Coal—A Renewable Resource?
Bodie Hodge, M.Sc., B.Sc., PEI
Biblical Authority Ministries, April 11, 2024
Does it take millions of years to form coal? This is what I
was led to believe throughout my years of schooling. It was commonly preached
that coal is a nonrenewable resource. For example, the Live Science writes:
“Over millions of years, new
mountains rise. During these millennia, the peat breaks down and is gradually
transformed to coal thanks to two elements: pressure and heat. Most coals are
between 60 million and 300 million years old.”[1]
When starting with the Bible’s
timeline, coal is a product largely from the Flood
of Noah’s day with the heat and pressures acting on wood and vegetation when burying it as peat seams between rock layers. The key is heat and pressure with an acidic environments
to help speed the conversion like a catalyst.
With the Springs of the Great Deep bursting forth (Genesis
7:11[2])
and the volcanism, continental shifting, and mountain building that was occurring,
the heat and pressures are easily within that range. Catastrophes have also been
observed to produce the coal-like sediment patterns we find in the rock
layers too.
For example, when the Mt. St. Helens volcano violently
erupted, the forest and the adjacent lake rapidly formed coal like patterns in
the sediment. G. Parker and M. Parker write:
“In just minutes and months, Mount
St. Helens and Spirit Lake produced a coal-like sediment pattern once thought
to take millions of years to form.”[3]
When it comes to actual coal formation, researchers have
shown it doesn’t require long ages to make. Scientifically, coal can be made
quickly in a couple of different ways.
· Coal has been produced by taking wood and vibrating it through quick burst of various pressures.[4]
· Coal has also been rapidly produced by taking wood and using a rapid and intense heat technique.[5]
A third, and more studied, method of making coal was by
using lignin (lignin is the primary component in wood), water, and acidic clay
(to speed up the quality and process) with heat ranging from 150-400° C.
This produces various ranks of coal in as early as two weeks! Higher quality
coal would take a little longer. Mackay and Snelling write:
“In their study, Hayatsu and his
colleagues at the Argonne National Laboratory, Illinois, USA made simple coals
by heating lignin to about 150°C in the presence of montmorillonite or illite
clays. Running that procedure for periods ranging from two weeks to nearly a
year, they discovered that longer heating times produced higher rank coals, and
found that the clays appear to serve as catalysts that speed the coalification
reaction, since the lignin is fairly unreactive in their absence.”[6]
The original journal article states in technical language in
the abstract:
“It was found that lignin heated
with clay minerals at 150°C for 2–8 months in the absence of oxygen was readily
transformed into an insoluble material resembling low rank coals. The H/C and
O/C ratios were in the natural evolutionary range found for vitrinites with the
samples from longer reaction times resembling the vitrinites of higher rank…. The
present study suggests that coal macerals could have been produced directly
from the biological source material via catalytic thermal reactions.”[7]
Techie language aside, the point is that coal can be made
quickly and the temperatures are well within the range of temperatures and
pressures expected from the Flood of Noah to produce coal in various locations.
Coal could be produced and manufactured if there was ever an
industrial demand. Nevertheless, coal should be considered renewable.
[1] M.
Duff, How does coal form? Live Science, December 26, 2022, https://www.livescience.com/how-does-coal-form#:~:text=Over%20millions%20of%20years%2C%20new%20mountains%20rise.%20During,between%2060%20million%20and%20300%20million%20years%20old.
[2] In
the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day
of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep were broken up,
and the windows of heaven were opened. Genesis 7:11, NKJV
[3] G.
Parker and M. Parker, The Fossil Book, Master Books, Green Forest, AR, 2006, p.
15.
[4] Karlweil
J., Kolloquim chemi und physik dar systinkhole, Erdol und Kohle-Erdgas,
Petrochemie, Volume 18 Number 7, 1965, p. 565.
[5] Hill,
G., Some Aspects of Coal Research, Chemical Technology, May,
1972, pp. 292–297.
[6] A.
Snelling and J. Mackay, Coal, Volcanism and Noah’s Flood, Technical Journal
(now called Journal of Creation), Volume 1, Number 1, April, 1984 pp.
11-29.
[7] R.
Hayatsu, R. McBeth, R. Scott, R. Botto, and R. Winans, Artificial coalification
study: Preparation and characterization of synthetic macerals, Organic
Geochemistry, Volume 6, 1984, pp. 463-471.
