Production trends of major U.S. coal-producing regions

The United States has produced more than 60 billion tons of coal during the last 180 years. Of this, about 40 billion tons have been produced from the Appalachian basin, 10 billion tons from the Illinois basin, 1 billion tons from the Gulf Coast region, 4 billion tons from the northwestern Rocky Mountain Region, 2 billion tons from the central Rocky Mountain region, and about 3 billion tons from the other coal fields in the country. Much more than 60 billion tons remains to be produced and apparently, at present consumption rates, there is enough coal to last the country for another few hundred years. Sometime during the last half of this production life cycle, however, when one-half or a little less than one-half of the coal reserves (economically producible coal) have been exploited and the remaining, less desirable coal beds are being mined, US coal production will begin a long, irreversible decline. A national decline in coal production, is not anticipated for many years, and perhaps will not begin until sometime late in the next century. The paper discusses trends in coal production in the major coal-producing regions