That is comparable to all of the world s known oil reserves. While we are blessed with an abundant supply of coal, we are challenged in its use because of our national concern about the environment. First, coal is not easily extracted from the earth. One must either sink shafts to access the coal seam in underground mines or remove the overburden to expose the coal seam in surface coal mining operations. These activities temporarily disturb the environment and reclamation must occur at the end of the mining cycle in order to ensure that the land is as productive after mining as it was before mining.
Coal contains sulfur, nitrogen, mercury and carbon, among many other mineral components.
When coal is burned in its raw state, these elements combine with oxygen and are emitted into the atmosphere. The potential environmental impacts of mining and consumption of coal have led some to conclude that coal should be removed from our energy mix. We think this is an unwise conclusion, but it does point out the challenge that those of us who advocate the use of coal have before us. The nation demands a cleaner environment at the same time that it demands low-cost, reliable and available energy. For coal to continue to play the vital role that it can and should play in our energy mix, we must ensure that coal is mined in environmentally acceptable ways and that it is burned with the minimum amount of emissions that technology will allow.