National Coal Assessment
The United States consumes nearly a billion short tons of coal each year and relies on coal to generate more than 50 percent of its electrically. Understanding the distribution and availability of coal of sufficient quality and quantity to meet the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments emission standards is important to ensure adequate energy supplies in the future. The USGS has chosen to focus on the top five coal-producing regions of the conterminous United States for assessing coal resources for use in the first quarter of the 21st century. This intensive, multi-year assessment of the quantity, quality, availability, and recoverability of coal involves the generation of digital databases and use of geographic information system (GIS) technology.
As part of the National Coal Resource Assessment, the USGS is assessing the coal resources within the top five coal-producing regions of the conterminous United States to determine the quantity, quality, and mineability of coal likely to be used within the next 20 to 30 years. This assessment is being conducted in partnerships with the Bureau of Land Management, Office of Surface Mining, various State agencies, and coal mining companies.
Three images of coal-beds. The Colorado Plateau Region, and the Rocky Mountains and Great Plains Region.
Federally owned coal and coal that is federally managed, particularly from the Colorado Plateau region and the Northern Rocky Mountains and Great Plains region, play a major role in the energy supply of the United States. In 1997, more than 30 percent of the 1,100 million short tons of coal produced in the U.S. came from Federal lands.
A map, "Land status in the Colorado Plateau Region."
The map shows the surface administered by the BLM, U.S. Forest Service, the National Park Service, or other Federal agencies. About 360,000 million short tons of federally owned coal exist in the assessment units under this study.
A map: "Land Status in the Northern Rocky Mountains and Great Plains Region."
This map shows a region consisting of about 313 million acres. Thirty-two percent of the land is federally managed surface and about eighty percent of the land contains federally owned coal. About 520,000 million short tons of federally owned coal exist in the assessment units in this study.
The assessments in these two regions identified Federal and non-Federal surface ownership and coal ownership, and calculated Federal coal resources. Knowing where the Federal coal is located, how much Federal coal exists, and the geologic setting of the coal is useful to land managers, planners, and mineral developers in making informed land-use decisions to meet the Nation's increasing need for energy while protecting the environment and human health. The formation of an effective national energy policy requires that policymakers receive information on coal quality, geology, distribution, and availability, as well as the economic and environmental issues associated with its use.
The products for the first two assessment areas completed are released on CD-ROM and via the Web: the 1999 Resource Assessment of Selected Tertiary Coal-Beds and Zones in the Northern Rocky Mountains and Great Plains Region, USGS Professional paper 1625-A and Open-file Report 99-376 and the Geologic Assessment of Coal in the Colorado Plateau: Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah, USGS Professional Paper 1625-B.
The digital database of coal ownership status is one of the components of the USGS assessment of Federal lands. Using GIS technology, digital ownership data were combined with geologic resources estimates and other spatial coal data to derive the estimated amount of Federal resources.
The three maps above show examples of Federal coal ownership
and the distribution of coal resources for the Powder River Basin.
