sample essays of IELTS

42 Coal-fired power plants

The invention of the incandescent light bulb by Thomas A. Edison in 1879
created a demand for a cheap, readily available fuel with which to
generate large amounts of electric power. Coal seemed to fit the bill,
and it fueled the earliest power stations. (which were set up at the end
of the nineteenth century by Edison himself). As more power plants were
constructed throughout the country, the reliance on coal increased
throughout the country, the reliance on coal increased. Since the First
World War, coal-fired power plants had a combined in the United States
each year. In 1986 such plants had a combined generating capacity of
289,000 megawatts and consumed 83 percent of the nearly 900 million tons
of coal mined in the country that year. Given the uncertainty in the
future growth of the nearly 900 million tons of coal mined in the
country that year. Given the uncertainty in the future growth of nuclear
power and in the supply of oil and natural gas, coal-fired power plants
could well provide up to 70 percent of the electric power in the United
States by the end of the century.

Yet, in spite of the fact that coal has long been a source of
electricity and may remain on for many years(coal represents about 80
percent of United States fossil-fuel reserves), it has actually never
been the most desirable fossil fuel for power plants. Coal contains less
energy per unit of weight than weight than natural gas or oil; it is
difficult to transport, and it is associated with a host of
environmental issues, among them acid rain. Since the late 1960s
problems of emission control and waste disposal have sharply reduced the
appeal of coal-fired power plants. The cost of ameliorating these
environment problems along with the rising cost of building a facility
as large and complex as a coal-fired power plant, have also made such
plants less attractive from a purely economic perspective.

Changes in the technological base of coal-fired power plants could
restore their attractiveness, however. Whereas some of these changes are
intended mainly to increase the productivity of existing plants,
completely new technologies for burning coal cleanly are also being
developed.