Utah's coal reserves raise a burning question

At a production rate of 27 million tons yearly, he noted, the amount under lease might last another 12 to 14 years. This is where claims come from that Utah has fewer than 15 years of coal mining left.

Vanden Berg puts it in simple terms. Assume production is in the ballpark of 25 million tons a year. Coal currently under lease that has not been tapped amounts to 300 million tons. Divide 300 million by 25 million a year and the result is 12 years.

That reasoning is faulty, according to Vanden Berg and Kohler. "They're not accounting for new leases," Vanden Berg said.

Large tracts of nonleased coal remain in the Wasatch Plateau and Book Cliffs fields, which are not far from Price. Reserves of 50 million tons to 100 million tons should become available in the next few years, he said.

Kohler said about 275 million tons of reserves are available in the Wasatch Plateau Coal Field; 686 million tons in the Book Cliffs Coal Field, and 200 million tons in the Emery Coal Field, for a total of 1.2 billion tons in central Utah in the vicinity of established mines.

At present production rates, this will last "a little over 40-45 years," he added.

Utah Geological Survey experts estimate that remaining recoverable coal in the Book Cliffs and Wasatch Plateau fields amounts to nearly 2 billion tons — enough to sustain current production for 30 to 50 years, depending on how difficult it is to extract.

To say the state will run out in 12 years is "simply not true," said Vanden Berg, who is also an energy database specialist with the Survey.

Beyond the next half-century, "Utah still has a large amount of coal in other coal fields. The Emery Coal Field currently has one small mine in it ... but it has up to 800 million tons of recoverable coal."

Outside the present coal country of Carbon and Emery counties are other huge coal deposits. A new mine is proposed at the Alton Coal Field in Kane County, a field with an estimated 1 billion tons of coal.

The proposal envisions trucking the coal to Cedar City, where it would be unloaded and placed aboard coal trains. Objections that Vanden Berg has heard to this plan include "having coal trucks running 24 hours a day, seven days a week through Hatch and Panguitch and those small towns." It's a long distance from Alton to Cedar City, he said.

"Then there's a couple of other coal fields that have significant reserves in them that we haven't touched yet," he said. These reserves aren't near Utah's coal capital, Price. Before they could be developed, roads, railroads and other infrastructure must be built.

"It's basically a matter of transportation for now," Vanden Berg noted. "Sooner or later they're going to have to start venturing out farther" from Price.