Shane Collins, 20, knows all of this. And yet here he is at Mountain Empire Community College, droopy-eyed after pulling the night shift on a welding job, training to be a coal miner with a few dozen other excited young men.

"My mother begged me not to go," Collins confides.

What draws him is the good money that comes with a life in the mines -- possibly $18 an hour, he says. Miners also get benefits, which, depending on the company, can include pension plans, a 401k, health insurance, vision and dental care and accidental death and dismemberment insurance.

Despite two decades of layoffs, coal mining still offers some of the best-paying work many young men will ever see in Virginia's Appalachian highlands. And with mining companies looking to replenish an aging work force, hundreds are lining up in hopes of joining an industry forsaken by many of their peers.

More than 1,500 people applied this summer when coal companies held their first job fairs in years for untrained miners. Alpha Natural Resources, whose subsidiaries employ the most coal miners in Virginia, hired 20 people right away.

"It's a new day," says George Owens, Alpha's vice president of human resources. "We're going to hire in Kentucky. We're going to hire in West Virginia and Pennsylvania over time."

Companies need to recruit now because they haven't in the past, and the miners who have been able to hold on to their jobs are getting older. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than half of all coal miners in America were 45 or older in 2003.

"We lost our younger generation," says Bruce Watzman, National Mining Association vice president of safety, health and human resources. Watzman estimates the industry will need to hire several thousand miners during the next five to seven years to keep up production as older miners retire.

Fortunately for coal companies, their need to recruit comes at a time when they have the money to do it.

Coal prices have been soaring. Driven by tight supplies and a surging global demand, American coal exports rose to $48.32 per ton during the first three months this year, compared with $39.72 from the same period in 2003.

Analysts believe coal demand will continue as nuclear plants reach their output limits and natural gas gets increasingly expensive. In southwest Virginia, a mountainous region scattered with communities built by the coal industry, that possibility has made some business leaders giddy.

"Perhaps we'll see more construction going on, possibly some new automobiles and boats and recreational vehicles (bought by miners)," says Charles Yates, executive director of the Virginia Coalfield Economic Development Authority in Lebanon.