Question

Consider the use of coal for the production of electricity, Describe three advantages and three disadvantages for the use of coal to produce electricity.

There are 4 basic units in a nuclear reactor: fuel rods, nuclear modulators or primary cooling system, secondary cooling system and control rods. During the fission of Uranimum-235 describe the role of each units to control the reaction.

Compare the anthracite and bituminous coals to sub-bituminous and lignite. Your comparison should include:

            a. Where they are found in the US (state)

            b. energy content

            c. mining process   

Answer 1

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Three advantages of using coal for producing electricity:

1 - Coal is a cheaply available source of thermal energy, which can be readily burnt and the generated heat can be used to obtaine electricity via a turbine system which uses heated steam. The electricity thus obtained by coal is low at price.

2 - Coal is readily and abundantly available throughout the United states. Thus stocks and raw material requirement for coal based power plants is available easily.
3 - Coal based power plants can run perenially without any requirement to stop them, or lowering of the magnitude of generated power. This can be compared viz-a-viz hydel power, which depends on the height of water in a dam, typically high during rainy seasons, and low during off-rain days.

Additional advantage: Coal based electricity production is a very standard procedure, the technical know-how of which is very robustly known to the engineers and the production fraternity. Thus it is a very consistent and time tested, fool-proof process which can be relied upon for power requriements.

Three disadvantages of using coal for producing electricity:

1 - Coal based power plants have low overall efficiencies, typically of the order of 15-20%. This means that of the total chemical energy present in coal, only 15-20% is eventually converted into electricity.

2 - Coal burning produces huge amounts of smoke and soot, which are rich in greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and methane, along with the soot particles which cause dust pollution. In short, coal based plants contribute heavily to environmental pollution.

3 - Coal reserves, though abundantly available, are in the end limited. It takes thousands of years for the formation of each pound of coal beneath the earth's surface. Thus, coal being a non-renewable source, is not a sustainable source or forever-to-be-there source of energy.