United States had burned 1.1 billion short tons of coal in 2007, that is enough to fill a railroad car every 3 seconds. Almost over 90% coal was burnt by electricity sector and rest was burned mostly in industrial and commercial settings. Burning vast quantity of coal by power plants relies on a vast network of mines where companies excel at extracting it from the Earth at prolific rates.
There is a simple principle for removing coal that just expose it, break it up, and cart it off to be burned. In fact practically coal mining is energy intensive, labor intensive and money intensive undertaking. One of the most risky occupations is the underground mining, killing and injuring many in accidents, and causing chronic health problems. Most of underground mining is done in the East and surface mining is done in the West.
