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Coal and Nuclear Fuels

The following research is on the subject of the advantages and disadvantages of the use of coal and of nuclear fuels in the production of electricity. The mineral and fuel reserves of this planet are not limitless, and the future will require the discovery of new resources and sources for the production of energy. Coal is one replacement for the use of oil in the production of electricity, and nuclear fuels are under consideration as well. However, nuclear fuels in particular are under fire from environmental groups fearful of the possibility of a melt-down in a nuclear reactor, which could conceivably spread death and destruction over a wide area. Coal and nuclear fuels each have a place in the future of energy production, and each also has certain drawbacks which limit their use to certain areas.

I. MINING AND PROCESSING OF THE FUEL

A single electrical generating plant producing 380,000-kw requires a total of one million gallons of oil per day; a large 1.2 million-kw coal-fired plant uses fuel at the rate of 8000 tons of coal -- or about one hundred railroad cars full -- every day.

Coal beds are no longer sought, for most of them have been located and only need to be explored further to determine their rank, ash content, continuity, thickness and depth over an area where mining is contemplated. Advances in the mining of coal have been considerable in recent years. In most underground mines today continuous mining machines are used. These use draglines with buckets that will hold more than three hundred tons of rock, stripping shovels that can take 270 tons of rock at a bite, and trucks of 240-ton capacity. In Turkey and Europe, bucket-wheel excavators are used that can dig as much as 300,000 tons a day.

Basically, coal is mined by three methods. Underground mines are entered by a vertical or inclined shaft leading from the surface; the shaft intersects a coal bed of minable thickness and quality, and at that ...

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Coal and Nuclear Fuels. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 16:08, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1682174.html