Does coal go bad ???

[flyhigh8000]

Where I live there used to be a coal mine shaft and their is coal all around... after a little homework I found out that the shaft has been closed since the 1930's is it still good ??? any info would be great

 

[DWW68]

Coal does not go bad. It is already thousands of years old. The real question is it worth the trouble to mine it. With out the right equipment it would take a long time to get enough for heating your house.

 

[LeonMSPT]

Best place for that question would be to go to NEPA.COM and search their forums... I am pretty sure someone there has answered it.

The short answer is... maybe a little bit. It loses some of its oomph apparently once exposed to air and sunlight.

Scoop some up and see if it burns... if you can burn a five gallon pail of it, scoop up a truckload and see if that will burn.

Where I live there used to be a coal mine shaft and their is coal all around... after a little homework I found out that the shaft has been closed since the 1930's is it still good ??? any info would be great

 

[Bobcatter]

There are natural outcroppings of coal, that is how it's use got started. Picked up the pieces you found. Once you used up the surface stuff, it was natural to keep following the seam into the ground with pick and shovel. Coal is more like 250 million years old, so it's not going to go bad. You can leave it out in the freezing cold or hot sun. Other than cracking up, it will still burn.

However, going into an old mine is another matter all together! There will probably be water in it somewhere (ground water), it's structure has probably decomposed, so it could collapse on you in a second -especially once you start digging! Then there are the permit issues for opening up an old mine. That brings up a point, who owns the mineral rights on the property?

The other issue is the quality of the coal. It might be a low quality, (or all the good stuff used up) that might be why it was abandoned.

I guess it all comes down to "risk vs. benefit". Only you can decide that. Good luck!

 

[LeonMSPT]

Spent spring, summer, and fall, in Homer, AK. They have coal seams coming right out of the ground on the beaches...

When there's a big storm, they go down with pick, shovel, and bucket, and pick it up. That's what most of them burn in their coal stoves and boilers... alot of it is "brown coal", dirty and not great burning like anthracite. But if I could pick it up off the ground and throw it in the boiler, I'd get used to it.

There are natural outcroppings of coal, that is how it's use got started. Picked up the pieces you found. Once you used up the surface stuff, it was natural to keep following the seam into the ground with pick and shovel. Coal is more like 250 million years old, so it's not going to go bad. You can leave it out in the freezing cold or hot sun. Other than cracking up, it will still burn.

However, going into an old mine is another matter all together! There will probably be water in it somewhere (ground water), it's structure has probably decomposed, so it could collapse on you in a second -especially once you start digging! Then there are the permit issues for opening up an old mine. That brings up a point, who owns the mineral rights on the property?

The other issue is the quality of the coal. It might be a low quality, (or all the good stuff used up) that might be why it was abandoned.

I guess it all comes down to "risk vs. benefit". Only you can decide that. Good luck!