March 11, 2024 - As historic sites and museums celebrated Pennsylvania’s birthday, Justin W. Emershaw, a mining engineer with Hazleton-based Atlantic Carbon Group, provided a current look at one of the state’s oldest traditions: coal mining.

During his presentation Sunday at the Anthracite Heritage Museum, which offered free admission for Charter Day, Emershaw provided perspective on the industry.

Anthracite coal — once used to power locomotives and generate electricity — is now used to strengthen steel and purify water, he said.

While many view coal mining as an outdated process, Emershaw noted the operation is still going strong in Luzerne County as Atlantic Carbon Group sold 360,000 tons of coal in 2023.

“Pennsylvania anthracite has seen a massive spike in the commodity price within the last two years because of the Russia-Ukraine war,” he said. “Before, the bulk of anthracite getting imported into America was coming from Russia or Ukraine. Two years ago, we were probably selling it industrially for about $115 to $120 a ton. We’re quoting customers in excess of $300 a ton today.”

He added workers can’t extract the coal quickly enough to satisfy the growing need.

“The demand is there and unfortunately, today, you really can’t produce enough,” Emershaw said. “I started working in the industry in 2015 and back then, you’d go to coal companies and there would be big mountains of coal. You don’t see that today. As fast as we put 1,000 tons of product on the ground, the next day it’s going into rail cars.”

Emershaw stressed the anthracite coal in Northeast Pennsylvania, and specifically the Hazleton area, has the highest carbon content in the world, making it highly coveted.

“Even today, customers are willing to pay higher dollars because they want the higher-carbon coal with less contaminants,” he said.

While technological advances like drones used for surveying have replaced some of the grunt work, Emershaw said some old-school techniques remain valuable.

“Maps from 100 years ago or later are still vitally important to mining today,” he said. “They tell us what no one else can. It’s amazing how accurate these miners were 100 years ago.”

Emershaw, who presented a similar program in January at Eckley Miners’ Village in Foster Twp., Luzerne County, as part of Anthracite Heritage Month, believes the industry should remain strong in the coming decades.

“I think it’s going to continue to grow,” he said. “There are a lot of interesting new uses that are being developed for anthracite ... one of them is carbon fiber frames. There are a lot of studies being done to see if we can utilize anthracite as a substitute for carbon — that would be huge.”

However, Emershaw fears a lack of workers may pose a problem.

“That’s one of the biggest challenges I foresee for the future of this industry,” he said. “It’s very difficult to find younger people who want to develop the traits and put their boots on and come to work.”

Judy Grandjean of Moscow, who attended the program, has been impacted by a scarcity of coal providers in recent years.

“We moved to this area in 2015 and in the beginning, it seemed pretty easy to access coal,” she said. “But, after COVID, we had a real hard time finding a resource and now the price is double what it was. There were about 30 companies I called to compare prices back in 2017, and in 2021 I had maybe three or four choices.”