In some cities, coal was used for school building heater much later
> than normal (oil had taken over). I believe pressure from the coal
> miners forced the city to stick with coal. I wonder if they still use
> coal or since converted.
A hefty number of NYC public schools used coal until about five years ago, so you'll probably still see lots of references to them.
Actually, for a school, with a fairly large and high pressure boiler system, and with professionally licensed/trained operators [a], coal is not too bad an idea. Provided, of course, that you're using modern equipment.
[a] for the most part, high prssure boiler operators in NYC are pretty competent. Yes, there's the periodic news clip about the usual kickbacks and licensing games common in any gov't agency, but most of the folk involved take this stuff seriously.
The problem in NYC was that these were _ancient_ boiler systems. Some had _manual_ stokers (aka "firemen") who shoveled the coal in. And there was not even a hint of combustion control or pollution reduction.
(And these firemen, unlike the ones on diesel trains, were actually working hard for their money...).
As part of the deal in selling the public on an environmental bond issue, the city and state promised to replace all the coal boilers with either natural gas or oil. And, amazingly enough, they did it pretty close to schedule. Last time I looked some of them still had "temporary" trailer-mounted boilers on the sidewalk, but those were the exception.
Personally I think we'd have been better off upgrading the coal systems and, for that matter, placing baseload electrical generators in the schools as well, but no one asked me. NYC's local oil distribution was pretty maxed out a few years ago, and that modest demand increase by the schools had a pretty large impact on fuel prices.
And, if you want to see what General Electric is thinking about coal, check out their very, err, unique advert. I've put a QuickTime version of it up at:
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I'd personally like to see more wide- spread research/development/use of solar power, especially for things like heating our homes in the winter. Oops, I forgot to include the mantra from the petroleum industry on this: "Solar power is not practical nor efficient." PAT]