Question: Beyond Coal is focused on preventing coal mining in which region which is home to approximately 25 million Americans?
Context: The Hobet 21 Coal Mine in West Virginia was operational between 1974 and 2015.  Straddling the border of Boone County and Lincoln County in the Appalachian Mountains, the Hobet 21 mine was one of the largest mountaintop-removal coal mining operations in West Virginia.  Originally owned by Fil Nutter, the mine used both underground mining and strip mining techniques, and later even more intensive surface mining using a dragline.  Increasing productivity and profitability encouraged workers to successfully strike for their health plan in 1993, which resulted in unusually thorough coverage for mine workers at this time.  The Hobet mine was incorporated into Arch Coal in 1997, along with several other mines, following booming coal demand.  The mine was sold two more times: to Magnum Coal in 2005 and to Patriot Coal in 2008.  Patriot Coal subsequently went bankrupt in 2015, ending mining operations at Hobet for good.  The Hobet 21 Coal Mine site was once a mountainous highland region covering about 25 square miles.  Mountaintop-removal coal mining causes adverse environmental and human health effects.  Notably, streams and springs can become permanently filled in with rubble and toxic runoff that concentrates downstream, polluting human water supplies. The Beyond Coal movement is a campaign by environmental group the Sierra Club to promote renewable energy instead of coal.  Their primary objective is to close coal power plants in the United States, including at least one-third of the country's more than 500 coal plants by 2020, and to replace them with renewable energy sources.  The campaign is also active in other countries; for example they are trying to prevent the construction of the Kosovo C thermal power plant near Pristina, Kosovo; to this end they have collaborated with academic and Obama administration climate advisor Dan Kammen.  Other objectives include keeping coal in the ground, specifically in Appalachia and the Powder River Basin, where the majority of American coal reserves are located, and preventing coal from being exported from America. Mining in Japan is minimal because Japan possesses very few mining resources.  Japanese mining was a rapidly declining industry in the 1980s.  Coal production shrank from a peak of 55 million tons in 1960 to slightly more than 16 million tons in 1985, while coal imports grew to nearly 91 million tons in 1987.  Domestic coal mining companies faced cheap coal imports and high production costs, which caused them chronic deficits in the 1980s.  In the late 1980s, Japan's approximately 1 million tons of coal reserves were mostly hard coal used for coking.  Most of the coal Japan consumed is used to produce electric power. The Australian Coal Association (ACA) is the major Australian coal mining industry lobby group.  It represents the black coal producers of New South Wales and Queensland and consists of a number of relatively small coal mining companies or subsidiaries of larger corporations in those two states.  Australia is the world's largest coal exporter, and black coal is Australia's second largest commodity export, worth more than A$24 billion in the financial year ending June 2008, and $46 billion, or nearly double this amount, for the corresponding calendar year ending December.  Black coal provides around 57 per cent of Australia's grid-connected electricity (brown coal around 24%) and is vital for major industries such as steel making and cement manufacture. Appalachia ( ) is a cultural region in the Eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York to northern Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia.  While the Appalachian Mountains stretch from Belle Isle (Newfoundland and Labrador) in Canada to Cheaha Mountain in Alabama, the cultural region of Appalachia typically refers only to the central and southern portions of the range.  As of the 2010 United States Census, the region was home to approximately 25 million people. Coal mining in the United States is a major industry In 2016, US coal mining declined to 728.2 million short tons, down 37 percent from the peak production of 1,162,7 million tons in 2006.  Coal mining employed 50,000 in 2016.  In 2015, 896.9 million short tons of coal were mined in the United States, with an average price of $31.83 per short ton, worth $28.6 billion dollars. China National Coal Group Co., Ltd. known as China Coal Group is a Chinese coal mining conglomerate that was supervised by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) of the State Council.  It was the second largest state-owned coal mining enterprise in the mainland China, and the third largest in the world, just after Shenhua Group in 2008, according to a website quoting Xinhua News Agency.  It is engaged in coal production and sales, coal chemicals, coal mining equipment manufacturing, coal mine design and related engineering services. The history of coal mining goes back thousands of years.  It became important in the Industrial Revolution of the 19th and 20th centuries, when it was primarily used to power steam engines, heat buildings and generate electricity.  Coal mining continues as an important economic activity today.  Compared to wood fuels, coal yields a higher amount of energy per mass and can often be obtained in areas where wood is not readily available.  Though it was used historically as a domestic fuel, coal is now used mostly in industry, especially in smelting and alloy production as well as electricity generation.  Large-scale coal mining developed during the Industrial Revolution, and coal provided the main source of primary energy for industry and transportation in industrial areas from the 18th century to the 1950s.  Coal remains an important energy source because of its low cost and abundance compared to other fuels, particularly for electricity generation.  Coal is also mined today on a large scale by open pit methods wherever the coal strata strike the surface or are relatively shallow.  Britain developed the main techniques of underground coal mining from the late 18th century onward, with further progress being driven by 19th century and early 20th century progress.  However, oil and gas were increasingly used as alternatives from the 1860s onward. Do Ab (also spelt Do Abe and Do ab-E Mikh-E Zarrin) is a village in Bamiyan Province in central Afghanistan.  It is located in a pass in a mountainous region North East of Barmiyan town on the Ghandak highway 10 km from the border with Baghlan Province.  It has a bazaar, a coal weigh station built in 2007 and a police check point.  Do Abe is the centre of a coal mining industry that employed manual methods to extract coal from shafts in sacks.  Coal seams visible on the surface are followed deep underground.  The shaft roof is unsupported so accidents are common.  From 2009/10 a contract was to be let to a Chinese coal mining group to extract the coal using mechanized equipment.  Prior to the establishment of the weigh station coal smuggling across the border into Baghan province was rife. The Black Diamond Coal Mining Railroad was 5.9 mi long and ran from Black Diamond Landing, California (now part of the city of Pittsburg, California) to Nortonville, California.  It was owned and operated by the Black Diamond Coal Mining Company and therefore did not have its own official name.  Over the years, it has been known by at least four different names.  (A report prepared by the State in the 1880s referred to it as both the "Black Diamond Coal Mining Railroad Company" and the "Black Diamond Railroad."  It has also been referred to as the "Black Diamond Coal Company Railroad" and the "Black Diamond Coal and Railroad Company.")
Answer: Appalachia