How do they come and meet us?
What will happen after they meet us?
Who are they?
What approaches do we make to meet coals?
We need coal for the production of electricity and heat in our daily life. What's more, coal is also used for industrial purposes, such as refining metals.
Two methods: surface or ‘opencast’ mining or underground or ‘deep’ mining help us to get these black rocks. And the choice of the methods mostly rely on the geology of the coal deposit.
Surface Mining
But surface mining causes a lot of environmental issues, including destroying landscapes, forests and wildlife habitats, an increased risk of chemical contamination of ground water, waterway pollution and so on.
Underground Mining
But miners who work in an underground mine have a huge risk of encountering mine collapse. In addition, it causes huge amounts of waste earth and rock to be brought to the surface and the waste often becomes toxic when it comes into contact with air and water. With the loss of those earth and rocks, the water table would be lowered down by underground mining, changing the flow of groundwater and streams.
Mine Collapse
Then what about oil?
Ocean Drilling
Land drilling
Drilling Rig
Fracking
Fracking may cause a series of environmental problems. Air pollution, exposure to toxic chemicals, waste disposal and so on.