By Marshall Griffin, St. Louis Public Radio
Jefferson City, Mo. – Missouri's days as a coal-mining state may be coming to an end, according to one expert.
Mike Larsen is Staff Director of the state's Land Reclamation Commission. He told commission members Thursday that a permit awarded last month to a western Missouri mining company could be the last one ever issued.
Larsen said that even though Missouri has billions of tons of coal underground, much of it is unusable.
"The sulfur content of the coal is such that it can't be burned exclusively by power plants or anyone else, because the sulfur emissions from their stack[s][would] exceed Clean Air Act standards," Larsen said.
As for good, usable coal, Larsen said that the cost of reaching it is very expensive.
"If you can't pay for it by recovering a lot of tons for every acre that you uncover, you're not going to break even," Larsen said, "You're not going to make a profit."
Larsen said that Missouri's supply of coal that's both usable and easy to reach is almost gone. Additionally, barring any advances in technology to make extraction cheaper or high-sulfur coal usable, Larsen doesn't expect any more coal permits to be issued for at least several years, and maybe never.