Antracite Almost Gone in PA??

I just read an arctical that said "Today, Pennsylvania’s anthracite is almost gone. Mining companies there are now exploiting seams as thin as 28 inches."

What's with this? I am new to coal and just ordered a Keystoker koker.....

I am 50 miles from the Anthracite coal region in PA ...

Should I worry about no more antracite or at least tough getting it in another 10 years?

Maybe think about geothermal?

There's 16 billion tons of anthracite in Pennsylvania. the estimation is that 6 Billion tons of it are recoverable. At current production rates that's enough for a couple thousand years. Even if they increased production 10 fold and those estimates are off by 90% chances of you seeing a shortage of anthracite in your lifetime are nil because of a lack or product to mine. If anything you will see production come to halt because of government regulations.

I'm not going to go through the whole thing but the first sentence in the very first paragraph should send some red flags up. the person writing this obviously has no clue about how anthracite figures into the overall picture:

It can partly be explained by the depletion of anthracite reserves and the nation's increasing reliance on sub-bituminous coal and even lignite

False, anthracite production is used primarily for home heating in NEPA, overall its a very small market and very small percentage of production. If anthracite production stopped tommorrow it is going to effect a very small percentage of the population in the U.S. Truthfully its not much at all.

The last estimates I have read are that there is enough coal in this country to power it into the next century. Even the graphs presented in that article indicate peak coal production is a long way off. Other means to create power will have long been in place making coal no longer a necessity.

There is some truth to the fact that there are companies mining thin seems BUT in one case one mine was mining a 2 foot vein not because it was the only one there but because he worked underground, by himself, and he just retired now at 70 years old It was easier for him to handle the shorter props by himself. The mine I'm working at is in about 7 feet of coal, and we will be in 30 feet shortly with enough coal to hopefully last us in that one vein 20 years+ Jeddo Highland is stripping a 30 foot vein also. So there is plenty of anthracite left, even bigger veins.

PHEW!!! Thanks guys for picking apart the falacy of the mis-information.I get very twichy when I hear such unsettling information.Here it is August already and we are within a couple of months of a light-off and we must content ourselves with only pleasant thoughts.That sure wasn't one of 'em. Regards,Mike

I love this forum. Kudos to those who KNOW and shame on those who pretend (tisk tisk silverboneheadcafe)... totally love this forum.

In a related story:

Feds lower recoverable coal estimate in Wyo. field

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2008/08/01/ap5281183.html
The USGS report released this week estimates there are 77 billion short tons of recoverable coal in the Gillette field, down 29 percent from the 109 billion short tons estimated in 2002 in generally the same area.

Fred Freme, coal industry statistician with the federal Energy Information Administration, said Friday the new estimate may sound like a significant change but considering the billions of tons of mineable coal in the country it's not.

I think the main point here to understand is that there is a lot of coal in the U.S., as I mentioned above other energy sources will be online before we even come anywhere near running out of it.

I was watching a show that says we have tremendous gas reserves in this country. Italy and a few European countries have cars that run on it. We just need a government who really cares about making things better.

Richard:

According to MIT Scientists, truly viable solar alternative sources are more like 10 years away:

Manny