Coal’s role in U.S. largely hidden, yet it keeps lights on

When Rick Honaker was growing, his grandmother would dispatch him to the back yard, pail in hand, to scoop up the shiny, black rocks that fed her stove. It was the only fuel in a home that had long sent its men to the mines.

Now, a generation later, the only time Honaker’s own children have seen a lump of coal is when he brings one home. Honaker, who teaches mining engineering at the University of Kentucky, figures his kids need to see where they came from — and where we all may be going.