I found this article on MSNBC this morning. Interesting reading in and of itself but the last paragraph on the first page really caught my atention. According to the article, once the power plant is on line, it will take a trainload of coal every 16-17 hours to run the two plants.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17492068/
Tom
Flatfan,
When you say “trainload”, how many hoppers worth of coal is in a “trainload”?
Tom
The coal trains going through Leesville usually average between 88 and 160 hoppers.
Quoted from the article:
“each train will be nearly 1.5 miles long and lug 135 cars about 650 miles from Wyoming’s Powder River Basin”
That’s a lot of coal.
Tom
The article says 135 cars per train. We have plenty of coal, in fact we export a lot of coal each year. The real problem is the emissions.
Paul
As usual there are two sides to every coin. On the one side, extracting the energy in coal is inefficient and polluting. On the other side, There is a lot of it and it is fairly cheap! We burn coal or oil to make steam to make electricity for our lights, our homes, and all our gadgets. We have the ability to make safer nuclear power but don’t do it because we can’t figure out what to do with the waste products. Maybe our thinkers should work on this instead of making more fad satisfying gadgets? jc5729
All the combined “pollution/emmissions” ever caused by human beings is easily eclipsed by a single volcanic eruption. There have been many eruptions, and we’re still here.
The nuclear “argument” is reinforced by the usual “what if” scenarios, and what to do with the waste. There are areas currently in possession of the government, which are truly remote and would be perfect for long, LONG term storage of spent fuel. Research has also proven that lower level nuclear material can be reused in lesser demanding applications. Recycled? Hmmmm…
The anti-nuke types are having none of this and scream to high heaven when any such subject is brought up. Until the time comes when their fears are truly recognized as false, the dillemma will continue.
Now, should we discuss ANWR???
What I don’t understand is why moving all that weight of coal around doesn’t cause the planet to tip over a degree or two in the direction the stuff has been shifted [%-)]
Because the earth turns on an axis and like any spinning object, has stability.
I live about 14 miles from the largest coal burning power plant in the US ,or so everyone around here says.I live about 1/4mile from the mainline that takes the coal into the plant.If my est. are correct this plant eats at least two, 100+car trains of coal per day.Seems like that would make a VERY BIG hole in the ground!
Quote user="Santa Fe all the way!
“I live about 14 miles from the largest coal burning power plant in the US ,or so everyone around here says.I live about 1/4mile from the mainline that takes the coal into the plant.If my est. are correct this plant eats at least two, 100+car trains of coal per day.Seems like that would make a VERY BIG hole in the ground!”
It does! The open pit mines in the PRB are HUGE!
To put this in perspective, they are mining a coal seam about 70 feet thick. I don’t know exactly how many trains move out of the area daily, but I rather suspect that two more (or less) would hardly be noticed.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Because when compared to the mass of the earth it is irrelevant. That is sort of like asking why it doesn’t make someone’s head lean when an eyelash falls to their cheek, or why a single drop of water doesn’t effect an automobile moving at 75 mph. Think of all the water slopping around in the ocean every day and consider how insubstantial even tens of thousands of trainloads of coal would be.
That can’t be right… when I spin round (even when I just wrap a pallet with that horrible giant clingfilm) I get dizzy and fall over… [;)]
But the size of the hole they are making is like taking out a whole mountain (upside down) and moving it somewhere else. Maybe it’s because they’re only doing it slowly? [:-,]
During the late 40’s and early 50’s the newspapers had many articles saying the coal reserves in the United States would run out in 5-10 years. The only alternative was to go diesel. The “oil lobby” was gaining strength by its propaganda in the press.
History repeats its self. Nothing has changed except the lie is different. There is just as much propaganda in the press today saying how we must change our present fuel source.
As for me, my layout still operates steam locomotives and has plenty “gas guzzling automobiles”.
Doc
Yeah, actually, it’s possible to burn water. I mean it’s H2O right? Hydrogen is burnable and there’s even the oxygen in case you need it too. Boy have the oil companies been pulling the wool over YOUR eyes! Hah!! 
Actually, it’s EASY to burn water! All you have to do is electrolize it, liquify the hydrogen and ship it to where it needs to be used (NASA being one of the bigger users.) The oxygen can be released into the atmosphere - one of the few things that will NOT arouse the ire of the environmentalists.
And all you need to do this is LOTS of electricity - probably produced by a coal-burning power plant next door [(-D].
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - where the electricity used locally was hydro)
Ther’s a hole in the bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza. A hole in the bucket, dear Liza, a hole.
Coal is a mixed blessing.
On the one hand, the US has an insane amount of coal. Plus, it keeps the railroads going.
On the other, a lot of carbon dioxide and sulpher dioxide results. The former is a greenhouse gas* and the latter causes acid rain.
Coal’s saving grace may come in the form of coal gasification. That’s win-win. It makes the coal much more efficient, it’s much easier to capture and sequester the carbon dioxide, and it will keep the coal trains rolling.
As for the volcano analogy, that’s true, because the amount of SO2 (which causes a net loss of radiation for the Earth) vastly exceeds the CO2 emmited. Volcanoes tend to cause global cooling (such as the early 1990s temperature dip due to Mt Pinatubo in the Philipines). Coal burning, on the other hand, especially due to the Clean Air Act (requiring low-sulpher coal) produces more CO2 than SO2, therefore resulting in a net radiation gain.
The key is to find a way to make coal more efficient and less polluting. Coal gasification seems to meet both goals when combined with CO2 scrubbers. The Chinese are already ahead of us there.
NO, I wasn’t speculating. In terms of the world geophysics, the crust is the light stuff that floats on the surface of the heavy interior. Like foam on the ocean. A mountain doesn’t weigh anything in relationship to the mass of the whole earth.