That version of the story goes something like this: On July 1, 1937, Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan departed from Lae, New Guinea in Earhartâs Lockheed Electra 10, on what was to be the longest portion of Earhartâs highly publicized round-the-world flight.
The youngest coal is not even coal yet -- peat. Peat is a traditional fuel in parts of the world, like Ireland, where it is cut from the earth, dried, and burned for heat. The energy content of peat is quite low. Young coal is called lignite, and is soft and brown, not much different than dried peat.
Formed deep underground over thousands of years of heat and pressure, coal is a carbon-rich black rock that releases energy when burned. In the United States, roughly 30 percent of all electricity comes from coal: the rest comes from natural gas, nuclear, and renewables like wind and solar. Most US coal comes from either above-ground mines in Wyoming and Montana, or underground mines in Appalachia.