Coal Trivia Quiz Questions and Answers
What is coal?
A: Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock.
Coal is mostly composed of what?
A: Carbon with variable amounts of other elements like
hydrogen, sulfur,
oxygen, and nitrogen.
The extraction and use of coal causes many what?
A: Premature deaths and much illness.
Coal industry damages the environment, including by
what?
A: Climate change as it is the largest anthropogenic source of carbon
dioxide.
Coal is responsible for how much of the total fossil
fuel emissions?
A: 40%
As part of the worldwide energy transition many
countries have stopped using or use less coal, and the UN Secretary General
has asked governments to do what?
A: To stop building new coal plants by 2020.
What country is the largest consumer and importer of
coal??
A: China.
China mines how much of the world's coal?
A: Almost half.
Australia accounts for how much of world coal exports?
A: About a third.
Lignite, or brown coal, the lowest rank of coal, most
harmful to health, used almost exclusively as fuel for what
A: For electric power generation
Jet, a compact form of lignite, sometimes polished, has
been used as what since the Upper Palaeolithic period?
A: An ornamental stone.
Sub-bituminous coal, whose properties range between
those of lignite and those of bituminous coal, is used primarily as fuel for
what?
A: Steam-electric power generation.
Anthracite, the highest rank of coal is a harder,
glossy black coal used primarily for what?
A: Residential and commercial space heating.
The earliest recognized use of coal is from the Shenyang area
of China where by 4000 BC Neolithic inhabitants had begun doing what?
A: Carving ornaments
from black lignite.
Coal from the Fushun mine in northeastern China was
used to smelt copper as early as when?
A: 1000 BC.
How did Marco Polo, the Italian who traveled to China
in the 13th century, describe coal?
A: As "black stones ... which burn like logs".
Evidence of trade in coal, dated to about AD 200, has
been found where?
A: At the Roman settlement at Heronbridge, near Chester.
What have been found in the hearths of villas and Roman
forts, particularly in Northumberland, dated to around AD 400?
A: Coal cinders.
Mineral coal came to be referred to as "seacoal" in the
13th century; the wharf where the material arrived in
London was known as Seacoal Lane, so identified in a charter of whom?
A: King Henry III granted in 1253.
The development of the Industrial Revolution led to the
large-scale use of coal, as took over from the water wheel?
A: The steam engine.
In 1700, where was five-sixths of the world's coal
mined?
A: In Britain.
What would have run out of suitable sites for what by the
1830s if coal had not been available as a source of energy?
A: Watermills.
In 1947 there were some 750,000 miners in Britain but
the last deep coal mine in the UK closed when?
A: In 2015.
Coal continues to arrive on beaches around the world
from both natural erosion of exposed coal seams and what?
A: Wind swept spills from cargo
ships.
Many homes in such areas gather this coal as a
significant, and sometimes primary, source of what?
A: Home heating fuel.
Where is scavenging sea-borne coal for heating still
commonplace?
A: On both the
Pacific and Atlantic coasts of the U.S.
The energy density of coal, that is its heating value,
is roughly what?
A: 24 megajoules per kilogram (approximately 6.7 kilowatt-hours per kg).
For a coal power plant with a 40% efficiency, it takes
an estimated 325 kg (717 lb) of coal to power a 100 Watt light bulb for how
long?
A: One year.
How much of the world’s energy was supplied by coal in
2017?
A: 27.6%.
Coal can be converted directly into “what” by
hydrogenation or carbonization?
A: Synthetic fuels equivalent to gasoline or diesel.
Chemicals have been produced from coal since when?
A: The 1950s.
Coal to chemical processes require substantial
quantities of what?
A: Water.
Much coal to chemical production is in China where coal
dependent provinces such as Shanxi are struggling to control its what?
A: Pollution.
Coal burnt as a solid fuel in coal power stations to
generate electricity is called what?
A: Thermal coal.
Coal is also used to produce very high what, through
combustion?
A: Temperatures.
Efforts around the world to reduce the use of coal have
led some regions to switch to what?
A: Natural gas and electricity from lower carbon sources.
When coal is used for electricity generation, it is
usually pulverized and then burned in a what?
A: A furnace with a boiler.
The furnace heat converts boiler water to steam, which
is then used to do what?
A: Spin turbines which turn generators and create electricity.
In 2017 38% of the world's electricity came from coal,
the same percentage as when?
A: 30 years previously.
In 2018 global installed capacity was how much?
A: 2TW.
What major country is the most dependent on coal with
over 80% of its electricity generated by coal?
A: South Africa.
More accidents occur during underground mining than
what?
A: Surface mining.
In 2017 there were 375 coal mining related deaths in
what country?
A: China.
A court in Australia has cited what in ruling against a
new coal mine?
A: Climate change.
China mines almost half the world's coal, followed by
India with about how much?
A: A tenth.
Australia accounts for how much of world coal exports?
A: About a third.
In some countries new onshore wind or
solar generation
already costs less than coal power from what?
A: Existing plants.
The deadly London smog was caused primarily by what?
A: The heavy use of coal.
Globally coal is estimated to cause how many premature
deaths every year, mostly in India and China?
A: 800,000.
Burning coal is a major emitter of sulfur dioxide,
which creates PM2.5 particulates, which is what?
A: The most dangerous form of air pollution.
What health issues do coal smokestack emissions cause?
A: Asthma, strokes, reduced
intelligence, artery blockages,
heart attacks,
congestive heart failure, cardiac arrhythmias,
mercury
poisoning, arterial
occlusion, and lung cancer.