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108-562: Doxford International is a 125-acre (51 ha) business park located at the A19 / A690 interchange on the outskirts of Sunderland , in the North East of England . Previously it was a greenfield site , it was designated as an Enterprise Zone in 1990 in response to the decline of the area's former ship building and coal mining industries. A partnership between Sunderland City Council and Goodman Property (formerly Akeler Developments Ltd.) has seen

216-512: A cyclothem . Cyclothems are thought to have their origin in glacial cycles that produced fluctuations in sea level , which alternately exposed and then flooded large areas of continental shelf. The woody tissue of plants is composed mainly of cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin. Modern peat is mostly lignin, with a content of cellulose and hemicellulose ranging from 5% to 40%. Various other organic compounds, such as waxes and nitrogen- and sulfur-containing compounds, are also present. Lignin has

324-510: A second FA Cup . Shipbuilding ended in 1988 and coal-mining in 1993 after a mid-1980s unemployment crisis with 20 per cent of the local workforce unemployed. Electronic, chemical, paper and motor manufacturing as well as the service sector expanded during the 1980s and 1990s to fill unemployment from heavy industry. In 1986 Japanese car manufacturer Nissan opened its Nissan Motor Manufacturing UK factory in Washington, which has since become

432-487: A watch , and improve the market. In 1832 a parliamentary borough (constitutency) of Sunderland was created, covering the parishes or townships of Sunderland, Bishopwearmouth, Bishopwearmouth Panns, Monkwearmouth, Monkwearmouth Shore and Southwick. In 1836 Sunderland was reformed to become a municipal borough under the Municipal Corporations Act 1835 , which standardised how most boroughs operated across

540-425: A "sunder-land". In 685 The Venerable Bede moved to the newly founded Jarrow monastery. He had started his monastic career at Monkwearmouth monastery and later wrote that he was "ácenned on sundorlande þæs ylcan mynstres" (born in a separate land of this same monastery). This can be taken as "sundorlande" (being Old English for "separate land") or the settlement of Sunderland. The name may also be descriptive of

648-456: A charter in 1179 under the name of 'Wearmouth'. The original borough covered a relatively small area in the north-east corner of the old Bishopwearmouth parish, lying on the south side of the mouth of the River Wear. The borough was granted a further charter in 1634 which gave it the right to appoint a mayor and incorporated the town under the name of Sunderland rather than Wearmouth. The area of

756-487: A fuel. While coal has been known and used for thousands of years, its usage was limited until the Industrial Revolution . With the invention of the steam engine , coal consumption increased. In 2020, coal supplied about a quarter of the world's primary energy and over a third of its electricity . Some iron and steel -making and other industrial processes burn coal. The extraction and burning of coal damages

864-650: A pair of gun batteries were built (in 1742 and 1745) on the shoreline to the south of the South Pier, to defend the river from attack (a further battery was built on the cliff top in Roker, ten years later). One of the pair was washed away by the sea in 1780, but the other was expanded during the French Revolutionary Wars and became known as the Black Cat Battery. In 1794 Sunderland Barracks were built, behind

972-565: A passenger service from Sunderland to Seaham Harbour. In 1886–90 Sunderland Town Hall was built in Fawcett Street, just to the east of the railway station, to a design by Brightwen Binyon . By 1889 two million tons of coal per year was passing through Hudson Dock, while to the south of Hendon Dock, the Wear Fuel Works distilled coal tar to produce pitch, oil and other products. The 20th century saw Sunderland A.F.C. established as

1080-565: A passenger terminus there in 1836. In 1847 the line was bought by George Hudson 's York and Newcastle Railway . Hudson, nicknamed 'The Railway King', was Member of Parliament for Sunderland and was already involved in a scheme to build a dock in the area. In 1846 he had formed the Sunderland Dock Company , which received parliamentary approval for the construction of a dock between the South Pier and Hendon Bay. Increasing industrialisation had prompted residential expansion away from

1188-534: A physical link with Monkwearmouth following the construction of a bridge, the Wearmouth Bridge , which was the world's second iron bridge (after the famous span at Ironbridge ). It was built at the instigation of Rowland Burdon , the Member of Parliament (MP) for County Durham , and described by Nikolaus Pevsner as being 'a triumph of the new metallurgy and engineering ingenuity [...] of superb elegance'. Spanning

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1296-475: A population of 168,277 at the 2021 census, making it the second largest settlement in North East England after Newcastle. It is the administrative centre of the metropolitan borough of the same name . Sunderland was once known as 'the largest shipbuilding town in the world' and once made a quarter of all of the world's ships from its famous yards, which date back to 1346 on the River Wear. The centre of

1404-400: A port, being granted a town charter in 1179. The city traded in coal and salt , also developing shipbuilding industry in the fourteenth century and glassmaking industry in the seventeenth century. Following the decline of its traditional industries in the late 20th century, the area became an automotive building centre . In 1992, the borough of Sunderland was granted city status . Sunderland

1512-417: A process called carbonization . Carbonization proceeds primarily by dehydration , decarboxylation , and demethanation. Dehydration removes water molecules from the maturing coal via reactions such as Decarboxylation removes carbon dioxide from the maturing coal: while demethanation proceeds by reaction such as In these formulas, R represents the remainder of a cellulose or lignin molecule to which

1620-580: A secure data centre. Citifinancial – part of the US-based CitiGroup – was one of the businesses that has reinvested in Doxford International, with an expansion project that brought additional jobs to Sunderland. CitiGroup no longer have a presence at Doxford, leaving the site in 2009. EDF Energy has based its main contact centre at Doxford, originally trading at the site as London Electricity. As well as small retail outlets such as Greggs

1728-547: A steam-powered hemp-spinning machine which had been devised by a local schoolmaster, Richard Fothergill, in 1793; the ropery building still stands, in the Deptford area of the city. Sunderland's shipbuilding industry continued to grow through most of the 19th century, becoming the town's dominant industry and a defining part of its identity. By 1815 it was 'the leading shipbuilding port for wooden trading vessels' with 600 ships constructed that year across 31 different yards. By 1840

1836-464: A switch in fuels happened in London in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Historian Ruth Goodman has traced the socioeconomic effects of that switch and its later spread throughout Britain and suggested that its importance in shaping the industrial adoption of coal has been previously underappreciated. The development of the Industrial Revolution led to the large-scale use of coal, as

1944-549: A tenth. Indonesia and Australia export the most, followed by Russia . The word originally took the form col in Old English , from reconstructed Proto-Germanic * kula ( n ), from Proto-Indo-European root * g ( e ) u-lo- "live coal". Germanic cognates include the Old Frisian kole , Middle Dutch cole , Dutch kool , Old High German chol , German Kohle and Old Norse kol . Irish gual

2052-403: A weight basis. This composition reflects partly the composition of the precursor plants. The second main fraction of coal is ash, an undesirable, noncombustable mixture of inorganic minerals. The composition of ash is often discussed in terms of oxides obtained after combustion in air: Of particular interest is the sulfur content of coal, which can vary from less than 1% to as much as 4%. Most of

2160-406: A weight composition of about 54% carbon, 6% hydrogen, and 30% oxygen, while cellulose has a weight composition of about 44% carbon, 6% hydrogen, and 49% oxygen. Bituminous coal has a composition of about 84.4% carbon, 5.4% hydrogen, 6.7% oxygen, 1.7% nitrogen, and 1.8% sulfur, on a weight basis. The low oxygen content of coal shows that coalification removed most of the oxygen and much of the hydrogen

2268-423: Is a long-standing local legend that there was a Roman settlement on the south bank of the River Wear on what is the site of the former Vaux Brewery, although no archaeological investigation has taken place. Roman artefacts have been recovered in the River Wear at North Hylton , including four stone anchors, which may support the theory that there was a Roman dam or port on the River Wear. Recorded settlements at

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2376-449: Is a type of fossil fuel , formed when dead plant matter decays into peat which is converted into coal by the heat and pressure of deep burial over millions of years. Vast deposits of coal originate in former wetlands called coal forests that covered much of the Earth's tropical land areas during the late Carboniferous ( Pennsylvanian ) and Permian times. Coal is used primarily as

2484-577: Is also a cognate via the Indo-European root. The conversion of dead vegetation into coal is called coalification . At various times in the geologic past, the Earth had dense forests in low-lying areas. In these wetlands, the process of coalification began when dead plant matter was protected from oxidation , usually by mud or acidic water, and was converted into peat . The resulting peat bogs , which trapped immense amounts of carbon, were eventually deeply buried by sediments. Then, over millions of years,

2592-429: Is burned in a turbine). Hot exhaust gases from the turbine are used to raise steam in a heat recovery steam generator which powers a supplemental steam turbine . The overall plant efficiency when used to provide combined heat and power can reach as much as 94%. IGCC power plants emit less local pollution than conventional pulverized coal-fueled plants. Other ways to use coal are as coal-water slurry fuel (CWS), which

2700-594: Is entirely vertical; however, metamorphism may cause lateral changes of rank, irrespective of depth. For example, some of the coal seams of the Madrid, New Mexico coal field were partially converted to anthracite by contact metamorphism from an igneous sill while the remainder of the seams remained as bituminous coal. The earliest recognized use is from the Shenyang area of China where by 4000 BC Neolithic inhabitants had begun carving ornaments from black lignite. Coal from

2808-542: Is historically part of County Durham , being incorporated to the ceremonial county of Tyne and Wear in 1974. Locals are sometimes known as Mackems , a term which came into common use in the 1970s. Its use and acceptance by residents, particularly among the older generations, is not universal. The term is also applied to the Sunderland dialect, which shares similarities with the other North East England dialects. In c.  674 , King Ecgfrith granted Benedict Biscop

2916-481: Is made in wrought stainless steel, and is based upon a huge cross-section of an ocean liner. Commissioned by Doxford International Business Park, Quintesection is a sculpture to mark the shipbuilding industry of the North East. The availability of telecommunications and a skilled workforce has been instrumental in the success of Doxford International, which is now a location for corporate HQs and contact centres serving

3024-455: Is made when metallurgical coal (also known as coking coal ) is baked in an oven without oxygen at temperatures as high as 1,000 °C, driving off the volatile constituents and fusing together the fixed carbon and residual ash. Metallurgical coke is used as a fuel and as a reducing agent in smelting iron ore in a blast furnace . The carbon monoxide produced by its combustion reduces hematite (an iron oxide ) to iron. Pig iron , which

3132-409: Is more abundant, and anthracite. The % carbon in coal follows the order anthracite > bituminous > lignite > brown coal. The fuel value of coal varies in the same order. Some anthracite deposits contain pure carbon in the form of graphite . For bituminous coal, the elemental composition on a dry, ash-free basis of 84.4% carbon, 5.4% hydrogen, 6.7% oxygen, 1.7% nitrogen, and 1.8% sulfur, on

3240-617: Is one of the oldest monasteries still standing in England. While at the monastery, Bede completed the Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (The Ecclesiastical History of the English People) in 731, a feat which earned him the title The father of English history . In the late 8th century the Vikings raided the coast, and by the middle of the 9th century the monastery had been abandoned. Lands on

3348-452: Is used as fuel. 27.6% of world energy was supplied by coal in 2017 and Asia used almost three-quarters of it. Other large-scale applications also exist. The energy density of coal is roughly 24 megajoules per kilogram (approximately 6.7 kilowatt-hours per kg). For a coal power plant with a 40% efficiency, it takes an estimated 325 kg (717 lb) of coal to power a 100 W lightbulb for one year. In 2022, 68% of global coal use

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3456-691: The Bronze Age (3000–2000 BC), where it formed part of funeral pyres . In Roman Britain , with the exception of two modern fields, "the Romans were exploiting coals in all the major coalfields in England and Wales by the end of the second century AD". Evidence of trade in coal, dated to about AD 200, has been found at the Roman settlement at Heronbridge , near Chester ; and in the Fenlands of East Anglia , where coal from

3564-503: The Crimean War ; nonetheless, sailing ships continued to be built, including fast fully-rigged composite -built clippers , including the City of Adelaide in 1864 and Torrens (the last such vessel ever built), in 1875. By the middle of the century glassmaking was at its height on Wearside. James Hartley & Co. , established in Sunderland in 1836, grew to be the largest glassworks in

3672-512: The Fushun mine in northeastern China was used to smelt copper as early as 1000 BC. Marco Polo , the Italian who traveled to China in the 13th century, described coal as "black stones ... which burn like logs", and said coal was so plentiful, people could take three hot baths a week. In Europe, the earliest reference to the use of coal as fuel is from the geological treatise On Stones (Lap. 16) by

3780-590: The Midlands was transported via the Car Dyke for use in drying grain. Coal cinders have been found in the hearths of villas and Roman forts , particularly in Northumberland , dated to around AD 400. In the west of England, contemporary writers described the wonder of a permanent brazier of coal on the altar of Minerva at Aquae Sulis (modern day Bath ), although in fact easily accessible surface coal from what became

3888-513: The National Glass Centre a new University of Sunderland campus on the St Peter's site were also built. The former Vaux Breweries site on the north west fringe of the city centre was cleared for further development opportunities. After 99 years at the historic Roker Park stadium, the city’s football club, Sunderland AFC moved to the 42,000-seat Stadium of Light on the banks of

3996-702: The Somerset coalfield was in common use in quite lowly dwellings locally. Evidence of coal's use for iron -working in the city during the Roman period has been found. In Eschweiler , Rhineland , deposits of bituminous coal were used by the Romans for the smelting of iron ore . No evidence exists of coal being of great importance in Britain before about AD 1000, the High Middle Ages . Coal came to be referred to as "seacoal" in

4104-491: The coal gap in the Permian–Triassic extinction event , where coal is rare. Favorable geography alone does not explain the extensive Carboniferous coal beds. Other factors contributing to rapid coal deposition were high oxygen levels, above 30%, that promoted intense wildfires and formation of charcoal that was all but indigestible by decomposing organisms; high carbon dioxide levels that promoted plant growth; and

4212-444: The steam engine took over from the water wheel . In 1700, five-sixths of the world's coal was mined in Britain. Britain would have run out of suitable sites for watermills by the 1830s if coal had not been available as a source of energy. In 1947 there were some 750,000 miners in Britain, but the last deep coal mine in the UK closed in 2015. A grade between bituminous coal and anthracite

4320-423: The 13th century, then salmon in the 14th and 15th centuries. From 1346 ships were being built at Wearmouth, by a merchant named Thomas Menville, and by 1396 a small amount of coal was being exported. Rapid growth of the port was prompted by the salt trade. Salt exports from Sunderland are recorded from as early as the 13th century, by 1589 salt pans were laid at Bishopwearmouth Panns (the modern-day name of

4428-407: The 13th century; the wharf where the material arrived in London was known as Seacoal Lane, so identified in a charter of King Henry III granted in 1253. Initially, the name was given because much coal was found on the shore, having fallen from the exposed coal seams on cliffs above or washed out of underwater coal outcrops, but by the time of Henry VIII , it was understood to derive from the way it

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4536-460: The 17th century, with the coal trade growing significantly (2–3,000 tons of coal were exported from Sunderland in the year 1600; by 1680 this had increased to 180,000 tons). Difficulty for colliers trying to navigate the Wear’s shallow waters meant coal mined further inland was loaded onto keels (large, flat-bottomed boats) and taken downriver to the waiting colliers. A close-knit group of workers manned

4644-611: The Baltic and elsewhere which, together with locally available limestone (and coal to fire the furnaces) was a key ingredient in the glassmaking process. Other industries that developed alongside the river included lime burning and pottery making (the town's first commercial pottery manufactory, the Garrison Pottery, had opened in old Sunderland in 1750). By 1770 Sunderland had spread westwards along its High Street to join up with Bishopwearmouth. In 1796 Bishopwearmouth in turn gained

4752-578: The Carboniferous, and suggested that climatic and tectonic factors were a more plausible explanation, reconstruction of ancestral enzymes by phylogenetic analysis corroborated a hypothesis that lignin degrading enzymes appeared in fungi approximately 200 MYa. One likely tectonic factor was the Central Pangean Mountains , an enormous range running along the equator that reached its greatest elevation near this time. Climate modeling suggests that

4860-587: The Central Pangean Mountains contributed to the deposition of vast quantities of coal in the late Carboniferous. The mountains created an area of year-round heavy precipitation, with no dry season typical of a monsoon climate. This is necessary for the preservation of peat in coal swamps. Coal is known from Precambrian strata, which predate land plants. This coal is presumed to have originated from residues of algae. Sometimes coal seams (also known as coal beds) are interbedded with other sediments in

4968-563: The Greek scientist Theophrastus (c. 371–287 BC): Among the materials that are dug because they are useful, those known as anthrakes [coals] are made of earth, and, once set on fire, they burn like charcoal [anthrakes]. They are found in Liguria ;... and in Elis as one approaches Olympia by the mountain road; and they are used by those who work in metals. Outcrop coal was used in Britain during

5076-557: The Keels as ' keelmen '. In 1634 a market and yearly fair charter was granted by Bishop Thomas Morton . Morton's charter acknowledged that the borough had been called Wearmouth until then, but it incorporated the place under the name of Sunderland, by which it had become more generally known. Before the civil war and with the exception of Kingston upon Hull , the North declared for the King. In 1644

5184-644: The North was captured by the Roundheads (Parliamentarians), the area itself taken in March of that year. One artefact of the civil war in the area was the long trench; a tactic of later warfare. In the village of Offerton roughly three miles inland from the present city centre, skirmishes occurred. The Roundheads blockaded the River Tyne , crippling the Newcastle coal trade, which allowed a short period of flourishing coal trade on

5292-408: The River Wear in 1997. At the time, it was the largest stadium built by an English football club since the 1920s, and has since been expanded to hold nearly 50,000 seated spectators. On 24 March 2004, the city adopted Benedict Biscop as its patron saint . In 2018 the city was ranked as the best to live and work in the UK by the finance firm OneFamily. In the same year, the city was ranked as one of

5400-616: The Stone Age, the Neolithic period ( c.  4000  – c.  2000 BC), Hastings Hill , on the western outskirts of Sunderland, was a focal point of activity and a place of burial and ritual significance. Evidence includes the former presence of a cursus monument. It is believed the Brythonic -speaking Brigantes inhabited the area around the River Wear in pre- Roman Britain . There

5508-542: The Sunderland Shipbuilding Co. Ltd. (at Hudson Dock) both closed in the 1920s, and other yards were closed down by National Shipbuilders Securities in the 1930s. By 1936 Sunderland AFC had been league champions on six occasions. They won their first FA Cup in 1937 . With the outbreak of World War II in 1939, Sunderland was a key target of the German Luftwaffe bombing. Luftwaffe raids resulted in

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5616-477: The UK's largest car factory. Sunderland received city status in 1992. Like many cities, Sunderland comprises a number of areas with their own distinct histories, Fulwell , Monkwearmouth, Roker , and Southwick on the northern side of the Wear, and Bishopwearmouth and Hendon to the south. From 1990, the Wear’s riverbanks were regenerated with new housing, retail parks and business centres on former shipbuilding sites;

5724-484: The Wear Flint Glassworks (which had originally been established in 1697). In addition to the plate glass and pressed glass manufacturers there were 16 bottle works on the Wear in the 1850s, with the capacity to produce between 60 and 70,000 bottles a day. In 1848 George Hudson's York, Newcastle and Berwick Railway built a passenger terminus, Monkwearmouth Station , just north of Wearmouth Bridge; and south of

5832-471: The Wear. In 1669, after the Restoration , King Charles II granted letters patent to one Edward Andrew, Esq. to 'build a pier and erect a lighthouse or lighthouses and cleanse the harbour of Sunderland'. There was a tonnage duty levy on shipping in order to raise the necessary funds. There was a growing number of shipbuilders or boatbuilders active on the River Wear in the late 17th century. By

5940-604: The Wearside area's greatest claim to sporting fame. Founded in 1879 as Sunderland and District Teachers A.F.C. by schoolmaster James Allan , Sunderland joined The Football League for the 1890–91 season . From 1900 to 1919, an electric tram system was built and was gradually replaced by buses during the 1940s before being ended in 1954. In 1909 the Queen Alexandra Bridge was built, linking Deptford and Southwick . The First World War increased shipbuilding, leading to

6048-518: The area the pans occupied is Pann's Bank, on the river bank between the city centre and the East End). Large vats of seawater were heated using coal; as the water evaporated, the salt remained. As coal was required to heat the salt pans, a coal mining community began to emerge. Only poor-quality coal was used in salt panning; better-quality coal was traded via the port, which subsequently began to grow. Both salt and coal continued to be exported through

6156-613: The bakers and a Subway outlet, the Sunderland Health & Racquet Club operated by David Lloyd Leisure provides leisure facilities. Sunderland, Tyne and Wear Sunderland ( / ˈ s ʌ n d ər l ə n d / ) is a port city in Tyne and Wear , England . It is a port at the mouth of the River Wear on the North Sea , approximately 10 miles (16 km) south-east of Newcastle upon Tyne . The built-up area had

6264-400: The battery, close to what was then the tip of the headland. The world's first steam dredger was built in Sunderland in 1796-7 and put to work on the river the following year. Designed by Stout's successor as Engineer, Jonathan Pickernell jr (in post from 1795 to 1804), it consisted of a set of 'bag and spoon' dredgers driven by a tailor-made 4-horsepower Boulton & Watt beam engine. It

6372-399: The borough was made a separate parish from Bishopwearmouth by an act of parliament in 1719. The ancient borough's powers were relatively modest. Unlike most such boroughs, it did not hold its own courts, nor did it have any meaningful municipal functions. A separate body of improvement commissioners was established in 1810 with responsibilities to pave, light and clean the streets, provide

6480-467: The community was taken over by Ceolfrid , and Wearmouth–Jarrow became a major centre of learning and knowledge in Anglo-Saxon England with a library of around 300 volumes. The Codex Amiatinus , described by biblical scholar Henry Julian White (1859–1934) as the 'finest book in the world', was created at the monastery and was likely worked on by Bede , who was born at Wearmouth in 673. This

6588-541: The council was based at the Civic Centre on Burdon Road, which had been built in 1970. Sunderland has the motto of Nil Desperandum Auspice Deo or Under God's guidance we may never despair . The borough's population (at the 2021 Census) was 274,200. The original settlement of Sunderland was historically part of the ancient parish of Bishopwearmouth in County Durham. It was an ancient borough , having been granted

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6696-538: The country and (having patented an innovative production technique for rolled plate glass ) produced much of the glass used in the construction of the Crystal Palace in 1851. A third of all UK-manufactured plate glass was produced at Hartley's by this time. Other manufacturers included the Cornhill Flint Glassworks (established at Southwick in 1865), which went on to specialise in pressed glass , as did

6804-475: The country. The municipal boundaries were enlarged at the same time to match the constituency, although later that year the municipal boundaries were reduced to remove Southwick and the parts of Bishopwearmouth and Bishopwearmouth Panns which fell more than one mile from the centre of Wearmouth Bridge. The improvement commissioners were wound up in 1851 and their functions transferred to the council. When elected county councils were established in 1889, Sunderland

6912-471: The county borough was replaced by a larger metropolitan borough within the new county of Tyne and Wear. The borough gained Hetton-le-Hole , Houghton-le-Spring , Washington , Burdon , and Warden Law . Coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock , formed as rock strata called coal seams . Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements , chiefly hydrogen , sulfur , oxygen , and nitrogen . Coal

7020-549: The creation of 1,350,000 sq ft (125,000 m) of high-specification offices, with the private sector partner investing around £200 million. The first buildings were completed in 1992, providing accommodation for a range of businesses that have played a key role in the regeneration of the City. At the entrance to the development stands the sculpture Quintisection by the sculptor Robert Erskine FRSS. Standing 26 ft in height (7.9 m) and 14.5 ft wide (4.4 m), it

7128-468: The deaths of 267 people and destruction of local industry while 4,000 homes were also damaged or destroyed. Many old buildings remain despite the bombing that occurred during World War II. Religious buildings include Holy Trinity Church, built in 1719 for an independent Sunderland, St Michael's Church, built as Bishopwearmouth Parish Church and now known as Sunderland Minster and St Peter's Church, Monkwearmouth, part of which dates from 674   AD, and

7236-408: The end of the century, by London's insatiable demand for coal during the French Revolutionary Wars . Until 1719 the borough of Sunderland formed part of the wider parish of Bishopwearmouth. Following the completion of Holy Trinity Church, Sunderland (today also known as Sunderland Old Parish Church) in 1719, the borough was made a separate parish called Sunderland. Later, in 1769, St John's Church

7344-571: The environment , causing premature death and illness, and it is the largest anthropogenic source of carbon dioxide contributing to climate change . Fourteen billion tonnes of carbon dioxide were emitted by burning coal in 2020, which is 40% of total fossil fuel emissions and over 25% of total global greenhouse gas emissions . As part of worldwide energy transition , many countries have reduced or eliminated their use of coal power . The United Nations Secretary General asked governments to stop building new coal plants by 2020. Global coal use

7452-430: The evolution of the first trees . But bacteria and fungi did not immediately evolve the ability to decompose lignin, so the wood did not fully decay but became buried under sediment, eventually turning into coal. About 300 million years ago, mushrooms and other fungi developed this ability, ending the main coal-formation period of earth's history. Although some authors pointed at some evidence of lignin degradation during

7560-512: The factors involved in coalification, temperature is much more important than either pressure or time of burial. Subbituminous coal can form at temperatures as low as 35 to 80 °C (95 to 176 °F) while anthracite requires a temperature of at least 180 to 245 °C (356 to 473 °F). Although coal is known from most geologic periods , 90% of all coal beds were deposited in the Carboniferous and Permian periods. Paradoxically, this

7668-439: The financial and customer service sectors. Around 8,000 people are now employed by a range of blue chip companies. One business that located on Doxford International is mobile phone operator EE Limited , which has a customer support centre that now employs around 1,000 people. The site operates as a switching centre, underpinning the company's network between Leeds and Edinburgh. Also on Doxford International, EDS has established

7776-498: The form of iron pyrite (FeS 2 ). Being a dense mineral, it can be removed from coal by mechanical means, e.g. by froth flotation . Some sulfate occurs in coal, especially weathered samples. It is not volatilized and can be removed by washing. Minor components include: As minerals, Hg, As, and Se are not problematic to the environment, especially since they are only trace components. They become however mobile (volatile or water-soluble) when these minerals are combusted. Most coal

7884-475: The heat and pressure of deep burial caused the loss of water, methane and carbon dioxide and increased the proportion of carbon. The grade of coal produced depended on the maximum pressure and temperature reached, with lignite (also called "brown coal") produced under relatively mild conditions, and sub-bituminous coal , bituminous coal , or anthracite coal (also called "hard coal" or "black coal") produced in turn with increasing temperature and pressure. Of

7992-431: The increasing tendency of the anthracite to break with a conchoidal fracture , similar to the way thick glass breaks. As geological processes apply pressure to dead biotic material over time, under suitable conditions, its metamorphic grade or rank increases successively into: There are several international standards for coal. The classification of coal is generally based on the content of volatiles . However

8100-480: The modern city is an amalgamation of three settlements founded in the Anglo-Saxon era : Monkwearmouth , on the north bank of the Wear, and Sunderland and Bishopwearmouth on the south bank. Monkwearmouth contains St Peter's Church , which was founded in 674 and formed part of Monkwearmouth–Jarrow Abbey , a significant centre of learning in the seventh and eighth centuries. Sunderland was a fishing settlement and later

8208-453: The morphology and some properties of the original plant. In many coals, individual macerals can be identified visually. Some macerals include: In coalification huminite is replaced by vitreous (shiny) vitrinite . Maturation of bituminous coal is characterized by bitumenization , in which part of the coal is converted to bitumen , a hydrocarbon-rich gel. Maturation to anthracite is characterized by debitumenization (from demethanation) and

8316-405: The most important distinction is between thermal coal (also known as steam coal), which is burnt to generate electricity via steam; and metallurgical coal (also known as coking coal), which is burnt at high temperature to make steel . Hilt's law is a geological observation that (within a small area) the deeper the coal is found, the higher its rank (or grade). It applies if the thermal gradient

8424-544: The mouth of the Wear date to c.  674 , when an Anglo-Saxon nobleman, Benedict Biscop, was granted land by King Ecgfrith, founded the Wearmouth–Jarrow ( St Peter's ) monastery on the north bank of the river—an area that became known as Monkwearmouth. Biscop's monastery was the first built of stone in Northumbria . He employed glaziers from France and in doing he re-established glass making in Britain. In 686

8532-407: The nature of Carboniferous forests, which included lycophyte trees whose determinate growth meant that carbon was not tied up in heartwood of living trees for long periods. One theory suggested that about 360 million years ago, some plants evolved the ability to produce lignin , a complex polymer that made their cellulose stems much harder and more woody. The ability to produce lignin led to

8640-455: The number of double bonds between carbon). As carbonization proceeds, aliphatic compounds convert to aromatic compounds . Similarly, aromatic rings fuse into polyaromatic compounds (linked rings of carbon atoms). The structure increasingly resembles graphene , the structural element of graphite. Chemical changes are accompanied by physical changes, such as decrease in average pore size. The macerals are coalified plant parts that retain

8748-515: The old port area in the suburban terraces of the Fawcett Estate and Mowbray Park . The area around Fawcett Street itself increasingly functioned as the civic and commercial town centre. Marine engineering works were established from the 1820s onwards, initially providing engines for paddle steamers ; in 1845 a ship named Experiment was the first of many to be converted to steam screw propulsion . Demand for steam-powered vessels increased during

8856-410: The original settlement's location, being almost cut off (sundered) from the rest of the mainland by creeks and gullies from both the sea and the River Wear. The earliest inhabitants of the Sunderland area were Stone Age hunter-gatherers and artifacts from this era have been discovered, including microliths found during excavations at St Peter's Church, Monkwearmouth . During the final phase of

8964-456: The pre-combustion treatment, turbine technology (e.g. supercritical steam generator ) and the age of the plant. A few integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) power plants have been built, which burn coal more efficiently. Instead of pulverizing the coal and burning it directly as fuel in the steam-generating boiler, the coal is gasified to create syngas , which is burned in a gas turbine to produce electricity (just like natural gas

9072-427: The reacting groups are attached. Dehydration and decarboxylation take place early in coalification, while demethanation begins only after the coal has already reached bituminous rank. The effect of decarboxylation is to reduce the percentage of oxygen, while demethanation reduces the percentage of hydrogen. Dehydration does both, and (together with demethanation) reduces the saturation of the carbon backbone (increasing

9180-646: The river another passenger terminus, in Fawcett Street, in 1853. Later, Thomas Elliot Harrison (chief engineer to the North Eastern Railway ) made plans to carry the railway across the river; the Wearmouth Railway Bridge (reputedly 'the largest Hog-Back iron girder bridge in the world') opened in 1879. In 1854 the Londonderry, Seaham & Sunderland Railway opened linking collieries to a separate set of staiths at Hudson Dock South, it also provided

9288-464: The river in a single sweep of 236 feet (72 m), it was over twice the length of the earlier bridge at Ironbridge but only three-quarters the weight. At the time of building, it was the biggest single-span bridge in the world; and because Sunderland had developed on a plateau above the river, it never suffered from the problem of interrupting the passage of high-masted vessels. During the War of Jenkins' Ear

9396-476: The south side of the river were granted to the Bishop of Durham by Athelstan of England in 930; these became known as Bishopwearmouth and included settlements such as Ryhope which fall within the modern boundary of Sunderland. In 1100, Bishopwearmouth parish included a fishing village at the southern mouth of the river (now the East End) known as 'Soender-land' (which evolved into 'Sunderland'). This settlement

9504-400: The start of the 18th century the banks of the Wear were described as being studded with small shipyards, as far as the tide flowed. After 1717, measures having been taken to increase the depth of the river, Sunderland's shipbuilding trade grew substantially (in parallel with its coal exports). A number of warships were built, alongside many commercial sailing ships. By the middle of the century

9612-442: The success of the port of Sunderland, salt panning and shipbuilding along the banks of the river. Around this time, Sunderland was known as 'Sunderland-near-the-Sea'. Sunderland's third-biggest export, after coal and salt, was glass. The town's first modern glassworks were established in the 1690s and the industry grew through the 17th century. Its flourishing was aided by trading ships bringing good-quality sand (as ballast ) from

9720-399: The sulfur and most of the nitrogen is incorporated into the organic fraction in the form of organosulfur compounds and organonitrogen compounds . This sulfur and nitrogen are strongly bound within the hydrocarbon matrix. These elements are released as SO 2 and NO x upon combustion. They cannot be removed, economically at least, otherwise. Some coals contain inorganic sulfur, mainly in

9828-488: The top 10 safest in the UK. There is one main tier of local government covering Sunderland, at metropolitan borough level: Sunderland City Council . Most of the built-up area is an unparished area , although on its southern edge part of the built-up area falls within the parish of Burdon . The city council is based at City Hall on Plater Way (formerly the site of the Vaux Brewery), which opened in 2021. Prior to that

9936-460: The town being a target in a 1916 Zeppelin raid. Monkwearmouth was struck on 1 April 1916 and 22 people died. Over 25,000 men from a population of 151,000 served in the armed forces during the war. Through the Great Depression of the 1930s, shipbuilding dramatically declined: shipyards on the Wear went from 15 in 1921 to six in 1937. The small yards of J. Blumer & Son (at North Dock) and

10044-513: The town had 76 shipyards and between 1820 and 1850 the number of ships being built on the Wear increased fivefold. From 1846 to 1854 almost a third of the UK's ships were built in Sunderland, and in 1850 the Sunderland Herald proclaimed the town to be the greatest shipbuilding port in the world. The Durham & Sunderland Railway Co. built a railway line across the Town Moor and established

10152-403: The town was probably the premier shipbuilding centre in Britain. Ships built in Sunderland were known as 'Jamies'. By 1788 Sunderland was Britain's fourth largest port (by measure of tonnage) after London, Newcastle and Liverpool; among these it was the leading coal exporter (though it did not rival Newcastle in terms of home coal trade). Still further growth was driven across the region, towards

10260-415: The world's coal-generated electricity. Efforts around the world to reduce the use of coal have led some regions to switch to natural gas and renewable energy . In 2018 coal-fired power station capacity factor averaged 51%, that is they operated for about half their available operating hours. Coke is a solid carbonaceous residue that is used in manufacturing steel and other iron-containing products. Coke

10368-574: Was 8.3 billion tonnes in 2022, and is set to remain at record levels in 2023. To meet the Paris Agreement target of keeping global warming below 2 °C (3.6 °F) coal use needs to halve from 2020 to 2030, and "phasing down" coal was agreed upon in the Glasgow Climate Pact . The largest consumer and importer of coal in 2020 was China , which accounts for almost half the world's annual coal production, followed by India with about

10476-574: Was based on the trading of this commodity. Coal continues to arrive on beaches around the world from both natural erosion of exposed coal seams and windswept spills from cargo ships. Many homes in such areas gather this coal as a significant, and sometimes primary, source of home heating fuel. Coal consists mainly of a black mixture of diverse organic compounds and polymers. Of course, several kinds of coals exist, with variable dark colors and variable compositions. Young coals (brown coal, lignite) are not black. The two main black coals are bituminous, which

10584-664: Was built as a chapel of ease within Holy Trinity parish; built by a local coal fitter, John Thornhill, it stood in Prospect Row to the north-east of the parish church. (St John's was demolished in 1972.) By 1720 the port area was completely built up, with large houses and gardens facing the Town Moor and the sea, and labourers' dwellings vying with manufactories alongside the river. The three original settlements Bishopwearmouth, Monkwearmouth and Sunderland had started to combine, driven by

10692-504: Was carried to London by sea. In 1257–1259, coal from Newcastle upon Tyne was shipped to London for the smiths and lime -burners building Westminster Abbey . Seacoal Lane and Newcastle Lane, where coal was unloaded at wharves along the River Fleet , still exist. These easily accessible sources had largely become exhausted (or could not meet the growing demand) by the 13th century, when underground extraction by shaft mining or adits

10800-471: Was considered large enough to provide its own county-level services, and so it was made a county borough , independent from the new Durham County Council . The borough boundaries were enlarged on several occasions, notably in 1867, 1928 (when it gained areas including Fulwell , Southwick and the remainder of the old Bishopwearmouth parish), 1936, 1951, and 1967 (when it gained North Hylton , South Hylton , Ryhope , Silksworth , and Tunstall ). In 1974

10908-399: Was designed to dredge to a maximum depth of 10 ft (3.0 m) below the waterline and remained in operation until 1804, when its constituent parts were sold as separate lots. Onshore, numerous small industries supported the business of the burgeoning port. In 1797 the world's first patent ropery (producing machine-made rope , rather than using a ropewalk ) was built in Sunderland, using

11016-602: Was developed in the Soviet Union , or in an MHD topping cycle . However these are not widely used due to lack of profit. In 2017 38% of the world's electricity came from coal, the same percentage as 30 years previously. In 2018 global installed capacity was 2 TW (of which 1TW is in China) which was 30% of total electricity generation capacity. The most dependent major country is South Africa, with over 80% of its electricity generated by coal; but China alone generates more than half of

11124-408: Was developed. The alternative name was "pitcoal", because it came from mines. Cooking and home heating with coal (in addition to firewood or instead of it) has been done in various times and places throughout human history, especially in times and places where ground-surface coal was available and firewood was scarce, but a widespread reliance on coal for home hearths probably never existed until such

11232-490: Was during the Late Paleozoic icehouse , a time of global glaciation . However, the drop in global sea level accompanying the glaciation exposed continental shelves that had previously been submerged, and to these were added wide river deltas produced by increased erosion due to the drop in base level . These widespread areas of wetlands provided ideal conditions for coal formation. The rapid formation of coal ended with

11340-481: Was granted a charter in 1179 under the name of the borough of Wearmouth by Hugh Pudsey , then the Bishop of Durham (who had quasi- monarchical power within the County Palatine of Durham ). The charter gave its merchants the same rights as those of Newcastle-upon-Tyne , but it nevertheless took time for Sunderland to develop as a port . Fishing was the main commercial activity at the time: mainly herring in

11448-606: Was once known as "steam coal" as it was widely used as a fuel for steam locomotives . In this specialized use, it is sometimes known as "sea coal" in the United States. Small "steam coal", also called dry small steam nuts (DSSN), was used as a fuel for domestic water heating . Coal played an important role in industry in the 19th and 20th century. The predecessor of the European Union , the European Coal and Steel Community ,

11556-594: Was the original monastery. St Andrew's Church, Roker , known as the "Cathedral of the Arts and Crafts Movement ", contains work by William Morris , Ernest Gimson and Eric Gill . St Mary's Catholic Church is the earliest surviving Gothic revival church in the city. After the war, more housing was built and the town's boundaries expanded in 1967 when neighbouring Ryhope , Silksworth , Herrington , South Hylton and Castletown were incorporated. Sunderland AFC won their only post- World War II major honour in 1973 when they won

11664-430: Was used for electricity generation. Coal burnt in coal power stations to generate electricity is called thermal coal . It is usually pulverized and then burned in a furnace with a boiler . The furnace heat converts boiler water to steam , which is then used to spin turbines which turn generators and create electricity. The thermodynamic efficiency of this process varies between about 25% and 50% depending on

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