Huge black chasms open into the snowy plain.
At the bottom of these canyons large enough to swallow an entire city, excavators devour the ground, and giant trucks with wheels as high as two men lift tons of coal day and night.
The twelve surface mines in the Powder River Basin in northeast Wyoming are among the largest in the world.
They produce 40% of the coal in the United States, and power more than 200 power plants, in 39 states of the union.
Coal has fueled the prosperity of the small town of Gillette, known as the
“energy capital of the nation”
.
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“The region's coal is plentiful, of good quality, and close to the surface, so inexpensive to mine. It contains very little sulfur, which makes it also attractive since the antipollution law of the Clean Air Act of 1970 ”
, explains Robert Henning, director of the Gillette museum, who traces the transformation of this small town with a western decor.
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