coal
this one critical resource supplies nearly half of America's electricity and
This is the biggest coal mining operation in the country
the Black Thunder mine in Wyoming's Powder River Basin
Black thunder is one of 15 mines in the basin which stretches from Northeastern Wyoming into Montana
In the last 40 years [the] area has been completely transformed
this is what the barren landscape [looked] like in the 1950s and
Here it is now the terrain completely altered by mines like black thunder
today, Wyoming produces more coal than any state in [the] nation
Far more than traditional coal mining locations like Kentucky and West, Virginia
So what changed?
When you think about protecting the environment?
The last thing that comes to mind is digging a giant coal mine in the middle of pristine ranch land yet
Ironically all this came about because of a government effort to clean up our air over 40 years ago
The environmental crusader who led the charge is the last person you might expect we can no longer afford
to consider air and water
common property free to be abused by anyone
with pressure from the growing environmental movement president Richard Nixon [signed] the clean Air act of 1970 into law
It restricted emissions released into the air by big polluters like coal-fired power plants
You might think that would have killed coal mining, but not here in Wyoming
This stuff has a lot less sulfur than the coal mined elsewhere, so it burns cleaner
making the Powder River Basin the new King of coal
Josh [gardner] dries one of the trucks that work these pits
It's a 6:30 a.m.. Shift change time to go to work
Hey, Warren, Josh
Hey, what's up? Hey?
see, ya
Our ride is basically a dump truck on steroids
It stands over two stories tall and weighs almost 200 tons
But it seems dwarfed by the shovel at the base [of] the pit
That's our first bucket in felt like a spoiler three
This actually is telling us how much weight we have on there the first bucket was 68 tons and then the second one
16 it looks like it's raining pool
so we got
174 three Bucket foals, and we're on our way
One Truckload like this can produce enough energy to heat a home for more than 40 years
Or run your television for the next 2,000 years
All day long Josh drives in a big loop filling his truck with coal
Dumping it filling it up again in a single shift he can haul 8,000 tons
and
There's plenty [to] haul
Typically coal seams might be 10 feet thick but here. They're 80 feet thick or more
we're about 200 feet down and
You can see the definite line where the black starts up there and all the gray above it and once we get done taking all
The coal out of this seam this shovels done, then they'll take all the dirt that sits above it
They'll blast it back down into this hole and then they'll just start again
Again and again until the whole thing is cleared of all the coal correct
And how long can't do that for how much coal is and they say in the whole Powder River basin
There's enough coal to last 150 years so this place will be around a lot longer than [your] mean. Oh, yeah
But digging it up
Maybe be easiest part of a job where hundreds if not thousands of miles away from the power plants that [need] it
So how to get this coal where it needs to go?
trains
But not just any trains some of them are a mile and a half long
[Karlin] Vigil schedules the trains at Black Thunder
She's worked here nearly 30 years almost as long as [the] mine has been in business
we shipped our first train in December of 1977 and
We were probably only loading a couple of trains a week at that time and now you're looking at you know anywhere from 20 [to]
25 trains a day
This train is headed to a power plant in Montana this one is on its way to Minnesota, Illinois or Missouri
this one as far east as Georgia or New York and
They all start out on the [joint] line
This 103 [mile-long] set of tracks has developed into the busiest stretch of rail in the entire country
It links these trains to national rail lines, so the coal can get wherever it needs to go
The trains don't even stop as they roll under the [chutes] at the base of the towers
The poll Runs right up this conveyor belt here this [-] that's down below us goes into the silos themselves
You can load a train out [of] here in about an hour and 20 minutes
Generally a good month is over [ten] million tons of coal 10 million tons of coal sounds like it's a big number
But I mean, what does that mean in terms of how much energy's actually giving to the United states? It's actually
10% of the coal generated fuel for the United States
In the middle of nowhere [we] built ourselves the grand canyon of coal
With our vast reserves, it's no wonder America is still so reliant on the simple Black rock to power the grid
Even though coal-fired power plants are among the biggest air polluters in the us
