The natural resource I am writing this article about is coal. Coal is a cheap and dirty fossil fuel that we burn to create energy. Coal is the most abundant in North America and Russia, including the surrounding area. China also has a fair amount of coal. Coal, like all other fossil fuels, is non-renewable and will run out sooner or later, in the not so near future. Coal is very important for many countries in the world. The countries that use the most coal are China, the United States, India, Russia and Japan. These five countries “account for 76% of total global coal consumption.” (World Coal Association, 2014). Lower quality coal is used to generate electricity. To generate electricity they burn coal in a power plant to produce steam. The steam then travels through a turbine and generates energy. Higher quality coal is used to make iron and steel. Coal is recovered from nature through mining, either from an underground mine or an aboveground mine. Due to the difficulty of underground mining, coal from underground mines is sold at a higher price. After the coal is mined, it is processed to remove impurities. Finally it is transported: “The cost of shipping the coal can be higher than the cost of mining it.” (U.S. Energy Information Administration, 2013). Transportation methods include trucks, barges, trains, and pipelines. Coal has a very negative impact on the environment, one of the main impacts on the environment is the actual process of extracting coal from the ground. The two ways coal is mined, underground and above ground, both have different effects on the environment. The first way coal is mined is by digging tunnels and creating underground mine shafts and then removing the coal from the… middle of paper… in the summer they are all more expensive than other cars and coal.4 . The reason we don't replace coal power is because it produces a profitable amount of power, just like most cars get pretty good MPG. Although solar and wind energy are not efficient and require tons of sun and wind as well as entire arrays of panels or mills to produce the same amount of energy, this goes back to the fact that solar and wind energy are more expensive.5 . Solar and wind energy are not compatible with energy production if there is no sun or wind, just as finding fuel is not compatible with electric vehicles because there are few places equipped with electric pumps. Note that nuclear power is another alternative fuel source, which would be like a really expensive Prius that sometimes leaks radiation when it suffers a major failure. Which is a scary thought because many Prius owners don't even know how to change a flat tire.