Clean-Air Rules Revive Demand for Dirty Coal

The dirtiest coal in the U.S. is becoming popular again. Now that more of their power plants can remove toxins such as sulfur dioxide (SO2 ), utilities are buying coal with the highest levels of pollutants after abandoning it decades ago in favor of cleaner-burning varieties from Appalachia and Wyoming. This is good news for coal producers in Illinois, home to some of the dirtiest coal reserves in the U.S. Last year demand for the state’s coal hit its highest level since 1990, as sales of competing Appalachian coal dipped and consumption of coal from Wyoming rose at a slower pace. “Here we are growing, while the industry’s shrinking,” says Michael Beyer, chief executive officer of Foresight Energy, an Illinois company with four coal mines in the southern part of the state.

Coal from the Illinois Basin, which stretches across the state and into parts of Indiana, Missouri, and western Kentucky, contains more sulfur than that from other regions of the U.S. It fell from favor after 1990, when an expansion of the Clean Air Act put limits on SO2 emissions, which cause acid rain. Over the next decade, utilities cut the amount of coal they bought from the region by 46 percent. By the mid-’90s, plants had started installing scrubbers that could remove 95 percent of SO2 emissions.