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Collection: Northwest Coal & Oil Exports

How Real Is the Threat of Coal Dust?

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Here’s a coal terminal that wants to be a good neighbor:

…a new process the company is implementing to help homeowners deal with coal dust on their property. Residents affected by the dust can now fill out a form and drop it off at the district office to be relayed to RTI.

RTI will then send out a contractor to power wash the coal dust off a homeowner’s property.

Get that? If you’re lucky enough to live near the Prince Rupert coal export facility in northern BC, now you can fill out a form to request that a contractor power wash the coal dust off your house. For free!

Thanks, coal company! Thanks for agreeing to have someone wash off the toxic dirt that you coated my home with!

I’m being sarcastic, but this is no laughing matter: coal dust is well known to harm human health.

If you don’t think coal dust is a problem near export terminals, then take a look at this photo taken in June 2011 near BC’s Ridley Terminal. I’m serious: go look at it.

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Coal Trains and Rail Congestion

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Is Washington’s railway system congested? Yes and no.

Would it become congested if 100 million tons of coal per year were moving along the rails to Washington ports? Almost certainly.

To understand the basics of rail congestion in Washington, take a look at this map showing the state’s main railway lines color coded by their level of congestion.

This map comes from the “Statewide Rail Capacity and Systems Need Study” conducted in 2006 by Cambridge Systematics for the Washington State Transportation Commission. It’s the most recent and comprehensive analysis of the state’s rail system.

Washington has a single north-south railway “backbone” on the west side of the mountains, running from the Canadian border to Vancouver, Washington. The green colors indicate where it is operating below its “practical capacity,” but the red colorations indicate bottlenecks and other congestion hot spots, which occur up and down the line. (Please see the “notes” section at the end of this post for an explanation of terms like “practical capacity.”)

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Northwest Coal Exports II

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Sightline is releasing a new and updated research backgrounder today: it’s a “frequently asked questions” about coal exports from the Northwest.

In the new version of “Northwest Coal Exports” we set out some basic facts about coal exports: how much North America currently exports, what the new proposals involve, and what the pollution consequences might be. We take a hard look at the scientific literature on the health impacts of coal dust, and we draw some lessons from coal export facilities elsewhere in North America. We also tackle some of the more vexing questions, like whether British Columbia ports have the capacity to handle the export proposals, and whether US coal exports add to global greenhouse gas emissions.

An Alternative to Coal Jobs

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If coal export terminals are too risky for many ports because of their checkered past on the West Coast, there is a alternative strategy for economic development: clean up and redevelopment of polluted port sites. It’s a strategy that is proving to create many more jobs than coal, and with far less pollution.

First, though, to understand how poorly coal export stacks up, let’s consider the facts at Longview. Millennium Bulk Logistics proposes to use a former mill site owned by Alcoa to export coal. The site, which occupies prime waterfront industrial land, is contaminated with pollution from the mill operation. Cowlitz County faces a choice for the site: approve Millennium’s proposed coal export terminal or force Alcoa to clean it up to attract other business. The choice should not be a hard one since Alcoa has already signed an Agreed Order with the Washington Department of Ecology, in 2007, requiring Alcoa to clean up the site’s pollution.

In fact, Alcoa has a good track record cleaning up aluminum mills and selling the land for more productive uses. In the last five years, Alcoa has successfully completed cleanup of former aluminum mills in Troutdale, Oregon and Vancouver, Washington. Alcoa even received a national award for its cleanup of the Troutdale site. Both sites are now active job-producing industrial areas.

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Gambling on Coal, and Losing

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West Coast port cities have already gambled and lost on coal export facilities. After investing millions of dollars in infrastructure and setting aside sizeable harbor acreage to coal export facilities, both Portland and Los Angeles watched their promised revenue from coal exports evaporate.

Worse yet, local communities were stuck with the tab. The abandoned coal export facilities locked up millions of dollars in stranded investments and clean-up expenses, not to mention years-long missed opportunities for more durable economic development choices.

Copyright Paul K. Anderson, www.paulkanderson.com. Used with permission.

What happened in Portland?

The early 1980s saw a rush of coal companies proposing export terminals in Washington and Oregon to satisfy a hungry Asian market. Longview, Kalama, Vancouver, and Astoria all entertained proposals, but the Port of Portland bought in. Portland committed to a 25-year lease with Pacific Coal for 90 acres and 900 feet of prime riverfront for a coal export terminal. Governor Atiyeh even broke ground at the site with a giant gold-painted power shovel in 1982.

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The Risky Business of Coal Exports

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Copyright Paul K. Anderson, www.paulkanderson.com. Used with permission.

With all the hullabaloo surrounding a handful of ports considering coal exports, it’s easy to forget that many communities are flatly rejecting it. In fact, coal is so unattractive that a number of Northwest ports have already said no, despite aggressively pursuing new business. Recently, the Port of Tacoma, located on Puget Sound, and the Columbia River Ports of Vancouver, Kalama, and Portland have all considered—and rejected—coal export proposals.

Port of Vancouver, Washington
The Columbian newspaper framed up the Port’s choice, writing, “faced with a choice of helping to grow food or feed industry, the Port of Vancouver picked a fertilizer ingredient over the dirtiest fossil fuel on the planet.”

Larry Paulson, the Port of Vancouver’s executive director, pointed out that “coal facilities have a tendency to come and go,” and that was a big reason why Vancouver favored a terminal for potash, a more stable commodity. The Port’s operations manager, Mike Schiller, put it even more directly: “coal is the most risky bulk mineral market.”

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A History of Failure

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The coal industry is promising that new export facilities will mean jobs, tax revenue, and economic growth for the Northwest. Yet the region’s history tells a cautionary tale. Twice before, West Coast ports have tried to build “world class” coal export facilities—and the result was pollution, broken promises, and bad debt.

In a new research memo, “Coal Export: A history of failure for western ports,” Sightline and Columbia Riverkeeper examine the history and risks of coal exports. The memo evaluates the alleged employment benefits of coal terminals, and it highlights real local examples of clean redevelopment projects doing better.

Read the whole thing here.

At Least The Website Is Clean

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Coal dust is a problem for railways. It escapes from rail cars during shipping, creating safety and congestion problems. It’s toxic, unhealthy, and obviously unpopular with nearby communities.

And yet… coal is the single biggest source of revenue for freight railways. So when debate about new export terminals turns to coal dust, what’s a railroad to do? According to BNSF—shipper of Powder River Basin coal to the Northwest—the answer is: scrub your website.

They recently removed some important information about coal dust. Fortunately, I can right-click like nobody’s business. So, for the sake of posterity and public policy alike, I give you a screenshot of the original version of BNSF’s guide for freight customers, “Coal Dust Frequently Asked Questions.”

 

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Coal Exports From Canada

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Sightline is publishing a new research memo today that documents the facts about Canada’s coal exporting capacity. The memo finds that ports in British Columbia do not have sufficient capacity to handle the volumes of coal planned for Washington ports.

The state coal lobby claims that US coal exports will simply shift to BC if Washington doesn’t build its own export facilities. Yet the numbers tell a different story. The truth is that even if BC’s coal ports were to devote all of their planned capacity expansions to shipping solely US coal, they could still handle only a small fraction of the coal planned for Cherry Point and Longview.

Debunking Two Bad Coal Arguments

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Perhaps it’s a sign of increasing desperation, but Washington’s coal lobby is trotting out some real whoppers lately. Let’s take a look at what the Bellingham coal port people said in a recent email under the Orwellian banner, “The Truth About Coal Consumption.”

You get a flavor for the folks behind the Gateway Pacific Terminal (GPT) right off the bat when they claim, in the very first sentence of their email, that their opponents are engaged in a “religious war on coal.” (Note to locals worried about noise, traffic, and pollution in your community: you are extremist fanatics.)

GPT’s “Truth About Coal” email is, in fact, a hash of distortions and fallacies. In the interest of time, I’ll confine myself to dismantling only two of the bigger mistakes.

Bad argument #1: Increasing the supply of coal does not affect demand. (If this argument seems counter to principles of basic economics, that’s because it is.)

GPT blunders into a discussion of economics that is frankly baffling. Apparently lacking any ability to explain their market, the GPT email cites a 2010 newsletter article by Richard Morse and a recent Crosscut piece by Daniel Jack Chasan. Here’s Chasan:

Blocking construction of a port at Cherry Point, or Longview, or any place else in the Pacific Northwest won’t reduce by even one lump the amount of coal burned in Chinese or Indian power plants.

Chasan’s done good environmental policy reporting, but on this point he’s simply wrong. (Please see the update at the bottom of this post.) Consider the economic fundamentals to see how. The export facilities planned for Washington are intended to move more than 100 million tons of cheap US coal to Asian markets—a staggering volume. The sole purpose of these ports, in other words, is to increase the supply of coal.

Now, can anyone tell me what happens to price when supply goes up?

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