People's Pilot, Volume 2, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 May 1893 — How Fast Coal Is Going. [ARTICLE]

How Fast Coal Is Going.

A statistician has attempted to determine approximately the world’s consumption of coal. He estimates that in generating steam for engines aggregating 10,000,000 horse power (some authors rate the world’s engines as high as 20,000,000 horse power) coal is burned to the amount of about 12,000 tons per hour. For gas for lighting, the consumption is not less than 10,000 tons per hour; and for gas for heating and motive power, probably 4,500 tons. In metallurgy, the use of coal reaches about 9,000 tons per hour; and in workshops and factories, 5,000 tons. It is difficult to calculate the quantity employed for domestic purposes, but 55,000 tons per hour, or 1,320,000 tons per day of twenty-four hours, seems to be an under-estimate. Placing the actual daily consumption for the entire world as low as 1,600,000 tons, we find that a solid cube of coal more than 100 yards on a side is burned up every day.