The processing plant !

The raw coal coming from underground cannot be used just as it is. In order to reach a quality that can be shipped to the customers, the coal has to pass the processing plant first.

The first step of the processing is dividing the coal from the spoil by putting everything into a large washbasin with water, where the lighter coal will swim at the surface and the heavier rocks will sink down. After having finished that step, the material will be standardized to reach a certain regularity and then mixed with coal that was processed before. This is a result of the fact that the coal's quality is not equal, but small changes in quality are enough to cause problems in today's high technology power plants, for example. By mixing the recently processed coal with the one of other days or seams a constant quality can be guaranteed. The photo above was taken at the former Niederberg colliery in the city of Neukirchen-Vluyn in Germany.

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