Coal is being phased out in the United States but it will take awhile before it becomes phased out entirely.
Hawaii, New York, Washington, and Oregon, have all passed laws eliminating or phasing out coal-fired power plants.
The U.S. is on track to close half of its coal-fired generation capacity by 2026, just 15 years after it reached its peak in 2011.
93% of coal in the U.S. is used to produce electricity by burning it and turning water into steam.
Coal is burned in a boiler which heats water to steam at high pressures which then spins turbines to spin generators to produce electricity.
The number 1 problem with a coal power plant is the significant amount of air pollution they produce with fine particulate matter.
Coal power plants produce pollution that contains carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide and particulate matter which can contribute to acid rain, smog, climate change and respiratory illnesses.
The last coal plant in the US was built in 2013 which was the Sandy Creek Generating station that came online in Texas in 2013.
As of September 2022 there are no new plans to build any new coal fired power plants in the United States.
America's largest coal plant is the Robert W. Scherer Power Plant which is also known as Plant Scherer.
The Robert W. Scherer Power Plant is located in Juliette, Georgia and has a capacity of 3,564 megawatts and has 4 generating units that each are capable of producing 930 MW of power.
The biggest nuclear power plant in the US is the Palo Verde Generating Station that has a capacity of 3.93GW.
The Palo Verde Generating Station generates and produces more than 32 million megawatt hours of electricity a year which can supply more than 4 million homes.
The largest source of electricity in the world is coal.
Coal is what produces the majority of electricity in the world.
Coal is burned and heats water into steam which then turns large turbines that power generators which produce the electricity.
Natural gas is the 2nd largest source of electricity in the world.
The natural gas is sometimes used to power natural gas engines which in turn power generators.
However natural gas is also used to produce steam by heating up water and the steam then turns the generators to produce electricity.
Crude oil produces 28 percent of electricity in the world.
Wind and solar panels produce 12. 7 percent of electricity in the world.
And nuclear power produces 9.6 percent of electricity in the world.
Coal fired electric power generating plants produce electricity by burning coal in a boiler to produce steam.
The steam produced, under tremendous pressure then flows into a turbine, which spins a generator to create electricity.
The steam is then cooled, condensed back into water and returned to the boiler to start the process over.