Issues & Policy

Electricity runs our computers, our kitchen appliances, our televisions and radios. It charges our cell phones and helps us surf the Internet. It powers our businesses and industries, our schools and hospitals. Electricity enhances our quality of life, making us safer and more comfortable.

Since electricity is essential to living and working in the modern world, it is important to understand where America gets its electricity.

Half of our electricity comes from coal
Coal provides half of America’s electricity generation and more than twice as much as the next-highest contributor — nuclear. Just as modern life is unimaginable without electricity, so is the notion that we could meet our growing energy needs without coal.

Coal is our most abundant fuel
The United States has more coal than any other fuel. A quarter of all of the known coal in the entire world is here in America, and large coal deposits can be found in 38 states. In fact, we’ve got more coal than the rest of the world combined has oil. At the current rate of consumption, we are capable of meeting domestic demand for more than 200 years.

We are committed to making coal a clean energy source
Commitment is more than a word – it requires action. That is why over the past 30 years, America’s coal-based electricity providers have invested over $50 billion in technologies to reduce emissions – while at the same time providing affordable, reliable electricity to meet growing energy needs.

As a result of that commitment, today’s coal-based generating fleet is 70% cleaner on the basis of regulated emissions per unit of energy produced. Some say that is a real accomplishment. We say it is a great start.

Today, energy companies are working with the federal government to develop, demonstrate, and deploy the next generation of advanced technologies that will make it possible to reduce regulated emissions even further (to near-zero levels) and capture and store greenhouse gases.

Meeting this goal won’t be easy, but for those who doubt that the industry will make it … look at how far it's already come.