Not that weepy Bill McKibben would care anyway, he doesn’t do reality.
Oregon denies permit for new coal port–huge victory for folks who have done great organizing http://t.co/0DyKUnGCE4
— Bill McKibben (@billmckibben) August 18, 2014
From Duke University
Superior energy efficiency of South Korean plants, and choice of replacement fuels in US, are key to success
DURHAM, N.C. — Under the right scenario, exporting U.S. coal to power plants in South Korea could lead to a 21 percent drop in greenhouse gas emissions compared to burning the fossil fuel at plants in the United States, according to a new Duke University-led study.
“Despite the large amount of emissions produced by shipping the coal such a long distance, our analysis shows that the total emissions would drop because of the superior energy efficiency of South Korea’s newer coal-fired power plants,” said Dalia Patiño-Echeverri, assistant professor of energy systems and public policy at Duke.
For the reduction to occur, U.S. plants would need to replace the exported coal with natural gas. And in South Korea, the imported coal must replace other coal as the power source. However, if imported U.S. coal were to replace natural gas or nuclear generation in Korea, the emissions produced per unit of electricity generated would increase, Patiño-Echeverri said.
“This significant difference in results highlights the importance of analyzing domestic energy policies in the context of the global systems they affect,” Patiño-Echeverri said.
Stricter emissions requirements on coal-fired power plants, together with low natural gas prices, have contributed to a recent decline in the use of coal for electricity generation in the United States, she said. Faced with a shrinking domestic market, many coal companies are taking advantage of a growing export market. U.S. coal exports hit an all-time high in 2012, fueled largely by demand in Asia. U.S. coal exports to Asian countries have tripled since 2009.
Patiño-Echeverri and her colleagues published their findings this month in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Science & Technology.
To conduct their analysis, they performed lifecycle air-emissions and economic assessments of two scenarios: a business-as-usual scenario in which the coal continues to be burned domestically for power generation at power plants in the U.S. Northwest after they have been retrofitted to meet EPA emissions standards, and an export scenario in which the coal is shipped to South Korea. For the export scenario, they focused on the Morrow Pacific Project being planned in Oregon by Ambre Energy. Under the project, Ambre would ship 8.8 million tons of Powder River Basin coal each year to Asian markets using rails, river barges and ocean vessels.
In the export scenario, emissions of “equivalent carbon dioxide” — a scientific measure of the coal emissions’ total global warming potential over a 100-year period — dropped 21 percent.
Other harmful emissions, including sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and particulate matter, dropped similarly.
“In addition to these benefits, our analysis shows that the export scenario would generate more than $25 billion in direct and indirect economic activity in the United States,” Patiño-Echeverri said. “It would also directly or indirectly create nearly $6 billion in total employee compensation, $742 million in new tax revenues, and roughly $4.7 billion in profits for all sectors involved.”
Promising though these results are, “it’s too early to give the export scenario an unequivocal green light,” she said.
Further studies are needed to assess the export scenario’s full environmental impacts, including water use, land use, the loss or degradation of vital fish and wildlife habitats, and risks associated with extraction and wastewater disposal of U.S. shale gas deposits. And there’s still some fine tuning to do on the economic end.
Patiño-Echeverri said the team’s projections are limited in precision due to the fact that the Morrow Pacific Project is in a permitting stage, and many of its operational and financial details are still unknown. As more specific information about the project is released, calculations can be updated to present a clearer picture of the impacts the project may have on the U.S. energy system and global environmental conditions.
“It’s important to note that this is just one scenario. The export of coal to different markets, under different conditions, might yield very different results,” Patiño-Echeverri said. “Our work does not provide a carte blanche for all energy export projects, but it does give us a framework for comparing their impacts and making smarter economic and environmental policy decisions.”
Support for the study came from the Center for Climate and Energy Decision Making (SES-0949710), which is funded by the National Science Foundation.
Patiño-Echeverri is Gendell Assistant Professor of Energy Systems and Public Policy at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment.
She conducted the study with Barrett Bohnengel, a 2013 master’s degree graduate of both Duke and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Joule Bergerson, assistant professor of chemical and petroleum engineering at the University of Calgary.
CITATION: “Environmental Implications of United States Coal Exports: A comparative Life Cycle Assessment of Future Power System Scenarios,” by Barrett Bohnengel, Dalia Patiño-Echeverri and Joule Bergerson. Environmental Science & Technology, July 15, 2014. http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es5015828
Morrow County is blessed with two coal-fired plants, backing up the bird- & bat-massacring windmills with which it is festooned. Eastern, Central & Southern Oregon need to secede from the Willamette Valley & central & north Coast, polluted as they are by refugees from California who want to repeat here the same mistakes they made in their home state. Our governor would like to breach the Columbia River dams that make our electrical power so cheap & the Port of Morrow into a seaport.
Environmental policy decisions = pick winners and losers.
PS: Our power rates are also the reason that Google, Apple & other energy-intensive companies have replaced aluminum plants in the region. That’s right, the supposedly Green companies rely on nasty hydro power from huge, fish-killing dams, despite their being truly renewable.
It just means Korea will get their coal from someplace where people are better at providing jobs for their people. Korea will have their coal – of that there is no doubt. Oregon’s contribution to the process? Less employment, less tax revenue, another step toward a welfare state. Oregon’s impact on the climate? Zero. The Portlandia mentality of Oregon is real, deep, and expensive.
Environmental extremists in control = people suffering and envirnonment worse.
Bill Mckibben, admitted heritage fraud and climate profiteer should not have any standing in a serious discussion. Except maybe as a negative example.
The law of unintended consequences. Weepy Bill is going to cause more CO2.
Like thatcher closing brit coal mines in the 80s this makes sense. You guys get to keep your valuable resources until after the gold rush and crucially after this carbon dioxide nonsense has blown over. All good. Well done.
Yes, a reality-based scale of which decision maximizes output of the valuable gas CO2 should be created and publicized, with loud kudos to those achieving the highest scores.
Not joking.
Germany primarily uses lignite, which is a very low energy coal (per ton of Co2).
If Germany uses US coal (which it does) and that coal replaces lignite (not sure it does) then there would be less CO2.
However, selling coal to Korea and Germany does help US jobs and the US economy … which Obama and his ilk hate.
Too late for Washington State as well.
Billionaire California serial election rigger Tom Steyer, while keeping one boot on Canada’s Keystone XL export throat, has managed to plant the other one on Washington State’s rural Whatcom county’s local elections. The county elections normal cost of about $25,000 exploded to more than $1,000,000, with at least $275,000 coming directly from Steyer, to insert his candidates and kill the proposed coal export terminal and incinerate over 5000 potential jobs.
https://shiftwa.org/steyers-wa-hidden-money-tricks-gets-national-attention/
Hopefully it will now go through Vancouver, BC’s expanding coal port. More revenue/jobs for us. Mind you what politicians do with that revenue is an entirely different story.
I assume the study used closed cycle gas generators to determine natural gas emissions.
That would be the technology that would serve as a direct replacement for baseload coal power generators. Open cycle gas generators are much less efficient but are required for peak load
generation.
Probably good news for Australia, unless US coal is exported by Seattle, Tacoma or Vancouver instead. One way or another, the odds are pretty good all the same coal, or an equivalent amount from other sources, will be burned somewhere.
This is not the “right scenario”; it is only a slightly less wrong scenario. The right scenario would not promote costly CO2 mitigation efforts that might make as much as 0.02 °C in global average temperature over the next 50 years. Or as WIllis Eschenbach put it, the difference in temperature between his feet and his head when he is standing up.
So how many jobs does denying this permit create?
This hysterical obsession over “emissions” is insane.
The story is also one more piece of evidence that the US is becoming a technological backwater. The most advanced smart phones come from Korea, and go to the Korean and Chinese markets, for one example.
Surely you jest. We have centuries worth of coal. Much as the stone age didn’t end because we ran out of stones, I expect we will stop burning coal long before we run out of it.
Among the many idiocies involved in this decision is the fact that high BTU content, clean US coal would produce less real pollution & lower CO2 emissions than the coal that Korea & China will burn instead of ours. So we shoot ourselves in the foot economically while making the environment worse.
Wrong. Extra CO2 makes the environment better.
Sure helps the beer!
Betapug says: August 19, 2014 at 8:10 am
Too late for Washington State as well. Billionaire California serial election rigger Tom Steyer
Beta, did you see the Hot Air article were Tom implies all believers are “super-sophisticated people”
http://hotair.com/archives/2014/08/16/billionaire-climate-activist-wants-to-educate-all-of-you-stupid-unsophisticated-hicks/
From the partial quote from a ‘pay-walled’ Politico Pro post –
“And the question in the United States of America is how are we doing with everybody else, which is the 99.5 percent of the people whose lives are very busy and complicated and pressing and they don’t have a lot of time to think about the things that don’t immediately impact themselves and their family.”
My take is that Tom and the 1/2% folks then must be – People whose lives are not busy, or complicated or pressing and who have a lot of time to think about the things that don’t immediately impact themselves and their family”
I wonder if we can ship the coal via Canada or Mexico?
Andy says:
August 19, 2014 at 7:49 am
——
Trading economic growth now, for economic growth sometime in the future, is never a good trade.
MarkW says:
August 19, 2014 at 9:05 am
Much less economically. It’s more of a straight shot from the Wyoming & Montana coal fields to the Port of Morrow, with cheaper water transport much farther inland. You have to cross more of the Rockies & higher elevations both north & south of South Pass, as well as the greater distance.
“Despite the large amount of emissions produced by shipping the coal such a long distance, our analysis shows that the total emissions would drop because of the superior energy efficiency of South Korea’s newer coal-fired power plants,” said Dalia Patiño-Echeverri, assistant professor of energy systems and public policy at Duke.
It’s going to be fake numbers all the way down.
Our last coal plant was first forced to use coal from several states away, then was purchased by a Canadian energy company, and now that the coal is coming in on 260 cars per day, the coal plant is being shut down. Now conveniently the numbers now tell them that it is better to burn the coal several states away, plus a half a globe away.
These kinds of numbers can tell you anything you want. Manipulated books like these never say that the government program is wasteful and does not work. The Great Leap agricultural reforms allowed them to export rice during the famine because of the glowing reports of success. That is how government reporting in these top-down schemes work.
Mike H says:
August 19, 2014 at 8:12 am
“Hopefully it will now go through Vancouver..”
Probably not, Mike. The firehose of American foundation money blasting across the border and pressure washing our political landscape, is almost invisible to Canadian media which is even less diverse than the US. Our state funded CBC (their David Suzuki being a revered icon) and the traditionally Canadian sovereignty oriented Left, studiously ignore the hundreds of millions of Greenbucks fertilizing “grassroots” groups, native opposition campaigns, PR story framing and even the placement of the current US educated Mayor of 2020’s, “Greenest City in the World”. Uncurious journalists just go with the flow.
This focussed, long term campaign started years ago:
http://opinion.financialpost.com/2010/10/14/u-s-foundations-against-the-oil-sands/
When you have virtually a single unfunded blogger, Vivian Krause, against $650 billion in stealth foundations, “speaking truth to power” does not get much traction.
http://fairquestions.typepad.com/rethink_campaigns/
I’m sure the unemployed in Oregon will be profoundly relieved to not have a job in the coal terminal.
Recall the other side of the coal coin. It is sent to coal ports on “death trains” by greedy “climate deniers”. Even if the port were allowed the alarmist leprechauns would demand the banning of death trains anywhere on the leftist coast. The solution to all these problems is found in the nation’s polling booths.
“First, don’t vote stupid”
Now study China, India et al and let us know what the findings of those studies are.
The decline of coal is clear.
The McKibben’s of the world think that the world is just made up of the USA and Canada. They should learn to get out more.
milodonharlani says:
August 19, 2014 at 9:08 am
Maybe should have added that elevation changes are expensive for rail transport, requiring a lot of switching back & forth.
sturgishooper says:
August 19, 2014 at 9:58 am
Thought that was understood by all here, but maybe not, so you’re right.
Why should South Korea care? As far as I know, the country is defined by the UN as a developing country, and thus exempted from any need to reduce emissions.
Larry Geary says:
August 19, 2014 at 8:31 am
…. The most advanced smart phones come from Korea, and go to the Korean and Chinese markets, for one example.
Fear not, Mr Geary, the technology in those advanced phones (the chips) are designed right here in Southern California, in part by my neighbor across the street. The rest is just packaging.
Leftists have never cared about the consequences of their policy proscriptions.
ConTrari says:
August 19, 2014 at 10:03 am
They want the coal for its cost-effective energy density more than its cleanliness.
milodonharlani- People of “Western Idaho” unite….!!
tgmccoy says:
August 19, 2014 at 10:17 am
To keep 50 states, how about combining western WA & OR into one Californicated ecoparadise & ID with southern, eastern & central WA & OR? I’m OK with keeping the name Idaho, although the majority would be ex-Washingtonians & Oregonians, so State of Columbia might work better. Idaho gains a seacoast.
Or combine southern OR with the oppressed people of northern CA to create the long longed for State of Jefferson.
The residents in the right half of WA and OR are seeking independence from our overlords in the leftist half of those states. Don’t even suggest we tie our fortunes to the leftist half of the neighboring state.
Australia has a large coal mining industry
“Coal Miner Clive Palmer to host a climate conference for global leaders”
http://joannenova.com.au/2014/08/coal-miner-clive-palmer-to-host-a-climate-conference-for-global-leaders/
If you are in Korea you may want to check out British Columbia. They have lots of coal to export and so does South Africa and Australia and everyone else on the planet. This achieves less than nothing.
” ConTrari says:August 19, 2014 at 10:03 am
Why should South Korea care? As far as I know, the country is defined by the UN as a developing country, and thus exempted from any need to reduce emissions.”
Because higher efficiency means more Watts/$$$ and that mean everything to them.
I agree it is funny to consider South Korea as “developing”. We can only hope that the rest of the developing countries study that hard and escape their poverty with smarts and hard work.
mwhite says:
August 19, 2014 at 10:53 am
Australia should thank us self-destructive Americans.
Mike H says:
August 19, 2014 at 8:12 am
Hopefully it will now go through Vancouver, BC’s expanding coal port. More revenue/jobs for us. Mind you what politicians do with that revenue is an entirely different story.
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Warren Buffet is already shipping coal through Vancouver on the Burlington Northern. There have been protests over the coal trains rumbling across the border but I don’t know how much impact they will have.
It would be better to have coal ports in the US as Vancouver is a bit of a choke point, but I believe there are three expansions of coal shipping planned in the near future.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/b-c-s-coal-industry-expansion-plans-face-opposition-1.1326972
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/us-climate-change-plan-will-likely-affect-vancouver-coal-port-expansion/article18957220/
http://www.westshore.com (expanding within current footprint and there is a proposal to develop and adjacent loading facility)
http://www.thenownews.com/opinion/editorial/coal-trains-a-threat-to-our-region-1.698555
Oregon and Washington may invoke NIMBY, but they won’t stop coal shipments … reduce it and make it a tad more expensive perhaps.
And what happens if Westshore expands so the next pod is actually south of the border of the shores of Washington State where objections to the coal terminal would likely not exist since it is too far from Seattle to be noticed?
reality check:
15 Aug: CS Monitor: Ken Silverstein: Sorry, Mr. Obama, Africa needs coal
Africa faces a dilemma: It’s vulnerable to climate change but needs coal to grow robustly…
“We need 20-times more power than we have today,” said Ashish Thakkar, chief executive of the Mara Group, an African conglomerate…
“If we say no coal and no nuclear, then we are not serious,” says Jim Yong Kim, president of the World Bank. “We know that intermittent energy [alone] will not lead to economic development…
The US government’s stance on coal may become less relevant, however, since many African nations are wooing investment from private energy firms…
“We have seen growth of 6 percent,” said Sospeter Muhongo, energy minister for Tanzania. “We want to move to 8 to 9 percent. To do that, we have to factor in population growth. We will use natural gas. We will use coal.”
http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Energy-Voices/2014/0815/Sorry-Mr.-Obama-Africa-needs-coal
From the Khmer Vert republic of Oregon what else would be expected? In the state with the most comically politicized university in the world?
This is a victory in the same sense that a state celebration of Kim Jong Il’s birthday would be a victory in North Korea.
Funny how state’s with left-leaning elites always seem to steer their countries in the opposite direction to that needed for what lies in the future.
In the 1930’s America tended towards isolationism and Britain to pacifism, the official position of its socialist opposition, in the run up to WW2 while Germay and Japan (and Russia) were arming.
Now as we approach a period of climate cooling the same elites are trying to destroy electricity generation and fossil fuel resources.
What will they destroy next? Food, as the population expands? Education, as technology competition intensifies globally? Freedom of travel as global connectedness grows culturally and economically?
Australia is well-placed for Asia, provided the CAGW anti-coal crowd aren’t allowed to destroy industry here:
19 Aug: Japan Times: Chugoku Electric to buy into Australian coal mine
Chugoku Electric Power Co. said Monday it will acquire a 10 percent interest in an Australian coal mine owned by a Japanese oil refiner to secure a stable source of fuel for its power plants…
Japanese utilities are under pressure to secure new sources of fossil fuels amid a general freeze in nuclear power generation since the 2011 triple meltdown.
Chugoku Electric, which serves the westernmost part of Honshu island, depends on coal for about half of the output from its power plants.
It has set up a wholly owned subsidiary in Australia to participate in the mining there, which began in 2006…
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/08/19/business/corporate-business/chugoku-electric-buy-australian-coal-mine/
behind paywall:
20 Aug: Australian: Sarah-Jane Tasker: Chinese coal titan slams delays
CHINESE-OWNED Shenhua Australia has warned that further delays to the approval of its NSW coal project will have an impact on future foreign investment decisions in the state…
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/chinese-coal-titan-slams-delays/story-e6frg9df-1227029914696?nk=6c3899091c460e12ed25edca38786dce#mm-premium
Governor Kitzhaber (known as Taxhaber by the locals) and Bill McK. make quite a pair, little facts between them. The original outrage was “coal dust” from the death coal trains. When that was rather easily debunked, then preventing CO2 from being released form this coal anywhere in the world became the reason. The Oregon budget is somewhere north of $30 billion/year for 3.8 million people, and Kitzhaber is doing his best to limit the number who can actually earn enough to pay taxes. On the other hand, if you retire right now with 30 years working for the state, you get 110% of your base pay forever. Good deal, huh? Care to guess where this is headed? If we could just get the CO2 concentration in the middle of the Pacific ocean back to 350ppm, everything would be just dandy!!
We use fuels in a very inefficient way: we burn them. That is fine for heating, but for power generation it is limited by Carnot cycle, and an efficiency must be low (if nothing else, for every molecule of O2 used we also have to heat four molecules of N2). We can sidestep this inefficiency in fuel cells.
Is there any research towards fuel cells powered by coal? Alcohol? Plant materials? We know that (except for coal) it is possible; these fuel cells are called animals.
pat says:
August 19, 2014 at 1:47 pm
Australia is well-placed for Asia, provided the CAGW anti-coal crowd aren’t allowed to destroy industry here:
19 Aug: Japan Times: Chugoku Electric to buy into Australian coal mine
Chugoku Electric Power Co. said Monday it will acquire a 10 percent interest in an Australian coal mine owned by a Japanese oil refiner to secure a stable source of fuel for its power plants…
==============
Indeed, Japan and China are well placed to extract resources from what was once our country.
Its lucky we aren’t allowed to vote on important issues that concern our future.
Well if Portlandia is still producing episodes, they have another episode idea.
It’s all good, all the time…
Wayne Delbeke says:
August 19, 2014 at 12:13 pm
So Canada too can thank us for exporting our jobs to you.
Buffett supports misguided envirowhacko politicians against Keystone XL pipleline in order to protect his railroad profits.
Curious George says:
August 19, 2014 at 3:08 pm
I’m doing my bit by getting most of my calories from alcohol and animal and plant lipids.
“The Keystone oil pipeline is good idea for the United States, Warren Buffett said Monday, even though it would take away some business from his Berkshire Hathaway rail subsidiary BNSF.” http://www.cnbc.com/id/101460011#.
It’s his founding partner in Berkshire Hathaway, billionaire Obama funder, Dick Holland who is the moneyman behind “grassroots” Bold Nebraska and it’s Keystone trashing fronts.
Curious George says:
August 19, 2014 at 3:08 pm
“We use fuels in a very inefficient way: we burn them. That is fine for heating, but for power generation it is limited by Carnot cycle, and an efficiency must be low (if nothing else, for every molecule of O2 used we also have to heat four molecules of N2). We can sidestep this inefficiency in fuel cells.
Is there any research towards fuel cells powered by coal? Alcohol? Plant materials? We know that (except for coal) it is possible; these fuel cells are called animals.”
Bloom Box; Ceres Power; molten carbonate fuel cells (though no one has by now overcome the quick deterioration of the electrodes); and magnetohydrodynamic generators as boosters for combustion (though the efficiency gained by those was overtaken by modern combined cycle power plants; and research seems to have stopped for now).
Betapug says:
August 19, 2014 at 5:39 pm
Correct:
http://journalstar.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/philanthropist-dick-holland-key-democratic-contributor/article_25f1c5f7-971e-557c-afc1-1cc9d7a601af.html
Buffett associate Charlie Munger & his family give to both parties:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Munger#Philanthropy
Kids from his first marriage are more liberal; from his second more conservative.
Meanwhile, producers find another route: http://www.platts.com/latest-news/shipping/houston/british-columbia-port-authority-oks-construction-21118698, through Canada.
Coal from the Powder River Basin of WY.
(CP Rail is no stranger to shipping coal by rail, huge volumes from the Crowsnest Pass area of the Rocky Mountains go to a port south of the mouth of the Fraser River (Roberts Bank terminal, near the Tsawwassen ferry terminal). The Fraser Surrey Docks are up the river a modest ways, near New Westminster.
BNSF track also goes to the general area from Everett WA (better known for the Amtrak passenger service from Seattle and points south, I don’t know how much freight goes across the border on that track, BNSF and area fiefdoms have been very slow to shorten the track and get it away from the White Rock/Crescent Beach area).
As someone in the transportation industry said (pipeline or rail), if customers want to ship, they’ll find a way.
However the scheme to export oil via Hudson’s Bay has been delayed indefinitely by the inability of the railway to maintain a reliable operation. Big problems with track stability across bogs and perhaps permafrost areas, having difficulty meeting expectations for grain export which is very high profile in Canada.
(If permafrost melting is the problem, one fix could be to put thick foam panels on top of it then gravel etc. to build up to bearing strength needed for a railway track.
If bog, good luck – depends on depth obviously, remembering the fiasco in estimating cost of the Dees Lake extension of BC Rail (contractors bid on expectation of camp and gravel pit locations suiting data in the RFP, only to find bog far deeper and IIRC in some cases requiring changing route – big lawsuits and investigations of professional engineers ensued.)
But a Canadian pipeline company found a temporary way around one of the trans-border oil shipment fusses – re-route the oil to a cross-border pipeline that already has basic permits needing only minor approvals then re-route gain not far south of the border.
RE “CHINESE-OWNED Shenhua Australia has warned that further delays to the approval of its NSW coal project will have an impact on future foreign investment decisions in the state…”
If they are clever like the Japanese were accused of circa 1970s they’ll have flexible contracts with more suppliers than they really need, to ensure they have enough supply.