By Lee Buchsbaum In terms of fatalities, 2010 was one of the more deadly years for America’s coal mining industry in the past 20 years. A total of 48 coal miners perished on the job last year. West Virginia suffered the greatest…
Results for "Buchsbaum"
Foresight Energy Invests in Illinois
By Lee Buchsbaum With more bituminous coal reserves than any other region, for almost two decades industry observers have been predicting that as utilities installed greater amounts of scrubbers on their units throughout the U.S., a much larger market would develop for…
Shedding Its Skin: ICG’s Illinois Viper Mine Prepares for the Next 25 Years
By Lee Buchsbaum Just a few miles north of Springfield, Ill., the 300 coal miners at International Coal Group’s Viper mine are gearing up to do something they’ve never done before: drive underground. After nearly a quarter century of continued safe and…
Caught in the Crossfire: The American Coal Miner
By Lee Buchsbaum The continued inconsistency and uncertainty throughout the coal mining regions of Appalachia has caused increased polarization and political action by its citizens, many who feel under siege by their elected government officials. With the general economy not improving and…
Assessing 2010 and Looking Westward Into 2011
By Lee Buchsbaum At a conference held during the middle of last year, the CEO of one of the largest owners of coal reserves in the nation joked that perhaps he should pass out Bowie knives to the audience instead of information,…
Cline Revives New Elk in Colorado
By Lee Buchsbaum Sustained worldwide demand for high grade metallurgical coal has led the Canadian headquartered Cline Mining Corp. to redevelop the once highly productive but now abandoned New Elk underground mine in southern Colorado. After several years of rehabilitation and redevelopment…
Coal Will Support a New World Order
…interrupted, no matter how brief, prices move higher. When prices move higher, the economics for existing met operations and abandoned brownfield operations improve. Case in point, Lee Buchsbaum filed a report on the restoration of the New Elk mine, near Trinidad, Colo….
Built by a Working Legend: Buck Harless
By Lee Buchsbaum Though part of a larger organization, Rockhouse and Hampden Coal very much reflect the character of the founder, Buck Harless. A legendary figure in southern West Virginia and throughout Appalachia, now in his 90s, Harless still lives in Gilbert…
Cloud Peak Energy’s Spring Creek Ramps Up
By Lee Buchsbaum Located in southeastern Montana just over the Wyoming border near the town of Decker, Cloud Peak Energy’s Spring Creek mine produced and shipped approximately 17.7 million tons coal in 2009, making it the largest coal producing mine in Montana….
Carrying on a Proud Tradition
By Lee Buchsbaum Mining in low coal is a different ballgame. Operating conditions are less forgiving. Yields are lower and costs per ton are higher. Margins for error don’t generally exist. Despite this, thousands of Appalachian miners maintain what has become something…
Falling on Deaf Ears
By Lee Buchsbaum “The Spruce No. 1 mine is one of the largest surface mining operations ever authorized in Appalachia. It is located in Logan County, W.Va., in the Spruce Fork Watershed, which has been impacted by previous mining activities. The Mingo…
Fight to the Finish
By Lee Buchsbaum Throughout the fall of 2008 many Appalachian political insiders warned their constituents and Vice-Presidential Candidate Biden said the future Obama administration planned to bankrupt the coal industry. Though candidate Obama promised to restore funding for a revised FutureGen and…
Four Draglines and Seven Splitting Seams
By Lee Buchsbaum Nationwide, North American Coal Corp., a subsidiary of NACCO Industries, Inc., mines and markets lignite primarily as fuel for power generation and provides selected value-added mining services for other natural resources companies. Corporate headquarters are located in Dallas, Texas….
ICG’s New Beckley Prep Plant Incorporates the Latest Technology in Coal Preparation
By Lee Buchsbaum One of the newest of the International Coal Group’s (ICG) mines, the ICG Beckley operation is a solid metallurgical producer. Its major clean coal product is the increasingly rare, sought after Pocahontas No. 3 low-volatile, high quality metallurgical coal….
Training for the Disasters
By Lee Buchsbaum Editor’s Note: This article was commissioned prior to the Upper Big Branch explosion and completed during the rescue efforts. At the time this edition went to press, several of the safety officials quoted herein were directly involved in the…
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