I can't argue your facts above but based on your post history
one might assume you work for the coal industry and/or that
you are somehow being compensated on a "per post about
anthracite coal benefits" basis.
Using terms like "forest eater" does not necessarily lend itself to
increasing credibility among the informed.
For what it's worth way back in 2003 our friends and Cornell University
suggested that cordwood has a cost advantage when calculated on a
cost per BTU basis when compared to coal. I don't know what, if anything,
has changed since then.
http://www.cce.cornell.edu/Environment/Documents/PDFs/Heating with Wood and Coal.pdf
And last, coal is not renewable. Many hipster wood burners like to pat themselves on the back for being "green". There would be limited amounts of self aggrandizement available to the coal burner. This must also be included in the ROI calcs to paint a full picture.
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I never said coal was renewable.
any act of combustion creates exhaust flue gasses and the
average wood burner could not afford a catalytic converter
or water scrubber to clean the flue gasses in a gasser or an non gasser
OWB nor do I see the builders of these things making an effort to incorporate
a second induced draft fan and water scrubber for the flue gasses.
Nor do I see the use of kiln dry firewood from cull logs increasing other than the
for the users of romance bundles or wood fired ovens.
Every time you see smoke from a chimney one see's energy lost from
the act of incomplete combustion.
Edit: Coal stokers use either an underfed with an auger fed retort/burnpot or
or hopper fed method employing a pusher plate pushing the coal over the firebed
combustion method where the rice or pea sized coals pushed over a perforated metal plate/grate that has combustion air pushed through the drilled holes in the plate used to make the coal grate under the coal bed fire allowing it to burn red hot to a fine ash.
there are three types of stokers:
1. underfed retort/pot stokers (Tyler/Combustion engineering)
Pocono type:
a. flat bed stokers (used for wood pellets and coal)
b. slanted bed coal stokers coal only
End of edit.
Anthracite coal can burn down to a fine white ash or a red ash which contains
some iron residue.
Current cordwood consumption of OWB units with thier
inherently inefficient fireboxes and lack of water storage permitting
one to accomplish smoke free burns to heat water and fill an
adequate amount of hot water storage.
It all depends on ones availabilty of cordwood seasoned or unseasoned
burning green wood, garbage and tires does not help matters with OWB industry in general.
Anthacite coal has more available BTU per pound or ton than seasoned cordwood.
The amount of Anthracite Coal left in the ground in PA.
Colarado and Alabama translates to several hundred years of coal left to mine
I have never worked for coal industry,
I worked as a hardrock miner in a Halite mine(rock salt).
I am retired. I have burned coal in addition to firewood every
year and I am switching to an anathracite coal stoker.
After finding out my wood supplier was selling his thrown cord
frewood with a seven hundred percent markup from his purchase price
of $33.00 PER ton one wonders who is robbing who.
There is huge difference in burning anthracite coal compared to
bituminous soft coal which requires huge amounts of combustion air and
does not burn cleanly without the flue gasses being scrubbed and the
large amount of soft coal fly ash being collected.
!! Mix a little here- Mix a little there.. It kicks you know what 
