Coal, the other Oil

St. Louis based Peabody Energy (NYSE: BTU) is the world's largest private-sector coal company, with 2008 sales of 255 million tons and $6.6 billion in revenues. Its coal products fuel 10 percent of all U.S. electricity generation and 2 percent of worldwide electricity. - From a Peabody fact sheet.

That works out to about $26 a ton. My friend Jack just got back from a week in the American Southwest. While plotting the places he visited on Google Maps, I stumbled across a tear drop shaped road. What's up with that, I wonder? Then I realize it's not a road, it's a railroad, and it looks a whole lot like the rail lines serving the coal mines in Wyoming. Except there is no sign of anything else at this location, just the railroad turn around. Following the rail line, I find another turn around and there is something going on at this one, but on Google Maps, there are no labels to tell you just what it is.

On Wikimapia however, someone has labeled it as the Lee Ranch Coal Mine, and Googling that gets all the information in the world. I suspect the unused turnaround is for a coal mine that is going to be started sometime after the picture was taken, which means it could be in operation now.

Update April 2015. Corrected typo.