Daily Climate: Coal is still king in eastern Wyoming in the Powder River Basin, here shown at Alpha Coal's Eagle Butte Mine outside of Gillette. But oil and gas are starting to make a play.
Coal mines have torn into vast areas of the rolling hills, eating up grazing land and putting pressure on ranchers. But natural gas extraction both from conventional drilling and coal bed methane and oil drilling are fast expanding across the region.
Forty percent of American coal comes from this region of Wyoming...