Key information about United States Coal Consumption

• United States Coal Consumption was reported at 317.010 TOE mn in Dec 2018
• This records a decrease from the previous number of 331.263 TOE mn for Dec 2017
• US Coal Consumption data is updated yearly, averaging 424.641 TOE mn from Dec 1965 to Dec 2018, with 54 observations
• The data reached an all-time high of 545.740 TOE mn in 2005 and a record low of 277.235 TOE mn in 1965
• US Coal Consumption data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by BP PLC
• The data is categorized under World Trend Plus’s Association: Metal and Mining Sector – Table WB.BP.CONS: Coal Consumption (Discontinued)

Historical dataset showing U.S. coal usage/consumption by year from 1960 to 2023.

United States Coal Consumption: Transportation data was reported at 0.000 Short Ton th in Jul 2018. This stayed constant from the previous number of 0.000 Short Ton th for Jun 2018. United States Coal Consumption: Transportation data is updated monthly, averaging 0.000 Short Ton th from Jan 1973 (Median) to Jul 2018, with 547 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 17.000 Short Ton th in May 1973 and a record low of 0.000 Short Ton th in Jul 2018. United States Coal Consumption: Transportation data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Energy Information Administration. The data is categorized under Global Database’s USA – Table US.RB005: Coal Consumption.

Historical dataset showing North America coal usage/consumption by year from 1960 to 2022.

Historical chart and dataset showing U.S. coal usage/consumption by year from 1960 to 2023.

Total annual coal consumption by country from 1980 to 2012 (available as Quadrillion Btu). Downloaded from the Energy Information Administration (EIA)'s International Energy Statistics portal

United States US: Electricity Production From Coal Sources: % of Total data was reported at 34.233 % in 2015. This records a decrease from the previous number of 39.651 % for 2014. United States US: Electricity Production From Coal Sources: % of Total data is updated yearly, averaging 51.846 % from Dec 1960 (Median) to 2015, with 56 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 57.679 % in 1988 and a record low of 34.233 % in 2015. United States US: Electricity Production From Coal Sources: % of Total data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s United States – Table US.World Bank.WDI: Energy Production and Consumption. Sources of electricity refer to the inputs used to generate electricity. Coal refers to all coal and brown coal, both primary (including hard coal and lignite-brown coal) and derived fuels (including patent fuel, coke oven coke, gas coke, coke oven gas, and blast furnace gas). Peat is also included in this category.; ; IEA Statistics © OECD/IEA 2014 (http://www.iea.org/stats/index.asp), subject to https://www.iea.org/t&c/termsandconditions/; Weighted average; Electricity production shares may not sum to 100 percent because other sources of generated electricity (such as geothermal, solar, and wind) are not shown. Restricted use: Please contact the International Energy Agency for third-party use of these data.

Bituminous hard coal has historically been the most produced coal type in the United States. Growing from just 98,000 metric tons produced in 1800, total coal output reached over 800 million metric tons by 1985. Hard coal was mined more than any other coal type.

"Coal Fields of the Conterminous United States" is a digital representation of James Trumbull's "Coal Fields of the United States" (sheet 1, 1960), which is an adaptation of previous maps by Averitt (1942) and Campbell(1908). It is intended to be the first in a series of open file reports that will eventually result in an I-series map that conforms to the U.S. Geological Survey mapping standards. For this edition, coal boundaries were digitized from Trumbull and plotted to represent as closely as possible the original map. In addition, the Gulf Province was updated using generalized boundaries of coal bearing formations digitized from various state geological maps.

In 2024, coal consumption in the United States reached 411.4 million short tons, a decrease when compared to the previous year. The U.S. has been steadily reducing its reliance on coal for electricity generation, with natural gas having surpassed coal as the largest source for power production in the country.

United States Coal Consumption: Commercial: Other data was reported at 5.714 Short Ton th in Aug 2018. This records a decrease from the previous number of 7.554 Short Ton th for Jul 2018. United States Coal Consumption: Commercial: Other data is updated monthly, averaging 256.351 Short Ton th from Jan 1973 (Median) to Aug 2018, with 548 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 1,043.120 Short Ton th in Jan 1974 and a record low of 5.714 Short Ton th in Aug 2018. United States Coal Consumption: Commercial: Other data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Energy Information Administration. The data is categorized under Global Database’s United States – Table US.RB005: Coal Consumption.

This dataset is a polygon shapefile representing the most recent update of the coal fields of the conterminous United States. Scale of data is 1:5,000,000. This publication is based on a USGS paper map that was a representation of the coal fields and major regions of the time (Trumbull, 1960). Trumbull's 1960 map was digitized and coal fields from the Gulf Coast were added to create USGS OFR 96-92, Coal Fields of the Conterminous United States (Tully, 1996). Tully's (1996) publication consisted of a map in pdf format that could be printed, and an ArcInfo coverage of the coal fields, attributed with rank and potential economic use (minability) of the coal. This new dataset includes a pdf showing updated coal fields and a shapefile that contains attributes on coal rank (without regard to outdated economic standards), province, name, and age. The data used to update Tully's (1996) digital map was collected from the National Coal Resource Assessment (NCRA) regional Professional Papers produced by the USGS and from AAPG Discovery Series 14/Studies in Geology 62, all of which were conducted by USGS geologists and professional staff. A small number of field names were added and or updated in the western states of Washington, Oregon, California, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico using additional coal resource literature.The full study is available from USGS: https://doi.org/10.3133/ofr20121205

For the open-file report we collected new coking coal samples from Alabama, Kentucky, Oklahoma and Arkansas and analyzed them for proximate and ultimate analyses; calorific value; sulfur forms; major-, minor-, and trace-element abundances; free swelling indices; Gieseler plasticity; ASTM dilatation; coal petrography, and several other tests [air-dry loss (ADL), residual moisture (RM), equilibrium moisture (EQM), and true specific gravity (TSG)]. Coal Stability Factor (CSF) and Coal Strength after Reaction with CO2 (CSR) were predicted using chemical, rheological, and petrographic data (pCSF and pCSR, respectively). In addition, data from previously analyzed samples in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia, and Kentucky were shared with us by three companies, including results from the tests listed above, plus oxidation, Hardgrove Grindability Index (HGI), and ash fusion temperatures. These data are the contents of appendices 2-8 of the open-file report and this data release. In addition, appendices 20 and 21 of the open-file report and this data release include data previously published by the U.S. Bureau of Mines (USBM) in their Minerals Yearbooks listing the annual amounts of coal purchased (in short tons) for manufacturing oven-coke in six coal districts in Pennsylvania from 1942-1965 (in appendix 20), and the annual amounts of coal received by oven-coke plants (in short tons) in 17 Pennsylvania counties from 1966-1976 (in appendix 21). These previously published data have been included in this data release because they are currently not available online and the original USBM paper publications are not available in most libraries.

Historical dataset showing Latin America & Caribbean coal usage/consumption by year from 1971 to 2022.

This dataset represents coal mine density and storage volumes within individual local and accumulated upstream catchments for NHDPlusV2 Waterbodies based on the National Coal Resource Dataset System (NCRDS). Catchment boundaries in LakeCat are defined in one of two ways, on-network or off-network. The on-network catchment boundaries follow the catchments provided in the NHDPlusV2 and the metrics for these lakes mirror metrics from StreamCat, but will substitute the COMID of the NHDWaterbody for that of the NHDFlowline. The off-network catchment framework uses the NHDPlusV2 flow direction rasters to define non-overlapping lake-catchment boundaries and then links them through an off-network flow table. The National Coal Resources Data System (NCRDS) began as a cooperative venture between the USGS and State geological agencies in 1975 and focused on the stratigraphy and chemistry of coal. Web pages have been developed to query data within both the USCOAL database and a subset of the USCHEM database. The USTRAT database, due to its size and complexity, was first made available in 2011 for direct query through web pages. The (coal mine sites/AreaSqKm) were summarized and accumulated into watersheds to produce local catchment-level and watershed-level metrics as a point data type.

This file contains weekly coal production data for the United States. For the period 1942-1976, the dataset includes total weekly production, number of working days, and average coal production per working day. For the period 1984-2023, the dataset separates weekly coal production by US region (Appalachian, Interior, Western). This data is associated with an article currently under review.

Note: Sample data provided. ・ These data identify and provide information on surface and underground coal mines in the United States in 2022. The attribute data for this point dataset come from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, Form EIA-7A, Coal Production and Preparation Report and the U.S. Department of Labor, Mine Safety and Health Administration, Form 7000-2, Quarterly Mine Employment and Coal Production Report. It includes operating surface and underground coal mines in the United States. Additional coal mine data can be found on EIA Coal Data Browser

This dataset is about countries per year in the United States. It has 64 rows. It features 4 columns: country, region, and electricity production from coal sources.

annual-data coal-price coal-production coal-reserves coal-stocks electric-capacity electricity-fuel-stocks electricity-generation electricity-price electricity-sales energy-prices monthly-data natural-gas-price natural-gas-production natural-gas-reserves natural-gas-stocks petroleum-consumption petroleum-price petroleum-production petroleum-reserves petroleum-stocks

Worldwide coal consumption and international coal trade are projected to increase in the next several decades (Energy Information Administration, 2007). A search of existing literature indicates that in the Western Hemisphere, coal resources are known to occur in about 30 countries. The need exists to be able to depict these areas in a digital format for use in Geographic Information System (GIS) applications at small scales (large areas) and in visual presentations.

Existing surficial geology GIS layers of the appropriate geologic age have been used as an approximation to depict the extent of coal-bearing areas in North, Central, and South America, as well as Greenland. Global surficial geology GIS data were created by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) for use in world petroleum assessments (Hearn and others, 2003). These USGS publications served as the major sources for the selection and creation of polygons to represent coal-bearing areas. Additional publications and maps by various countries and agencies were also used as sources of coal locations. GIS geologic polygons were truncated where literature or hardcopy maps did not indicate the presence of coal.

The depicted areas are not adequate for use in coal resource calculations, as they were not adjusted for geologic structure and do not include coal at depth. Additionally, some coal areas in Central America could not be represented by the mapped surficial geology and are shown only as points based on descriptions or depictions from scientific publications or available maps. The provided GIS files are intended to serve as a backdrop for display of coal information. Three attributes of the coal that are represented by the polygons or points include geologic age (or range of ages), published rank (or range of ranks), and information source (published sources for age, rank, or physical location, or GIS geology base).