Coal Fired Power in Oregon

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Coal. The United States is the Saudi Arabia of coal. We've got more coal than just about anybody. Half the electricity generated in the United States comes from coal. Today, more than 90 percent of the coal used in America goes to make electricity, according to an NPR documentary on coal.

NPR Radioworks documentary on coal
NPR Radioworks documentary on coal

But coal is the largest contributor to the human-made increase of CO2 in the atmosphere, causing climate change. It interferes with groundwater and water table levels. It causes acid rain and has a host of other issues.

Global CO2 Emissions
Global CO2 Emissions

In the Northwest, we're lucky to not be dependent on coal. But it's cheap and plentiful. Coal is not going away.

The coal pie
The coal pie
Normalized energy prices

Coal plants generate power for three cents a kilowatt hour. "Clean coal" isn't a type of coal but a process to clean it up, capturing particulates and green-house emitting carbon dioxide. It's an expensive process.

Clean coal costs 6 cents a kilowatt hour.

Most renewable projects, like wind and solar, are in the range of 15 to 20 cents a kilowatt hour.

In the United States, electricity generation accounts for nearly 40 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, the largest of any source.

Boardman coal fired power plant
Boardman coal fired power plant

The Boardman coal-fired plant accounts for 15 percent of the power provided by PGE, Oregon's largest electric utility. Pacific Power's share of coal is 40%, according to Washington State's online reports (pdf).

PacifiCorp relies on a fleet of 26 coal-fired boilers at 11 locations in Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Arizona and Colorado, reports the Oregonian. Those plants provide almost two-thirds of the electricity consumed by customers in its six-state territory, and their low-cost output partly explains why Pacific Power's rates in Oregon remain lower than PGE's. But PacifiCorp's reliance on coal plants brings the utility to an expensive juncture, says the Oregonian.

Facebook’s data center in Prineville, Oregon is receiving a “green” backlash since its electric utility, Pacific Power, will likely be getting most of its power from a coal-powered generator in Boardman, Oregon.

Boardman coal field
Boardman coal field

The company avoided tiered energy rates, due to a formula used by the Bonneville Power Administration, the federal agency that operates dams on the Columbia River and sells the power at cost to utilities. Pacific Power will get most of its electricity from the nearby Boardman coal-fired plant.


Millenium Bulk Logistics is backtracking – though not giving up – on its China coal export facility in Longview, WA. China has lots of coal - but it's up north. It's believed to be cheaper to ship coal from Utah and Montana to Longview, then across the Pacific Ocean. The proposed export facility would ship 5 million tons of coal to Asia annually, an amount said to be roughly equal to the amount of coal burned in the whole state of Washington, reports SustainableBusinessOregon. Millennium, a subsidiary of Australia's Ambre Energy, plans to build the first major U.S. export terminal on the West Coast in Longview.

World Electricity Use
World Electricity Use
World Coal Supplies
World Coal Supplies

Coal currently accounts for 28 percent of the world’s energy consumption and generates 42 percent of the world’s electrical supply. No active commercial coal mines remain in Oregon, and the state plans to phase out the coal-fired plant in Boardman by 2020. Still, almost 40 percent of the state’s electricity comes from coal-burning power plants.

Now, exporting coal to Asia from Oregon is on the front burner.

Global energy use is projected to grow by 53 percent through 2035. Rising Asian demand has prompted coal companies in Montana and Wyoming's Powder River Basin to push hard for Northwest export space.

In October 2011, the Port of Coos Bay signed an exclusive negotiating agreement with an anonymous company interested in shipping coal from the port.

Two giant energy companies have submitted separate proposals to develop coal export facilities at Port Westward, reports Longview's The Daily News. It would be located north of Clatskanie, Washington, potentially making the Columbia River a major thoroughfare for transporting coal to Asia. If approved, the two projects would add more than 100 jobs.

The Kinder Morgan terminal would create 80 family-wage jobs at the port, according to Patrick Trapp, director of the Port of St. Helens, which operates Port Westward.

The second group, a subsidiary of Australian coal giant Ambre Energy called Pacific Transloading LLC, is seeking to transfer coal on shipped on barges from Port Morrow in Central Oregon to larger vessels at Port Westward.

World Electricity Use
World Electricity Use

Opposition groups, led by Portland-based Columbia Riverkeeper, have already come out against both plans, saying they're worried about the health effects of coal dust in the community and a large number of coal trains clogging vehicle traffic.

Another Ambre subsidiary company, Millennium Bulk Logistics of Longview, is already trying to build a coal export facility on the Columbia River, on the Washington side. Millennium sought permits to export 5.7 million tons of coal annually, but internal company emails revealed plans to move as much as 60 million tons.

Millennium Bulk Terminals, is planning to develop a 406-acre Reynolds facility in Longview, Washington into a coal terminal, reports TDN. Millennium's CEO, said he thinks projected Asian demand for coal could support "multiple" terminals on the Columbia River.

In January, 2012, The Port of St. Helens approved agreements with two companies, Amber Energy and Kinder Morgan, that want to export coal to Asia from a coal export facility near Longview.

Scott Learn, of the Oregonian reports that the agreements with Kinder Morgan and Ambre Energy would provide construction work and up to 105 full-time jobs.


Longview Coal Plan
Longview Coal Plan

The Morrow Pacific project, being developed by Ambre Energy, would have an operational capacity of two barge-tows per day and would ship between 3.5 to 8 million metric tons with port approval. Coal would arrive on covered barges loaded upstream at the Port of Morrow, then directly loaded onto about 50 ocean-going ships a year.

Longview Coal Plan
Longview Coal Plan

Kinder Morgan's $150 million to $200 million project (pdf) would receive coal by trains, running through the Columbia Gorge. Environmental groups say each 5 million tons of coal requires one mile-long train a day.

The agreements were hammered out in secret, said Laura Stevens, organizer with the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal Campaign. Opponents expected the commission to hear proposals from the two companies, considered publicly for the first time Jan 25, 2012, but not to vote on agreements. Instead the commissioners held a closed executive session, then endorsed the agreements to export coal through the port's Port Westward industrial park in Clatskanie.

Coal is still powering the United States:

Obama: "This is America. We figured out how to put a man on the moon in ten years. You can't tell me we can't figure out how to burn coal, that we mine right here in the United States of America, and make it work. We can do that".

Soren Wheeler of RadioLab takes us to Butte Montana, home of the Berkeley Pit. Artist Edward Burtynsky produced a documentary film called Manufactured Landscapes.

NEXT: Natural Gas in Oregon

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