No Stupid Questions

We burned coal for heat on the coldest of nights when we lived off grid on a ranch in the mountains of colorado. We only used it if we absolutely had to as its super stinky, dirty and gross. We would get maybe two or three big chunks a year that weighed maybe 1-2 lbs. You can go up into the mountains and see the huge mountains of coal from the mines that have shut down. There are also rows of of coke ovens in monument canyon (used in the 19th century to turn coal into smelting iron)

Went to a open cast lignite mining operation once. The scales are quite impressive. Once standing at the bottom of the pit vision of the surrounding landscape just fades and you feel a bit like in a wasteland of sorts.

open cast mine

I assume many people are familiar with hydrocarbon gas for cooking or heating. Coal can also be converted to liquid or gas fuel form chemically but the process is quite complex and usually not economical.

Then there's crude oil. Never been near it but its ubiquitous in its refined forms, just go to a gas station.

EDIT: the coal typically used for barbecue (charcoal) is made from wood and is different from the stuff mined from the earth. Many people seem to not know this.

I used to raise pigs, and I saw bags of coal at the feed store one of the (many) times I was there. Later, I had a small store in town and, as a Christmas gag, I bought one of those bags of coal and some small fabric bags to sell for $5 a pop.

Later I realized that coal can be pretty toxic and I probably shouldn't have been putting it in a bag that was gonna be next to candy in some kids' stocking

My wife's family are in mining. I've seen coal, coal mines, mine tailings, coke ovens, coke, coal trucks and coal trains, and I've driven mining roads on a family vacation. I have a little vial of Cominco coal as a souvenir.

Yes, drive through West Virginia and you'll see seams of coal in the parts of the mountains they cut for highways.

We bought a house with a small coal supply under the stairs. No idea what to do with it.

Yes, I've seen it in train cars being hauled

We once had a very old house with a cellar that was not used and not built for living there in any way. So you had plain rock walls and it was pretty moist. I do not know why but there was a single basket of coal down there. So I have seen black coal but I have not touched it.

Crude oil I have seen too back in school. My teacher had a sample to be able to show it.

I visited a coal power plant when I was still a student in a university. It's like stony charcoals.

I've handled many types of coal. Even made my own. The kind you get from the ground I've handled from visiting old western towns where instead of gold, they had coal and silver mines.

I was a huge fan of steam engines when I was younger, so I used to go to heritage railways a lot as a child. Also when I had an LPG car, the place I used to go for fuel also sold coal

For a good bit of my teens, I lived in an active coal mining town. It was everywhere. People loved grabbing some and making "coal gardens", where you leave a few good sized chunks in water and let the minerals accumulate. Can be rather pretty.

Coal can also be used as a craft, not uncommon to find carved coal statues in tourist areas that have a history as a mining town.

Whoa! Deja Vu!

I have a bolo tie whose slide ornament is carved anthracite.

I've never shoveled coal.

Coal, I had my childhood home heated with a coal fire in winter. Crude oil I touched at an art exhibition. I also remember real creosote! Amazing smell.

There are still folk using coal daily round here. In my family circle, the last house to move away from coal was just last year. UK. We have also burnt peat but I think that's completely banned now. Nope, still available but legislation is in the works.

No crude oil.

Yes, in 1989.

East Perth to Midland train yards on the footplate of the Flying Scotsman.

The fireman was shovelling coal into the firebox, and it was one of the most concentrated sources of heat I have seen in my life.

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This is my same answer from a very similar post 2 months ago (c:

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From here

https://lemmy.world/comment/7124438

When growing up my Grandparents ordered coal for heating purposes in winter. They had big piles of it when the heating period started. There where huge chunks of maybe 50cm length and 30cm width. I guesstimate the whole pile to be around 10m^3. But keep in mind it’s not the most reliable source since this dates 30+ years back and the dimensions have been seen with a little kids eyes. It may be less.

My house I live in today is 100+ years old. There are still some pieces of coal in my basement.

Yes! I was on vacation in Colorado and one of the residents there used it to warm their cabin in a wood burning stove. It was pretty amazing actually. One small chunk would heat the entire house to a very hot temperature for hours at a time. I can see why it was a popular option back in the day.

Coal for heating at my grandma's place yeah. In the southern US, you can also see trains filled with the stuff going west along I-40.

Oh yeah, filled up dump trucks of it. Every year in the fall my grandfather would order a ton (probably more like 10 tons) of coal and it was up to all of us to shovel it out and divide for everyone to use and share

I lived in a town built on top of a coal mine. You could just go outside and walk a few feet and find chunks of coal just laying around. I also loved by train tracks for a long time and trains full of coal would go by multiple times a day.

My father runs live steam engines.

Not sure what the English terms are, but we used Steinkohle (stone coal) for barbecue in the 80s and 90s,so I guess yes.

Yeah. I grew up near one of Germany's largest open-pit lignite mines. Had a tour of the mighty Bagger 293 as a kid and was allowed to touch some coal.

Use to have an open coal fire in my childhood home. Made many a coal fire. It's very sooty on the hands!

I can't remember a specific time if I've touched coal. I know I've done a geology course at one point, and visited various museums with large rock collections.

I've definitely seen coal in person protruding from the top of passing railcars... here's a picture of one I took in South Surrey earlier this month:

Took a tour of an old/historic cooal mine once. There was still a seam in the wall. And they had some coal and stuff in the gift shop.

You might also see it if you see a blacksmith demonstration. (For example, Historic Fort Snelling, for any one near MSP airport looking for something to do.)

Saw a big chunk washed up on a beach.

It's pretty easy to find along the river banks around here. It wouldn't burn if you tossed it in a fire though, not sure why (maybe it's waterlogged or something).

We still use it to heat our tea.

Yes. We still heated our house with wood and coal in the 90s. I remember a big truck brought coal for us before winter. We even had a dedicated coal room in the cellar.

Western PA, literally everything is near an abandoned coal mine. The woods near my house growing up had sink holes all over the place and coal just sitting on the sides of the hill where it had been dumped and abandoned.

Maybe, though I am not sure.

But I did hold a jar of crude oil when I was a kid.

Yeah, used it for heating, just until few years ago when we switched entirely to central heating, mainly because it become illegal to use coal for heating in my area.

It's a rock, you find it laying on the ground. Especially around railyards and mines.

Yeah was an old quarry near my house when I young used to throw rocks and sticks of the huge cliff there, was a decent amount of coal around

Yep. Visited the coal mines in northern PA as a little kid. Going underground was super cool.

Yes. Hike up a mountain in Kentucky and it just sticks out occasionally.