Word: coal
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...hits an icy patch of road, the U.S. economic recovery that had been picking up speed for weeks has begun to skid. The bitter cold and unrelenting snows that have gripped the U.S. east of the Rockies are throwing onto unemployment rolls hundreds of thousands of workers, ranging from coal miners in Appalachia to oystermen who cannot chop through the ice in Chesapeake Bay. Soaring prices for fruit and vegetable crops damaged by the freeze are giving a new push to inflation. Worse, even if the weather should warm up suddenly, which hardly seems likely, many economic effects...
...workers by White House estimate, and the blizzardy blast of arctic air at week's end threatened many more layoffs-at least 300,000 in New Jersey alone. General Motors, U.S. Steel and other large companies kept many operations going by switching from natural gas to oil or coal, but all over the Midwest huge quantities of those fuels were immobilized aboard barges stuck in frozen rivers...
...million gal. of fuel oil stalled on the Mississippi, 400,000 gal. blocked on the Ohio near Aurora, Ind., and another 400,000 gal. stuck in the river near Paducah, Ky. Electric utilities sent out crews armed with hammers and iron bars to smash the frozen coal loose from rail cars. "It's absolutely miserable work," said Detroit Edison Co. Vice President Walter J. McCarthy Jr. Strapped for fuel, his firm at one point was turning out only 250,000 kilowatts, less than one-tenth of its normal production. At one Cincinnati plant, the slippery coal would not stick...
...roughest winter that anyone can remember since nineteen-and-eighteen," observed Newspaper Editor Mary Ann Oakley in Providence, Ky., a coal-mining town (pop. 4,270) numbed by temperatures down to -20°. As ice and snow made the winding roads impassable, the children have been able to attend school only three days this month. When the town's water supply was blocked by a frozen valve, the National Guard trucked in water to the fire station, where residents lined up with jugs for their 2-gal. rations. In their mutual need, the townspeople found a new spirit...
...consequences could be catastrophic. A worldwide average temperature drop of only 1° Celsius could shorten growing seasons in the temperate zones enough to threaten global food supplies. Increased heating requirements would further strain energy resources such as coal, natural...