Coal's popularity concerns environmentalists
Shipments from Colombia to rise to 80m tons
ALBANIA, Colombia - Its gray and black walls stretching to infinity, Latin America's largest coal mine resembles a miniature Grand Canyon.
The big difference is that the timeless hand of nature has not carved out El Cerrejon mine. Booming global demand has.
A fleet of electric shovels runs 24 hours a day scooping up 50 tons of coal at a swipe. The rock is then loaded onto 100-car trains that roll nine times a day to a private Caribbean port, where it is placed on cargo ships that deliver it to power plants in Chile, the Netherlands, Japan, the US Eastern Seaboard, and elsewhere.
As the global price of oil and natural gas soar, some customers are taking a new look at other fuels, including coal. And countries including China and India, whose demand is helping push the price of petroleum, need even more energy. Besides petroleum products, they are buying vast amounts of coal, as well.
The worldwide demand for oil has its own set of environmental consequences - drilling in pristine areas where it previously was uneconomical and continued emission of greenhouse gases. But environmentalists warn that renewed reliance on coal takes the threat to another level.
"Growing coal use threatens nothing less than the end of civilization as we know it," said Henry Henderson, the Chicago-based Midwest director of the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Low in acid-rain-causing sulfur and inexpensive to produce, Colombia's coal has always been coveted. These days, El Cerrejon and half a dozen other major mines in the region are booming. Energy and Mines Minister Hernan Martinez says Colombia's shipments will rise to 80 million tons this year, 10 percent more than last year and double the amount just five years ago.
The value of Colombia's coal exports in 2008 will surpass $5 billion, up 40 percent from last year and 10 times what it was six years ago, a reflection of the increased price. Coal has more than doubled in price to $100 a ton in a year.
China added more coal-burning power plants in 2007 than Britain has built in its history, said Gerard McCloskey, a coal market specialist with
Similarly, Russia and Poland are keeping much of the coal they once exported. Prices also have been driven up by flooded mines in Australia and a hike in global shipping rates. Still, generating energy from coal costs one-third as much as from natural gas in Japan, and half to two-thirds as much in Britain, McClosky said.
According to John Dean, coal energy consultant with research firm Global Insight in Frederick, Md., those favorable economics have persuaded several US utilities to build new or expanded coal-fired power plants. Probably the largest project is
By 2030, about 54 percent of all US electric power will be coal-fired, up from the current 48 percent, according to the National Mining Association, a Washington, D.C.-based trade group. Environmentalists and consumer advocates warn of the consequences.
Customers are beginning to see higher electric bills. Much more pain is on the way, according to US Department of Energy economist Michael Mellish. "Coal prices have taken off with a vengeance and electricity prices will spike up if they stick," Mellish said.
Of longer-term concern are the effects on climate change. Coal-fired power generation and manufacturing are the leading source of carbon dioxide and methane emissions, which scientists agree are the leading contributors to the so-called "greenhouse effect" and global warming. Two environmental advocacy groups have called for a moratorium on new coal-fired plants until a feasible means of mitigating coal's carbon dioxide emissions can be put in place.
Kate Smolski, legislative coordinator with Greenpeace in Washington, D.C., said that although all fossil fuels contribute to global warming, coal is the "dirtiest, emitting double the carbon dioxide per energy unit produced, compared with natural gas."
