Appalachian Coal Fights for Survival on Shale Boom: Commodities

Coal mining in Appalachia has survived deadly explosions, the Great Depression and the country’s largest armed insurrection since the Civil War. The latest threat is booming shale-gas production.

U.S. power utilities are favoring natural gas, which is trading at its cheapest in a decade as hydraulic fracturing opens up previously inaccessible reserves. Consumption of coal to generate electricity will fall 5 percent in 2012 to less than 900 million tons, a 16-year low, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.