Posted on 07/31/2017 3:31:32 AM PDT by buckalfa
Coal has been the driving force behind the U.S. rail system for more than a century. The stories of locomotives chugging along as workers fed shovels full of coal into the burners may be a thing of the past, but that chunky byproduct has still been largely responsible for keeping the American rail system afloat. According to the American Association of Railroads, coal amounted to almost a third of gross tonnage carried by U.S. rail in 2016. It also amounted to more than 13 percent of rail revenue. And while that may not sound like a large percentage, 70 percent of the coal used by energy companies that year arrived by rail.
Understandably, the shrinking demand for coal in energy production has translated to less revenue for rail companies as well. By 2015, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported, coal consumption had dropped 29 percent, down almost a third since its peak in 2007.
That continuing decline is not only impacting revenues for rail companies like BNSF Rail and Union Pacific, but it is forcing companies to rethink how America’s oldest automated form of transport can keep running.
Last week CSX Rail’s CEO made an announcement that put this shift into stark relief: “Fossil fuels are dead,” said Hunter Harrison, who has been charged with the difficult task of increasing the efficiency of the country’s third-largest rail system. Harrison, who has built his reputation on revitalizing both U.S. and Canadian rail companies, is driven by what he calls “precision railroading,” in which trains run on a system managed by a centralized hub, rather than by the rail yard. It also means a lot less leeway for expenditures that simply don’t make sense — like buying rail cars that fit a niche, declining, market.
His declaration that he’ll stop buying coal cars because “coal is not a long-term issue” may have been shocking to investors, but Harrison isn’t alone in his opinion.
[As] coal usage in the U.S. power sector declines, so will the number of trains needed to transport it,” explains Tali Trigg in her Scientific American blog post. “[That’s] a lot of trains, often going back empty once the coal has been delivered.”
“Stranded asset risk will trump rhetoric” when it comes to “ploughing money into U.S. coal extraction” write Bloomberg new energy experts. They point out that the UK, whose energy industry, like that of the U.S. was forged on the mining and sale of coal now represents a measly 4 percent of energy production in the British Isles. That’s remarkable, given the industry’s iron-clad grip on the UK’s economy as late as the 1980s and 90s. But across the world, in countries that have relied upon fossil fuel extraction and mining, a new attitude about what can drive rail is taking shape. Even when it comes to transportation in the country’s biggest commercial center, where Harraison first made his prediction last year.
Fossil fuels are “probably dead,” Harrison told listeners at a J.P. Morgan Transportation Conference in New York in March 2016.
“I’m not maybe as green as I should be, but I happen to think the climate is changing [and] they’re not going to fool me anymore,”
I read a few months ago that there was a move to require water spray systems on rail cars to reduce coal dust.
Obama policies obliterated the coal industry... And yes, if new power plants are built using other tech... I.e. Natural Gas, eventually the coal plants will get shuttered...
Coal is now number 2 behind natural gas making up about 30% of power generation. Assuming the EPA and cheap natural gas keep pushin that trend coal demand will continue to decline domestically... But it’s hardly going to zero anytime soon
So his trains are now wind/solar powered ???
Coal slurry pipelines are a much more efficient means of transporting coal and there are several new projects on the horizon. Major impact on the railway business.
“I’m not maybe as green as I should be, but I happen to think the climate is changing [and] they’re not going to fool me anymore,”
So the real agenda/narrative shines through. Who’s fooling who?
In all this - Science loves to ignore its own research findings....
For millennia, the earth has undergone many shifts and changes in climate patterns and there is a great deal of documentation for this.
But when it comes to driving their own political agenda, Liberals conveniently minimize or ignore the record.
It’s another classic example of Liberals demanding and getting it ‘both ways’!
I am heartily sick of them and their lies!
The quote is from 15 months ago.He said this when he thought Hillary was the next president. He was trying to get on her good side. Why didn't the journalist who wrote this garbage just call the guy and ask him what he thinks now? (that's a rhetorical question)
Not here in SW Pennsylvania,Washington County. There are wells going up everywhere and big truck traffic 24/7. Also the coal trains are running 24/7. I see it everyday.
“Trains go back empty after delivering coal.” That tells me all I need to know about her expertise. Does she think they’re going to fill the hoppers with oranges or something else?
Unrealistic. There is no way solar and/or wind power can satisfy the needs of a growing industrial civilization. No way at all to power planes, trucks, space exploration, emergency vehicles, backup generators without using the huge amounts of energy stored in the ground in coal and oil. Nuclear can work for some of those, but not all.
He probably sees the future, wants to drive down the price and buy in big time. Carbon based fuel is the future, as long as there is still life on the planet. The Hydrocarbon is natures battery. Life keeps producing it.
How long till we see electric and solar freight trains from coast to coast!
What an idiot. Every locomotive in the inventory burns diesel/bunker oil, and will for at least the next century.
28 Jul: Reuters: U.S. coal exports soar, in boost to Trump energy agenda, data shows
by Timothy Gardner and Nina Chestney
U.S. coal exports have jumped more than 60 percent this year due to soaring demand from Europe and Asia, according to a Reuters review of government data, allowing President Donald Trump’s administration to claim that efforts to revive the battered industry are working…
They included a surge to several European countries during the 2017 period, including a 175 percent increase in shipments to the United Kingdom, and a doubling to France – which had suffered a series of nuclear power plant outages that required it and regional neighbors to rely more heavily on coal.
“If Europe wants to lecture Trump on climate then EU member states need transition plans to phase out polluting coal,” said Laurence Watson, a data scientist working on coal at independent think tank Carbon Tracker Initiative in London.
Nicole Bockstaller, a spokeswoman at the EU Commission’s Energy and Climate Action department, said that the EU’s coal imports have generally been on a downward trend since 2006, albeit with seasonable variations like high demand during cold snaps in the winter…
“Simply to know that coal no longer has to fight the government – that has to have some effect on investment decisions and in the outlook by companies, producers and utilities that use coal,” said Luke Popovich, a spokesman for the National Mining Association.
Shaylyn Hynes, a spokeswoman at the U.S. Energy Department, said: “These numbers clearly show that the Trump Administration’s policies are helping to revive an industry that was the target of costly and job killing overregulation from Washington for far too long.” …
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-coal-exports-idUSKBN1AD0DU
Tell you what...if you think gasoline is expensive now, you just wait until electric cars become popular... The price of gas will triple.... MHO.....
“The reason why coal usage is down is that coal fired plants are switching to natural gas. Power generation is switching from one fossil fuel to another fossil fuel.”
Ding ding ding! We have a winner!
Coal is not the only solid transported by slurry. Some ore has been transported by slurry pipeline for quite some time. Particularly in Brazil.
Years ago, when concerned about erosion from solids in pipelines I did some research on the subject. It is well documented and there is experience supporting documentation. Erosion is not absent it is not as bad as one might think if velocities and bends and valves are managed properly. I could dig out the papers but one could Google the material faster.
Slurry pipelines in the US would have already been built and the coal trains would have been much fewer in number but rail interests in the US blocked them by denial of right-of-way. It was quite a battle 50 years ago. Never mind the problems of finding water in Wyoming and then cleaning and disposing of it in Connecticut or where ever the pipeline terminus might be. Railroads won.
By mandate coal may be ending its life cycle here. Obozo set that into motion and once a mandate is executed only another mandate can usually reverse it. The natural order of things, be they in nature or in business with market forces, once disturbed is not easily reversed. The market moves on against the new normal because reversing what has already been justified by mandate is not easily done by market forces somewhat like going across a river there comes a point of no return.
As for the export of coal, what is most fungible and cost effective will be bought and exported. It is a matter of the most cost effective delivered BTU. In the developing world there are not ZERO environmental concerns. Much of international financing is by World Bank and the like and they do impose environmental considerations.
40 years ago fuel switching from Gas to Coal was done in a panic because we were “running out of natural gas”. Chemical Engineers were darn near crying to see such a valuable feed stock burned for fuel. We’ll see that again, not in my lifetime though probably. Some of the chemicals and plastics we enjoy just can’t be made without natural gas feed stock.
I remember the fascination 40 years ago with the resurgence of trains hauling coal and calculating how far you could maybe hop one with certainty that it was going somewhere. I doubt seriously that wind, solar and batteries will fuel our future. We will burn something and I hope that we eventually wise up and burn Thorium. Meanwhile, we are still going somewhere.
Did nobody on this thread have their coffee this morning?
Of COURSE fossil fuels are dead - they’re FOSSILS!
Anyhow, maybe coal is in decline, but fossil fuels as a group aren’t dead, and won’t be for at least 100 years. Solar isn’t efficient or reliable enough, and wind is a joke. Nuclear is fine (until some cheapskate utility’s reactor goes critical in a forseeable accident), but not everything can be practically powered by electricity (and batteries are not going to be good enough to do that for many, many years to come.
Natural gas may largely replace coal over the next few decades, but then we can liquify the coal for fuel and strip off the thorium in it to power reactors (4 times more thorium than uranium, and you can’t practically make it into a bomb).
“A lot of US energy suppliers stopped using coal because Obama killed the industry.”
Absolutely. While the article noted that:
“By 2015, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported, coal consumption had dropped 29 percent, down almost a third since its peak in 2007”,
it failed to make the logical conclusion that from that peak, the very next year Bathhouse Barry was campaigning on putting coal mining out of business and then spent the next 8 years doing everything he could to accomplish that.
“Railroads, coal amounted to almost a third of gross tonnage carried by U.S. rail in 2016. It also amounted to more than 13 percent of rail revenue”
Clearly, on revenue per ton, coal is NOT earning railroads as much as other things. If it were, the revenue from coal would not be a % of total revenue (13%) that is so much smaller than coal’s % of total tonnage (33%). Other things that make for less total tonnage must be earning more revenue per ton than coal.
To make statements using the term “fossil fuels”, and proclaiming “fossil fuels dead” when what they are actually talking about ONE fossil fuel, coal, and its impact on the rail industry. The fact is that outside of coal fossil fuels are doing just fine, and yes they don’t need rail cars - they use pipelines.
The summary charge against the article is that it commits a lie, assigning the “dead” issue to “fossil fuels” when all it is really about is just coal.
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