Ahh thanks for the picture! I used to live near where they had several of these growing up. We were fed the “clean coal” angle. So many grow up believing that it’s better than other coal and better burning. (clean coal isn’t a thing lmao) The peopel felt better with this angle about it.
It was the northern plains, though. So it was all boring open landscape already. (I referred to it as the moon growing up.) There’s not a lot of people living out there, anyway. Wyoming specifically, though, has environmental regulations on oil, gas, and coal from a beautification standpoint. So yes, they can have these large pits, but once done, they have to turn them into things like ponds/lakes/etc. They can drill for oil/gas as well in the state, but they can only be so many feet/miles between pumpjacks to not ruin the landscape. That type of thing.
It’s been slowing down as an industry, coal that is. One of the major exporting countries that was buying and using coal (had even completely purchased many of the processing plants there in WY) was China. In the last few years, China has largely moved away from using coal as much, so that industry is in decline. They’ve been doing a lot more Solar, Wind, and Hydro. So as long as we keep moving toward that, these big pits will slow. You just need to get other big coal consuming countries onboard.
EDIT: OH another fun thing about Wyoming as a state, but specifically counties that have these coal mines, they require x amount of the profit made from these resources must be put back into the towns themselves. A beautification type fund or something (I have since moved away but recall this) So you actually will have some surprisingly well tended and well funded towns randomly in wyoming because of this.
(I do recall as a kid, the mines would have their explosion technicians be the ones to do the fireworks events for the fourth of july celebrations. Seeing as they were already well versed in exploding things, those were some of the most magnificent fireworks displays.)
Compare that to other states that have natural resources that are being mined and drilled, they don’t require as much to be put into the places they’re getting things from, and things get run down and driven out. The resource itself isn’t going anywhere, but you get these people who bend over backwards allowing these industries to take advantage and suppress other industries so their worker pool isn’t competitive because it will “bring jobs and industry in”. They end up giving far too many concessions to the fossil fuel industry, not holding them accountable for their actions in the area. The resources get used and then they move out and leave a huge vacuum, killing smaller communities entirely.
So Wyoming is actually pretty well situated on handling the fossilfuels in there.
Ahh thanks for the link! I admit I’m coming in at a more anecdotal position of people I know who still live and work in that industry. So it may just be their isolated area that is experiencing a downturn. They may be still acquiring coal but from other sources.