These days we’re used to reading and hearing
about the growth in renewable energy projects—particularly wind based—across
North America. But there’s other news connected to the subject that isn’t heard
so often. All over North America stand tall, ugly and still wind turbines. No,
their giant propellers are not turning because today there is little wind,
they’re not turning because they have been abandoned. Left to rot and blight
the landscape as the renewable energy tax incentives and subsidies that helped
create them dry up.
Yet through it all, the investment in technology
that has allowed progress in creating renewable energy—however unsuccessful
some of those projects may have been—has also driven the coal-mining industry
forward. Coal mining today is a considerably cleaner and massively more
responsible industry than it was just a few short decades ago.
Coal is
the ultimate infrastructure-building energy, with it’s burning properties ideal
for steel production.
And so, we should count ourselves lucky that the
world’s—and Canada’s—reserves of coal are so rich. Known reserves currently
number around 1,000 billion tons, with around 10 billion tons held here, in the
Great White North—that’s more than our gas and crude and tar sands oil
combined. Canada’s coal industry is a huge revenue generator for this country,
as well as a massive employer—proving a valuable asset for the country as a
whole. And for other countries—especially in Asia, too. As the world slowly
pulls free of recession, the furnaces of China begin once more to burn brightly
and thirst for coal. And after recent floods in Australia (one of China’s major
coal importers) made it impossible for that country to deliver its quota, China
is eyeing Canada as a possible replacement source.
Monmet, a dynamic consulting and engineering
firm, specializing in castings, forgings, machining and fabrication help keep
the coal-mining industry here at home—and abroad—working through their design,
build and delivery of quality components.
For more information, contact Monmet today.
http://coal.ca/content/