Talk:Coal mining in the United States

[Untitled]
Pretty biased toward the environmental movement... 75.67.142.56 (talk) 18:12, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

This article would treat coal mining in the United States and coal power in the United Staes. --Nukeless 08:58, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * oppose 38.116.202.43 (talk) 13:08, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
 * oppose. Both topics are complex enought for separate articles. A better combination would be to merge articles on Coal Power in the United States and Coal in the United States. Also, production data in this article is way out of date: 2006 data are now available by state from EIA. Mervyn Emrys (talk) 20:38, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
 * oppose. US coal mining and US coal power each have the potential for lengthy articles. Plazak (talk) 18:53, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Renewed merger discussion
I think the above discussion needs reconsideration, so I'm starting a conversation on this again.

A proposal on the table is to merge Coal power in the United States into this article (Coal in the United States). The other nation specific articles on coal are:
 * Coal in Australia
 * Coal power in China

Correspondingly, Coal power in China will be renamed to Coal in China and Category:Coal power by country will be changed to Category:Coal by country. Why? For starters, virtually all coal is used for power production. This article covers power production and the other article covers mining and other topics. Separation of them is a useless exercise, exemplified in the histories of these articles. Need proof? See EIA data by end use. Less than 10% goes to anything other than power production. The USA used to have a diversified use of coal - but not anymore. 'Other uses' of coal should constitute a part of an article focusing mainly on coal power, not the other way around. -Theanphibian (talk • contribs) 19:40, 2 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Oppose - Although almost all coal is used for power generation, US coal mining is an activity quite distinct from US electricity generation from coal, and deserves its own article. Coal power in the United States is already quite a lengthy article by itself, and US coal mining has the potential for quite a lengthy stand-alone treatment by itself.  However, Coal in the United States should be renamed Coal mining in the United States to clarify the distinction between this article and Coal power in the United States.  Plazak (talk) 14:25, 24 July 2009 (UTC)


 * The article Coal power in the United States supports Electricity sector of the United States. Therefore, in my opinion both articles deserve their place.  I removed the "Merge to": Coal power in the United States template. "Coal in the United States is renamed as "Coal mining in the United States".  Watti Renew (talk) 12:56, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Propose rename to "Coal mining in the United States"
As noted above, this article concentrates on coal mining in the US, as opposed to the separate article, Coal power in the United States. To underscore that this article treats only the mining of coal, as opposed to power generation, I'd like to rename this article "Coal mining in the United States." Any thoughts? Plazak (talk) 20:25, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
 * No one objected, so I'll make the move. Plazak (talk) 01:52, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

New section
note to self, to make section of "accidents and deaths", good summary to start it off: http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/04/06/mine.accidents.timeline/index.html -Theanphibian (talk • contribs) 02:03, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

WSJ resource
The Coal Age Nears Its End DECEMBER 23, 2011 by REBECCA SMITH, excerpt ... 99.190.85.17 (talk) 06:54, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

WSJ resource
99.181.159.67 (talk) 01:14, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Coal Fuels a Fight in Oregon; Northwest Residents Pulled Between Desire for Jobs, Environmental Concerns by Joel Millman; excerpt ...

Neutrality tag
The article has a neutrality tag dating from 2008. The present version seems pretty npov to me. Anyone think the POV tag should stay? Plazak (talk) 13:14, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

removing POV tag with no active discussion per Template:POV
I've removed an old neutrality tag from this page that appears to have no active discussion per the instructions at Template:POV:
 * This template is not meant to be a permanent resident on any article. Remove this template whenever:
 * There is consensus on the talkpage or the NPOV Noticeboard that the issue has been resolved
 * It is not clear what the neutrality issue is, and no satisfactory explanation has been given
 * In the absence of any discussion, or if the discussion has become dormant.

Since there's no evidence of ongoing discussion, I'm removing the tag for now. If discussion is continuing and I've failed to see it, however, please feel free to restore the template and continue to address the issues. Thanks to everybody working on this one! -- Khazar2 (talk) 00:43, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

finding consensus on new section "Regulation"
Thanks for your work on the US coal mining article, despite our disagreement here. I am puzzled as to why you consider my edit summaries "misleading." The first was labeled "provide intro," and it indeed provided a much-needed introduction to the section topic. My second was labeled "single bids," and indeed it dealt with the problem of coal leases receiving only single bids. These descriptions are much more specific and accurate than your favorite generic "expanding article" tag, so I suspect that my edit summaries are not the real reason that you reversed my additions.

So let's improve the article. First, the section is poorly named. It does not deal with the very broad topic of "Regulation," but specifically with the administration of coal leasing on federal lands. If you don't like my title, then what title would you consider more accurate? Second, the section as written jumps into the middle of the topic without an introduction. Again, if you don't like my introductory paragraph, then suggest your own, but good writing demands some sort of overall introduction of the federal leasing program before getting into the controversies. The article should have a detailed description of the controversies, and I did not delete any of the criticisms of the program. I don't know what your intent is, but as it stands, this section is completely one-sided, and therefore unacceptably POV. The GAO report that you cited really has some excellent discussions on the problems of varying payments between states, single-bid lease sales, and market valuations. The GAO report certainly includes the criticisms cited in the section, but it also includes some explanations and discussions of the problems, and so is much more balanced and informative. This Wikipedia section, to be balanced and informative like the GAO report, should include some of the explanations and discussions from the GAO report, not just the criticisms. I hope that we can come to some consensus. Regards Plazak (talk) 05:27, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

(moved Plazak's post from my talk page, since this is a page content discussion --Wuerzele (talk) 14:05, 17 January 2016 (UTC))

what the hell is going on? you continue to delete sourced material, which AWFULLY looks like pushing your WP:POV, like here  (-I saw you on your userpage  that you are "interested in mining"). For heavens sake! there is no deadline on this article! Cant you just be patient? --Wuerzele (talk) 21:40, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

As far as referencing info in the lede: no need unless EXTRAordinary. Refs do clutter up thE lede. This article is still a disaster, being outdated and incredibly unbalanced, so I added things that were Grand Canyon like gaPs. Yes regulation needs to be expanded ( i just added it !!) but there's no need to rename that section! If you were REALLY interested in improving the article you would work on the flags.This edit BTW shows if you had gone through all my edits that a source was and is there! I am going to be away for a while sledding my son. so hold your horses please!--Wuerzele (talk) 22:02, 17 January 2016 (UTC)


 * To take up your question about my POV and conflict of interest, I have worked most of my career in various mineral industries, with a significant minority of my time spent in environmental cleanup. As for conflict of interest, I have never worked a day or received a dollar from the coal industry. Your one example of my supposed POV edits was my deleting the sentence:


 * “The nation’s largest coal companies have declared bankruptcy, among them Arch Coal, the second-largest coal company.”


 * And replacing it with:


 * “From 2015 to January 2016, four publicly traded US coal companies have declared bankruptcy, including the fourth-largest (Alpha Natural Resources) and second-largest producer (Arch Coal).”


 * The sweeping overgeneralization that “The nation’s largest coal companies have declared bankruptcy,” was factually untrue, so I changed it and qualified it to make it accurate. I certainly have my own POV, but correcting a false statement is not a POV edit. I scanned the article for statements that appeared to be factually suspect, and I noticed a number that seemed in need of fact-checking and possibly correction, so that’s what I did. If any of these edits that needed correction were yours, that’s not my fault.


 * You don’t specify which sourced material you complain of me deleting. I presume it’s this one:


 * “As of 2013, while domestic coal consumption for power production was being displaced by natural gas, production for export to Asia from strip mines was increasing.”


 * First, the lead is the place for an overall summary of exports, not for an outdated and misleading item on exports to a single region. Mentioning only exports to Asia in the lead misleads the reader into believing that Asia is the largest US export market, rather than Europe. Second, this source almost 3 years old is no longer accurate. In fact, according to US EIA data, US coal exports to Asia peaked in 2012. I corrected both of these misconceptions by replacing the item with a more authoritative and up-to-date source.


 * My request for a source for the fact that coal mining employment is at its lowest since the 1980s is because that statement would mean that coal employment was lower in the 1980s than it is now. In fact, coal mining employment has been declining since the 1920s (see chart from MSHA: Coal fatalities), such that, since 1990, coal employment has remained below 1980s levels. If indeed, coal mining employment has declined below its 2003 low point of 104,000, then it is at its lowest point in much more than a century, and far below the employment of the 1980s. You do have a cited source in the body of the article, but it appears, by comparison with a more authoritative source, that the one phrase about coal employment at its lowest since the 1980s was a bit of sloppy reporting.


 * You write that it is your long-term intention to expand the present section concerning criticisms of the Federal coal leasing program into an overall “Regulation” section, and I hope you do. If and when you expand that section to cover the broader topic of Regulation, that title will become appropriate. As for now, the heading is not an accurate description of the text. When I expanded on the Regulation section with a much-needed introduction to the federal coal leasing program, and some more depth and balance on its problems (using your own cited GAO source, which is a good one) you reverted the additions without giving a good reason. It is really POV to cherry-pick only the negative items from a source, and ignore that source’s more in-depth analysis. If you can’t come up with valid reasons to delete my sourced additions, then there is no reason not to put them back in. Regards. Plazak (talk) 19:46, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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Weird conspiracy theories on Wikipedia?
"Often, the money is not returned to the state and is instead used for the salaries and lobbying in favor of Big Coal"? This sounds kinda nuts and some ALJ conspiracy theory. The reference cited seems highly biased and selective. 114.29.224.73 (talk)

=Graphs on article?=

The newest graph stops at 2019 and the oldest stops at 2017. Should we replace them with newer data. This seems kind of obvious. 5 years for the newest and 7 for the oldest. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.54.154.1 (talk) 02:03, 17 January 2024 (UTC)