Superior Quality

Captain Michael wrote:With bituminous and not in a stoker.

That's what I do!

Captain Michael wrote:Until I started reading this forum I was clueless about stokers. There is a local hardware store in town using a stoker with bituminous, but the whole time growing up folks used coal furnaces. It is still common in rural western Pa. and WV for people to use coal to heat there homes. With bituminous and not in a stoker. And Richard I will concede to your facts about the 1918 time frame, short lived and geographically limited. I still believe in the grand scheme of history bituminous was king!

In PA Anthracite was the first coal to be mined then came Bituminous

Anthracite in the USA Anthracite coal history began in 1790 in Pottsville PA.

In 1795 an Anthracite iron fired furnace had been built on the Schuylkill River

Read about here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthracite

http://www.dep.state.pa.us/dep/deputate ... orical.htm
There is a mine at the end of sharp mountain outside Pottsville PA that is still running and that started in 1860 The
RS&W mine this is the one that was on Dirty Jobs in 06 and there are several in and around the area alot older then that .

http://www.dep.state.pa.us/dep/deputate ... orical.htm

Coal berner, I don't disagree with you about who or what was first. I'm only say bituminous was and is the work horse of the nation. Richard pointed out that Anthracite had a huge impact on manufacturing in the north east along with heating in the large cities like NY and Philly. I agree that Anthracite had its day. That day is gone! Never to return! The USA is the Saudia Arabia of coal. BItuninous coal! Just look at the US coal maps. Anthrcite is geographically limited product.

Captain Michael wrote:Anthrcite is geographically limited product.

Yes, thank you very much. Anthracite, the Rolls Royce of coals!

nah, i'd say it's more like a yugo, popular at one time due to it's proximity to market, current production has all but died out compared to historical levels, use only in a limited geographical region and customers of that product type (coal) prefer something else (bituminous), which can be had at a better price.

I don't think hard coal is going away because it has a niche market and is a good product but you're right, it does seem too pricey. If hard coal were available here in the west (Utah) at the same cost as in PA it simply would not be cost effective for most people to use.
I must say I was surprised when I saw photos/video of the hard coal operations (breakers) as these operations are nothing like soft coal operations of Utah/Colorado. These operations look like something one would have seen many many years ago and you do get a feel for the nostalgia. I am partial to soft coal not just because it's all that's available but that I grew up ten miles from a mine in Colorado with my best friends dad as a miner, brother in law as miner and my sister worked at the mine above ground in the warehouse. More nostalgia.

rockwood wrote:I must say I was surprised when I saw photos/video of the hard coal operations (breakers) as these operations are nothing like soft coal operations of Utah/Colorado. These operations look like something one would have seen many many years ago and you do get a feel for the nostalgia.

Anthracite goes through an additional process of separation of the rock from the coal and is then sized. The new breakers use just about the same process they used 50 or 100 years ago. It hasn't changed much, I'm sure there is anything to improve... I know they take greater care in recovering the water and magnetite but that's about it. I was adding a detailed description to the KB article for anthracite as I've gone over this before but hit the damn close button on the browser.

Here's the big difference, the Menzies cone:



FYI we don't have an article on Bituminous started yet so if anyone is interested you can asdd to it:

http://nepacrossroads.com/kb/Bituminous_Coal

Richard S. wrote:It hasn't changed much, I'm sure there is anything to improve...

Richard, you aren't trying to say this, are you?

Everything that can be invented has been invented.

Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. patent office, 1899

I'm not saying the process can't be improved, I'm sure it's been tweaked extensively over the years. If you follow the link to the full size image you can even read the inscription to say it was improved after their installation in the Huber. What I'm saying is the overall process can't be improved, e.g there isn't any other method to do it. The guy looking into the cone for example would most likely have been making sure they were getting a good product, that would be replaced with a fancy computer doing real time measurements to insure there the water to magnetite ratio was correct.

BTW, there was 14 of those cones at the Huber at one point. Massive facility.

Berlin wrote:nah, i'd say it's more like a yugo, popular at one time due to it's proximity to market, current production has all but died out compared to historical levels, use only in a limited geographical region and customers of that product type (coal) prefer something else (bituminous), which can be had at a better price.

Better price by means of using machines to get it out the coal veins are flat Anthracite is not it must be mine by men
by hand not machines There is your price differents You can mine alot more coal by machine when the coal vein is flat
then with a man on a coal vein with a 30 or more pitch up or down Try that with a machine.

As I and others have written on this forum before the hard coal mines in Germany are scheduled for complete shut down. A combination of environment concerns and high government subsidies make it cheaper to pension the miners and close the mines. My prediction is if American Anthracite coal demand continues to grow, however slightly, the surplus German processing equipment will make it's way here. I feel it's likely because the German demand for a steel making carbon source will not go away and the shipping costs to Germany from the US would likely be cheaper that from any other country. There have already been large Anthracite coal shipments to Germany. Likely for a trial test of substituting American Anthracite in the steel making process. Stay tuned.

it would be interesting if penn anthracite demand from germany did increase considerably. there are small possibly mineable deposits of anthracite and semi-anthracite coals throughout much of continental europe, germany, as you mentioned, being the largest, but very deep and hevily mined reserves. additionally there small reserves of semi-anthracite throughout parts of southeastern europe, ukraine, russia and central asia. Ukraine has substantial deposits of a very high ash (20-40%) anthracite that may or may not be suitable for steelmaking, and if it is, may or may not be competative price wise with much higher quality penn anthracite. It's my guess that Russian and central asian coke and coking coal, along with small pockets of semi-anthracite will more competatively supply any carbon necessary for steelmaking, while east german and eastern european brown coal (along with russian gas) will make up any increased btu demand in the steam or european domestic heating (block/lump lignite, brown coal briquettes for example) market. I do not forsee any kind of substantial increase in german demand for anthracite for those things, water treatment is one exception and it's one that penn anthracite is uniquely good at.

Mining is a very capital intense business. Our company does not invest the capital until the customer is already in place, signed to a contract. We don't open new coal mines on speculation. However, like any company we do sell into the spot market with any current excess capacity. The demand and price was there last summer when prices for central appalacia coal reached $300.00 per ton for metalergical coal sold to Western European Steel producers. Those coals moved by rail to Baltimore or Norfolk for export.Steel production fell off a cliff in this economy and so did met coal demand for steel here and abroad. The small producers in cental appalacia are already begining to fail. Coal is a tough business even for large corps. let alone the small producers of Anthracite.

Oh,Captain.......I thought you were such a brute for bashing me in the Ohio Forum. Then I read this,and I see you are quite the handy devil when it comes to 'da coal. Carry on,and represent your trade a little better than the weak moment and post you chose.....Hambden Bob...