Coal by the Numbers

• Percentage of U.S. electric power generated from coal: 51

• Percentage of Illinois electric power generated from coal: 46 (almost all the rest comes from nuclear power)

• Amount of coal used each day by Americans in the form of electricity: 20 pounds apiece

• Amount of electricity supplied by a pound of coal: enough to light ten 100-watt bulbs for about an hour

• U.S. cost in 1999, on a dollars-per-million-Btu basis, for

  • natural gas: $2.59
  • petroleum: $2.56
  • coal: $1.22

• Estimated recoverable coal reserves

  • worldwide: 1.1 trillion tons
  • in the United States: 268 billion tons
  • in Illinois: at least 30 billion tons; possibly up to 80 billion

• Percentage of Illinois underlain by coal: 65 (37,000 square miles)

• Total U.S. coal production in 2003: 1.1 billion tons

• Percentage of U.S. coal mined west of the Mississippi: 56

• Coal production in Illinois in 1990: 61.7 million tons
  In 2003: 31.1 million tons

• Number of Illinois coal miners in 1990: 10,129
  In 2003: 3,534

• Rank of Illinois among coal-producing states in 1995: #6
  In 2003: #9

Sources: DOE Energy Information Administration; Illinois Dept. of Natural Resources, Office of Mines and Minerals; National Coal Association; "Illinois Coal Fact Sheet," Illinois Dept. of Commerce and Economic Opportunity; Paul Chugh, SIUC Dept. of Mineral and Mining Resources Engineering.

[back to main story...]

Comments: Perspectives Webmaster
Copyright © 2005, Board of Trustees, Southern Illinois University | Privacy Policy