In 1973 oil and gas supplied 77% of America's energy, 19% came from coal, less than 5% from nuclear, hydroelectric, and other sources.

Oil and gas make up only 9% of our domestic fossil fuel reserves. Oil shale accounts for 15% and coal 74%. For a nation facing future energy shortages, this arithmetic should tell a story. Sixty-four percent of our domestic coal reserves are in the Dakotas and Rocky Mountain States.

Barely 10 years ago the major oil companies first started a programmed acquisition of western coal resources for the synthetic fuel-from-coal industry. The recent dramatic changes in the price structure of U.S. fossil fuels now make synthetic gas and liquids from coal competitive with traditional supplies.

Coal is not difficult to find. The geology of coal in the western basins is generally simple. Western coal's problems have been geography, economics, and politics.

About 80% of western coal lies under the public domain. Indecision and politics have resulted in a three-year freeze on Federal coal leasing. This has slowed down the timetable for western coal's contribution to the national energy mix.

Western coal's assets are low mining costs and low sulphur. Present resource acquisitions are almost exclusively strippable deposits. Nevertheless, only about 5% of western coal can be surface mined economically with present equipment. The real future may well lie in the development of techniques to mine clean energy from the 95% of the coal reserves which are underground.

For instance, a tract of land 10 mi long and 5 mi wide in the Powder River basin of Wyoming contains more coal Btu's at a depth of 1,000-2,000 ft than all the known oil reserves in the U.S.--onshore, offshore, and the North Slope of Alaska. Herein may be the challenge and the biggest opportunities. For an

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energy-short nation, western coal can be the "Clean Black Ace in the Hole."

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