In a coal-fired power plant, coal is crushed into dust that is burned to produce heat. That heat is then used to produce steam that spins a turbine to create electricity. Coal itself is a fossil fuel that mostly formed about 300 million years ago, although some of it is just 1 million years old and still forming. During the time it was formed, most of the land was covered with swampy areas. Coal formed when carbon-rich vegetation sank to the bottom of bogs and eventually built a layer of thick material called peat. Over the years, the peat was buried further under layers of rocks and compressed, squeezing the water out of it and heating it. The heat and pressure eventually turned the peat into coal, making it a sedimentary rock. Scientists estimate that approximately 267 billion tons of coal can be mined and used. Around 1000 BC, the first mention of the use of coal appeared in China. They used it to smelt copper. For the first coal-fired mechanisms, coal was manually fed into boilers to produce steam in the late 1800s. Since that time, the technology continues...