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#Post#: 12--------------------------------------------------
Big Coal Exports
By: Surly1 Date: October 10, 2013, 5:23 am
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Why Big Coal’s export terminals could be even worse than the
Keystone XL pipeline
HTML http://grist.org/climate-energy/why-big-coals-export-terminals-could-be-even-worse-than-the-keystone-xl-pipeline/
Note: this is just the text-- follow the link for pictures,
links and charts which I simply didn't have the time to embed.
Why Big Coal’s export terminals could be even worse than the
Keystone XL pipeline
By Josh Harkinson
IMAN HARTOYO
After spending years trying and failing to win a global climate
treaty, environmental activists have finally changed tactics.
Instead of pouring all their efforts into passing doomed
legislation, they’re picking big symbolic battles with the
fossil fuel industry.
The campaign to derail the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada’s
tar sands is just the start. On the West Coast,
environmentalists have mounted a similar attack on the coal
industry, which wants to reverse its steep national decline by
exporting millions of tons coal to China. Green groups believe
they can prevent the shipments (and keep the coal in the ground)
by stopping the construction of huge new coal export terminals
at ports in Oregon and Washington. “Based on our
back-of-the-envelope calculation, the burning of this exported
coal could have a larger climate impact than all of the oil
pumped through the Keystone pipeline,” says Kimberly Larson, a
spokesperson for the Power Past Coal campaign, a coalition of
more than 100 environmental and community groups that oppose the
coal terminals.
Here’s what you need to know about the biggest climate change
fight that you’ve probably never heard of:
Why are American environmentalists focusing on coal exports when
we burn so much coal right here?
To be sure, lots of coal-fired power plants still operate in the
United States, but they’re quickly being squeezed out of
business by new federal standards for mercury, arsenic, and
other toxins, which will take effect in 2016. Any new coal-fired
plants must meet strict carbon emission standards – a virtual
impossibility given the high cost of so-called “clean coal”
technologies. And at any rate, the Environmental Protection
Agency may actually be the least of Big Coal’s worries. As a
result of the fracking boom in Texas, the Midwest, and
Pennsylvania, the price of natural gas in the United States has
fallen to below that of coal, and it is on track to overtake its
dirtier cousin as the nation’s leading source of power
generation:
Energy Information Agency
Click to embiggen.
Click to embiggen.
So how much coal do we export?
Last year, the United States exported 125 million short tons of
coal. While that’s just a fraction of the 890 million tons that
we consumed domestically, the exports are on a steep trajectory.
Behold.
Click to embiggen.
Who buys our coal?
Canada, Mexico, and lots of European countries buy American
coal, but our biggest single customer is China, which last year
purchased 7.8 million tons from us. The People’s Republic
already accounts for almost half of the world’s coal
consumption, and demand continues to skyrocket for cheap
coal-fired electricity to power its growing industrial parks and
mega-cities:
Click to embiggen.
But doesn’t China have its own?
To be sure, China mines a lot of coal at home — more than any
other country, in fact. But it’s not enough to meet its needs
anymore. Around 2009, it switched from being a net coal exporter
to a huge net importer. (See graph below.) Of course, China also
uses electricity generated from natural gas, but it can’t get
enough of it to slake its thirst for cheap power. Transporting
natural gas requires pipelines or specialized tankers, making it
much more difficult and expensive to import than coal.
Click to embiggen.
What’s stopping U.S. coal companies from exporting everything
they’ve got to China?
Distance and transportation bottlenecks, basically. Last year,
America’s leading coal-exporting state, West Virginia, shipped
27 percent of its coal overseas. A lot of that was
metallurgical-grade coal bound for steel foundries in China. Yet
West Virginia faces stiff competition in China from Australia,
the largest producer of metallurgical coal, which benefits from
much lower shipping costs. “It’s going to be a tough time for
coal, and it’s going to be a tough time for West Virginia,”
Michael Zervos, the CEO of United Coal, told the Charleston
Daily Mail in July.
In order to compete in China, the U.S. coal industry is
reorienting itself toward the West Coast. The nation’s two
largest coal companies, Peabody Energy and Arch Coal, want to
strip-mine vast reserves in Wyoming and Montana’s Powder River
Basin, then ship the coal by rail to ports in Oregon and
Washington, where it would be loaded on cargo ships bound for
China. But the ports lack the capacity to move that amount of
coal cargo. In 2011, just 7 million of the nation’s 107 million
tons of coal exports left the country via Pacific Ocean ports.
The coal companies want to change that by building the following
new export terminals:
Power Past Coal: An Overview of Coal Export Off The West Coast
How much coal could be exported from these terminals?
Up to 123 million tons — an amount equivalent to all U.S. coal
exports last year.
How is the coal industry selling its plans to the public?
As huge economic stimulus projects. For example, boosters of the
proposed $700 million Gateway Pacific Terminal in Bellingham,
Wash., predict that the terminal will generate $140 million in
annual economic activity, create an estimated 4,400 jobs during
construction, and support 1,250 permanent positions at the docks
and in associated professions.
The industry also argues that the environmental impacts of the
terminals are overblown — and some experts agree. Sending
American coal abroad will increase coal prices at home,
hastening our transition to cleaner energy sources, argues
Stanford economist Frank Wolak. China will burn coal no matter
what; it doesn’t have any other low-cost options, he adds. So if
somebody is going to sell coal to China, Wolak contends, it
might as well be a country like the United States that can
produce electricity from cleaner sources.
What do environmental groups think about the potential impacts?
Environmental groups aren’t buying Womack’s theory. “Not long
ago, U.S. demand for electricity was seen as totally inelastic,
rising in lockstep with gross domestic production, but that is
no longer true,” points out Ralph Cavanaugh, codirector of the
Natural Resources Defense Council’s energy program. Cavanaugh
believes that keeping U.S. coal off the global market indeed
will push China towards cleaner options, such as boosting energy
efficiency.
And climate change isn’t the only global impact of China’s coal
habit. Sulfur, carbon, and other coal-related air pollutants
travel from China across the Pacific, where they’re regularly
picked up by air monitors in California, Oregon, and Washington.
Emissions from coal plants also have led to a global rise in
mercury contamination in fish.
The coal terminals and the trains that supply them are raising
environmental justice concerns in surrounding towns. The
heaviest and slowest trains in the railway industry, coal trains
require more engine power than conventional trains. Their diesel
and coal dust emissions will cause higher rates of heart and
lung disease, cancer, and childhood developmental problems in
communities near the tracks, activists argue.
And coal transport raises new safety concerns for the railroads.
Coal and coal dust often falls out of train cars onto the
tracks, where it can increase the risk of derailments. The
slow-moving trains will create delays for emergency vehicles.
Green groups have been particularly concerned about the impacts
of coal shipments on the Northwest’s sensitive marine habitats.
A coalition of groups led by the Sierra Club has filed a federal
lawsuit against BNSF Railway, a major shipper of Powder River
Basin coal, accusing it of violating the Clean Water Act by
letting coal spill from its trains into waterways. A report on
the marine impacts of the Gateway Pacific Terminal in Bellingham
notes that it would ship 974 loads of coal a year on vessels
twice the size of oil tankers. An existing coal export terminal
in Delta, British Columbia, releases more than 1.5 million
pounds of coal dust each year — an amount that could be a
potential “nail in the coffin” for a dwindling variety of
Pacific herring that lives near the Gateway Pacific Terminal,
according to a report by Power Past Coal [PDF].
Where can I find a list of the terminals, who is backing each,
and their status?
Glad you asked …
1. Gateway Pacific Terminal
Location: Bellingham, Wash.
Annual coal shipments: 53 million tons
Proposed by: Peabody Coal, SSA Marine, Goldman Sachs
Status: Initial environmental impact hearings completed. Now
under environmental review by county, state, and national
authorities. Cherry Point has become a major point of contention
in a race for Whatcom County commissioner.
2. Gray’s Harbor
Location: Hoquiam, Wash.
Annual coal shipments: 5 million tons
Proposed by: RailAmerica
Status: Plans abandoned in August 2012
3. Millennium Bulk Terminals
Location: Longview, Wash.
Annual coal shipments: 49 million tons
Proposed by: Millennium Bulk Logistics, a subsidiary of
Australian coal company Ambre Energy
Status: State and local authorities are conducting hearings to
solicit feedback on what types of environmental impacts to
consider.
4. Morrow Pacific
Location: Boardman, Ore.
Annual coal shipments: 7-9 million tons by barge down the
Columbia River
Proposed by: Ambre Energy
Status: On Nov. 1, Oregon’s Department of State Lands will
approve or deny a permit for the terminal. The proposal would
double barge traffic on the Columbia.
5. St. Helens
Location: St. Helens, Ore.
Annual coal shipments: 30 million tons
Proposed by: Kinder Morgan
Status: Kinder Morgan pulled plans for the terminal this past
summer.
6. Coos Bay
Location: Coos Bay, Ore.
Annual coal shipments: 9 million tons
Proposed by: California-based Metro Ports
Status: Shelved. In April, Metro Ports allowed its lease on the
proposed terminal’s real estate to expire.
How have state and federal authorities responded to the coal
terminal proposals?
So far, the Washington Department of Ecology appears to be
subjecting the ports to much broader and more detailed
environmental scrutiny than other regulatory authorities. Its
environmental review of the Gateway Pacific project will include
impacts not just at the port, but along the entire route of the
coal trains — as well as the climatological effects of burning
the coal overseas.
Last month, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced that it
was parting ways with Washington on a joint environmental review
of the coal port. The Corps will now conduct a separate review
that will only consider the terminal’s effects on the
surrounding community and marine habitat, but not the emissions
that will result from burning the coal in Asia. The move drew
protests from environmental groups.
In Oregon, where environmental laws are generally narrower and
less strict than in Washington state, authorities are subjecting
the Port Morrow terminal to an environmental “assessment” rather
than a full environmental impact statement. They have not
announced plans to consider the project’s international
environmental footprint.
Who will make the ultimate decision?
Given the controversy surrounding these projects, it’s
reasonable to expect that any final decisions will be made by
the guys at the top: Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber and Washington
Gov. Jay Inslee. But another wild card in Washington is the
publicly elected commissioner of public lands, Peter Goldmark,
who can unilaterally reject the terminals because they’ll be
located on property overseen by his Department of Natural
Resources. Goldmark is a rancher from the eastern Washington
hamlet of Okanogan who also happens to hold a Ph.D. in
neurobiology from Harvard. He declined an interview request from
Mother Jones.
If the Washington and Oregon ports get blocked, what’s to
prevent U.S. coal companies from shipping it out of Canada?
Right now, the coal companies are trying to construct four coal
terminals in British Columbia, but B.C. environmental activists
are fighting back just as fiercely as their comrades in the
States. In the unlikely event that all four terminals are
approved, they will add just 31 million tons of annual coal
export capacity — a fraction of what the industry wants to build
here in America.
How much greenhouse gas could coal shipped from West Coast ports
release into the environment?
Here’s an analysis from the Sightline Institute, which also
includes the proposed terminals in Canada:
Sightline Institute
(The red and green bars mostly refer to Canadian gas and oil
pipelines that would carry hydrocarbons from the tar sands.)
How dependent are the coal port plans on global coal prices?
Very. China’s slowing economic growth and efforts to diversify
its sources of electric power have combined to cause a glut in
the global coal supply. The window for Big Coal’s export plans
may be closing on its own, but it could reopen if China’s
economy improves.
What do people in the Northwest think about the coal ports?
A poll completed last month by the opinion research firm FM3
found that narrow majorities of voters in Washington (51
percent) and Oregon (54 percent) oppose the export terminals.
Opposition has grown by double digits since last year, and those
who oppose the ports feel much more strongly about the issue
than those who support them.
This story was produced by Mother Jones as part of the Climate
Desk collaboration.
Josh Harkinson is a staff reporter at Mother Jones.
#Post#: 16--------------------------------------------------
Re: Big Coal Exports
By: AGelbert Date: October 10, 2013, 2:55 pm
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King Coal needs to go away. If they can't buy off the EPA from
implementing the new rules on coal power plants here, that will
help.
RMI (Rocky Mountain Institute) is working with the Chinese to
stop their massive coal use. By the way, it's not common
knowledge but the coal power plants in China are more efficient
and less dirty than ours.
For good news on the big plan to make coal unprofitable (and ALL
other fossil fuels as well) when compared with renewables, the
RMI web site has lots of info. They wrote a book called,
"Reinventing Fire". There are lots of U-tube presentations of
Reinventing Fire out there. I've been watching some of them and
they are quite promising as well as being very hard nosed and
down to earth.
HTML http://www.rmi.org/
#Post#: 71--------------------------------------------------
Coal on the Decline -- 150 Coal Plants Set for Retirement
By: AGelbert Date: October 15, 2013, 11:06 pm
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Coal on the Decline -- 150 Coal Plants Set for Retirement
Movement sparks shift to clean energy, major carbon reductions
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
Contact:
Oliver.Bernstein@sierraclub.org
SAN FRANCISCO, CA -- Today the Sierra Club and a growing
coalition of local, regional and national allies announced the
retirement of its 150th coal plant -- a significant milestone in
the ongoing campaign to move the country beyond coal no later
than 2030. With today’s announcement that the Brayton Point
Power Station in Massachusetts would retire by 2017, the
campaign officially marked 150 coal plants that have announced
plans to retire since 2010.
According to the Clean Air Task Force, retiring these 150 coal
plants will help to save 4,000 lives every year, prevent 6,200
heart attacks every year and prevent 66,300 asthma attacks every
year. Retiring these plants will also avoid $1.9 billion in
health costs.
Sierra Club has made the announcement public via a video on
YouTube featuring a special acoustic performance by indie
alternative group Nico Vega.
“The closure of the Brayton Point Power Station is a powerful
example of how local action can have a global impact," said
Michael R. Bloomberg, philanthropist and Mayor of New York City.
"Over the last three years, action by individual communities -
in partnership with the Sierra Club and Bloomberg Philanthropies
- has led to the closure of 150 coal plants, one at a time. We
will continue to support those who are on the ground working to
close the nation's dirty coal plants, which kill 13,000
Americans every year and threaten the future of our planet."
“Plant by plant and community by community we are not only
curbing our country’s carbon pollution, but we are also saving
lives,” said Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra
Club. “By moving our country off of dirty, dangerous coal, we
are creating new opportunities for clean energy and thousands of
new American jobs to protect workers and public health. The
transition from coal to clean energy can and will transform our
economy by establishing a huge new sector of good jobs that
power our communities without poisoning our children.”
"New England is leading the nation in the move away from dirty
coal and toward innovative renewable energy solutions like our
growing offshore wind industry," said James McCaffery, New
England Beyond Coal campaign representative for the Sierra Club.
"This is a testament to the great work of local residents who
have been fighting to clean up the air in the region for more
than a decade,"
“Our coalition of environmental, conservation, public health and
civil rights groups has achieved a milestone that few thought
possible,” said Verena Owen, a veteran volunteer leader who
co-leads the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign. “In 2010,
analysts expected about 30,000 megawatts of coal would retire
over the next decade. But in less than three years the campaign
has nearly doubled these predictions, securing the retirement of
more than 58,000 megawatts: more than one sixth of the entire
nation’s coal capacity and more than one quarter of all coal
plants in the country. Through grassroots activism and the power
of passionate Americans across the country, we are telling the
dirty, outdated and deadly coal industry that enough is enough.”
The coal industry is facing multiple threats, including rising
coal costs, falling clean energy prices, a motivated grassroots
coalition of organizers working to move the nation off coal, and
the growing national demand to tackle climate-disrupting carbon
pollution from coal plants, which was the centerpiece of the
climate strategy President Obama announced in June. With strong
carbon pollution standards in place, these coal plants must
either clean up their pollution through modern pollution
controls, or transition away from burning dirty coal.
Indeed, as utilities and energy companies realize that coal is
an increasingly bad investment, they are transitioning their
resources to cleaner, renewable sources of energy like wind and
solar. Today, the United States has more than 60,000 megawatts
of installed wind capacity, enough to power the equivalent of 15
million American homes. In fact, the state of Texas produces so
much wind energy, that if Texas were a country, it would be the
world's sixth ranking wind energy producer. Meanwhile, states
across the country are already being powered by renewable
energy. In 2012, Iowa and South Dakota received more than 20
percent of their energy from wind, and nine states produced more
than 10 percent of their electricity from wind energy.
What’s more, this year the U.S. joined three other countries
with more than 10,000 megawatts of installed solar capacity.
Solar is the fastest growing energy option in the US, and in
states like New Jersey, North Carolina, California and Illinois,
solar power is both creating local jobs and providing clean,
affordable electricity. This growth in clean energy has helped
to create more jobs across the country. Clean energy industries
now employ nearly 200,000 Americans.
HTML http://www.freesmileys.org/emoticons/tuzki-bunnys/tuzki-bunny-emoticon-022.gif
HTML http://content.sierraclub.org/press-releases/2013/10/coal-decline-150-coal-plants-set-retirement
#Post#: 85--------------------------------------------------
Wind Energy That Is Cheaper than Coal
By: AGelbert Date: October 17, 2013, 6:07 pm
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Updated: Massachusetts Utilities Sign PPA for Wind Energy That
Is Cheaper than Coal :o ;D
The price was so good they doubled their planned procurement;
"it was a no-brainer"
James Montgomery, Associate Editor, RenewableEnergyWorld.com
September 24, 2013
HTML http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2013/09/massachusetts-utilities-pool-for-cheaper-wind-energy-supply
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