Wyoming Coal Production

Introduction

Fig. 1: A Coal Mine in Wyoming. (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Wyoming is famous for its coal production. As early as in 1837, people noticed that "beds of iron and coal are frequently found" in Wyoming. [1] Since the mid-1860s, American has been practicing commercial coal mining in Wyoming. It has been the "top coal- producing state since 1986" and about 40 percent of all coal mined in the US in 2020 are from Wyoming. [2] By building coal mines and coal-fired plants, people get coal, use power from burning coal, and produce electricity for industrial and day to day activities. Fig. 1, for example, shows a coal mine in Wyoming.

Amount of Coal Produced in Wyoming

Using the report from U.S. Energy Information Administration's Annual Coal Report, we can find how much coal was produced in Wyoming. [3] This is plotted in Fig. 2.

Trend

In Fig. 2, we see that the amount of coal produced in Wyoming has been generally declining. Although in some years, like 2021, the production of coal increased, there has never been steady increase of Wyoming's coal production since 2012. Overall, the coal production in Wyoming is shrinking.

Fig. 2: Amount of coal produced in Wyoming from 2012 to 2021. [3] (Source: T. Chen).

Reason for Coal Production to Decline

There are various explanations of Wyoming's coal production decline, including innovations in green ways of generating power, and revolution in natural gas production. Wyoming has been working its way into a renewable, green future. According to the Wyoming Renewable Energy Coordination Committee, about 15 percent of the electricity in Wyoming was generated through renewable sources in 2020, and wind power accounted for four-fifths of the total renewable energy. There are also more wind energy projects under construction, including "the 3,000-megawatt Chokecherry-Sierra Madre" with "about 900 turbines" in south-central Wyoming. [4]

With green energy sources like wind power taking more space in Wyoming's energy profile, the coal industry is under tremendous pressure. Also, hydraulic fracturing (fracking) of natural gas makes gas plentiful, reducing its price. [5] This creates challenges for coal production. As Kolstad mentioned in the policy memo "What Is Killing the US Coal Industry?", cheap gas "displaces" coal and makes retiring old coal-fired electricity plants better options. [5]

Conclusion

The amount of coal Wyoming produces each year has been in a downward trajectory. With more forms of renewable, clean energy taking its place and cheaper alternatives, like natural gas, the future of Wyoming coal production is not looking promising.

© Tianyi Chen. The author warrants that the work is the author's own and that Stanford University provided no input other than typesetting and referencing guidelines. The author grants permission to copy, distribute and display this work in unaltered form, with attribution to the author, for noncommercial purposes only. All other rights, including commercial rights, are reserved to the author.

References

[1] A. D. Gardner, Forgotten Frontier: A History Of Wyoming Coal Mining (Westview Press, 1989).

[2] "Quarterly Coal Report: April-June 2022," U.S. Energy Information Administration, October 2022.

[3] "Annual Coal Report," U.S. Energy Information Administration, October 2022, Table 1.

[4] "Guide to Permitting Wind Energy Projects in Wyoming," Wyoming Renewable Energy Coordination Committee, January 2022.

[5] C. D. Kolstad, "What Is Killing the US Coal Industry?," Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, March 2017.