99-489: The Kemper Project , also called the Kemper County energy facility or Plant Ratcliffe , is a natural gas-fired electrical generating station currently under construction in Kemper County, Mississippi . Mississippi Power , a subsidiary of Southern Company , began construction of the plant in 2010. The initial, coal-fired project was central to President Obama's Climate Plan, as it was to be based on " clean coal " and
198-512: A cyclothem . Cyclothems are thought to have their origin in glacial cycles that produced fluctuations in sea level , which alternately exposed and then flooded large areas of continental shelf. The woody tissue of plants is composed mainly of cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin. Modern peat is mostly lignin, with a content of cellulose and hemicellulose ranging from 5% to 40%. Various other organic compounds, such as waxes and nitrogen- and sulfur-containing compounds, are also present. Lignin has
297-644: A chance to be a remarkable leader in the country in the next 10 to 20 years." The Kemper Project received an estimated $ 270 million in Department of Energy funds after the Southern Company's plan for the proposed Orlando Gasification Project bunked when Florida decided the state was not interested in more coal plants . These transferred funds were moved from Florida to Mississippi in December 2008, after Haley Barbour's Washington D.C. lobbying firm,
396-601: A commercial scale has been in development since the 1970s, and it has been in use since the mid-1980s. The TRIG technology, derived from fluidized catalytic cracking units used in the petrochemical industry, uses a pressurized, circulating fluidized bed unit. The transport gasification system features higher efficiencies and is capable of processing low-rank coals, such as lignite. Additionally, commercial TRIG units can be designed to achieve high environmental standards for sulfur dioxide , nitrogen dioxide , dust emissions, mercury , and carbon dioxide . Cost analysis based on
495-477: A cost of $ 2.4 billion. As of June 2017, the project was still not in service, and the cost had increased to $ 7.5 billion. According to a Sierra Club analysis, Kemper is the most expensive power plant ever built, based on its generating capacity. In June 2017, Southern Company and Mississippi Power announced that the Kemper project would switch to burning only natural gas in an effort to manage costs. Kemper County
594-496: A fuel. While coal has been known and used for thousands of years, its usage was limited until the Industrial Revolution . With the invention of the steam engine , coal consumption increased. In 2020, coal supplied about a quarter of the world's primary energy and over a third of its electricity . Some iron and steel -making and other industrial processes burn coal. The extraction and burning of coal damages
693-409: A household in the county was $ 23,998, and the median income for a family was $ 30,248. Males had a median income of $ 24,431 versus $ 18,199 for females. The per capita income for the county was $ 11,985. About 21.20% of families and 26.00% of the population were below the poverty line , including 35.30% of those under age 18 and 26.70% of those age 65 or over. Kemper County is within the service area of
792-675: A posse, he killed a white constable and was quickly lynched by the other whites. As reported by The New York Times , Not satisfied with the punishment of this man, the whites immediately set out to strike terror into the negroes, who had been getting defiant of late. They found two sons of Simpson and lynched them, filling their bodies with bullets. Two other negroes who had behaved defiantly were treated in similar fashion. Whites worried about blacks gathering to take revenge at Wahalak, where they had already been abused by lynchings. Local authorities called for state militia. Their commanding officer took his troops away from Wahalak, although there
891-417: A process called carbonization . Carbonization proceeds primarily by dehydration , decarboxylation , and demethanation. Dehydration removes water molecules from the maturing coal via reactions such as Decarboxylation removes carbon dioxide from the maturing coal: while demethanation proceeds by reaction such as In these formulas, R represents the remainder of a cellulose or lignin molecule to which
990-463: A storage site for the CO 2 . The Kemper Plant was planned to have 60 miles of pipeline to carry its captured CO 2 to neighboring oil reserves for enhanced oil recovery . Each year, the plant will capture 3 million tons of CO 2 . In March 2014, The Guardian published that the diverted CO 2 will be pumped into two Mississippi companies for use in enhanced oil recovery. The Department of Energy,
1089-468: A switch in fuels happened in London in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Historian Ruth Goodman has traced the socioeconomic effects of that switch and its later spread throughout Britain and suggested that its importance in shaping the industrial adoption of coal has been previously underappreciated. The development of the Industrial Revolution led to the large-scale use of coal, as
SECTION 10
#17327904725991188-561: A tenth. Indonesia and Australia export the most, followed by Russia . The word originally took the form col in Old English , from reconstructed Proto-Germanic * kula ( n ), from Proto-Indo-European root * g ( e ) u-lo- "live coal". Germanic cognates include the Old Frisian kole , Middle Dutch cole , Dutch kool , Old High German chol , German Kohle and Old Norse kol . Irish gual
1287-403: A weight basis. This composition reflects partly the composition of the precursor plants. The second main fraction of coal is ash, an undesirable, noncombustable mixture of inorganic minerals. The composition of ash is often discussed in terms of oxides obtained after combustion in air: Of particular interest is the sulfur content of coal, which can vary from less than 1% to as much as 4%. Most of
1386-406: A weight composition of about 54% carbon, 6% hydrogen, and 30% oxygen, while cellulose has a weight composition of about 44% carbon, 6% hydrogen, and 49% oxygen. Bituminous coal has a composition of about 84.4% carbon, 5.4% hydrogen, 6.7% oxygen, 1.7% nitrogen, and 1.8% sulfur, on a weight basis. The low oxygen content of coal shows that coalification removed most of the oxygen and much of the hydrogen
1485-681: Is a county located on the central eastern border of the U.S. state of Mississippi . As of the 2020 census , the population was 8,988. Its county seat is De Kalb . The county is named in honor of Reuben Kemper . The county is part of the Meridian , MS Micropolitan Statistical Area . In 2010 the Mississippi Public Service Commission approved construction of the Kemper Project , designed to use "clean coal" to produce electricity for 23 counties in
1584-691: Is a small county in eastern Mississippi, roughly 30 miles north of Meridian . Kemper County was chosen as the site for the plant to take advantage of local brown coal ( lignite ), an untapped natural resource, while providing geographic diversity to help balance the electric demand and strengthen electric reliability in Mississippi. Mississippi Power is a large energy company based in Gulfport, providing energy for Gulfport , Biloxi , Hattiesburg , Meridian , Pascagoula , Columbia , Laurel , Waveland , Lucedale and Picayune . Mississippi Power intended
1683-578: Is a superior coal-gasification method with low impacts to the environment. TRIG technology can utilize lignite, which accounts for more than half of the world's coal reserves and drove global interest in the plant. Power Magazine posted an article in April 2013, walking through the technology in technical detail. They say, "Commercial TRIG units can be designed to achieve high environmental standards for SO 2 , NO x , dust emissions, mercury, and CO 2 . Cost analysis based on extensive design has shown that
1782-453: Is a type of fossil fuel , formed when dead plant matter decays into peat which is converted into coal by the heat and pressure of deep burial over millions of years. Vast deposits of coal originate in former wetlands called coal forests that covered much of the Earth's tropical land areas during the late Carboniferous ( Pennsylvanian ) and Permian times. Coal is used primarily as
1881-584: Is also a cognate via the Indo-European root. The conversion of dead vegetation into coal is called coalification . At various times in the geologic past, the Earth had dense forests in low-lying areas. In these wetlands, the process of coalification began when dead plant matter was protected from oxidation , usually by mud or acidic water, and was converted into peat . The resulting peat bogs , which trapped immense amounts of carbon, were eventually deeply buried by sediments. Then, over millions of years,
1980-429: Is burned in a turbine). Hot exhaust gases from the turbine are used to raise steam in a heat recovery steam generator which powers a supplemental steam turbine . The overall plant efficiency when used to provide combined heat and power can reach as much as 94%. IGCC power plants emit less local pollution than conventional pulverized coal-fueled plants. Other ways to use coal are as coal-water slurry fuel (CWS), which
2079-603: Is entirely vertical; however, metamorphism may cause lateral changes of rank, irrespective of depth. For example, some of the coal seams of the Madrid, New Mexico coal field were partially converted to anthracite by contact metamorphism from an igneous sill while the remainder of the seams remained as bituminous coal. The earliest recognized use is from the Shenyang area of China where by 4000 BC Neolithic inhabitants had begun carving ornaments from black lignite. Coal from
SECTION 20
#17327904725992178-455: Is made when metallurgical coal (also known as coking coal ) is baked in an oven without oxygen at temperatures as high as 1,000 °C, driving off the volatile constituents and fusing together the fixed carbon and residual ash. Metallurgical coke is used as a fuel and as a reducing agent in smelting iron ore in a blast furnace . The carbon monoxide produced by its combustion reduces hematite (an iron oxide ) to iron. Pig iron , which
2277-409: Is more abundant, and anthracite. The % carbon in coal follows the order anthracite > bituminous > lignite > brown coal. The fuel value of coal varies in the same order. Some anthracite deposits contain pure carbon in the form of graphite . For bituminous coal, the elemental composition on a dry, ash-free basis of 84.4% carbon, 5.4% hydrogen, 6.7% oxygen, 1.7% nitrogen, and 1.8% sulfur, on
2376-489: Is most cost-effective when using low-heat content, high moisture, or high-ash content coals, including lignite. According to the U.S. Department of Energy , coal gasification offers one of the most versatile and clean ways to convert coal into electricity, hydrogen , and other valuable energy products. Rather than burning coal directly, gasification (a thermo-chemical process) breaks down coal into its basic chemical constituents. The technology of processing coal to gas on
2475-475: Is not a possibility, as some emissions will still be emitted into the atmosphere. Carbon capture and sequestration, also referred to as carbon capture and storage (CCS), is a technology that can capture up to 90% of the carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions. CCS uses a combination of technologies to capture the CO 2 released in the combustion process, transport it to a suitable storage location and finally store it (typically deep underground) where it cannot enter
2574-452: Is used as fuel. 27.6% of world energy was supplied by coal in 2017 and Asia used almost three-quarters of it. Other large-scale applications also exist. The energy density of coal is roughly 24 megajoules per kilogram (approximately 6.7 kilowatt-hours per kg). For a coal power plant with a 40% efficiency, it takes an estimated 325 kg (717 lb) of coal to power a 100 W lightbulb for one year. In 2022, 68% of global coal use
2673-440: Is used to generate electricity, 13.5 percent to generate synthetic natural gas , and 7.5 percent to produce fertilizer products. Mississippi has an estimated five billion tons of coal reserves, consisting almost entirely of eocene lignite. The typical lignite beds that can be economically mined range from two to nine feet thick. Mississippi's lignite resources equal about 13 percent of total U.S. lignite reserves. The Kemper plant
2772-715: The Bronze Age (3000–2000 BC), where it formed part of funeral pyres . In Roman Britain , with the exception of two modern fields, "the Romans were exploiting coals in all the major coalfields in England and Wales by the end of the second century AD". Evidence of trade in coal, dated to about AD 200, has been found at the Roman settlement at Heronbridge , near Chester ; and in the Fenlands of East Anglia , where coal from
2871-657: The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and were inadmissible at trial. The peak of population in the rural county was in 1930. Mechanization of agriculture decreased the need for farm labor. From 1940 to 1970, the population declined markedly, as may be seen on the table below, as people moved to other areas for work. This was also the period of the second wave of the Great Migration , when 5 million African Americans moved out of
2970-641: The East Mississippi Community College system. The main campus of EMCC, including the college system's administrative headquarters, is in the Scooba Campus in Scooba . The county is governed by a five-member elected Board of Supervisors, who are elected from single-member districts. The County Sheriff, Chancery Clerk, Circuit Clerk, and Tax Assessor are also elected to office. Kemper County generally votes for candidates of
3069-521: The Fushun mine in northeastern China was used to smelt copper as early as 1000 BC. Marco Polo , the Italian who traveled to China in the 13th century, described coal as "black stones ... which burn like logs", and said coal was so plentiful, people could take three hot baths a week. In Europe, the earliest reference to the use of coal as fuel is from the geological treatise On Stones (Lap. 16) by
Kemper Project - Misplaced Pages Continue
3168-607: The Midlands was transported via the Car Dyke for use in drying grain. Coal cinders have been found in the hearths of villas and Roman forts , particularly in Northumberland , dated to around AD 400. In the west of England, contemporary writers described the wonder of a permanent brazier of coal on the altar of Minerva at Aquae Sulis (modern day Bath ), although in fact easily accessible surface coal from what became
3267-564: The Securities and Exchange Commission related to overruns at the Kemper Project. The project had been repeatedly delayed and costs increased from $ 2.88 billion to $ 6.7 billion. In June 2016, Mississippi Power was sued by Treetop Midstream Services over the cancellation of a contract to receive carbon dioxide from the Kemper Project as part of the carbon capture and storage design. Treetop had contracted to buy carbon dioxide from
3366-728: The Somerset coalfield was in common use in quite lowly dwellings locally. Evidence of coal's use for iron -working in the city during the Roman period has been found. In Eschweiler , Rhineland , deposits of bituminous coal were used by the Romans for the smelting of iron ore . No evidence exists of coal being of great importance in Britain before about AD 1000, the High Middle Ages . Coal came to be referred to as "seacoal" in
3465-491: The coal gap in the Permian–Triassic extinction event , where coal is rare. Favorable geography alone does not explain the extensive Carboniferous coal beds. Other factors contributing to rapid coal deposition were high oxygen levels, above 30%, that promoted intense wildfires and formation of charcoal that was all but indigestible by decomposing organisms; high carbon dioxide levels that promoted plant growth; and
3564-447: The steam engine took over from the water wheel . In 1700, five-sixths of the world's coal was mined in Britain. Britain would have run out of suitable sites for watermills by the 1830s if coal had not been available as a source of energy. In 1947 there were some 750,000 miners in Britain, but the last deep coal mine in the UK closed in 2015. A grade between bituminous coal and anthracite
3663-407: The 13th century; the wharf where the material arrived in London was known as Seacoal Lane, so identified in a charter of King Henry III granted in 1253. Initially, the name was given because much coal was found on the shore, having fallen from the exposed coal seams on cliffs above or washed out of underwater coal outcrops, but by the time of Henry VIII , it was understood to derive from the way it
3762-473: The BGR Group, pushed for the reallocation. Southern Company has been a BGR client since 1999, having spent a total of $ 2.6 million with the firm, according to federal lobbying disclosure documents. Southern Company alleges that Governor Barbour did not help them receive any additional funding at all. The BGR Group website has deleted all connections with Southern Company from its website. Mississippi state law
3861-596: The Carboniferous, and suggested that climatic and tectonic factors were a more plausible explanation, reconstruction of ancestral enzymes by phylogenetic analysis corroborated a hypothesis that lignin degrading enzymes appeared in fungi approximately 200 MYa. One likely tectonic factor was the Central Pangean Mountains , an enormous range running along the equator that reached its greatest elevation near this time. Climate modeling suggests that
3960-598: The Central Pangean Mountains contributed to the deposition of vast quantities of coal in the late Carboniferous. The mountains created an area of year-round heavy precipitation, with no dry season typical of a monsoon climate. This is necessary for the preservation of peat in coal swamps. Coal is known from Precambrian strata, which predate land plants. This coal is presumed to have originated from residues of algae. Sometimes coal seams (also known as coal beds) are interbedded with other sediments in
4059-763: The Democratic Party; the Republican presidential nominee has won it only four times in the past century. In 2010, the Mississippi Public Service Commission approved the construction of a lignite coal plant in Kemper County to be financed by electricity customers in twenty-three southeastern Mississippi counties being served by Mississippi Power Company . It is designed as a model project to use gasification and carbon-capture technologies at this scale. The plant
Kemper Project - Misplaced Pages Continue
4158-584: The Earth's atmosphere. In 2013, the United States' coal use was 40%, dominating all other energy sources. Realizing the demand for coal was not decreasing, Mississippi Power, Southern Company, KBR, and the Department of Energy invested in technology to capture emissions from burning fossil fuels. The investing bodies argued the type of clean coal technology they claim are found at the Kemper Project will be adopted worldwide; bringing profits back to Mississippi customers. Environmentalists state that clean coal
4257-577: The Greek scientist Theophrastus (c. 371–287 BC): Among the materials that are dug because they are useful, those known as anthrakes [coals] are made of earth, and, once set on fire, they burn like charcoal [anthrakes]. They are found in Liguria ;... and in Elis as one approaches Olympia by the mountain road; and they are used by those who work in metals. Outcrop coal was used in Britain during
4356-746: The Kemper Coal Plant's design has shown that the economic benefits offered by the air-blown transport gasifier, relative to other systems, are preserved even when carbon dioxide capture and sequestration methodologies are incorporated into the design. The largest transport gasifier built to date commenced operation in 1996 at Southern Company 's PSDF. The gasifier and auxiliary equipment at the site were sized to provide reliable data for confident scale-up to commercial scale. The demonstration unit proved easy to operate and control, achieving more than 15,600 hours of gasification. The demonstration-scale gasifier successfully gasified high-moisture lignite from
4455-408: The Kemper Project to produce cleaner energy through the use of integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) and carbon capture technologies, eliminating the majority of emissions normally emitted by a traditional coal plant . A study conducted by Southern Company (parent of Mississippi Power) stated that the Kemper Project would have been "a large undertaking with high visibility and ... help set
4554-451: The Kemper plant and had built a pipeline in preparation to receive the gas. Treetop alleged Mississippi Power had fraudulently and "intentionally misrepresenting and concealing the start date" for the Kemper Project, though Mississippi Power stated the suit was without merit. The company was also found to have unlawfully fired a whistle-blower who had criticized alleged false statements by company management. Environmental groups argue that
4653-414: The Kemper site—into syngas . The natural gas would then have been used to power turbines to generate electricity. Mississippi Power stated that, by adding coal to its sources of power, it wished to add balance to its fuel-source choices, and be less reliant on any one form of energy. There is an estimated four billion tons of lignite available to be used. If successful, the Kemper Project would have been
4752-807: The Red Hills Mine in Mississippi in four separate test campaigns for more than 2,300 hours of operations. On lignite, the transport gasifier operated smoothly over a range of conditions, confirming the gasifier design for Kemper County. In February 2015, the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled Mississippi Power must refund 186,000 South Mississippi ratepayers for rate increases related to the Kemper Project. These fees are derived from Mississippi's Baseload Act, allowing Mississippi Power to charge ratepayers for powerplants under construction. In May 2016, Southern Company and its subsidiary Mississippi Power announced they were being investigated by
4851-620: The South to the North and especially to the West Coast, where the defense industry had many jobs, beginning during World War II. According to the U.S. Census Bureau , the county has a total area of 767 square miles (1,990 km ), of which 766 square miles (1,980 km ) is land and 0.8 square miles (2.1 km ) (0.1%) is water. As of the 2020 United States Census , there were 8,988 people, 3,611 households, and 2,201 families residing in
4950-557: The Southern Company, and construction management firm KBR (Kellogg, Brown & Root) joined at the Power Systems Development Facility (PSDF) in Wilsonville, Alabama to develop a process known as Transport Integrated Gasification (TRIG). This development started in 1996, and the gasifier design of Southern Company's Kemper Coal Plant is based on this specific research and development. The technology
5049-400: The amount of oil recovered from an underground oil reservoir . By pumping CO 2 into an oil reservoir, previously unrecoverable oil is pushed up to where the oil can be reached. The US Department of Energy states that this can produce an additional 30 to 60 percent of the original amount of recoverable oil. Once all of the recoverable oil has been reached, the depleted reservoir can act as
SECTION 50
#17327904725995148-399: The atmosphere and thus contribute to climate change. CO 2 sequestration options include saline formations and oil wells, where captured CO 2 can be utilized in enhanced oil recovery. Due to rising global demand for energy, the consumption of fossil fuels is expected to rise until 2035, leading to greater CO 2 emissions. Carbon dioxide enhanced oil recovery or CO 2 -EOR increases
5247-408: The city of Meridian, the plant is using city wastewater as its only water source. Additionally, the Kemper Project site is a "zero" liquid discharge facility. Therefore, no processed water from the plant is discharged into rivers, creeks or streams. Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour has praised the planned project's potential of placing Mississippi in national prominence, mostly because it would be
5346-399: The county. As of the 2010 United States Census , there were 10,456 people living in the county. 60.1% were Black or African American , 35.3% White , 3.7% Native American , 0.1% Asian , 0.1% of some other race and 0.7% of two or more races . 0.5% were Hispanic or Latino (of any race). As of the census of 2000, there were 10,453 people, 3,909 households, and 2,787 families living in
5445-416: The county. The population density was 14 people per square mile (5.4 people/km ). There were 4,533 housing units at an average density of 6 units per square mile (2.3 units/km ). The racial makeup of the county was 58.13% Black or African American , 39.03% White , 2.06% Native American , 0.08% Asian , 0.03% Pacific Islander , 0.11% from other races , and 0.57% from two or more races. 0.73% of
5544-467: The eastern part of the state. As of February 2017 , it was not completed and had cost overruns. It is designed as a model project to use gasification and carbon-capture technologies at this scale. East Mississippi Community College is located in Kemper County in the town of Scooba , at the junction of US 45 and Mississippi Highway 16 . In the wake of the county's founding, Abel Mastin Key served as
5643-552: The economic benefits offered by the air-blown transport gasifier relative to other systems are preserved even when CO 2 capture and sequestration are incorporated into the design." If the carbon, capture and sequestration technology used at the Kemper Project had been successful, it would have been the United States’ first clean coal plant. The need for this type of technology has come from decades of debate among energy leaders on how to minimize carbon dioxide emissions into
5742-571: The environment , causing premature death and illness, and it is the largest anthropogenic source of carbon dioxide contributing to climate change . Fourteen billion tonnes of carbon dioxide were emitted by burning coal in 2020, which is 40% of total fossil fuel emissions and over 25% of total global greenhouse gas emissions . As part of worldwide energy transition , many countries have reduced or eliminated their use of coal power . The United Nations Secretary General asked governments to stop building new coal plants by 2020. Global coal use
5841-430: The evolution of the first trees . But bacteria and fungi did not immediately evolve the ability to decompose lignin, so the wood did not fully decay but became buried under sediment, eventually turning into coal. About 300 million years ago, mushrooms and other fungi developed this ability, ending the main coal-formation period of earth's history. Although some authors pointed at some evidence of lignin degradation during
5940-500: The facilities are planned to be built needs to be left alone. They argue that the position of the facilities on a wetland will pollute the environment with tainted water runoff. Also, they believe that the extraction of the lignite will erode the environment and force the relocation of many Mississippians. Mitigation construction activities included the enhancement of 31 acres of wetlands, 105 acres of riparian buffer, and approximately 3,000 linear feet of stream channel. In an agreement with
6039-519: The factors involved in coalification, temperature is much more important than either pressure or time of burial. Subbituminous coal can form at temperatures as low as 35 to 80 °C (95 to 176 °F) while anthracite requires a temperature of at least 180 to 245 °C (356 to 473 °F). Although coal is known from most geologic periods , 90% of all coal beds were deposited in the Carboniferous and Permian periods. Paradoxically, this
SECTION 60
#17327904725996138-484: The first U.S. commercial-scale power plant to capture carbon . Additionally, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich expressed his support for the Kemper Project, stating that in his opinion it had the potential to be the single most important experiment in developing electricity in the world today. Gingrich's closing words of encouragement for the Kemper Project and the state of Mississippi: "You have
6237-549: The first circuit clerk. Land in the area was developed in the 19th century by white planters for cotton cultivation using enslaved African Americans. Blacks have comprised the majority of the county population since before the American Civil War . The county continues to be largely rural. After the American Civil War and Reconstruction , racial violence increased as whites struggled to regain power over
6336-498: The form of iron pyrite (FeS 2 ). Being a dense mineral, it can be removed from coal by mechanical means, e.g. by froth flotation . Some sulfate occurs in coal, especially weathered samples. It is not volatilized and can be removed by washing. Minor components include: As minerals, Hg, As, and Se are not problematic to the environment, especially since they are only trace components. They become however mobile (volatile or water-soluble) when these minerals are combusted. Most coal
6435-475: The heat and pressure of deep burial caused the loss of water, methane and carbon dioxide and increased the proportion of carbon. The grade of coal produced depended on the maximum pressure and temperature reached, with lignite (also called "brown coal") produced under relatively mild conditions, and sub-bituminous coal , bituminous coal , or anthracite coal (also called "hard coal" or "black coal") produced in turn with increasing temperature and pressure. Of
6534-431: The increasing tendency of the anthracite to break with a conchoidal fracture , similar to the way thick glass breaks. As geological processes apply pressure to dead biotic material over time, under suitable conditions, its metamorphic grade or rank increases successively into: There are several international standards for coal. The classification of coal is generally based on the content of volatiles . However
6633-412: The majority population of freedmen and to suppress their voting. In the period from 1877 to 1950, Kemper County had 24 documented lynchings of African Americans , the third-highest of Mississippi counties. Hinds and Leflore counties had 29 and 48 lynchings, respectively, in this period. This form of racial terrorism was at its height in the decades around the turn of the 20th century, which followed
6732-453: The morphology and some properties of the original plant. In many coals, individual macerals can be identified visually. Some macerals include: In coalification huminite is replaced by vitreous (shiny) vitrinite . Maturation of bituminous coal is characterized by bitumenization , in which part of the coal is converted to bitumen , a hydrocarbon-rich gel. Maturation to anthracite is characterized by debitumenization (from demethanation) and
6831-405: The most important distinction is between thermal coal (also known as steam coal), which is burnt to generate electricity via steam; and metallurgical coal (also known as coking coal), which is burnt at high temperature to make steel . Hilt's law is a geological observation that (within a small area) the deeper the coal is found, the higher its rank (or grade). It applies if the thermal gradient
6930-407: The nature of Carboniferous forests, which included lycophyte trees whose determinate growth meant that carbon was not tied up in heartwood of living trees for long periods. One theory suggested that about 360 million years ago, some plants evolved the ability to produce lignin , a complex polymer that made their cellulose stems much harder and more woody. The ability to produce lignin led to
7029-455: The number of double bonds between carbon). As carbonization proceeds, aliphatic compounds convert to aromatic compounds . Similarly, aromatic rings fuse into polyaromatic compounds (linked rings of carbon atoms). The structure increasingly resembles graphene , the structural element of graphite. Chemical changes are accompanied by physical changes, such as decrease in average pore size. The macerals are coalified plant parts that retain
7128-442: The population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. There were 3,909 households, out of which 32.20% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 46.70% were married couples living together, 20.20% had a female householder with no husband present, and 28.70% were non-families. 26.40% of all households were made up of individuals, and 12.60% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size
7227-456: The pre-combustion treatment, turbine technology (e.g. supercritical steam generator ) and the age of the plant. A few integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) power plants have been built, which burn coal more efficiently. Instead of pulverizing the coal and burning it directly as fuel in the steam-generating boiler, the coal is gasified to create syngas , which is burned in a gas turbine to produce electricity (just like natural gas
7326-570: The project is an expensive undertaking that offers only limited benefits. In 2011, the Sierra Club and Bridge the Gulf organizations spearheaded the effort to lobby the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to deny the required wetland permits, which Mississippi Company would have to fill to build the plant's facilities. The Mississippi Chapter of the Sierra Club is arguing that the location where
7425-441: The project was still not in service, and the cost had increased to $ 7.1 billion. 32°46′N 88°39′W / 32.76°N 88.65°W / 32.76; -88.65 Coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock , formed as rock strata called coal seams . Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements , chiefly hydrogen , sulfur , oxygen , and nitrogen . Coal
7524-427: The reacting groups are attached. Dehydration and decarboxylation take place early in coalification, while demethanation begins only after the coal has already reached bituminous rank. The effect of decarboxylation is to reduce the percentage of oxygen, while demethanation reduces the percentage of hydrogen. Dehydration does both, and (together with demethanation) reduces the saturation of the carbon backbone (increasing
7623-523: The rough whites." There had been a conflict on another train, in which a black man mortally shot a conductor, George Harrison. The yardmaster shot and killed the African American. The rioting by whites in Scooba started after Harrison died. Governor James K. Vardaman went to Scooba with militia to establish control. He left a force of 20 there commanded by Adjutant General Fridge and returned to
7722-479: The rural towns of Wahalak and Scooba ; by December 27, whites had killed a total of 13 blacks in rioting. The events started with a physical confrontation between a conductor and an African-American man on a Mobile & Ohio Railroad train. The conductor was cut, and he fatally shot two black men. George Simpson, another African American thought to be involved, escaped from the train. When captured in Wahalak by
7821-668: The second TRIG facility in the United States. Producing electricity from coal in this way produces tremendous amounts of carbon dioxide, and Mississippi Power hoped that 65 percent of the carbon dioxide would be captured and utilized in Enhanced Oil Recovery at neighboring oil fields . TRIG was developed by the Department of Energy , Southern Company and KBR at the Power Systems Development Facility in Wilsonville, Alabama. Southern Company stated that TRIG
7920-439: The sharecroppers were at a disadvantage in the annual accounting that was done by the landowners. Sometimes the planters had grocery stores on their property and required the sharecroppers to buy all their goods there, adding to their debt. Beginning in late December 1906, there were several days of racial terror in the county. After violent incidents on the railroad between conductors and black passengers, whites attacked blacks at
8019-502: The stage for future coal-based power generation. On June 3, 2010, the Mississippi Public Service Commission certified the project and the ground-breaking ceremony took place. Governor Haley Barbour was present. Lignite is a soft, brownish-black coal that has the lowest energy content of any type of coal. It is also very dirty when burned. According to the Lignite Energy Council about 79 percent of lignite coal
8118-415: The state capital on the evening of December 27. That day the body of another murdered African-American man was found in the woods, bringing the total killed in Scooba to six. In 1934, three African-American suspects in Kemper County were repeatedly whipped in order to force them to confess to murder. In Brown v. Mississippi (1936), the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled such forced confessions violated
8217-515: The state's disenfranchisement of most blacks in 1890 through creating barriers to voter registration. In 1877 the Chisolm Massacre occurred, the murder by a mob of a judge, his children, and two of their friends while they were in protective custody in jail. In 1890, blacks made up the majority of the county' population: 10,084 blacks to 7,845 whites. They generally worked as sharecroppers or tenant farmers. Often illiterate, many of
8316-399: The sulfur and most of the nitrogen is incorporated into the organic fraction in the form of organosulfur compounds and organonitrogen compounds . This sulfur and nitrogen are strongly bound within the hydrocarbon matrix. These elements are released as SO 2 and NO x upon combustion. They cannot be removed, economically at least, otherwise. Some coals contain inorganic sulfur, mainly in
8415-415: The world's coal-generated electricity. Efforts around the world to reduce the use of coal have led some regions to switch to natural gas and renewable energy . In 2018 coal-fired power station capacity factor averaged 51%, that is they operated for about half their available operating hours. Coke is a solid carbonaceous residue that is used in manufacturing steel and other iron-containing products. Coke
8514-401: Was 2.57 and the average family size was 3.11. In the county, the population was spread out, with 25.40% under the age of 18, 12.50% from 18 to 24, 25.20% from 25 to 44, 21.80% from 45 to 64, and 15.10% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 35 years. For every 100 females there were 92.20 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 88.30 males. The median income for
8613-590: Was 8.3 billion tonnes in 2022, and is set to remain at record levels in 2023. To meet the Paris Agreement target of keeping global warming below 2 °C (3.6 °F) coal use needs to halve from 2020 to 2030, and "phasing down" coal was agreed upon in the Glasgow Climate Pact . The largest consumer and importer of coal in 2020 was China , which accounts for almost half the world's annual coal production, followed by India with about
8712-574: Was based on the trading of this commodity. Coal continues to arrive on beaches around the world from both natural erosion of exposed coal seams and windswept spills from cargo ships. Many homes in such areas gather this coal as a significant, and sometimes primary, source of home heating fuel. Coal consists mainly of a black mixture of diverse organic compounds and polymers. Of course, several kinds of coals exist, with variable dark colors and variable compositions. Young coals (brown coal, lignite) are not black. The two main black coals are bituminous, which
8811-474: Was being considered for more support from the Congress and the incoming Trump Administration in late 2016. If it had become operational with coal, the Kemper Project would have been a first-of-its-kind electricity plant to employ gasification and carbon capture technologies at this scale. Project management problems had been noted at the Kemper Project. The plant was supposed to be in service by May 2014, at
8910-510: Was carried to London by sea. In 1257–1259, coal from Newcastle upon Tyne was shipped to London for the smiths and lime -burners building Westminster Abbey . Seacoal Lane and Newcastle Lane, where coal was unloaded at wharves along the River Fleet , still exist. These easily accessible sources had largely become exhausted (or could not meet the growing demand) by the 13th century, when underground extraction by shaft mining or adits
9009-517: Was changed to permit charging ratepayers for construction of the facility. In 2017 the Mississippi Public Service Commission recommended the facility burn natural gas rather than syngas from coal to avoid the risk of further consumer rate increases. The plant missed all its targets and plans for "clean coal" generation were abandoned in July 2017. The plant is expected to go ahead burning natural gas only. Kemper County, Mississippi Kemper County
9108-612: Was developed in the Soviet Union , or in an MHD topping cycle . However these are not widely used due to lack of profit. In 2017 38% of the world's electricity came from coal, the same percentage as 30 years previously. In 2018 global installed capacity was 2 TW (of which 1TW is in China) which was 30% of total electricity generation capacity. The most dependent major country is South Africa, with over 80% of its electricity generated by coal; but China alone generates more than half of
9207-408: Was developed. The alternative name was "pitcoal", because it came from mines. Cooking and home heating with coal (in addition to firewood or instead of it) has been done in various times and places throughout human history, especially in times and places where ground-surface coal was available and firewood was scarce, but a widespread reliance on coal for home hearths probably never existed until such
9306-497: Was during the Late Paleozoic icehouse , a time of global glaciation . However, the drop in global sea level accompanying the glaciation exposed continental shelves that had previously been submerged, and to these were added wide river deltas produced by increased erosion due to the drop in base level . These widespread areas of wetlands provided ideal conditions for coal formation. The rapid formation of coal ended with
9405-454: Was expected to use about 375,000 tons of locally mined lignite per month or almost 185 million tons over the plant's expected 40-year life. TRIG technology can utilize lignite, which is also a driving factor of the technology. Mississippi Power's Kemper plant was intended to be an integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) facility, utilizing a technology known as "transport integrated gasification" (TRIG) to convert lignite coal—mined on
9504-564: Was once known as "steam coal" as it was widely used as a fuel for steam locomotives . In this specialized use, it is sometimes known as "sea coal" in the United States. Small "steam coal", also called dry small steam nuts (DSSN), was used as a fuel for domestic water heating . Coal played an important role in industry in the 19th and 20th century. The predecessor of the European Union , the European Coal and Steel Community ,
9603-408: Was still unrest, because he felt they were not being treated properly. By the end of the day on December 26, white men in Scooba had killed another five black men. The county sheriff arrested several whites for these murders, and called for the state militia to go to Scooba. "All the men killed at Scooba today are said to be innocent of any crime, having been shot down merely as a matter of revenge by
9702-498: Was strongly opposed by former Republican State Chairman Clarke Reed of Greenville , who favored a less-expensive natural gas -fueled plant. Reed called the project "... a horrible thing." He said it would be a political issue that could be used against Republicans for years. The Kemper Project was scheduled to open in the third quarter of 2016, more than two years behind schedule. Its cost increased to $ 6.6 billion—three times original cost estimate. As of February 2017 ,
9801-430: Was used for electricity generation. Coal burnt in coal power stations to generate electricity is called thermal coal . It is usually pulverized and then burned in a furnace with a boiler . The furnace heat converts boiler water to steam , which is then used to spin turbines which turn generators and create electricity. The thermodynamic efficiency of this process varies between about 25% and 50% depending on
#598401