Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Salazar opens 758M tons of Wyoming coal to mining

Nearly 758 million tons of Wyoming coal will go up for sale in the coming months, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Tuesday. Flanked by Gov. Matt Mead at Cheyenne South High School, Salazar said coal will continue to be a mainstay of U.S. energy consumption and an important contributor toward U.S. energy indepedence. Wyoming's low-sulfur coal is a key part of that mix, he said. "Coal is a critical component of America's comprehensive energy portfolio as well as Wyoming's economy," Salazar said. Mead joined Salazar for what Mead called a "great announcement." The Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management, which manages the federal coal leases, will hold four competitive lease sales of coal land in the Powder River Basin in coming months. The areas are next to existing coal mines and will likely be purchased by the companies that own those mines to expand their operations. The lease sales are the first of more than a dozen the BLM expects to hold for the Power River Basin over the next three years, according to a statement released by the Interior Department...more

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It may go up for sale and be sold. Let's see if they ever get to mine it.