Mining the Sun: Some in the Wyoming Epicenter of the Coal Industry Hope to Sustain Its Economy With Renewables

By Jake Bolster

Coal mines are not static. They move. A years-long time lapse of a strip mine would show a crater crawling across the Earth as miners gouge pits hundreds of feet deep to expose coal seams, and then haul dirt excavated from the front of the hole to fill in the back, where the mining’s finished. It’s an efficient way to begin the process of “reclamation,” which companies are required to implement to restore the disturbed land to some semblance of its pre-mining condition.