The 23rd biennial Bluefield Coal Show is now less than a month away. Thousands of supporters of the coal industry will once again be converging upon Bluefield for this year’s show, which will be held from Sept. 11-13 at the Brushfork Armory.

Just beyond Wright, Wyoming's city limits sit the nation’s two largest coal mines: Black Thunder and North Antelope Rochelle. Together, they produce more coal than the combined output of the county’s next 13 largest mines.

Patience may be a virtue, but if you’re among the nearly 600 locked out Eagle Butte and Belle Ayr coal miners who have been out of work for 56 days, it’s also more difficult to practice.

Their proposed solution to the problem of waning coal usage is carbon capture and sequestration—a technology that has been around for a long time.

Coal output reached 3.68 billion tonnes in 2018, 115 times of only 32 million tonnes 70 years ago, according to Huang Yuzhi, head of the National Coal Mine Safety Administration.

With canyons to the west and the Grand Mesa to the east, Grand Junction seems more suited to filming a spaghetti western than serving as the headquarters of a federal agency.