A decade ago, when I moved to a small town in western Colorado,
coal kept me warm at night. In the basement of my rented house
lived an old-fashioned furnace, a heaving beast that inhaled
frequent shovelfuls of coal and exhaled warm, particle-filled
air through upstairs vents. The ton of coal I bought each fall
was astoundingly cheap, partly because I lived near its source.
Less than ten miles away, workers at three mines send a steady
stream of coal into waiting trucks and freight cars, which
rumble and whistle through the valley and beyond. In some ways,
this outpost of the global fossil-fuel economy is lucky. Aside
from looming coal silos and a few roads across the mesas, the
underground mines make scant visible marks on the land. Their
coal is low in sulfur, and it is in demand by power plants eager
to meet Clean Air Act standards.