Coal

Coal

Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure. Coal is composed primarily of carbon along with variable quantities of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen.

Industry: Energy

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Coal

Electric industry restructuring

Energy; Coal

The process of replacing a monopolistic system of electric utility suppliers with competing sellers, allowing individual retail customers to choose their supplier but still receive delivery over the ...

Combustion

Energy; Coal

Chemical oxidation accompanied by the generation of light and heat.

Electric motor vehicle

Energy; Coal

A motor vehicle powered by an electric motor that draws current from rechargeable storage batteries, fuel cells, photovoltaic arrays, or other sources of electric current.

Dump energy

Energy; Coal

Energy generated in a hydroelectric plant by water that cannot be stored or conserved and which energy is inexcess of the needs of the system producing the energy.

Coking

Energy; Coal

Thermal refining processes used to produce fuel gas, gasoline blendstocks, distillates, and petroleum coke from the heavier products of atomspheric and vacuum distillation.

Economy of scale

Energy; Coal

The principle that larger production facilities have lower unit costs than smaller facilities.

Effective full-power days

Energy; Coal

The number of effective full-power days produced by a unit is a measure of the unit's energy generation. It is determined using the following ratio Heat generation (planned or actual) in megawatt ...