According to Peroshni Govender of Reuters, a coal train ploughed into a truck packed with farm workers at a level crossing in eastern South Africa on Friday, cutting it in half and killing at least 19 people who were on their way to pick fruit, police and emergency services said.

“Police spokesman Joseph Mabusa said it appeared the truck driver had badly miscalculated when crossing the track, leaving his vehicle directly in the path of a freight train carrying coal toMozambique. It was too early to say precisely what happened however, he added.

“‘It is a very gruesome scene. Some bodies are without heads and some without limbs. Forensic teams are still working on the scene,’ said Mabusa.

“The impact carried the truck 200 meters, dismembering the trucks’ occupants, thus making it hard for forensic experts to say exactly how many people had been killed, he added.

“‘The driver was taken to hospital. His condition is unknown,’ said Mabusa.”

Via EnergyDigger

MISSOULA, Mont. – The amount of coal train traffic running through Montana is expected to at least double, as coal exports are stepped up. The trains will haul coal, mostly from Wyoming, to Washington and Oregon for shipment to Asia. There’s a meeting tonight in Missoula to talk about what the additional train traffic means for towns along the route.

Read more …

Missoulian presents a three-day series on coal production and transport. Coal trains already roll through Missoula, and demand for energy in Asia has mining companies looking to ship a lot more coal from Montana and Wyoming via ports on the West Coast. Every shovel of coal dug in Montana puts money in state coffers, but burning it also means more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and more diesel fumes, noise and traffic for railyard neighbors.

Read 1st in series…
One straight shot from the coal mines in the Powder River Basin to Asia cuts right through Missoula.

Read 2nd in series…
Neighbors in the Missoula railyard already feel the effects of coal trains, and some fear more are coming.  Can a possible groundbreaking lawsuit in California affect rail communities in Montana.

Read 3rd in series… [coming soon]
Digging coal in Montana provides state tax revenues, and the cash trickles to the western part of the state. But will burning all that coal affect the global climate?

Statewide impacts of a huge coal-export terminal proposed for Whatcom County must receive the broadest possible environmental, health and traffic scrutiny. Even the job forecasts should be audited.

Plans for the massive coal-export operation at Cherry Point, north of Bellingham, deserve the broadest possible environmental review, plus the additional detailed analysis of a health-impact assessment.

The Gateway Pacific Terminal Project proposed by SSA Marine invites the widest possible scrutiny, because nine 1.5 mile-long coal trains will rumble through communities around the state each day before they reach the deep-water port and proposed 1,200-acre site.

Read more …

About 800 people packed the Bellingham High School theater Tuesday, March 20, to learn how they can make their voices heard during the lengthy environmental review process for the proposed Gateway Pacific Terminal coal and bulk cargo pier proposed for Cherry Point.

County, state and federal officials explained that the process of taking public input won’t begin in earnest until this summer. The first phase of that process is known as scoping, and it includes the critical question of what kinds of impacts should be analyzed in the environmental impact statement.

The environmental study process will be conducted by a private consultant to be hired by Whatcom County, in consultation with the Washington Department of Ecology and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. SSA Marine, the Seattle company that proposes to build the terminal, will pay the costs.

Follow this link to read more …

Public comment supports the council resolution.

Monday evening’s Washougal Council workshop brought over a dozen citizens to the podium in support of a city resolution requesting that Washougal have a voice in the BNSF railroad coal train expansion.  The possibility of an increase in mile-long coal trains to 20 or more per day has citizens concerned about issues such as pollution from coal dust, increased noise, and long waits at rail road crossings, as well as impacts on business and the local economy.

Follow this link to read more … 

Executive Summary
As the use of coal to generate power in the United States has declined, coal companies have increasingly turned their attention to the export market, particularly the fast-growing economies of Asia, and particularly China. Because there currently is no infrastructure that would allow coal exports from the West Coast of the United States, the growing interest in export has led to proposals to build new private coal export terminals in Washington. The first two such projects are seeking permits for infrastructure that would allow close to 110 million tons of coal export annually. For context, burning 110 million tons of Powder River Basin coal is roughly equivalent to the annual carbon emissions of 40 million cars. These projects have generated intense local and state-wide controversy, particularly given Washington State’s historic leadership in setting progressive policies intended to address greenhouse gas emissions and their effect on the global climate.

1. Proponents of the coal export terminals consistently claim that the decision to authorize them will have no effect on the total amount of coal that is burned globally, and hence on the global climate. In their view, opening up the West Coast to the export of Powder River Basin coal will only change the source of the coal burned in Asia—not the total amount. This white paper explains why these arguments are incorrect, and inconsistent with both the basic principles of economics as well as the abundant literature regarding energy use and consumption patterns in Asia. This paper concludes that the proposed coal export facilities in the Northwest will result in more coal consumption in Asia and undermine China’s progress towards more efficient power generation and usage. Decisions the Northwest makes now will impact Chinese energy habits for the next half-century; the lower coal prices afforded by Northwest coal exports encourage burning coal and discourage the investments in energy efficiency that China has already undertaken. Approving proposed coal export facilities would also undermine Washington State’s commitment to reducing its own share of greenhouse gas emissions.

Follow this link to read entire paper …

Dr. Thomas Michael Power is the author of Lost Landscapes and Failed Economies: the Search for a Value of Place and Post-Cowboy Economics: Pay and Prosperity in the New American West.   He is the former Chair of the Economics Department at the University of Montana, where he currently serves as a Research Professor.

A permit application made today for a huge coal shipping facility near Bellingham, Wash., has repercussions that will be felt by communities across Montana. SSA Marine submitted an application to build a facility capable of exporting 48 million tons of Powder River Basin coal per year from Montana and Wyoming to Asia.

Community and environmental leaders across the Northwest are calling on decision-makers and agencies leading the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) process to study the full range of community, environmental, and economic impacts of the proposed Gateway Pacific Terminal at Cherry Point, Wash. The increase in rail traffic would impact public health and safety and pose economic costs to communities across Montana and the Northwest.

“You can’t just draw a line around Cherry Point and Whatcom County, Washington. Coal export has serious consequences for families and communities along the entire rail line,” said Ed Gulick, Past Chair of Northern Plains Resource Council and a Billings architect. Northern Plains is a grassroots conservation and family agriculture group based in Billings. “For cities and towns two states up the line it’s hard to find an upside. Montanans would face many health and traffic impacts and other costs not borne by railroad and coal companies, yet we’d see none of the economic benefits promised by the coal companies.”

Follow this link to read entire article …

Last week, the Army Corps of Engineers announced that it is moving forward with permitting for the first proposed coal export terminal in Oregon — Ambre Energy’s 8.8 million ton per year export terminal at the Port of Morrow.

If constructed, this coal export terminals would supercharge global climate change and damage the environment in the Pacific Northwest. But shockingly, the Corps has no plans to prepare a comprehensive Environmental Impact Statement.

The Port of Morrow is one of seven massive terminals being planned in the Pacific Northwest, including three in Washington, for exporting dirty coal to Asia. Permitting decisions made on any of the seven proposed terminals will have critical ramifications for the other proposed terminals, because they will set a precedent for future decisions.

Follow this link to Tell the Army Corps of Engineers: Conduct a study on the environmental impacts of coal export terminals

BELLINGHAM – A new economic analysis of Gateway Pacific Terminal indicates that the proposed coal export pier could mean a net loss of jobs for Whatcom County, if it harms tourism, waterfront redevelopment and the county’s overall image.

Follow this link to read more …

As coal use drops dramatically in the U.S.  and clean energy continues to grow, King Coal is looking for new customers. The coal industry is now pursuing its corporate profits via coal exports at the expense of the health, safety, and quality of life of thousands of families in several states, including Montana, Idaho, Washington and Oregon.

Right now, several major coal companies are proposing to develop Northwest ports to export coal from the Powder River Basin to Asia; including ports at Cherry Point, WA; Longview, WA; Grays Harbor, WA; Coos Bay, OR; St. Helens, OR; and Port of Morrow, OR. You can see a map of the proposed ports here .

Follow this link to read entire article …

Coal-Hearted Commerce

The Inland Northwest could play a pivotal role in the next coal boom, but it would come at a cost.

There’s a stretch of road on Highway 200, as it nears the Idaho-Montana line in rural North Idaho, where the biggest traffic hazard is tourists parked on the side of the shoulder snapping pictures.

It’s there that the narrow ribbon of asphalt climbs from the muddy flats of the Pack River Delta and winds its way up onto the toes of the Cabinet Mountains. From that vantage point the huge southern sweep of Lake Pend Oreille can be seen, and the view can be just as distracting as the idling roadside motorists.

Follow this link to read more …

The Camas City Council recently approved a resolution that outlines a series of concerns about the potential impacts of coal trains on the city and its residents.

The resolution, approved by six of the seven members of City Council, states that an increase in the number of coal trains passing through the area could increase train noise, cause traffic congestion that could delay emergency vehicles, and negatively impact public health.

“We urge the appropriate authorities to require an environmental impact statement that identifies and measures the impacts on our community from the significant increase in coal train traffic,” the resolution states.

“We urge the appropriate authorities to hold at least one of the environment impact statement scoping hearings at a location in Clark County.”

Follow this link to read entire article …

When big carbon comes to town, the resulting swath of destruction is economic as well as environmental.  This should not be too much of a surprise for anybody who has been paying attention.

Here in Whatcom County, WA, we’ve been getting glossy brochures in the mail and paid doorbellers coming by to tell us all about the wonderful new jobs that will be provided by the proposed Gateway Pacific coal export terminal at Cherry Point, WA.  They even hired a consultant to make a shiny report with all kinds of job numbers, complete with a massage parlor multiplier that inflates the direct jobs into a much larger alleged number.

Follow this link to read entire article …

In Camas and Washougal, the sounds of trains passing through our communities have become almost commonplace. Each day we see and hear them go by, often as we wait for the train cars to clear local BNSF railroad crossings. We may not like them much, but we live with them because they are just one aspect of these two communities that have so many other great qualities.

But a new proposal from Millennium Bulk Terminals to build a $600 million terminal west of Longview to export 44 million tons of coal annually could make this situation worse. If approved, it would dramatically increase the number of trains heading through the Camas-Washougal area by 20 to 30 each day. These trains would be 1 mile to 1.5 miles long, carrying coal that would eventually be loaded up on barges bound for the Asian market.

And that is just the beginning of what these proposed coal trains could potentially bring through, and leave behind, in Camas and Washougal.

Follow this link to read entire article …

A company is proposing to build a $600 million terminal in southwest Washington to export 44 million metric tons of Powder River Basin coal to Asia each year, a total that would make it the largest such facility in North America.

The terminal would be a major shot in the arm for the the area’s construction industry but will certainly face stiff opposition from conservation and neighborhood groups.

Follow this link to read entire article …

Before getting too excited about looking for a new export terminal site, should we not make a rational decision about demand for our particular coal? Do we have metallurgical or high-Btu steam coal to sell, or do we hope the new Asian market is now so huge and undiscriminating we can sell low rank sub-bituminous coals into it? Will there be sufficient demand to justify a new coal supplier, or is this just another pipe dream to expand markets unrealistically? Let us not forget the same China that threatened to export coal 10 years ago is now viewed as a buyer with deep pockets and endless demand. How long will this last?

Dave Gambrel is the president of Logisticon, a coal transportation consultancy. Click here to read the entire article about the perils of building West Coast coal export terminals.

Natural gas has been the talk of the town in the U.S. energy world. Coal hasn’t been in the spot light quite as much. Will this huge shift towards natural gas actually happen? If so, when will we begin to see these changes occur? Daniel Fisher plays with these questions and wonders if coal is really here to stay.

Is King Coal dead? Not according to a new econometric study that concludes no more than 20% of existing coal generation is likely to switch over to gas, even if the Environmental Protection Agency drives up the cost of coal generation and gas prices stay at their current, low rates indefinitely. Gas prices have fallen more than 50% since 2008 , yet coal production for the electricity sector, which has been marching up fairly steadily for decades, remains 1 billion tons a year. After examining the so-called cross-elasticity of gas to coal, or the rate at which electricity producers switch from one fuel to another in response to changes in relative price, the authors say:

No case can be made for gas taking over and driving coal out of the markets for fuel to generate electricity. The most that can take expected in the next five to ten years —- the years that count for corporate investment and Federal pollution abatement policy — is that fracgas will supplant 20% of coal otherwise used in power plants. That is not totally consistent with the hyperbole fracgas is this country’s most important new energy source of this century.

The study is by a group of people affiliated with Yale University who are active in the energy industry: Edward Hirs, a financial analyst and teacher of economics at the University of Houston; Robert Ames, manager of renewable energy at Tyson Foods; Anthony Corridore of Lafarge; and Paul MacAvoy, retired professor of economics at Yale.

They acknowledge puzzlement at the low rate of switching. Gas would seem to be a superior fuel. It is a more expensive source of heat — close to $4 per million Btus currently, versus about $2.50 for coal — but  it doesn’t require land-hogging fuel bunkers and can be easily transported via pipeline. If the historic laws of energy economics applied, production would follow reserves in a ratio of 1:10. A fourfold increase in reserves, from 200tcf to 800tcf, would be followed by a similar increase in gas production to 20tcf to 80tcf.

That isn’t going to happen, the authors conclude, for a variety of reasons. First, pipelines would have to be expanded by a third just to move an additional 10tcf of gas to power plants. There’s also no economic evidence to support wholesale fuel-shifting when gas prices drop relative to coal. A 1973 to 2007 study by EIA, World Bank and University of Calgary showed cross-elasticity of coal to gas of 0.064, meaning gas use in electricity increases 0.6% for every 10% decrease in gas prices relative to coal.

The 50% decline in gas prices since 2008 implies an increase in gas-fired electricity generation of a bit more than 3%. Using a different econometric method gets a cross-elasticity of about .20%, or a 2% increase in gas for every 10% decrease in price. Both results puzzled researchers, who expected a more vigorous response, given the ease of transporting and storing gas relative to coal. The studies reveal “the limited ability to substitute one source of energy for another,” although their ability to predict the future may be limited because there were no episodes like the massive shale-gas discoveries of recent years.

Other studies support total switch in electricity fuel of no more than 10% for a permanent, 50% decline in gas prices. There’s still hope for gas bulls. A 2010 Credit Suisse report says 15%, or 50 gigawatts of the 340GW U.S. coal generation fleet, will have to be shut down to meet new Environmental Protection Agency standards that kick in by 2015.

If you read our blog, you surely know we are all about the natural gas boom. But, its helpful to be realistic at times. Natural gas could be at the forefront of the energy industry soon, but not quite yet. Coal still has a little life left in it. 

Quotes taken from report by Daniel Fisher, Read the entire article here.

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The old king coal of Alcúdia has long been making its way from the port to the Es Murterar power station – 30 years or so. In a shuttle of trucks it chugs along the three kilometres of road, sometimes straining, as with the incline leaving the port itself, and letting bits of itself go and skip onto the road and into the verges. Once upon a time, before they built the by-pass next to the Puig Sant Martí, the trucks used to take a different route, right through the resort. Things are better nowadays, but only in that the trucks are less intrusive.

Given how long coal has been transported to the power station, it seems a bit odd that it is only now that Alcúdia residents have decided to denounce its movement. In fairness it has long been a matter of discontent, but the current complaint against the dirt, an alleged absence of control, and the deposits may be a case of maintaining a momentum that started in the summer.

In August, there were protests against the emissions from the power station and against the transportation of coal. There was also a level of support from business for the proposal that Es Murterar should be gradually closed and its coal and oil-fired electricity generation be replaced by that from renewables. The proposal and the protests were the work of the environmental pressure group GOB. Has the hand of GOB touched the denouncing residents of Alcúdia? If so, then rightly so.

The trucks are mobile monstrosities, while Es Murterar itself is a panoramic affront, a blight on the landscape. Wander in the tranquility of the Albufera nature park and it is hard to ignore, rising from the park’s west side, the chimney of the power station. Albufera and Es Murterar are in surrealistic juxtaposition; it seems inconceivable that the power station would be built today. Not where it is, at any rate.

For all the visual unpleasantness of the lorries and the power station, the actual level of harm to the environment is open to debate. The regional government’s environment ministry maintains that particles of coal dust from the transportation are within limits that might be prejudicial to health. The power station has cut significantly its carbon emissions. Albufera is thriving. It wouldn’t be were it being polluted.

As you might expect, however, not everyone is of such forgiving opinion: GOB for one. It believes that Es Murterar is responsible for some 60% of local greenhouse gases. The power station is also responsible for generating a half of the electricity consumed in the whole of the Balearics. But GOB also believes that local production of energy can be scaled right back so that renewables are the only source of electricity. It is the prospect of the majority of energy requirements being met by supply from the mainland via electricity cabling and natural gas that leads it to conclude that supplementary energy creation in Mallorca could avoid the use of coal.

The regional government doesn’t dispute the possibilities of GOB’s argument, but it has said that there needs to be some realism. Nevertheless, the day does seem to be coming closer when the level of electricity production at Es Murterar is reduced if not eliminated completely. Were it to stop though, a question would be what would be done with the site. The old power station in Alcúdia seems no nearer to being converted into the science and technology centre it is meant to become, and it has been abandoned for years.

For now though, the coal will continue to be transported and Es Murterar will continue to hum. Old king coal’s pipe will remain lit, and the residents of Alcúdia will be less than merry.

But there’s one other thing. Behind every good nursery rhyme there is another story. It is one that just about surfaced a few years ago but was then given greater prominence at the start of this year. You know those trucks. Who owns the company which transports the coal to the power station? Coincidental to the Alcúdia residents’ denunciation is the start of the court case involving the former president of the Council of Mallorca, Maria Antònia Munar. The company belongs to her husband, 15% of which is hers.

Timing is everything.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Lambert's Point Pier 6, Norfolk

This is a continuation of the post entitled “The N&W Railway and I.”

Does the idea of tandem rotary dumpers leave you cold? Are you not all that interested in thaw sheds and shiploaders? Then please, by all means, skip this post.

I can’t remember exactly what year it was that I visited the N&W (I should say Norfolk Southern) Lamberts Point Pier 6 in Norfolk. Probably in the mid to late 90s. But I can tell you that I will never forget the impression that it made.

As you might imagine, the business of moving a heavy, bulky, dirty commodity like coal from Point A to Point B, or from the mine to the train to the ocean vessel, involves a lot of heavy, bulky, complicated equipment. When it comes to getting the coal from the train onto the ship, almost all of the time the procedure involves a ground storage facility. In other words, the coal gets transferred from the railcars into large stockpiles, and then it can stay there for quite a while until it is transferred by bucket-wheel or clamshell machinery, or something similar—big scooping devices in one form or another—onto the ship.

The thing that’s amazing about Lamberts Point is that the coal goes directly from the train into the shiploader and onto the ship. (Well, there’s a slight exception called the surge silo, in some cases.) The other thing that’s really  cool is that you have dozens of trainloads that have come from places like McDowell and Wyoming Counties, West Virginia, or Buchanan County, Virginia, and at the upper end of the Lamberts Point pier the locomotives are detached from the coal cars, and from there on it’s all done by gravity.

It’s a bit like one of those Rube Goldberg machines where, once the first part is set into motion, a whole chain of events unfolds without the need for any outside propulsion.

If you look at the (admittedly tiny) photo above, you will see a few hundred coal cars that have no locomotive attached. Each individual car is known by an identifying number, and each one is released down the slope in a certain intricate sequence in order to put together a particular blend for an overseas customer. Since 95% of the coal moving through Norfolk is metallurgical, that will be a steel company. Using the names I am familiar with from a little ways back, that could be Sollac or British Steel, Eregli or Ilva, Posco or Nippon Steel. Probably these have all changed their corporate identities by now.

Carefully shepherded by a team up in a giant glass-sided control tower, each car passes in its proper sequence over an electronic scale and then glides into the dumper area. If it is during the winter, there is a detour through the thaw shed to heat up the railcar, since otherwise frozen coal might stick into the car. And then the railcar goes into the dumper area and gets turned completely upside down—track and car together—to empty out the coal. This is much more efficient than hopper cars in which bottom slats open up to let the coal out. The photo below is not from Lamberts Point, but it illustrates the concept of rotary dumping.

The whole thing gets turned upside down

The empty railcars then pick up momentum and glide up a slight slope into the “kickback” area, where they roll back gracefully onto a different track for diversion to the area of the yard where they will be hitched up to locomotives again and return to the coalfields.

In the meantime, the coal from the rotary dumpers is fed into towering shiploaders that drop coal into vessels of up to capesize proportions. That means vessels of around 120,000 deadweight tons, ones so large they can’t go through the Panama Canal—those smaller ones are called panamaxes.

And what kinds of coal, exactly, are going overseas? Here is a list from when I was knowledgeable about the business—it has certainly changed since then—Buchanan, Amonate, Jenkinjones, Virginia Pocahontas, McClure, Clinchfield, Moss No. 3, Kopperston, Rocklick, Tanoma, Virginia Crews, Iager, Red Ash, Litwar, Race Fork, Permac, Raven, Pinnacle.

I know that a lot of those operations have shut down, but I hear that new things are happening in the overseas market, and that India and China are buying a lot of coal. But it all goes back to a world of narrow, shadowy valleys on that Virginia/West Virginia border, towns like Welch and War and Wolf Pen, with the big tipple and next to it the rail spur that takes up nearly all of the space next to the stream, and a row of houses and a twisting little road that winds its way along.

Coal tipple