Coal Mines

The deepest Coal Mine in the world is over 5000 feet below the ground in the UK. Many in the United States are over 1200 feet deep, most of those are closed and now few are remaining. There is a mine in Alabama, which is the deepest vertical shaft coalmine in North America, with operations at 2,140 feet beneath the
surface. It is hard for the coalmines in Washington State, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Alabama to compete with the incredible economies of scale of the Gillette WY above ground mine. Below ground coalmines can be quite dangerous. There are gases underground and coal dust and if a fire breaks out it steals all the oxygen.
Recently the rescue of the coalminers in PA caught the attention of the whole world as rescue workers and heads-up rescuees, worked non-stop to stay alive until every man got out. Mining is dangerous business and safety is essential and comes at a high cost in productivity. Above ground machinery and robotics have made many mining efforts in the United States profitable and much safer. Also at issue as we have discussed are the environmental issues. One coalminer ancestor we interviewed had been in touch with relatives in the UK, she told us of the problems with pollution:
"My grandmothers were born in this country, but my grandfathers weren't so I am only a third generation American. My mining ancestors came from Wales and Scotland where the mines were very polluted and people equated them with working in hell. I understand that relatives there still work in the mines."
Things in the mining industry have significantly changed in the United States in the past 25 years the only question is; did they change too fast? The reason we won the Second world War was because of our industrial output, we had the raw materials and the will and we were able to do it all here, are we positive we wish to lose such capability in the future, after all it is still a cruel world, the human race is surely not done killing our own species yet, there will be more wars. The key issue in mining is the competition between third world countries trashing the environment and our environmental regulations in place here. Today in the United States, we have new innovations to protect the environment without slowing the process. These new methods are costly on original capitalization of a project, but usually once started are amortized over a significant period. Many colleges are putting out environmental engineers specializing in mining.