Coalpail.com Forum

The topic for our sixth live broadcast will be "Coal Buying and Storage".

A previous show "Coal Hoarding" took a look at buying in bulk in large quantities such as tractor trailer load. This show will focus more on the average consumer buying in smaller quantities. Bulk vs. bagged, storage methods and other things related to purchasing and storing coal.

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I'd like to know. Just how susceptible is coal to freezing? I currently have it in my old wood shed. The shed has tarps for side walls. It does get a little snow in it when it blows hard. Should I cover the coal pile with a tarp to keep all the snow off?

Thanks for the great show and all your efforts.

Minor correction from the show. During the discussion about coal at the top of an outdoor pile "unfreezing" I said ice will evaporate during the winter, just like ice cubes will shrink if left in the freezer for many weeks. I meant to say the ice will sublimate, not evaporate.

See, we even give mini-chemistry lessons in our shows.

pvolcko wrote:Minor correction from the show. During the discussion about coal at the top of an outdoor pile "unfreezing" I said ice will evaporate during the winter, just like ice cubes will shrink if left in the freezer for many weeks. I meant to say the ice will sublimate, not evaporate.

See, we even give mini-chemistry lessons in our shows.

The term Freeze-dry works too
Your "Ice cube in the freezer" comparison may not hold water as the auto-defroster in most late model freezers tend to MELT the cubes during its de-frosting cycles.

Minor correction to the correction. It's a physics lesson not a chemistry lesson. Sublimate = the physical process by which a solid changes into a vapor without first becoming a liquid. In this case ice to water vapor. Sorry couldn't resist. I worked for the Applied "Physics" Laboratory!

pvolcko wrote: I meant to say the ice will sublimate, not evaporate.

Had to look that up.

One thing to add about the freezing is that it's a strange animal. Over the breaker even during the coldest days the piles of rice never fully freeze. Suppose if we dump a big pile of soaking wet coal onto a pile. The top layer will form a crust that might be about a foot thick the next day however through the process of sublimation the top of this will dry out so you'll have a dry unfrozen layer then a few inches of frozen stuff and then wet coal under if it's left undisturbed. That coal will stay wet for an entire winter and never freeze as long as the pile is big enough.

Overall as long as you keep most of the moisture out of it you won't have any problems. One issue that might crop up is if it can't drain or you have a an opening at the bottom. The water may freeze up in such areas and the lower it is in the bin the dirtier it is. Ice coal and coal dust is much tougher than just ice, it's not very easy to break at all.

Yanche wrote:Minor correction to the correction. It's a physics lesson not a chemistry lesson. Sublimate = the physical process by which a solid changes into a vapor without first becoming a liquid. In this case ice to water vapor. Sorry couldn't resist. I worked for the Applied "Physics" Laboratory!

Yes, I know, state changes are physics... but most people are first exposed to them academically in either chemistry components of general "science" classes or in actual chemistry classes, usually using a salt-water vs fresh water example or simply discussing all the state changes of water. It's a gray are in practice, even if it is absolutely a physics domain property of matter.

Regardless, a stupid mistake on my part to call it evaporation. I'll sit in the corner for 5 minutes now.

Aside from discussing physics, is the last Coalcast ready for download yet? I can't seem to find it on the site.

Thanks in advance,

Will

Sorry, I'm way late on this. The edit is in progress, it will be up before I go to bed tonight.

And one more correction to the show. We stated a ton of anthracite coal has 13 million BTU in it, the actual figure is 25 million BTU.

pvolcko wrote:Sorry, I'm way late on this. The edit is in progress, it will be up before I go to bed tonight.

And one more correction to the show. We stated a ton of anthracite coal has 13 million BTU in it, the actual figure is 25 million BTU.

That sounds better, works out to an avg 12,500 BTU/LB.

MP3 is posted at the top of the thread. Enjoy.