The natural resource I am writing this article about is coal. Coal is a cheap, dirty fossil fuel that we burn to produce electricity. Coal is most abundant in North America and Russia, including surrounding areas. China also has a pretty good amount of coal. Coal, like all other fossil fuels, is not renewable and will eventually run out in the not-so-near future. Coal is very important to many countries around the world. The countries that use the most coal are China, the United States, India, Russia and Japan. These five countries “represent 76% of total global coal consumption”. (World Coal Association, 2014). Lower quality coal is used to produce electricity. To produce electricity, they burn coal in a power plant to produce steam. The steam then passes through a turbine and generates electricity. Better quality coal is used to make iron and steel. Coal is extracted from nature by mining, either from an underground mine or from an overhead mine. Due to the difficulty of underground mining, coal from underground mines sells for a higher price. Once extracted, the coal is treated to remove impurities. Finally, it is transported: “The cost of transporting coal can be higher than the cost of extracting it. » (US Energy Information Administration, 2013). Transportation methods include truck, barge, train and pipeline. Coal has a very negative impact on the environment, with one of the main impacts on the environment being the very process of extracting coal from the ground. The two ways of mining coal, underground and above ground, both have different effects on the environment. The first way to mine coal is to dig tunnels and create mine shafts underground, then remove the coal from middle of paper......summer are all more expensive than other cars and coal.4. The reason we're not replacing coal power is that it produces a cost-effective amount of power, just like most cars get a pretty good mpg. While solar and wind are not efficient and require a ton of sun and wind and entire farms of panels or windmills to produce the same amount of energy, which comes down to the fact that solar and wind wind power are more expensive.5. Solar and wind power are not compatible with energy production if there is no sun or wind, just like finding fuel is not compatible with electric vehicles because very few places have pumps electrical. Note that nuclear power is another alternative fuel source, which would be like a very expensive Prius that sometimes leaks radiation when it experiences a major breakdown. Which is scary, because many Prius owners don't even know how to change a flat tire..