Notes
From www.sourcewatch.org:
"“Missouri has 3.86 billion tons of recoverable coal reserves; all of this, however, is classified as high-sulfur coal (over 1.67 lb per million BTU).
"Missouri was the first state west of the Mississippi to produce coal commercially, in 1840. By 1881, coal mining had become a major industry in the state, with Missouri coal largely fuelling coal-fired locomotives. Production swelled to 5 million tons in 1918, and ranged between 3 and 6 million tons per year for the next six decades. In the 1950’s and 60’s, Missouri’s coal production dropped, due to the declining use of coal-fired locomotives; in the 1970’s, however, production boomed, due to the increased use of coal-fired power plants, and the state’s output peaked at 6.7 million tons in 1984.
"Since then, Missouri's coal production has dropped precipitously; the passage of the Clean Air Act has meant that Missouri’s higher-sulfur coal has become less economically desireable. (In 1992, Missouri-mined coal averaged 3.92 lb of sulfur per million BTU, a very high level - especially compared with 0.44 for Wyoming coal.) Production dropped to 2.6 million tons by 1990, and then to 394,000 tons in 2006. Coal mining, which employed 1,108 people in Missouri in 1985, employs just 20 Missourians today.
"However, the coal industry remains very strong in Missouri, despite the state’s decline in importance in coal mining. Missouri was the 12th biggest coal energy-producing state in the country in 2005. Ameren, the fifth-biggest U.S. coal energy producer, is headquartered in St. Louis - as are Peabody Energy and Arch Coal, the country’s biggest and third-biggest coal mining companies, respectively."