We all know coal is a four-letter word. The San Francisco Bay Chapter of the Sierra Club doesn't like coal and is apparently willing to tune the facts, make implications and otherwise stir the emotions to convince you that coal moving through Oakland will be poisonous.
The TLS proposal calls for domed coal storage and covered railcars that, supporters say, will significantly reduce dust and pollution.
By W.G. Claytor
Published: April, 2016
We all know coal is a four-letter word. The San Francisco Bay Chapter of the Sierra Club doesn’t like coal and is apparently willing to tune the facts, make implications and otherwise stir the emotions to convince you that coal moving through Oakland will be poisonous. If their case against export coal is as strong as they imply, there would be no need to take liberties with the facts. It is clear that the local Sierra Club wishes to influence your opinion about the proposed Oakland commodities terminal and, in particular, the portion dealing with coal. Here’s how they do it:
The San Francisco Bay Chapter of the Sierra Club has a website with a link to a “fact sheet” about the proposed Oakland export terminal. First up is a picture of a bulk carrier at a coal terminal, with open piles of coal nestled down almost to the water. The implication is clear. This is what the coal terminal would look like. They don’t want to bother you with the fact that the picture is of a foreign port and the Oakland commodities terminal would look nothing like what is depicted. In a further effort to make the scene “generic,” the Sierra Club’s picture has been altered to remove the ship’s name and funnel markings.
In reality, the Oakland terminal would hold the coal in encapsulated domes (depicted above) after arriving in covered freight cars, and them moving through fully enclosed conveyers out to covered ships. In short, a state of the art, nearly dust-free terminal. This would be one of the first in the country and would demonstrate to other ports, both here (Richmond, Stockton) and abroad that there is a cleaner way to handle coal and other bulk commodities. The project may be reviewed at tls.com. Note that one of the Sierra Club’s biggest concerns is particulate matter in the air (dust). Great attention is paid to the purported hazards of coal dust generated by open coal hopper cars, and they are pictured as if the proposal would use such cars. The fact is that the proposal calls for covered rail hoppers.
The disingenuous “fact sheet” continues, and it says that the proposed Oakland Bulk and Oversized Terminal (OBOT) is “supported by” the $242 million in public Proposition 1B Bond funds approved for the Outer Harbor Intermodal Terminal (OHIT). Nowhere does the Sierra Club say that the public funds are planned to be used for the TLS (Terminal Logistics Solutions) bulk commodity site. But the manner in which these “facts” are presented strongly implies it. To be perfectly clear, no California bond funds, no public funds—that’s zero dollars—are to be spent on the TLS Terminal. Let’s say that again: No California public money is to be allocated for the export of coal. But there are benefits to Oakland from this project.
The commodities terminal operator, TLS, has planned to invest over $250 million for the proposed 66-year life of the project. Involved would be a construction payroll of $76 million and a residual payroll of $120 million. Much of this would accrue to local benefit. In fact, TLS has promised that at least 50 percent of the workforce would be from Oakland. But such inducements do not interest detractors, who seem to have concluded that this project does not deserve thoughtful and careful scrutiny.
Given that the proposed coal portion of the commodities terminal fails to generate coal dust, fails to use California public money, the last remaining objection is that burning the coal will create greenhouse gases offshore. Now this is indisputably true.
The rest of the world—particularly India, China and the Far East—has a growing need for dependable and affordable electricity. Locally available coal in these areas includes some high-sulfur bituminous and lots of lignite, a dirty coal that exceeds the particulate and carbon dioxide production of harder coals. Economics dictate that today’s cheapest and most dependable electrical energy source is a steam-fired coal generating plant. Since this part of the world is underdeveloped, they will need to supply more and more electricity. Using locally sourced coal would generate more carbon dioxide, more particulates and more sulfur than using a better-grade coal. If inexpensive, low-sulfur coal is not available, these countries will burn what they can. Either way, coal will be burned to generate energy for the intermediate future.
Excess capacity at our western coal mines makes this a potential win-win scenario for all involved. Without an export terminal for western coal, our neighbors in the Far East will burn far dirtier coal because to live, work and feed themselves, they must have electricity. If we allow a short-sighted antipathy to coal to keep us from seeing the temporary mitigation cleaner coal can deliver, then we all lose. We lose cleaner air in Asia, we lose the chance to reduce worldwide carbon and sulfur emissions and we lose thousands of jobs from mining, moving and exporting low-sulfur coal.
The essence of the program is to take a world-class problem—the shortage of electricity, food and jobs—and come up with the best possible temporary solution to buy time so that we can develop and install real-life, permanent solutions. Everybody knows that coal is a four-letter word. But not everybody knows that the Oakland terminal project will move low-sulfur export coal handled in a next-generation manner and that its use in Asia will actually reduce carbon emissions. This is an opportunity for Oakland to rise above a knee-jerk reaction and really look at the project in a holistic fashion.
W. G. Claytor III is Managing Director of Red Clay Consultancy, LLC, a rail transportation consulting firm based in Pulaski, Va. There is no compensatory relationship with any entity involved in West Coast coal exports.
