Quote:
Originally Posted by mlyonsd
ANYWAY, I heard one for Blue Rock Coal a few weeks back. "Burns cleaner than other brands. The next time you need coal try Blue Rock". Interesting peak into the past.
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As odd as it is to contemplate today, where any residential coal burning has pretty much gone by the wayside, as an organically based material, touting it's cleanliness is actually merited.
Blue Rock was anthracite out of Pennsylvania. Also generally labelled as hard rock or diamond coal, it was and is the highest in carbon content and lowest in adulterants and tarry byproducts. It's also highest in energy content by mass.
It's really no different than touting cherry smoked barbecue, as opposed to some idiot trying to make barbecue with pine 2x4s or some shit.
Nowadays the vast majority of our coal consumption, particularly west of the Mississippi is Wyoming 'buffalo dung' because even though it's lower in energy and higher in particulate is vastly cheaper and easier to excavate than the anthracite locked in mountain veins in the East. Plus our scrubbing tech means that the particulates are largely sequestered anyway, regardless of source fuel.
But back when you were chucking lumps into your home furnace, there was reason to be concerned about how clean burning your source fuel was relative to the competition.