Tag: mineral fuels

• Raniganj power plant is located in the Barddhaman district of west Bengal. Discovery of coal led to industrialisation in this area. It is a pithead coal based thermal power plant.
  
• Coal mining in India first started in the Raniganj Coalfield. In 1774, John Sumner and Suetonius Grant Heatly of the British East India Company found coal.
  

Coal- formed of organic material deposited one layer above the other. Across millions of years, due to physical and chemical changes, oxygen was forced out and was left with carbon-rich deposits.

Fossil fuels are non-renewable sources of energy, that means they take millions of year to form fossil fuel, so we need to conserve them. Coal, petroleum and natural gas are the conventional sources of thermal power in India. They all are an example of fossil fuel. A large number of fossil fuels are burnt every day in power stations to heat water to produce steam which further runs the turbine to generate electricity. The term thermal power plant is used since fuel is burnt to produce heat energy which is converted into electrical energy. 

Anthracite is the best quality of coal with least ash content. Anthracite is a hard, compact variety of mineral coal that has a high luster. It has the highest carbon count and contains the fewest impurities of all coals, and has the highest calorific content as compared to other types of coals such as bituminous coal and lignite.

In the Panadhro village, in the district of Kutchchh is the Power Station, which utilises lignite type of coal. Lignite is a brown colour coal. Panadhro village has coal mines, which directly supplies coal to the power station. At present the power station has four units. 

Haematite is a reddish-black mineral and an important ore of iron. It has a high iron content of 70 percent. It can be found in areas of volcanic activity or hot springs. Much hematite occurs in a soft, fine-grained, earthy form called red ochre.