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A discussion showed that in 1975, some 90% of the electric power generated in Texas was made by burning natural gas, but by 1985, if current plans are realized, 60% of it will be generated in plants burning coal and lignite, roughly half coal and half lignite. In 1975, the Texas Railroad Commission ordered major users of natural gas as a boiler fuel to restrict consumption. No new facilities burning natural gas were to be built and users of over 3 million cu ft/day were ordered to cut consumption by 10% by 1981 and 25% by 1985. The Texas Utilities Co., which had a lignite-fired plant in the 1920's, and has experimented with lignite ever since, already has several lignite-fired plants in operation or under construction. In 1985, it is contemplated that total lignite plant generating capacity will be 14,556 MW. Lignite-fueled plants are more expensive to build than plants using natural gas or oil as fuel. However, in 1976, Texas Utilities put the cost of lignite at $0.288/million Btu or about 14% of the market price of intrastate natural gas. It is estimated that 10 billion tons of Texas lignite lie within 200 ft of the surface, but estimatesmore » of the economically recoverable portion vary in the range 2.5 to 8.5 billion tons.« less