The Jan. 2009 issue of Trains Magazine mentions that NS set a “coal-hauling record for 3rd quarter 2008, moving nearly 50 million tons. The record comes as export coal booms”. Why is export coal booming? I would have thought, with the value of the dollar down, that it would be hard for (North)American coal to compete. Is PRB coal booming as well?
The U.S. dollar’s relative weakness makes it cheap in terms of other countries’ currency, not for ours.
When the Euro was first floated some years ago it was expected that one Euro would be worth appproximately one $US. Now it only costs about 80 Europennies(?) to buy one dollar. So if coal were $10 per ton (just as an example), at a one-to-one ratio it was expected to cost ten Euros to buy $10 worth of U.S. export. Now it only takes about eight-and-a-half Euros, a significant savings for Euro countries.
And by the same token, it increases the cost of our imports. If a German camera costs 100 Euros, it would take over 120 USD to buy one. - a.s.
Murphy:
Here’s the numbers from U.S. Energy Information Administration (in 000’s of tons):
- 2002 - 39,601
- 2003 - 43,014
- 2004 - 47,998
- 2005 - 49,942
- 2006 - 49,647
- 2007 - 59,163
- 2008 - 38,870 (through June 30)
What was driving this was demand in developing countries such as China. China is a particularly interesting case. It’s sudden appetite for more imported coal was only partially due to its rapid industrialization and economic growth. What has been happening is that Chinese coal production reached its peak a few years ago and is now collapsing due to rapid exhaustion of the economically recoverable resource, made worse by short-term extractive policies that increased production in the short term at the expense of ruining the ability to mine deeper or harder-to-get reserves. China used to be a significant coal exporter but no longer; it’s also decreased its import duties on coal and enacted coal conservation measures in an effort to ease its coal shortage.
Whether this U.S. export boom will continue is unlikely if history is any guide. The U.S. is a swing producer of coal, not a base-line producer, because its mines are either more costly to work (due in large part to prior exhaustion of the easiest-to-access reserves), or a long way from tidewater and must carry a very large transportation cost, or not metallurgical quality, or all three, compared to the major coal exporting countries – Australia, Colombia, Venezuela, Indonesia, Canada, and South Africa. When demand suddenly grows and prices leap upward U.S. mines can swing inactive production into play and sell into export markets at a profit. If the demand is sustained at a higher plateau, then Australian, South African, and Colombian producers will ramp up their production to a new ceiling and push the U.S. mines back out of the market because they are low-cost producers. In other words, only when demand exceeds t
It may turn out that scientists who have no political agenda determine that CO2 is really not a pollutant. I’m not taking a side here, but I am pointing out that there are reputable scientists who question whether CO2 is as harmful as some have said. The notion that it drives global temperatures has been debunked by new studies of Arctic ice core samples. So coal may have a very bright future. That is, if the politicians …ah, no way!!
Is this a load out for shipment down the Mississippi to New Orleans, for shipment overseas?
Does “Not unconvinced” mean that you are, in fact, “Convinced” that seqestration isn’t in our future? I know I’m a little slow, but could you reword that so that us “slow ones” could sort out the negatives?
What is meant by “seqestration”? The only real CO2 problem is when the fire extinguisher is empty.
Sequester the CO2 means pump it back into the ground in locations where it probably won’t come back out any time soon.
I agree my sentence was pretty convoluted. How about this instead: I would guess, that if the choices that face the public to generate electricity for consumption beginning 20 years from now, are:
- build a lot of nuclear plants;
- build a lot of wind farms and solar farms; or
- sequester the CO2 from coal-fired steam plants;
that #3, CO2 sequestration, will end up being the primary method chosen by the public.
A fourth choice is none of the above and continue with the same thing we’re doing now, but I would again guess that choice #4 will not be the one taken by the public. This is not a statement for or against the existence of man-generated, CO2-caused, global warming, and I’m hoping we can set that aside because it is not relevant to a railroad discussion forum. All that matters in this forum is the effect on railroads of the decision the public makes. This is a statement from a professional point of view in looking at how the public thinks in this country and making my best guess as to what they will decide about global warming and CO2 and what they will decide to do about it. And
I too would like to hear more about that. They can’t load into an oceangoing ship there? So, into barges? Then into a ship at what point?
Aren’t there also some good sized coal mines on CP(?) That ship to Pacific Rim users?
Yes – as mentioned in an earlier post, Canada is a base-line coal exporting country. The CPR Fording mines ship mostly metallurgical-grade coal, which has much higher value than steam coal, which in turn overcomes the transportation penalty to lift this coal over the Selkirk Range. CNR mines produce both met coal and steam coal, but have low transportation costs to Prince Rupert and Roberts Bank compared to Utah or Wyoming mines due to lower distance and no ruling grades against the loads greater than 1.0%.
RWM
I believe the UASCE maintains a channel depth of 45 feet as far as Baton Rouge, which is enough to accommodate most Panamax-class ships. Coal is transferred from barge to ship at several locations from Baton Rouge downriver to New Orleans and even in the Gulf, I belive. I’ll have to ask the ship experts for details; that’s about as much as I know.
RWM
Once did a midstream barge to boat at Baton Rouge using a floating barge with a crane and clamshovel for the transfer. The consignment was a boatload of “house” coal for what was then the residential market in Ireland. The cost of the transfer operation was reasonable, but I would guess that the cost for the boat for the three days time for loading added quite a bit to the total. Because of the sales contract requirement to maintain the size specs on the coal, the shovel had to be dropped down close to the top of the pile in the hold. Consequently, the operation took more time than would be necessary for steam or met coal where size specs would not be critical.
I don’t know if there is a rail/barge to boat land based coal transfer facility on the river from Baton Rouge south. Given the very low level of export coal movement from anywhere in the US for the past decade or so, I would be very surprised if there is a land based facility in that area. I’ll await an up to date report.
What is the state of anthracite coal. Is it still being mined today? This was a clean burning coal I believe was used by the C&O. And Phoebe Snow could travel on the road of anthracite without getting her snow white dress soiled.
Very little as the remaining resource is very expensive to mine. Anthracite was always an expensive coal to mine because of its geology. It is rarely amenable to mechanized underground mining, and surface-mining has a very high stripping ratio due to the vertically dipping seams.
The numbers for 2007:
- 1,145,480,000 total tons production
- 1,564,000 total anthracite
- In short, about 0.14% of U.S. coal production in 2007 was anthracite
- All anthracite production in 2007 was in Pennsylvania
- In 2007, Pennsylvania produced 63,484,000 tons of bituminous – or 60 tons of bituminous for every ton of anthracite.
RWM
Pretty sure the C&O never used anthracite to fuel its locomotives. I think most of your anthracite-burning engines were on railroads in eastern Pennsylvania.
I see loads of anthracite every so often. Someplace out in eastern Nebraska gets them–averaging more than one load per day, I suspect. It goes out there exclusively in Reading & Northern (RBMN) hopper cars.
Thanks for your reply, The reason I was asking was because of the furor of electrical plants polluting the air by burning coal & was wondering why anthracite was not used.
To C. Shave
Quite of the C&O Phoebe Snow ads mention “The road of anthracite” One of the many ads reads: Says Phoebe Snow: The miners know that to hard coal my fame I owe, for my delight in wearing white is due alone to anthracite
Pity Poor Miss Phoebe Snow / She had nothing to do with C&O!
Phoebe was the patron/mascot of the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western, which was “The Road of Anthracite.” (She was also allergic to cats, such as C&O’s Chessie.)
As usual I got my facts wrong I am well aware of the Chessie cat
but should have checked further about Phoebe Sorry, In future I’ll do a bit of checking before rushing to get into these forums.
Don’t worry, you are not alone. I find that the easiest way to check my facts is to just make a post and let people educate me as to my ignorance. It is so much more efficient.
Gabe