U.S. is energy-rich, but most of that wealth lies in potentially toxic coal - The Washington Post

In 2009, the Congressional Research Service produced a report analyzing the total fossil-fuel stores available to the United States compared with other countries. It concluded that the United States has an embarrassment of energy riches. In fact, when the analysts converted all of our oil, natural gas and coal reserves into barrel of oil equivalents, the United States edged out Russia as the world’s most-energy-rich nation. The United States has more than three times the fossil-fuel stores of Iran and Saudi Arabia, and more than seven times as much as Iraq, when expressed as barrel of oil equivalents.