Have you ever seen coal in real life?

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• dan1101@lemm.ee ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

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

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• Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  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

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• Nemo@midwest.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

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

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• Anticorp@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  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.

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• MSugarhill@feddit.de ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

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

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  • MrsDoyle@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Charcoal?

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• Adalast@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  My father runs live steam engines.

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• TTimo@lemm.ee ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  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.

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• LaunchesKayaks@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  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.

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• abcd@feddit.de ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  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.

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• ace_garp@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  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.

  –

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

  –

  From here

  lemmy.world/comment/7124438

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• QuantumBamboo@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  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.

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• Brick@feddit.uk ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  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.

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• Oiconomia@feddit.de ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  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.

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• Nithanim@programming.dev ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  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.

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• TheSpermWhale@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  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

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• WhoresonWells@lemmy.basedcount.com ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

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

  I’ve never shoveled coal.

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• redcalcium@lemmy.institute ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

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

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• DarkThoughts@fedia.io ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Did you never seen someone grill? Or had art classes? I've even seen the massive coal mines being excavated here in Germany.

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  • roguetrick@kbin.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I wouldn't grill with anything but anthracite and even then, I don't know that I would. You guys actually use coal from the ground at bbqs? We mostly use charcoal which is pyrolysed wood

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  • gregorum@lemm.ee ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    That’s not coal; that’s charcoal, which is typically a wood byproduct.

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    • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      That’s, usually not even charcoal. (Well “briquettes” isn’t. Briquettes are mostly sand and filler)

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• NakariLexfortaine@lemm.ee ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  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.

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  • cheesymoonshadow@lemmings.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I looked up “coal garden” and it unlocked a memory from my childhood. I think my older sister had a science experiment type of toy that grew crystals like that.

    Image

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    • NakariLexfortaine@lemm.ee ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      They’re not uncommon among the other “Crystal/Mineral Aquarium” experiments! They can grow some stunning structures over time, but moving them without damaging the growth can be a bit of an issue.

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• Sylver@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  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

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• Kolanaki@yiffit.net ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  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.

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• UnRelatedBurner@sh.itjust.works ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  This mf never had a grill party.

  Jokes aside, I hope you had some other fuel for your grill, as it’d actually be sad, and I’m sorry for you.

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  • fine_sandy_bottom@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    This mf has no idea what coal is.

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  • Nemo@midwest.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Most people where I am use charcoal, not mineral coal.

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    • UnRelatedBurner@sh.itjust.works ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      good point lol. I’m a country away from the bags, so I won’t check.

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• SpruceBringsteen@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  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.

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• Matriks404@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Yeah, used it for heating. Switched entirely to central heating few years ago, mainly because it become illegal to use coal for heating in my area.

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• wratanar@lemmings.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  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.

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• Dumbkid@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  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

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• Acamon@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

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

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  • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    It wasn’t charcoal? That sounds wretched. Would it not release toxins into the house?

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    • Acamon@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Don’t think so! Defintely much heavier and more solid than bbq charcoal. I don’t remember it being very smoky, weird less so than wood fires (which have a distinctive and pleasant smell) or peat fires, which were also common in my region but would trigger my asthma. But possibly it was just that I was used to coal? Maybe someone else would have found it gross?

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• Resol@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  We still use it to heat our tea.

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• rikudou@lemmings.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  My neighbour used it for heating in winter when I was a kid.

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• ASeriesOfPoorChoices@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  From the former prime minister of Australia: www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkyuI3oiGNE

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  • ASeriesOfPoorChoices@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    for those wondering: “this is coal”: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ea5bOaPkZpc

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