How large are U.S. coal reserves?
The following are the categories and estimated amounts of U.S. coal reserves in 2024 as of January 1, 2025:
Recoverable reserves at producing mines totaled 110,593 million short tons. Recoverable reserves at producing mines represent the quantity of coal that can be recovered (mined) from existing coal reserves at active mines. These reserves essentially reflect the working inventory at producing mines.
Estimated recoverable reserves totaled 249,351 million short tons. Estimated recoverable reserves include coal in the demonstrated reserve base considered recoverable, after excluding coal estimated to be unavailable because of land use restrictions and after applying assumed mining recovery rates. This estimate does not include specific economic feasibility criteria.
The demonstrated reserve base was estimated to contain 468,350 million short tons. The demonstrated reserve base is composed of coal resources that have been identified to specified levels of accuracy and that may support economic mining under current technologies. The demonstrated reserve base includes publicly available data on coal that has been mapped and verified to be technologically mineable.
Learn more:
U.S. Coal Reserves
Energy Explained: How Much Coal Is Left?
Other FAQs about Coal
- How do I convert between short tons and metric tons?
- How much coal, natural gas, or petroleum is used to generate a kilowatthour of electricity?
- How much does it cost to generate electricity with different types of power plants?
- What types and amounts of energy are produced in each state?
- How much of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions are associated with electricity generation?
- How many power plants are in the United States?
- How much coal does the United States export and to where?
- Which states produce the most coal?
- How large are U.S. coal reserves?
- Does EIA project energy production, consumption, or prices for individual states?
- What is the heat content of U.S. coal?
- What is U.S. electricity generation by energy source?
- Does EIA publish coking coal prices?
- Does EIA have county-level energy production data?
- How much coal does the United States import and from where?
- What are the different coal prices published by EIA?