Since there are so many different grades and compositions of coal, do harbors such as Long Beach, Ca., and Norfolk, Va. export one type of coal while at the same time importing another type of coal ?
“Coal is a black rock that burns” – and sheds soot – particularly the many shades of bituminous that are close to the only forms of coal shipped en masse by barges or unit trains. Anthracite is such a specialty item today that I doubt more than a couple of cars of it could be seen in tandem–it’s rare and so expensive that it’s used mostly in the US in home applications, like a heating stove. There is a thing called metallurgical coal that is a specialty product and requires different handling; if you go to cpr.ca.com you can read about that in Canadian Pacific’s online Fact Book.
So basically the Gulf ports ship out stinky high-sulfur coal to South America while I would think that EXPORT of coal from either coast would lean to the specialty grades.
Anthracite having pretty much gone the way of Freon (available but hideously expensive), we do import cleaner -burning bituminous coal, from Europe I think and possibly S. America.
But generally, coal is coal. Maybe not to the EPA, but in the way it’s handled, concern for weight and so on, coal is pretty much coal with the exceptions above.
a while back I posted a rather lengthy article on the use of coal. it doesn’t get into great detail on any one subject, but but it gives a great overview of the whole coal process and it’s an interesting read. Here’s a link:
http://www.trains.com/community/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=26820
Export coal is bought for specific purposes by those that purchase it. In the purchase of the coal it must meet certain metalurgical requirements, the number and variety of which are numerous…sulphur content and the content of other minerals within the coal determine it’s suitability for its ultimate combustion. Coal surveyors sample and test each grade of coal upon it arrival at the port location prior to its switching into a loading mix to ensure it still has the poper metalurgical make up.
For Ocean Export the cargo is normally made up of a variety of different coal grades that come from a variety of mines. The coal is loaded in a dumping rotation that will introduce a ‘mix’ of differing coal grades to ‘manufacture’ the desired ultimate grade. In some cases one or two grades enter into the loading mix, in others there may be 8 or 10 grades of coal used to manufacture the desired mix that is loaded on the ship in a specific loading pattern in order to distribute the cargo so as not to overstress the vessel during the loading operations.
Coal in the holds of ocean going vessels with the waves, swells and other ocean motions develops many of the characteristics of a liquid within the hold and thus mixes the multiple grades of coal that were loaded into a homogenous mixture by the time the cargo arrives at its destination.
While all coal is black…all coal is not the same.
smalling I have to say something about Anthracite coal. Pennsylvania had and still has lots of it. Espeacily in the counties of Adams, Carbon, Lehigh, Wayne, Upper and Lower Susquhanna, and Lackawanna. Just last year I went in an abandoned mine in Ashland, PA which is right outside of Centraila, PA. When I went in there you should of seen how much Anthracite coal was in that mine. I presonally took a couple of cuncks. Unfortunitly, the government closed the mine due to AMD (Acid Mine Drainage) and other environmental concerns. Anyway, I’m just saying if you want some Anthracite coal come on over to the great state of PA, because we have tons of it. I guess back in the day more anthracite coal was transported since, PA sure has lots of abandoned ones here than they did bituminous coal.
As for bituminous coal I know states that are over on the east coast like PA, has heavier bituminous coal than does Illinios (for example) this is one of the reasons why in PA and surounding states like W.V. you’ll see more steel hoppers than aluminium hoppers.
smalling I have to say something about Anthracite coal. Pennsylvania had and still has lots of it. Espeacily in the counties of Adams, Carbon, Lehigh, Wayne, Upper and Lower Susquhanna, and Lackawanna. Just last year I went in an abandoned mine in Ashland, PA which is right outside of Centraila, PA. When I went in there you should of seen how much Anthracite coal was in that mine. I presonally took a couple of cuncks. Unfortunitly, the government closed the mine due to AMD (Acid Mine Drainage) and other environmental concerns. Anyway, I’m just saying if you want some Anthracite coal come on over to the great state of PA, because we have tons of it. I guess back in the day more anthracite coal was transported since, PA sure has lots of abandoned ones here than they did bituminous coal.
As for bituminous coal I know states that are over on the east coast like PA, has heavier bituminous coal than does Illinios (for example) this is one of the reasons why in PA and surounding states like W.V. you’ll see more steel hoppers than aluminium hoppers.
Most of the coal mined in the United States is steam coal, much of which is burned in power plants. Out here in Western Canada we have mostly metallurgical coal. It is first burned without oxygen which turns it into coke. The coke is then used to produce steel. Over 20 million tons of metallurgical is exported out of Vancouver each year, mostly going to Japan, Korea and now China. The Roberts Bank coal terminal is the second biggest coal port in North America.
www.portvancouver.com/trade_shipping/terminals/bulk/westshore.html
100 largest power plants in the US (coal, gas, nuclear)
www.eia.doe.gov/neic/rankings/rankbyplantgeneration.htm
Power plants are designed to be very coal specific. That is, they have to get samples of the coal from the intended suppliers during the design process.
For instance IPP (Intermountain Power Project) has 2 units of 950 megawatts each. They’re both designed to burn only Utah coal, which is a pretty high quality. The third unit under design handle a mixture of Utah and Wyoming Powder River Basin coal. Units #1 and #2 cannot handle PRB coal.
When a power plant wants to start using some “new” coal, they have to do test burns that last from a month to 6 months mixing various coals together to determine how the plant will operate. Between the boiler firing and the environmental controls handling the changes in exhaust, it can be quite a process.
Mark in Utah
Mark,
I am admittedly new to the inner workings of the energy sector, but my understanding is that coal gasification is “fuel flexible”, meaning that not only can they handle a disparity of coal types on a constant feed basis, but also coke and biomass. I assume that there is more to it than that, but that’s the gist. That ability to be fuel flexible is one reason this still unproven and more costly technology (as far as commercialization is concerned) is finding favor for plants outside coal country currently in the planning stage.
There is the perception, quite legitimate in my view, that being too dependent on one particular grade of coal can have disasterous consequences if the supply is unexpectedly disrupted. The current rail problems in the PRB bear out that fear. With gasification, if one avenue of supply is disrupted for any length of time (to the point of running out of stockpiles) they can access alternative supplies via the coal market. Of course, such an enterprise would probably have to own their own carsets if getting at those alternative sources involve moving off the usual rail s
From what I understand the coal gasification equipment CAN handle a wider variety of coals, which as you point out can unleash a plant from using only one source of coal. As we all know, if you only have one supplier, you’re subject to their whims.
The main problem I see with coal gasification is that they have yet to be able to scale up to the truly massive production needed to feed a modern power plant. So far the largest gasifiers can serve about a 100 MW generator. Given that the most efficient gas turbines on the market are in the 350 to 500 MW range, you can see there’s a bit of room to make up. In addition, in a combined cycle configuration you may have 500 MW of gas turbine, and then have another 50 MW of additional steam recovery burners to kick the steam section harder to give you a total of 750 MW of plant output. On the flip side, by installing multiple gasifiers for a plant yo’re more reliable IF you install one extra one than if you installed only one that was capable of serving the entire plant. For instance, if you needed 750 MW of gas, you could install 800 MW worth of gasifier and only take a 50 MW “hit” on your plant capacity if one unit was down for maintenance. This is a common practice for other critical plant equipment such as pumps and feed mills, so it would follow along with common plant design philosophies.
Coal gasification is indeed one of those technologies that we’ll see more of. The other technology to watch is Circulating Fluidized Bed boilers, whcih are also more tolerant of their fuel source.
Mark in Utah
Energy Northwest has just anounced plans to construct a 600 MW gasification plant (2 x 300 actually) somewhere in Western Washington (although the final locality could change![:D]), which will utilize coal, coke, and also be convertable to use natural gas if need be.
I’ve also read up on a technology that combines CFB and gas
Most coal plants burn a specific blend of coal. Some plants will burn just colorado coal, some just PRB coal, some can blend them, others have problems with explosions in the boilers if they use Colorado coal in a PRB boiler. Some are even mine specific and don’t like to switch between trains from different mines, the problems being different coals produce different amounts and consistencies of clinkers. There are barge docks along the Mississippi that specialize in blending coal for the various shippers, recieving it by rail and shipping it out to TVA plants along the river.
Dave H.
CSX foreva, I read your post twice. I exaggerated when I tried to draw an analogy between Freon and Anthracite. But you anticipated one of anthracite’s problems in your post–yes, it’s there, but getting it out can cause all kinds of environmental havoc. (Bituminous coal is becoming far more susceptible to strip mining–safer, too, as quarrymen die far less often than people in wet dark mining tunnels).
The most obvious use I see of anthracite is in the NE and parts of New England where people buy (obviously) small quantities for their Ben Franklin-type stoves, which are perfectly suited for cleaner, less ashy and smelly Anthracite.
Do you remember hearing of the old Erie-Lackawanna’s ad campaign? It goes back nearly a century. Their mascot was a pristine Native American goddess type named Phoebe Snow (presumably the folk singer glommed onto that name).
Anywho, it’s a poem and it goes:
“I won my fame and wide acclaim
For Lackawanna’s splendid name
By keeping bright and snowy white
Along the road of Anthracite.”
But do people today even use it in furnaces? Not often, I’d wager.
THANKS for all of the very intelligent replies.
However, we seemed to have wandered from my original question.
Does a port, such as New Orleans for example, IMPORT LOW sulphur coal or special metallurgical coal from one section of the port, while another section of the same port is simultaneously EXPORTING say a HIGH sulpher coal ( to countries that do not have our stiff environmental laws ) ???
I am not aware of any Port in the US importing coal…the US is a coal exporter.
The delivered cost of coal is mainly in it’s transportation.
Was reading an NTSB derailment report of a train that derailed 76 of its 80 loads of coal account being a runaway down a mountain…The NTSB listed the value of the lost lading (approx. 7,600 tons) at approximately$180,000…The total approximate cost of the derailment was $3.2M and it would have been much higher had the locomotives been derailed.