As West Virginia assumes its place in today’s primary spotlight, let us take a moment to celebrate one of the things for which the state is most well known: Coal. And specifically, let us celebrate its death.
Not a complete death, mind you, one to be spoken of in past tense and nostalgia. Not yet, but rather a dying death, slow but measured, tortuous but assured. With all the accompanying angst, anger and anguish from the people involved.
The bad news on coal rolls in with such a superfluous cadence that one can hardly keep up. But don’t worry if you missed some profound development thoroughly deepening the already pitch-dark cloud hanging over the industry. Merely wait a week or ten days and worse news for Dirty Rock, Inc will leap into the headlines.
Now shall we merely dip a toe into the deep dark waters of black dust and red ink and see what is going on today:
So by far the biggest news here in the US comes from Washington state. The Powder River Basin is one of the last areas in the US where coal can be mined for a profit. Loretta Lynn karaoke classics aside, Appalachia is no longer the coal capital of America; Wyoming is.
But as the demand for coal craters in the domestic market it doesn’t matter how cheaply you can dig the stuff up, you need to find more people willing to buy it. So Wyoming and other Western States have been desperately fighting to get a new modern high-capacity shipping terminal on the West Coast in order to sell their cheap coal to Asia.
Alas the fate of a clutch of Red states sitting on an OCEAN of easily mined coal but that between them and the very profitable shipping lanes of their dreams stands a wall of Blue States committed to sensible climate change policy.
They failed in Oregon to the point that the company pushing for the Columbia River port, once it became clear that it wasn’t going to happen, sold off 100% of their American assets and left the North American market. The remnant of what was Ambre Energy North America got bought up by a private equity firm and renamed Lighthouse Resources and hasn't done much since.
Oakland is blocking them.
The proposed Millennium Bulk Terminals in Washington already went on the rocks when Arch Coal (who owned 38% of the project and was expected to provide much of the outgoing coal from their mines) went bankrupt and just recently the government released its Environmental Impact Study showing the potential for significant negative effects.
And now this week: The Army Corps officially denied the permit for the single largest bulk-shipping port proposed in all of North America.
And what’s interesting of note here is that this was NOT done by way of any environmental impact or climate change study. It was done because the Army Corps determined that the project would violate the fishing rights held by native tribes granted by ratified treaties going back to the mid-1800’s.
This supersedes all logistic and environmental considerations. This project is now stone dead before it could even start.
The finding by the Corps kills the coal-port project, intended for bulk shipment of coal from the Powder River Basin to the Far East, particularly China, before the development proposal could even go through a full environmental impact statement. The finding was on a separate track that assessed the project’s impact on fishing rights held by numerous tribes in the area.
“After careful consideration of all the information available to him, Seattle District Commander Col. John Buck has determined the potential impacts to the Lummi Nation’s usual and accustomed fishing rights from the Gateway Pacific Terminal are greater than de minimis ... and the project cannot be permitted by the Corps,” the agency declared in a statement released Monday.
This is legitimately a big effing deal.
What else is going on for coal? Nothing good.
Consumers Energy shut down SEVEN of its oldest Michigan coal plants on April 15th.
- 320 MW from 2 units at the B.C. Cobb plant in on Muskegon Lake.
- 310 MW from 2 units at the J.C. Weadlock Plant in Hampton Township, and
- 328 MW from all 3 units of the J.R. Whiting plant in Luna Pier.
All gone. All closed on schedule.
Next up, Michigan South Central Power Agency’s 55 MW Endicott Power Plant in Litchfield, MI is on schedule for its May 31st shut down.
From elsewhere comes more cause for rejoicing:
The last coal plant of South Australia has shut down.
The final plant in Post Augusta was a 31 year old 520 Megawatts rock-burner that is now 100% OFF and the community is now advocating for funds to build a 110MW Solar Tower and energy storage facility to keep the region active in Australia’s energy industry and replace those coal jobs with new green energy jobs
Oh, and in case you missed it: Scotland went 100% coal-free in late March.
Back in Australia, Hume Coal (a wholly owned Coal Mining subsidiary of Korean steel giant POSCO) lost a major legal fight in their demand for access to explore for coal seams in New South Wales farmland.
The case focused on section 31 of the state's Mining Act, which says explorers cannot disturb "significantly improved" parts of private property.
Justice Preston ruled on Tuesday that paddocks containing crops or equestrian facilities were the product of labour and could therefore be considered to be "significant improvements".
Local anti-coal activists embraced this as a definitive victory:
"We believe this will be the death knell for their ill-considered mining project, which is completely inappropriate in a key part of Sydney's drinking water catchment and one of the most historic and picturesque parts of NSW."
India announced plans to shutter 37 GIGAWATTS of coal power. A move fueled as much by concerns of water usage as climate change. India is fast approaching China and is expected to become the World’s top coal importer but the Indian government plans to make this a short-lived title as they continue to work to reduce their imports to ZERO within the next 3-4 years.
And as for China.. that coal-burning elephant in the climate change room? Well…
China’s coal imports are down 5.8% from last year.
They also announced ramped-up efforts to crack down on illegal coal mining and reduce total coal output.
China said in February that it aims to shut 500 million tonnes of surplus coal capacity in the coming three to five years, and it also pledged to ban all new mine construction for the next three years.
That’s on the supply side. On the demand side, China also canceled or delayed plans for 200 coal plant projects expected to produce 105 GIGAWATTS of coal power.
And while we all celebrate these developments from the carbon emission perspective, remember that CO2 is not the only emission from Coal. All coal, by definition, contains sulfur and sulfur’s harmful effects have been settled science for many decades.
With the collapse of coal, we are seeing progress on this pollutant as well.
With the move from burning coal to natural gas and low-sulfur coal and an increase in the use of scrubbers, only about 25 percent as much atmospheric sulfur is available today, compared to 40 years ago. Sulfur balances in agricultural fields are now negative, with more removed each year in crop harvests and leaching than is added from fertilizers and deposition, scientists have found, suggesting that farmers may need to apply sulfur fertilizer at some point in the future, particularly on fields with less soil organic matter.