Japan i / dʒ ə ˈ p æ n / ( Japanese: 日本 Nihon or Nippon formally 日本国 Nippon-koku or Nihon-koku, literally the State of Japan) is an island nation in East Asia. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of kanji and kana. Unitary parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy Published by Chappell Recorded Music Library Ltd.ģ5☄1′N 139☄6′E / 35.683°N 139.767☎ / 35.683 139.767Īynu itak, Ryukyuan languages, Eastern Japanese, Western Japanese, and several other Japanese dialectsĩ8.5% Japanese, 0.5% Korean, 0.4% Chinese, 0.6% other Published by Chappell Recorded Music Library Ltd. economy continues to struggle, can the country afford not to?ĬOAL is a KCTS 9 and EarthFix original documentary.įor more information on the documentary, visit: /coal or /coaldoc.įor ongoing reporting on Coal in the Northwest, visit EarthFix: /coal/ The Northwest is square in the middle of a controversial global debate: Should the region build export terminals that would open lucrative markets for the world's dirtiest fossil fuel? As the U.S. Australia accounts for about a third of world coal exports followed by Indonesia and Russia. China mines almost half the world's coal, followed by India with about a tenth. The largest consumer and importer of coal is China. As part of the worldwide energy transition many countries have stopped using or use less coal, and the UN Secretary General has asked governments to stop building new coal plants by 2020. Coal industry damages the environment, including by climate change as it is the largest anthropogenic source of carbon dioxide, 14 Gt in 2016, which is 40% of the total fossil fuel emissions. The extraction and use of coal causes many premature deaths and much illness. Some iron and steel making and other industrial processes burn coal. Vast deposits of coal originates in former wetlands-called coal forests-that covered much of the Earth's tropical land areas during the late Carboniferous (Pennsylvanian) and Permian times.Īs a fossil fuel burned for heat, coal supplies about a quarter of the world's primary energy and two-fifths of its electricity. Coal is formed when dead plant matter decays into peat and is converted into coal by the heat and pressure of deep burial over millions of years. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. " onClick="activateTab('playlist1') return false">Ĭoal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams.