Is coal the answer?

Recent studies show the Illinois Basin is on the verge of a major upswing in demand because of the amount of new scrubbing going online to meet sulfur emission limits. The Illinois Basin Coal Supply, Demand and Price Trends Study by Hill and Associates concluded the Illinois Basin is seeing a resurgence similar to what was experienced in the 1970s and 1980s.

In the last 12 to 18 months, the OMM permitted 17 million new tons of coal for mining in Illinois, said director Joe Angleton. Of the 211 billion tons of bituminous coal that underlies the state, 38 billion tons are legally, economically and technologically, mineable – the largest reserve of any state.

There are more than 500 billion tons of recoverable coal in the United States – one quarter of the world’s coal resource. The energy value of that coal is equal to about 2 trillion barrels of crude oil – more than triple the world’s known oil reserves.

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