Challenges, Opportunities, Innovations - A Texas Perspective

Thank you for inviting me to come here and be your keynote speaker. Texas also thanks you for being included as part of the Rocky Mountain Coal Mining Institute. We'll kind of think of Texas as Baja Rocky Mountains. I've always wondered why coal miners were the only people to go to the mountains in the summer time-and now I know why. The program committee should be given a big hand for selecting this RESORT. And the golf course is stimulating to say the least. This is a very beautiful location. I was asked to talk about CHALLENGES, OPPORTUNITIES and INNOVATIONS as they affect the coal industry. I am going to do that from a Texas perspective. But first, since Texas is the newest state to belong to the Institute, I would like to give you a little background on how our coal industry got started and where we are at today. The vast majority of our coal is called lignite-it has a little lower heating value than most other coals and ranks somewhere between buffalo chips and sub- bituminous. Lignite is found In three geological formations running Northeast to Southwest through South and East Texas. In-place reserves lying within 200 ft. of the surface total 14 billion tons. This slide shows the lignite formations with cur- rent mine operations colored in RED. Mines that are planned to be built in the next 10 years are shown in BLUE. Lignite was used mostly by settlers in Texas during the 1800s. It was used as a fuel to fire locomotives during the Civil War. Between 1900-1930, about 100 mines, mostly underground, were operating in Texas producing lignite for home heating and as a boiler fuel. Here are some slides showing underground access, [lie tipple used to process the lignite, and the underground workings. This is the "BIG LUMP COAL COMPANY" as shown here. The typical underground mine was 100-150 ft. deep and each miner produced 7-10 tons per day-all by hand. In 1926, the Texas Power & Light Company built the Trinidad Power Plant and began using lignite as a boiler fuel. The lignite was mined by the McAlester Fuel Company at the nearby Malakoff Mine. Here are some slides showing a stripping shovel at Malakoff uncovering lignite. The lignite was loaded into railcars in the pit for transport to the power plant. This is a picture of the Trinidad Plant which had two 20 MW units and one 32 MW unit. At the time, Trinidad was the largest power plant in the United States using lignite exclusively as a fuel. Trinidad operated until 1942 when it was converted to natural gas that was sold to the plant for 3 ½ ¢ per MMBT'U. The mine closed after having produced 7 million tons. Lignite was mostly forgotten about until 1953 when Alcoa started an aluminum smelter. Our Company formed a subsidiary called Industrial Generating Company to operate the power plant that furnished electricity to the smelter. We also operated the nearby Sandow Mine that supplied lignite as a fuel to the power plant