Coal Dependent: Pacific Northwest Activists Fight New Export Terminals

Environment • May 2012 • Views: 1,909

If big coal companies get their way, the Pacific Northwest will soon become a major hub for exporting dirty coal to Asia.

In Oregon and Washington, proposals to construct several coal export terminals are on the table. If they move forward, about 150 million tons of coal each year would travel by train from Montana and Wyoming’s Powder River Basin to ports in Oregon and Washington, where it would be shipped to China, India, South Korea, and Japan.

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7 comments

Dark_Falcon Sat, May 5, 2012 2:57:49pm

Forbidding coal export would close the mines where the coal is mined and throw thousands out of work. So much for job creation.

funky chicken Sat, May 5, 2012 3:27:38pm

We're the Saudi Arabia of coal. Why not sell it to China?

Randall Gross Sat, May 5, 2012 4:50:39pm

Because it's poisoning the air, it kills tens of thousands every single year, it adds to global warming, it's a carcinogen, it's radioactive, it's the dirtiest source of power in the world. Exporting it doesn't change the amount of carbon it's going to add to the mix once burned.

EiMitch Sat, May 5, 2012 8:13:56pm

re: #3 Randall Gross

But, but, but... Clean coal! Surely that has to mean something more than buzzwords made-up by environmentalist-poser lobbyists and repeated by ignorant yuppies who only heard "more status quo jobs, plus green, equal win."

Spocomptonite Sat, May 5, 2012 10:07:42pm

What a great deal! We export entire mountainsides to Asia, Asia sends it back to the West Coast as air pollution.

Wait a minute, I don't see any net benefit for us at any stage of this trade balance.

Dark_Falcon Sun, May 6, 2012 5:16:43am

re: #5 Spocomptonite

What a great deal! We export entire mountainsides to Asia, Asia sends it back to the West Coast as air pollution.

Wait a minute, I don't see any net benefit for us at any stage of this trade balance.

The benefit is that it reduces the trade deficit. The benefit is that extracting the coal and shipping it means jobs for thousands of Americans. China will get the coal from someplace, might as well be us.

Randall Gross Sun, May 6, 2012 5:44:11am

re: #6 Dark_Falcon

The benefit is that it reduces the trade deficit. The benefit is that extracting the coal and shipping it means jobs for thousands of Americans. China will get the coal from someplace, might as well be us.

US Miners will die producing that export, is deficit reduction really worth that? Putting more carbon into the atmosphere just to transport billions of tons of coal to China by burning millions of tons of Diesel to transport really just doesn't make a lick of sense if you really think about it. Every mile of transport that a heavy fossil fuel like coal has to take adds to its overall carbon footprint.

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