son of witless

I worked in a dirty industrial plant in the 1970s and 80s. I saw real pollution and I saw it cleaned up. I also burn coal as auxiliary heat to supplement natural gas. I have a hands on life experience when it comes to these issues. I would love to see you try to ignite a coal fire. It isn't easy.

Your words tell me it is only a theoretical experience for you. You only know what you have seen on TV and the Internet. Coal is not this evil substance that you believe it to be. Again you demand unreasonable perfection from f****l f**ls while you can accept any amount of failure, pollution, and unreasonable cost from Green boondoggles.

I keep bringing up what you call ridiculous, but I call reasonable. You cannot refute this. I do not believe in man made G****l W*****g, but if I was a true believer as you are, I'd be 110 % in favor of Nuclear Power and stopping i*****l i*********n. Nuclear Power actually would work to stop carbon emissions and yes i*****l i*********n would cause G****l W*****g if it existed for reasons I have explained many many times.

moldyoldy

I spent a few years in the south with coal stoves. Schools with coal stoves. My mother died from lung cancer because of coal.

son of witless

Sorry about your Mother. Did you operate the coal stoves ?

moldyoldy

I did, it was part of the school curriculum.

son of witless

Did you ever have to build the coal fire because it went out ?

moldyoldy

I have had to start a fire with kindling. That was back in 1957.

son of witless

You need a lot more than kindling to ignite Anthracite or were you using Bituminous ? Anthracite has to get very hot. You either need some very very good hard wood logs 2 inches thick or you can use charcoal briquets. It also depends on how much draft you have. My coal stove only has chimney draft so it is difficult. My parents rice coal stoker back when I was a teenager had a blower and was easier.

moldyoldy

At twelve years old I did not study so much as I followed directions. I remember that stove turning red.

son of witless

What state was this ? I am trying to figure out if you burned brown or black coal. I never worked with brown coal, but I believe it is easier to ignite. Black Anthracite is Northeastern Pa coal and it is difficult to get burning. It can also be difficult to put out. There is an underground anthracite fire in Centralia Pa that has been burning for decades.

moldyoldy

South Carolina

son of witless

I don't think South Carolina has any anthracite coal and I don't know whether they shipped it that far, but they might have. The early 50s is when coal really began losing market share to heating oil. Before that the PA anthracite coal industry was large. That was when the railroads also really declined. They lost passenger traffic to the auto mobile and shipping coal was big for them also. My grandfather was an railroad engineer and lived through the decline. Fortunately the railroads lasted long enough until his retirement.