But more than that, the industry is quick to reduce the size of their workforce by mechanizing operations. The amount of coal mined in the United States steadily increased over the past twenty years, even while the number of coal mining jobs dropped dramatically.
This story reveals the next step.
Rio Tinto is connecting its Australian mines to satellite links so workers more than 800 miles away can remotely drive drilling rigs, load cargo and even use robots to place explosives to blast away rock and earth.
The company's Perth operations center, which relies on banks of high-tech equipment to manage one of the oldest and dirtiest jobs around, is a harbinger of new techniques that are allowing miners to go to more remote places, dig deeper and get ore to the market more quickly. It also aims to save Rio Tinto money by using fewer workers and keeping them out of harm's way.
Imagine that? Illinois could keep spending millions of dollars subsidizing the coal industry and there's no guarantee that one day most mining jobs won't be inside Peabody headquarters in St. Louis. Or, Murray Co could do it from Ohio. There are already less than 4,000 people employed in Illinois coal mining and even new mines won't hire many workers.
The change is being driven by the same forces behind mountaintop removal, longwall mining, "enhanced oil recover" and the Canada tar sands. Resources are running out so the coal and oil industries are scraping the bottom of the barrel in old mines and hard to reach places.
(Modern coal miners at work)
The innovation is born from necessity. Easy and accessible mineral reserves have been largely tapped, pushing miners to search more remote locations for iron ore, copper, coal and other metals and minerals. The shift could help Rio and other miners recruit employees who don't want to work in remote locations that might be more politically and environmentally hostile.
"The mining industry has been very innovative," said Andrew Keen, mining analyst for HSBC Global Research, "using technology to take costs out of its business, to compensate for the decline in quality of reserves."
Illinois' own Caterpillar is one of the companies developing driverless trucks, "which would avoid having human drivers involved in moving truckloads of dirt and explosives from one part of the mine to another." Was anyone wondering why Caterpillar invested in FutureGen? The industry may not hire many new miners but they'll need new Caterpillar machines.
There are politicians like John Shimkus and Brandon Phelps who still foolishly believe that coal can provide enough jobs to revive the regional economy. It's time to stop living in the past. They're only keeping Southern Illinois poor.