obtained from surface mines with coal deposits up to 100 feet thick.
• Although there are large open-pit mines in other parts of the world, such as
Australia, Indonesia, and Colombia, globally speaking, about two-thirds of
coal comes from underground mines.
• Coal mining operations are highly regulated in the developed world
regarding health and safety of the miners and impact of coal mining on the
environment. Legal hurdles may require 10 years before a new mine can be developed.
A mining company must provide detailed information about how coal will be mined,
precautions taken to protect the health and safety of the miners, and the mine’s impact
on the environment. For surface mining, the original condition of the land must be
carefully documented to ensure that reclamation requirements have been successfully
fulfilled.
Think:
Dr. Farseem Mohammedy Criticisms on surface or strip mining. 29

Coal in 21st Century Planning

• Despite criticisms leveled against coal, it does have virtues that
cannot be ignored, such as being:
– • abundant—frequently reserves are measured in hundreds of years;
– • secure—in that coal is available in sufficient quantities without the need for
largescale imports for most coal consuming nations;
– • safe (does not explode like natural gas, but of course mine safety is an issue);
– • nonpolluting of water resources as oil spills (although there are other adverse
environmental consequences of mining and burning coal);
– • cost-effective—by far the lowest cost source of energy (other than in the US
where natural gas in recent years is lower in cost).
• Coal indeed presents some important advantages compared to oil and
natural gas.
• Coal resources are abundant and widely distributed across the globe,
making it a natural option for countries seeking a cheap and secure source
of energy.
• Coal is indeed far cheaper than other fossil fuels, and its price is also less
exposed on geopolitical risks.
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Coal Trade

Dr. Farseem Mohammedy 31

Coal and Climate

• But coal also has a huge disadvantage: it is, by far, the most polluting fossil
fuel.
• Its combustion indeed emits
– highest levels of CO2,
– as well as of sulphur dioxide (which contributes to acid rain and respiratory
illnesses),
– nitrogen oxides (which contribute to smog and respiratory illnesses), and
– particulates (which contribute to smog, haze, respiratory illnesses and lung
disease).
• Coal is a curse to the climate.
• A greater quantity of lower grade coals has to be burned for the same
release of energy. Plant thermal efficiency also plays a major role in
determining the quantity of coal that must be burned; the lower the
efficiency, the more coal has to be burned for the same generated output.
• Abandoned coal mines can catch fire and burn underground.

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Smog in Beijing

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Coal and Climate

Coal type Pound of CO2 per million BTU
Anthracite 228.6
Emission per
EIA, 2018 Bituminous 205.7
Sub- 214.3
bituminous
• This characteristic makes Lignite 215.4
coal the most important Diesel 161.3
single contributor to Natural gas 117
global CO2 emissions,
and therefore to climate
change.
In 2016 % share of % of global
Energy mix CO2 emission
Global emission and Coal 27 44
share of energy mix Oil 32 35
Natural gas 22 20
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Coal and Climate

• To generate same amount of electricity, a coal-fired power plant emits 40%
more CO2 than a nat. gas fired one; and 20% more than an oil-fired power
plant.
• For an avg European household, to produce 1 year of electricity will emit
– 5 ton of CO2 if electricity is generated from coal
– 3 ton if using natural gas
– 0 ton if using solar/wind
• In 2017, coal generated 80% of CO2 from the European generation mix, to
which it contributed only 25%.
• Coal not only emits CO2 and other GHGs, it also emits mercury which affects
aquatic systems
• From China to Europe countries are scaling up policies to limit coal usage: To conclude, in the
run-up to the 2015 Paris Agreement and since then, the international financial community has
also begun to reposition itself against the coal sector. The move is partially driven by climate
and environmental responsibility, but mainly by a purely financial consideration: to stop
investing in an industry that could become obsolete in few decades.
• Between 2015 and 2019, around sixty leading international banks have decided to
stop financing coal-fired power plants, and/or stop financing coal mining companies.
• In 2013 the European Investment Bank introduced an emissions performance
standard of 550 gm.CO2/kWh as an assessment criteria for lending to energy
projects.
Dr. Farseem Mohammedy 35

Coal and Climate

• How to reduce CO2 vis-à-vis get rid of coal from energy generation?
– Switching from coal to oil or natural gas reduces, but does not eliminate, CO2 emissions.
– Switching to oil is expensive.
– Switching to nuclear, hydropower, renewables (wind, solar), hydrogen fuel economy would
eliminate CO2 emissions altogether, but major impediments have to be overcome to entirely
replace coal [generating capacity of wind and solar would have to be expanded by several orders of
magnitude before an effective substitution can be achieved].
– Switching from coal to nuclear power cannot occur unless public opposition to nuclear power is
lessened.
• Much can be done to reduce coal burning emissions without resorting to clean coal
technologies: Closing small and inefficient coal mines can improve the environment
and better protect the miners.
• The future of coal is certain: it plays too significant a role in generating
electricity to be dismissed out of hand. What is uncertain is what is going to
be done to reduce its adverse environmental impact.
• Ways to improve – efficient ultra-supercritical power plants,
carbon capture and storage, etc.
THINK!
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Coal and Bangladesh [Petrobangla Annual Report 2019]

• So far 5 coal fields have been discovered in the northwestern part of
Bangladesh. The total estimated reserve of these five coal fields is 7.96
billion metric tons.
• The fields are
– Khalaspir Coal Field in Rangpur,
– Barapukuria,
– Phulbari ,
– Dighipara Coal Fields in Dinajpur and
– Jamalganj Coal Field in Joypurhat/Naogaon.
• The lone coal mining company of Petrobangla, BCMCL extracted about
8,05,696 metric tons of coal in fiscal year FY 2018-19.
• Petrobangla has developed the first coal mine of the country at Barapukuria
and started coal mining since September 2005.
• Petrobangla hired a consulting firm which thinks there are 5.45 billion metric
tons of coal resources is present over 64 sq. km area of Jamalganj coal
basin.
Dr. Farseem Mohammedy 37

Barapukuria and Dighipara

• From the beginning of Barapukuria Coal Mine , total 11.39 million metric
tons of coal has been produced till December, 2019.
• At present, it is producing approximately 3,000-3,500 metric tons of coal
daily. About 8,05,696 metric tons of coal was produced in the FY 2018-19.
Currently, the entire coal extracted from this mine is used to fuel the only
coal fired 525 MW thermal power plant of the country located in
Barapukuria.
• A feasibility study project has been completed for north-south extension of the
existing mine, which suggests that about 3.2 million metric tons of coal can be
extracted from northern part over 6 years and about 6.9 million metric tons from
southern part over 7 years and it is expected to commence production from January,
2024.

• Petrobangla conducted a 1st stage feasibility study in Dighipara Coal Field

which proves the prospect of this coal field with reserve estimated as 865
million metric tons. After that, a 2nd stage project named “Techno-Economic
Feasibility Study of Coal Deposit at Dighipara, Dinajpur” has been completed and
according to the draft report, the total geological reserve of Dighipara coal basin is
706 million metric tons among which 82 million metric tons is extractable by
underground mining.
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Dr. Farseem Mohammedy 39

Bangladesh Coal Power plants

• Nasrul Hamid: 10 coal-fired power projects scrapped as
part of master plan revision
• The government has dropped 10 coal-fired power plant
projects, with a total generation capacity of 8451MW, as
it seeks to revise the country's power system master plan
(PSMP).
• The proposed plants are 1320MW plant Patuakhai
(660X2), 1200MW thermal plant in Uttarbanga, 522MW
plant in Mawa, 282MW plant in Dhaka, 282MW plant in
Chittagong, 565MW plant in Khulna, Bangladesh-
Singapore 700MW and CPGCBL-Sumitomo 1200MW
power plant and two 1320MW plants in Maheshkhali.

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Rampal www.bifpcl.com

• This power plant is being constructed on an area of over 1834 acres of land,
is situated 14 kilometres north of the world's largest mangrove
forest Sundarbans which is a UNESCO world heritage site. This a 1320
megawatt coal-fired power station.
• The plant will need to import 4.72 million tons of coal per year. This massive
freight will need about 59 ships each having 80,000-ton capacity that would
be taken to the port on the bank of the Poshur river. The 40 kilometres from
the port to the plant cuts through the Sundarbans and it includes the river
flow path.

Dr. Farseem Mohammedy 41

Rampal Power Plant @ June 2021

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