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4. NON RENEWABLE ENERGY RESOURCES

 

4.1. COAL

 Origin: coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock composed mostly of carbon and hydrocarbons.

Coal is a non renewable energy source because it takes millions of years to create. The energy in coal comes from the energy stored by plants that lived hundreds of millions of years ago, when the earth was partly covered with swampy forests. For millions of years, a layer of dead plants at the bottom of the swamps was covered by layers of water and dirt, trapping the energy of the dead plants. The heat and pressure from the top layers helped the plant remains turn into what we today call coal.

 

 Extraction: coal miners use giant machines to remove coal from the ground. They use two methods: surface or underground mining.


 

 

Surface mining

Underground mining

 

 

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I.E. S. "Estuaria"  (Huelva)  - 2008

Credits Compartir en Facebook  Antonia Domínguez Miguela