Powder River Basin
The former hunting grounds of the Oglala Lakota, the area is very sparsely populated and is known for its rolling grasslands and semiarid climate.
The Powder River Basin contains a section of Phanerozoic rocks up to 17,000 feet (5,200 m) thick, from Cambrian to Holocene.
The thickest section of the Powder River Basin is composed of Cretaceous rocks, an overall regressive sequence of mostly marine shales and sandstones deposited in the Western Interior Seaway.
Powder River Basin (PRB) coal is classified as "sub-bituminous" and contains an average of approximately 8,500 btu/lb, with low sulfur.
PRB coal was essentially worthless until air pollution emissions from power plants (primarily sulfur dioxide, or "SO2") became a concern.
A coal-fired plant designed to burn Appalachian coal must be modified to remove SO2 at a cost estimated in 1999 to be around $322 per ton of SO2.
The United States Geological Survey has conducted a series of studies on the economic accessibility of coal in the major coal-producing regions of the country.
[5] After considering stripping ratios and production costs, the USGS concluded that at that time, only 6% of the original resource, or 10.1 billion short tons of coal, was economically recoverable.
[10] The Powder River Basin mines supply approximately 40% of the coal that fuels those stations (mainly east of the Rocky Mountains) for generating electricity.
[14] According to historian Ryan Driskell Tate, surface mining in remote areas happened to reduce some of the "occupational togetherness" typically associated with coal miners working shoulder-to-shoulder underground in Appalachia.
[17] The Powder River Basin also contains major deposits of petroleum, including the giant Salt Creek Oil Field.
[20] There is a recent resurgence in oil and gas production as a result of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing.
33-1 Federal-McCarrell well, which found 27 feet of pay at a depth of 4500 ft.[23] Recent controversy surrounds the extensive coalbed methane extraction in the region.
The Wasatch Formation (Eocene) contains the uranium ore "roll front" type deposits found in the Pumpkin Buttes District.
However, power stations and plants in the eastern United States were paying over $30 a ton – the difference caused by the cost of transportation.
[30] Originally a single track Burlington Northern Railway line built in stages from 1972 to 1979, the rail line ran south from Donkey Creek Junction in the north 13 miles (21 km) to Caballo, Wyoming; and then for 103 miles (166 km) to Shawnee in Converse County.
[31] The Chicago and North Western Railway ran close to the northern section, as did the Union Pacific at Caballo.
[11] Coal customers threatened to evaluate alternate sources of energy and transportation, including the Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corporation.
As a result, the 280-mile (450 km) expansion of the Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern Railroad line was approved by the Surface Transportation Board.
[34] In 2006, Union Pacific set a record by hauling 194 million tons of coal – an 8% increase compared with 2005 tonnage.
