Conversation

"Coal" is a dirty word these days, but the actual physical stuff is quite beautiful, especially the hard dense, packed kind, anthracite. One of the things you learn as a steel town kid is all sorts of random shit about coal.
Quote Tweet
And earlier, this nice wee haul of sea-coal, beachcombed out of the scatter-line at the high-water mark. (Explanation: twitter.com/Mikeachim/stat)
Show this thread
Image
Replying to
steel plants mostly use bituminous coal that's processed into coke in ovens... which is kinda like artificially made anthracite in a way (purified etc) but not as beautiful
1
7
carbon is amazing shit... one of the issues with "decarbonize" as a term for climate stuff is that you can't actually decarbonize materials and shouldn't want to. It's everywhere and in everything. Including our bodies. It's CO2 emissions that are the issue, not carbon.
1
10
I strongly suspect most people have never actually seen mineral coal in the US. Most people have only seen charcoal briquettes, which are made from wood. Coal is not at all the same thing. It's a rock! Ranges in consistency from hard and heavy to powdery and airy)
2
14
graphite is also very cool, especially the larger art-pencil type things.. I have one somewhere, about a quarter inch square cross section
3
Replying to
When you’re a jet, you’re a jet all the way … Well, unless your hydrogen content gets high enough to call into question your status as lignite
1
2
Show replies
Replying to
My grandads were both Yorkshire miners. They received a monthly ton of coal as a ‘benefit’ part of their wages. They got the ‘good stuff’. Chunks the size of a house brick.
1
4
Show replies
Replying to
Did you ever do the thing where you plant a piece of coal in your backyard to see if it will start turning into a diamond? My grandpa was a coal miner and I definitely tried that.
2