Coal Heats Energy Debate

This Spring Washington will be treated to the opportunity to hear from real people who live with the effects of coal every day.

Under the sponsorship of iLoveMountains.org citizens impacted by mountain top removal will be in Washington State to share their story.

Although Puget Sound Energy and Seattle City Light do not obtain their electricity from coal mined by mountain top removal, the citizens of Washington State can benefit from listening to the first hand accounts that will be shared.

The personal stories of these citizens from West Virginia and Tennessee are relevant in light of the proposed terminals at Cherry Point north of Bellingham, Longview at the mouth of the Columbia River and Port of St. Helens in Oregon.

In a February 24th Seattle Times article it was announced that Millennium Bulk Terminals filed federal, state and county permit applications Thursday to build a new coal-export facility in Longview.

"Regulators are currently evaluating plans for a terminal near Cherry Point outside Bellingham. Another company, Texas-based energy services giant Kinder Morgan, wants to export coal through the Port of St. Helens, Ore., about 20 miles south of Longview."

Millennium is the same corporation that had applied in 2010 for permits to build a terminal with plans to ship 5 million tons of coal a year. When internal documents showing plans to ship 60 million tons from the Longview terminal were made public the application was withdrawn and the company issued an apology.

"We are (at) too sensitive a juncture to raise the plans to build a second berth," one memo read. (Seattle Times)

That kind of track record just adds to the history of evidence endemic to the fossil fuel industry that has repeatedly put profits ahead of the environment and human life. The resulting heat the fossil fuel industry feels from citizens groups, environmentalists, economists, scientists and individual is understandable.

Even the promise of more jobs rings hollow in the face of information from such organizations as the World Watch Institute, "Renewables tend to be a more labor-intensive energy source than the still-dominant fossil fuels, which rely heavily on expensive pieces of production equipment. A transition toward Renewables thus promises job gains. Even in the absence of such a transition, growing automation and corporate consolidation are already translating into steadily fewer jobs in the oil, natural gas, and coal industries -- sometimes even in the face of expanding production. Many hundreds of thousands of coal mining jobs have been shed in China, the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, and South Africa in the last decade or two. In the United States, coal output rose by almost one third during the past two decades, yet employment has been cut in half."

The associated costs of coal out way any economic benefits of its use. The New York Academy of Science 2011 report "Full cost accounting for the life cycle of coal" concludes, "Each stage in the life cycle of coal—extraction, transport, processing, and combustion—generates a waste stream and carries multiple hazards for health and the environment. These costs are external to the coal industry and are thus often considered 'externalities.' We estimate that the life cycle effects of coal and the waste stream generated are costing the U.S. public a third to over one-half of a trillion dollars annually. Many of these so-called externalities are, moreover, cumulative. Accounting for the damages conservatively doubles to triples the price of electricity from coal per kWh generated, making wind, solar, and other forms of non-fossil fuel power generation, along with investments in efficiency and electricity conservation methods, economically competitive."

What makes coal shipments attractive to corporations like Millennium, is that they get to collect all the profit without paying the full cost of coals extraction and use. You and I and the rest of the globe through lost lives, productivity and environmental destruction pay the full cost of coal.

This business model only works in the short term. In the long run we all lose. A more effective strategy that would support both jobs and the environment would be to increase investment in renewable energy.

Corporations within the extraction industry financed the elections for most (but not all) members of congress and are financing the campaigns of most of the presidential candidates. Consequently it is not likely that the few token incentives now in place will be expanded except possibly at the state and local level.

With the few existing incentives, according to the US Energy Information Administration "Electricity generated from wind increased from about 6 billion kilowatt-hours in 2000 to about 95 billion kilowatt-hours in 2010. Improved technology has decreased the cost of producing electricity from wind." Federal production tax credits and grants, state-level renewable portfolio standards (RPS) and renewable energy credits (RECs) also helped increase the incentives to wind energy development."

Increasing demand for jobs, growing public awareness of the human costs associated with fossil fuel and reduction in costs for solar have all played a role in expanding the demand and production of renewable energy.

For more information on the affects of fossil fuel you can read a position paper published by Shoreline Solar Project on their website.

If you are interested in learning from those directly affected by the extraction and use of coal please contact Kate Finneran  at Kate@ilovemountains.org or go to their website iLoveMountains.org. They are currently looking for organizations will to play host to events in Washington State in April.