What Is Coal Used For?
Coal is primarily used to generate electricity. In fact, nine out of every ten tons of coal mined in the United States today is used to generate electricity, and about 56 percent of the electricity used in this country is coal-generated electricity. In addition, manufacturing plants and industries use coal to make chemicals, cement, paper, ceramics, and metal products, to name a few. Coal’s methanol and ethylene are used to make products such as plastics, medicines, fertilizers, and tar. Certain industries consume large amounts of coal. For example, concrete and paper companies burn coal, and the steel industry uses coke and coal by-products to make steel for bridges, buildings, and automobiles. Coal is still used in the iron and steel industry, but the domestic use of coke, a substance made by heating coal to very high temperatures, has decreased because of changes in blast-furnace and steel-making technologies as well as shifts in steel demand. About 9 percent of U.S.-mined coal is a
