It worked!

It worked!

Like it provided heat in my house.

As a Marine in my past, I know about being cold. No amount of long johns could help my cause when living in a canvas tent with a dirt floor in a Korean winter.  I just got cold, like bone chilling cold. But I also survived. When I returned to Okinawa, it took around 5 days to get the cold out of my bones.

People in Nebraska and Boston and Norway and plenty of other northern areas already know about all this, too.

I still resent one dirt bag Marine getting hard time (like prison) credit for living in the cold like I did routinely. It was just part of my getting the mission accomplished in spite of the weather. It was not "fun". Being in the military is often not "fun".

So yesterday I burned some local Tennessee coal that had been buried in the damp soil for decades.  And it burned OK, like down to nothing. I figured maybe I got some humidity value out of it, too.

Why mention this?  Because I like being warm enough and we happen to be having a chilly spring spell where I live. Now again I also wear plenty of warm stuff, too.

Now all coal is not created equal.  Some has a sulfur smell when burned, for example.  As an old male I can't smell it, but a younger female nurse said she could. Basically, there is the best coal, bituminous, but also anthracite coal, which around here in Tennessee is pretty good, too. The quality factor kicks in, so to speak. Plus remember most coal wants O2 from below vice the O2 from above that our wood fires use. And coal often requires double grates as it burns so hot it will degrade metal quicker than wood fires do. Coal often needs a good hot fire just to get going, also.

I also have read and seen pictures that when we burned coal for heat routinely often terrible hazes and even staining of buildings occurred from all the coal soot in the air. Hopefully, if push comes to shove, and more people burn coal because they have to, we will keep our air clean, too. The pictures of the terrible air pollution in China  (from coal and Gobi desert sands) comes to mind.

But so does my local coal seam come to mind, which I will mine as necessary. It's around 400 meters from where I live. But by golly, if it equates to heat (and year round cooking) in the cold season, I'll do what's necessary to stay warm enough.

So in the end, keep coal, and really all fossil fuels, in mind as a source of heat  (and cooking) during the coming cold season. Even former Governor, and now Senator Manchin from West Virginia addressed this issue recently.  His bottom line to me was simple. Let's use common sense about our heat and other such things, including timing and keeping our air clean enough for us and our children.