I'm familiar with the stats and the lady is partly correct but Aus is only one of the coal producing countries. The problem here is that we're talking about jobs and obviously if you're not a coal miner you must do something else. But what? We are working on it but it's a slow process and we have a Govt which is far too slow off the mark. Most of our coal goes to China and the Govt angle (they tell us) is that mostly it's of a quality used to make steel, which the world cannot do without. We are actually in process of cutting down on the approval of coal mines but it's going to be a slow job. (In my opinion)
Probably Feco would know something about the varying qualities of coal, I don't.
Coal is basically graded as 4 sub sections if you include peat.
Lignite or brown coal is essentially sub surface peat, dirty and with little heat output.
Bituminous is generally deep mined, black and often quite shiny, it burns much hotter than either peat or Lignite and is more carbon intensive, so is more efficient as a fuel.
Bituminous is often classified as either sub-bituminous or bituminous, the difference being the development stage from lignite to ‘proper’ coal.
Bituminous is often used as power plant coal.
Anthracite is the best quality highest carbon coal and these days is generally used for steel making. It is normally the deepest mined.
In steel making, it is converted into coke which is pretty much pure carbon, and is then fed into the furnace as a raw material alongside the iron ore.
Unfortunately if you want steel you need coal.
Australia has some of the best anthracite or high carbon coal hence why the Chinese buy a lot.
My old Power Station used US coal, Kentucky coal to be precise.
It had an unusual feature of refusing to burn anywhere other than on conveyor belts or bunkers.
But it was cheap......
