As inventors fine-tuned the steam engine around the turn of the 19th century, much of the industrial world adopted the marvelous new machine. It transformed manufacturing and transportation, powering textile factories, mills and mines, railroads and boats. This innovation made possible much of our modern reality — but it couldn’t have done so without the ancient wetland remnants that we call coal.
This carbon-rich rock has, of course, contributed enormously to climate change (in 2019 it was responsible for a third of global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions), but it was essential to the technological progress of the Industrial Revolution. “Coal was king,” says Bill DiMichele, a paleobiologist with the Smithsonian Institution. In some places it still is, even as sustainable sources meet more of our energy needs. Last year, nearly 20 percent of U.S. electricity was generated by coal-fired power plants. “For the time being,” DiMichele says, “coal is still important.”
