Welcome to my wonderful collection of info and knowledge that you will probably never see on a test or game show but should know anyways. I am a huge fan of useless information, but find that most places on the web are very small and dont have good facts. So I have accumulated this knowledge from several sources ranging from books to magazines to word of mouth and to the glorious internet. Therefore I have created the emporium as a wellspring of useless knowledge for all my useless facts fans to enjoy.
Nearly half of U.S. electricity is generated from coal.
Each person in the U.S. uses 3.4 tons of coal annually.
The U.S. produces about 1 billion tons of coal annually.
Approximately two-thirds of today's coal production results from surface, rather than underground, mining.
The U.S. has nearly 261 billion tons of recoverable coal reserves, according to the Energy Information Administration. That's a 235-year supply at current rates of use.
Coal is found in 38 states, under 458,600 square miles-or about 13 percent of the nation's land area.
Power plants being built today emit 90 percent less pollutants (SO2, NOx, Particulates, mercury) than the plants they replace from the 1970s, according the National Energy Technology Laboratory.
U.S. coal mining directly employs nearly 136,000 people; For each coal mining job, an additional 3.5 jobs are created elsewhere in the economy.
U.S. coal operations have reclaimed more than 2.3 million acres of mined land over the past 25 years.
The average coal miner makes $73,000 per year in wages.
Coal is the largest freight commodity moved by barges on the nation's inland waterways.
There are four basic varieties of coal:
Anthracite: Sometimes also called "hard coal," anthracite was formed from bituminous coal when great pressures developed in folded rock strata during the creation of mountain ranges. Anthracite has the highest energy content of all coals and is used for space heating and generating electricity. Anthracite averages 25 million Btu per ton.
Bituminous: Bituminous or "soft" coal formed when greater pressure was applied to subbituminous coal. This is the type most commonly used for electric power generation in the U.S.. It has a higher heating value than either lignite or subbituminous, but less than that of anthracite. Bituminous coal averages 24 million Btu per ton.
Subbituminous: Subbituminous coal formed from lignite when it came under higher pressure. This coal is a combustible mineral formed from the remains of trees, ferns and other plants that existed and died during the time of the dinosaurs. A dull black coal with a higher heating value than lignite that is used primarily for generating electricity and for space heating. Subbituminous coal averages 18 million Btu per ton.
Lignite: Increased pressures and heat from overlying strata caused buried peat to dry and harden into lignite. Lignite is a brownish-black coal with generally high moisture and ash content and lower heating value. However, it is an important form of energy for generating electricity, particularly in the American Southwest. Lignite averages 14 million Btu per ton.
Railroads move about two-thirds of U.S. coal shipments annually.
Coal plants in the 21st century emit 40% less co2 than the average 20th century coal plant, according to the World Coal Institute.
Coal accounts for approximately 94 percent of the nation's fossil energy reserve.
Useless Nitpickery Thanks [Chimes] for the name idea!
This collection is now and forever will be an ongoing quest to gather all the useless and interesting information that I can find so if anyone has tidbits of information that would fall into any of these categories feel free to message them to me and I will add them here and add your name to a special contributors list. However I will have to find proof of this info as I cant go taking everything that people tell me. If you like what you see then become a fan and start watching the pages for constant updates.
03/24/2013 - Hey guys and gals! Sorry for the sudden lack of updates. My computer went down (either the processor or the power supply) and it is very hard to maintain this page on my current Internet connected device. I have someone who is well versed in computers taking a look at it and hopefully they can fix it. If not, then it may be a bit longer before I can get a good update. I will try to have a reopening of the page with a large posting and a new contest.
05/30/2012 - Sorry for the long time between updates here. Lots of stuffs going on here and I am getting ready to start college here in a few days in pursuit of a AAS in Mining Technology. So, in honor of my field of study, this update will be all about coal mining. I am sure you are all terribly excited.
11/30/2011 - Alright! The winner of the Find the Fake poll is..*drum roll* Nobody! The Fake fact was: L) Scientists recently discovered that the Moon's orbit does not go in a circle around the Earth, but instead moves towards and away from the Earth at regular intervals.
Also, in honor of animals winning the interest poll all fifteen new facts will be animal based!
11/9/2011 - Well looks like the winner of the "Interest" poll is Animals with 22 votes! History was a close second with 22 votes and Astronomy taking third with 19 votes. I am planning on doing a special update after this one (got some good ones lined up for this update) in honor of the winner. Got a new poll up too that is more of a challenge to all my watchers/fans. Speaking of fans, if you haven't fanned us yet then you should seriously consider doing so. It is the nondenominational thing to do!
10/15/2011 - Finally got around to making a banner for this wiki. It is kinda hard to read with the black on black clashing, but no other color worked well enough to pass. If anyone can give me a better idea, I will try to redo it.
9/29/2011 - Holy cow! Got a lot more interest in the wiki now and a lot of people putting new facts/corrections into the comment sections. So, in order to keep the comment sections a bit cleaner I am going to be adding two new sub-wikis for corrections and submissions. Feel free to add new facts and tell me when I have a non-fact or bad grammar/spelling. Now, I'm not saying that you should start searching the web for facts, but if you come across one that I don't have then feel free to submit it.
Also, I am going to try to start updating this weekly instead of when I feel like it.
9/28/2011 - As you may have noticed I have put up a poll under the New Facts section. I am interested to find out what category you guys are most interested in. Hopefully I will be able to find more facts in those categories. Please vote on your favorites (you can vote on more then one).
7/5/2011 - Today I realized that I have a few facts incorrectly categorized. If any of you see a fact that you think would be better off in a different category then please let me know and I will move it. I handle so many of these so often that I tend to mix them up sometimes.
6/2/2011 - Firefox, you suck. I had fourteen of fifteen new facts typed up and ready to go when suddenly Firefox crashed (as it has been prone to do lately). When the session restored, all the typing I had just done was gone. So, once I calm down a bit I will return here to type out the facts for you all.
5/13/2011 - Creating a new facts section so you, the reader wont have to go to each individual catagory to get your new facts. Instead they will be put up on the main page here for quick and easy reading. Then, after a week or so, I will take them down and catagorize them.
5/12/2011 - Starting to pretty up the wiki to make it look more professional (I'm bored). All pretty additions are brought to you by the fine artists and graphic experts over at Elftown Graphics.
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