The earliest commercial coal mine in the United States is located in Midlothian, Virginia, and mining began in 1748.
Coal became the main energy source in the industrial revolution in the18th century, and steam trains and steamboats began to become the main means of transportation in industrialized countries. At the same time, the steelmaking industry also needs a large number of coal mines. Natural gas is also needed for urban lighting, heating and cooking. At the end of 18, Britain invented many underground coal mining technologies, and coal mining entered the era of large-scale commercial mining. The coal digger was invented around 1880s. Prior to this, mining required manual excavation with shovels or picks. By 19 12, the progress of steam excavator technology has made open-pit mining possible.
From the18th century to the1950s, coal was the main industrial and transportation energy in western countries. On the other hand, oil exploitation technology developed greatly in the early 20th century, and large-scale oil fields were discovered in the United States, the Middle East and Indonesia. Oil has more advantages as fuel than coal. /kloc-after the 1950s, oil and its accessories began to become the main fuel, and soon the steam engine was replaced by the internal combustion engine. By the end of the 20th century, a large part of coal was replaced by oil, natural gas, nuclear energy or renewable energy in household, industry and transportation.
Since 1890, coal mining has also become the source of political and social disputes. The use of child labor, exploitation of miners and poor working environment led to the formation of trade unions and the rise of socialist ideology. In addition, the widespread use of machines has also made many miners unemployed and caused many social problems. Due to the restriction of environmental standards and the exploitation of large-scale open-pit coal mines in the west, the underground coal mining industry in the United States declined sharply after 1970. At the peak of 19 14, there were180,000 anthracite miners in the United States, leaving only 6,000 people in 1970. The number of asphalt workers decreased from 705,000 at the peak of 1923 to 70,000 at 1970 and 70,000 in 2003. In 2005, the number of active members of the Miners' Union (UMW) also decreased from 1980 to 16000. The two oil crises, 1973 and 1979, made governments begin to look for alternative energy sources. While developing new energy sources such as nuclear energy, wind power and solar energy, the importance of coal is once again concerned.
However, since 1970' s, people began to pay attention to environmental awareness, including landscape destruction, air pollution and other possible problems caused by burning coal. Compared with other fossil fuels, burning coal produces more greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxide than oil or natural gas, which may be one of the main reasons for global warming and acid rain.
Because of its economic price and abundant reserves, coal is still an important energy source today, especially for power generation. Coal is the most important energy source in China. In 2005, about 80% of China's energy came from burning coal. In 2007, China became a coal importer for the first time.
According to the statistics of relevant departments, by the end of 20 15, the total scale of coal mines in China will be 5.7 billion tons. Among the 5.7 billion tons of production capacity, 3.9 billion tons of coal mines were normally produced and reformed, 308 million tons of coal mines were stopped, and 654.38+49.6 million tons of coal mines were newly built, reformed and expanded, of which about 800 million tons belonged to unapproved illegal projects.