3 Coal Mines In 3 Days | Electricity for 1 MILLION People | North American Coal
3 Coal Mines In 3 Days | Electricity for 1 MILLION People | North American Coal
This vlog hails all the way from beautiful Beulah, North Dakota where the crew and I followed along with North American Coal to visit 3 coal mines in 3 days.
First Site: “Coyote Creek” Mine – We visited the “Wile E. Coyote” dragline to see how it gets moved from point A to point B across the mine.
NOTE: It’s powered by a massive extension cable that is carried by a farming tractor so it doesn’t get run over when the dragline is being moved.
Second Site: The “Freedom” Mine – A very large mine that produces coal for a power plant, a gasification plant, and then another power plant down the road. (It’s been there since the ’70s..) This is a massive operation equipped with 123-yard dragline buckets that roll 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with three people running each dragline.
They also run two types of Kress Coal Haulers (the 200-ton and 300-ton). The craziest part is that a lot of these machines have more than 100,000 hours on them!
Third Site: The “Falkirk” Mine – About an hour north of Bismarck that feeds a power plant right next door that’s all lignite coal. (it’s also been around since the ’70s…) The coolest part was the indoor building where they park all of their haul trucks (789’s and 793’s) The facility is about the size of a football field, and the trucks are all loaded by shovels out.
They then take the coal out of the pit and drive it all the way down the haul road and dump everything into a hopper, which is then crushed to make the coal a little more consistent. Then it’s thrown into a silo that feeds the power plant the coal. This is turned into energy for 750,000 houses and over 1 million people!
To wrap it all up…
The Coal Mining Process (Explained): It comes in segments. At the front, you have scrapers, dozers, and a PC2000 with trucks taking the topsoil and subsoil off and moving it to where the reclamation is at.
Next, the first little bit of overburden is stripped off to prepare for the dragline.
Then, the dragline comes through and exposes the coal, flops the material onto where they’ve already mined it, then the coal is moved to the power plant where it’s turned into electricity!
If you want to learn more about North American Coal, check them out at https://www.nacoal.com/. #coal #mining #construction
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–VIDEO CHAPTERS–
0:00 – Intro
1:19 – The Dragline
2:31 – Coal Mining Process
3:53 – Day 2
4:46 – Freedom Mine
5:37 – Draglines
6:15 – Standing in a Bucket
6:51 – Working
7:30 – Day 3
8:04 – Haul Truck Cave
9:27 – Outro
This is a great trailer, but I’d really love to see more detail. A video about the dragline; 15mins. Kress haul trucks, etc.
Wait I thought that my electricity was made by wishing upon a star and magic pixie dust??
So i just found an insanely under rated channel
Neat to see a little bit of the other mines in the area. I used to be an operator at R.M. Heskett until they shut down this spring and am now at the Milton R Young station.
Love the videos mate, really interesting too see how it’s done in America. I’m mine engineer in Australia specialising in coal, let me know if your ever over this way. It would be great to catch up and share ideas, maybe get out to some pits.
I Love this I work out at Coteau i work for Dragline Maintenance and its awesome being on the draglines and shovels
I love the videos but they are way too short.
awesome video. the kress trucks look cool.
It’s sad how people get the wrong ideas on coal mines and coal energy!!!!
I want to see a lot less pointing, and a lot more B-Reel footage
Hopefully the nice people who do this work are able to find new and better jobs soon
My brother was there not to long ago
You know it’s a big machine when there is a whole kitchen with toaster and everything on board!
I think you should do a ride along with a Field service tech for a Dealer or a large earth moving company. Give some people a little insight as to what it takes to keep things going. 🤘🤘
Awesome Video 👍
I work in a mine in alabama but I run a D-11T cat dozer in the push, our largest trachoe on the job is a PC2000 and smaller 1800 trachoe that loads our 10 rock trucks, we’re a small mine compared to the one in this video but we have several of the big draglines parked around different parts of the county that are still property of Drummond Coal Company, I would of loved to see one of them in action, but unfortunately they just sit there collecting dust and rust.
Eric Jumper’s contribution was flawless. Blue Collar Photographer can’t be stopped.
Dam great video 👍🏻
why are they not using longwall equipment?
Honestly, I think your videos should be more in the 20-30 minute range. Excellent content!
Thank you Mr. Witt for the amazing video and the way you explained. NAM reclamation practices. I had the opportunity to visit all three mines several years back in 2014. I was blown away by the workforce and management attitude. I am super proud of NAC/NAM family and great full to be part of their Organization
The ground is destroyed after and big trees rarely take root…….I know first hand
I had built and delivered a machine to the Falkirk mine in underwood SD some years back and set it up out in a field to crush fly ash. From 3 miles away I could see the shovel sticking up above everything so naturally when I finished I headed towards it and man was it massive.
So thats were all the CO2 Emissions of the US come from.
This is really cool to see this, I used to work at the Falkirk Mine as a Dragline Maintenance Welder!
Its so sad we’re still using coal in 2022 when we’ve known about global warming since the 19th century. Not to mention that it’s estimated to kill hundreds of thousands of people each year from air pollution. But yeah the machines are cool I guess.
WTF more footage of the machines working!
I like how Wylie Coyote had a toaster in its break room.
Gotta charge those Teslas somehow..
Hi Aaron great insight into the mines! Just a question why do they have the 789’s & 793’s in that building?
Cheers
Thanks for killing the atmosphere and pollution…. dumb crap…
Hi Aaron just curious my Grandfather lived in Zap North Dakota and he ran a dragline for a few years and I have pictures that look like the same kind of mining and I never knew or have forgotten what it was they were mining they called it strip mining is that one in the same or something different? Totally enjoy your videos.
YouTube, instagram, and tiktoks. All underrated. Love the videos and all the video shots. Keep it up brother🤘🏼!!
I am a Beulah native born and raised and was raised with parents both working in the coal industry. I work at the power plant that is fed by the mine and my father works as an operator at Coyote Creek mine. I wish more people would come and experience our area and what it has to offer. Our power plants keep your phone charged, lights on, and heat or AC running. Aside from nearly 70% of Beulah being employed at one of the local mines or plants and seeing them from town, you’d never know they exist. BTW, the Country Kettle is slept on by most tourists but its definitely worth a stop.
It amazes me the amount of great material that gets skipped right over. Your channel has so much potential but you skip over so much great material to film and talk about. I feel like I am missing out on so much knowledge that gets skipped over in every video you do. I know you can’t cover everything but there is definitely some that you can cover more of
Just like the oil sands in Alberta, they actually clean up Mother Nature in what they do, they have oil naturally leaking into the river but these companies open face mine these areas and when their done actually have oil free wild wilderness Forrester and animal inhabited reclaim sites
but energy is racist…. Thats why all of this coal and oil stuff needs to stop immediately, because we’re all going to die next week from deadly global warming
Y’all need to go to west mineral Kansas for the holy grail of coal mining equipment
Not even going to mention what I do for a living because compared to these guys it’s embarrassing.
I wonder how much coal is left?
My brain has such a hard time grasping the size of these machines. Its one of those things I know video just doesn’t do it justice. Around 2:43 I know those dump trucks are MASSIVE machines. and its so hard to understand until you see its got a ladder on it and a walkway meaning the driver is like 12 feet off the ground or something. Then you see the Pc2000 and trying to grasp its size is even harder. Then you see the drag line and I mentally can’t grasp the size because I have never seen one in person.
Man, I just discovered this channel. Very clean and no bs. Great shots, and uses real terms. I don’t do equipment work, but subscribed!
That shop to park the trucks is wicked
That thing is like a star wars vehicle 😄 🤣
Pretty cool stuff! Coyote Creek electrician right here and honestly didn’t even know you were out at the mine 😂. Must’ve been on night shift when you came in on day shift.
Used to work on tear down and relocation of draglines for P&H, I’ll never forget my first time on one. Wrapping your mind around how they tram on those 2 shoes and it’s tub is strange until you see it happen. Excellent work on your channel 👍
You did not do me any favors by showing 3 mines in 1 video. I would have preferred to see 1 mine in much more detail for the same time length video. You make all the good views so brief, I don’t get to ponder in amazement, and it ends up just being a tease. Keep teasing me and I’m done with you.
That’s cool I work in Alamo on the oil rigs
What do you know about the coal mining process?
What’s the name of the song on the begging of day 3