Yes, coal is still actively mined in Pennsylvania. In 2024, the state produced roughly 40,600 short tons across 110 active mines, employing about 4,826 workers. While production has declined significantly from its historical peak, Pennsylvania remains a meaningful player in U.S. coal, producing both anthracite and bituminous coal from opposite ends of the state.
How Much Coal Pennsylvania Still Produces
In 2024, Pennsylvania’s 110 coal mines produced a combined 40,597 short tons. That breaks down into 28 underground mines, which accounted for the vast majority of output at 36,119 short tons, and 82 surface mines contributing 4,478 short tons. These numbers represent a slight dip from 2023, when 113 mines produced 42,647 short tons.
The industry directly employed 4,826 people in 2024, split between about 3,363 underground miners and 1,463 surface mining workers. Those figures have held remarkably steady: the 2023 total was 4,825 employees, essentially unchanged.
Two Types of Coal, Two Regions
Pennsylvania is unusual in that it produces two distinct types of coal. Anthracite, sometimes called “hard coal,” is nearly pure carbon and found in the northeastern part of the state. Active anthracite mining spans nine counties, with the heaviest concentration in Schuylkill, Luzerne, and Northumberland counties. Other counties with active anthracite permits include Lackawanna, Carbon, Columbia, Dauphin, Berks, and Montgomery.
Bituminous coal, often called “soft coal,” dominates the western and southwestern part of the state. Bituminous operations are active across 21 counties and account for the bulk of Pennsylvania’s total output. This is also where the state’s largest and most productive mines are located.
The Biggest Mines Still Operating
Pennsylvania is home to several of the largest coal mines in the entire country. In 2024, three of the top 25 U.S. coal mines by production were in the state, all operated by Consol Pennsylvania Coal Company as deep underground operations:
- Bailey Mine: 10.8 million short tons, ranked 9th nationally
- Enlow Fork Mine: 9.2 million short tons, ranked 10th nationally
- Harvey Mine: 5.7 million short tons, ranked 23rd nationally
The Cumberland Mine, operated by Iron Cumberland LLC, added another 5.2 million short tons, ranking 29th in the country. These four underground mines alone produced over 30 million short tons, meaning most of Pennsylvania’s coal comes from a handful of large operations in the southwest.
Where Pennsylvania Coal Goes
About 80% of Pennsylvania-mined coal that stays in the U.S. is burned for electricity generation. Only about 13% of that coal actually powers Pennsylvania’s own plants. The rest gets shipped to generating facilities in nine other states.
A significant share leaves the country entirely. Pennsylvania was the sixth-largest coal-exporting state in 2024, with nearly one-third of its coal shipped to other nations. This export market is a key reason the state’s coal industry persists even as domestic electricity generation shifts toward natural gas and renewables.
Coal consumed within Pennsylvania itself serves two main purposes. About two-thirds is burned for electricity generation. The remaining third goes to steelmaking and other industrial uses, reflecting the state’s long connection between coal and steel production in the Pittsburgh region.
A Fraction of Its Former Scale
Pennsylvania was once the heart of American coal mining. Bituminous coal was first commercially mined in the state at what is now Mount Washington, just across the Monongahela River from downtown Pittsburgh. For much of the 19th and 20th centuries, Pennsylvania led the nation in coal output.
Today’s production is a small fraction of those historical peaks. Most Pennsylvania counties that once mined coal hit their maximum production decades ago. Greene County, in the state’s southwestern corner, is a notable exception. It’s the only county in the deep northern Appalachian basin where production has approached a historical maximum in recent decades, driven by those massive underground mines operated by Consol.
The Legacy of Abandoned Mines
Centuries of coal mining have left Pennsylvania with an enormous cleanup challenge. As of the most recent federal accounting, more than 98,737 acres of abandoned coal mine sites have been reclaimed across the state, at a construction cost of $674 million. The work is far from finished.
The state maintains two in-house construction crews, one based in Ebensburg in western Pennsylvania and the other in Wilkes-Barre in the east, that complete between 100 and 200 small reclamation projects each year. Recent projects completed in 2023 and 2024 addressed issues ranging from ground subsidence in Luzerne County to waterway restoration in Bedford and Fulton counties. Subsidence, where the ground above old mine tunnels collapses, remains a recurring problem in communities built over former mining operations, particularly in the anthracite region of northeastern Pennsylvania.