I was searching online for some quick background on, well . . . coal. National Geographic popped up. Sounded promising. Came with an “education” tag. Excellent. I remembered the magazine from my youth. Yellow-framed covers! A bit worthy, a bit dull, but still, faraway lands.
Anyway, I clicked on the link to find that the entry (targeted at “grades 9-12”) started like this:
Coal is a nonrenewable fossil fuel that is combusted and used to generate electricity. Mining techniques and combustion are both dangerous to miners and hazardous to the environment; however, coal accounts for about half of the electricity generation in the United States.
Hmmm.
Interesting way to begin.
Underneath was a photograph of a rather exotic looking lump of “peacock” coal captioned as followed:
Coal is a black sedimentary rock that can be burned for fuel and used to generate electricity. Coal is the leading source of energy in the United States.
That was more like it, but still . . .
(Note: National Geographic’s commentary is presumably from a while back. These days coal accounts for about 16 percent of the total. Natural gas is comfortably in the lead, with about 43 percent.)