Today 70,000 men and women in the United States work in 1,300 mines to supply the nearly one billion tons of coal needed each year to help power the American economy. Today's typical coal miner is 39 years old and has more than a decade of experience.  Three-fourths have a high school or better education.

Coal is currently produced in 26 states, primarily by either surface mining techniques or underground methods.

Surface mining became the leading method of coal production when the United States expanded its use of coal in the 1970s. Surface mining now accounts for about 60 percent of the coal produced in the United States. It is used mostly in the West where huge coal deposits lie near the surface and can be up to 100 feet thick.

More than a billion tons of coal are produced each year from U.S. mines. Nine out of every 10 tons of this coal go to electric power plants.  Wyoming produces the most coal (more than 375 million tons a year); Montana has the most coal reserves.

A modern-day surface mine is typically a large, extensively engineered, highly mechanized operation. Bulldozers clear and level the mining area. Topsoil is removed and stored for later use in the land reclamation process. Specially designed machines – draglines, wheel excavators, or large shovels, some guided by global positioning systems – clear away the overburden (material overlaying coal that must be removed before mining can commence) to expose the coal bed.Smaller shovels load the coal into large trucks that remove the coal from the pit.

Surface mining operations today are typically planned so that as one area is being mined, another is being reclaimed. Before mining begins, coal companies must post bonds for each acre of land to be mined to assure that it will be properly reclaimed. In the reclamation process, first the overburden, then the soils are replaced and the area restored as nearly as possible to its original contours. Native vegetation and trees are planted. Since 1977, more than 2 million acres of coal mine lands have been reclaimed in this manner.

Where coal seams are too deep or the land is too hilly for surface mining, coal miners must go underground to extract the coal. Most underground mining takes place east of the Mississippi, especially in the Appalachian mountain states. Fifty years ago, underground mines accounted for 96 percent of the coal produced each year in the United States; today, underground mining produces about 40 percent of the Nation's coal.

The type of underground mining technique is often dictated by how the coal seam is situated. If a coal outcrop appears at the surface of a hillside, a “drift mine” can be driven horizontally into the seam. Where the bed of coal is relatively close the surface, yet too deep for surface mining, a slope mine can be constructed with the mine shaft slanting downward from the surface to the coal seam. To reach deeper seams, which may be as much as 2,000 feet below the surface, vertical shafts are cut through the overburden.

More than two-thirds of the coal produced underground is extracted by continuous mining machines in the “room-and-pillar” method. A continuous mining machine breaks coal from the face of seam with tungsten bits on a revolving cylinder, then moves the coal onto a conveyor belt for transport to the surface. After advancing a specified distance, the continuous miner is backed out and roof bolts are driven into the ceiling of the mined area to bind several layers of strata into a layer strong enough to support its weight.

In a “room-and-pillar” mine, coal is extracted in carefully engineered patterns that leave large columns of coal remaining to help support the roof. As much as half the coal remains in the mine in the form of these pillars.

In the 1950s, a new underground mining technique was introduced in Europe. Called “longwall mining,” the technique uses a rotating shear on mining machines that moves continuously back and forth along the face – or wall – of a coal seam to cut the coal. The coal face can be as much as 400-800 feet across. Laser technology is used in many longwall systems today to guide the cutting shear accurately across the coal block. Coal drops into a conveyor belt for removal to the surface. As the shearing machine progressively moves through the coal block, the unsupported roof in the mined-out area is allowed to collapse behind the operation. Hydraulically operated steel canopies hold up the roof over the area being mined and protect the miners working at the face. Longwall mining, which can recover a considerably higher percentage of coal than room-and-pillar mining, today accounts for about a third of the coal mined underground in the United States.