Op-Ed: Global Coal Trends Undermine U.S. Coal-Export Project Schemes
Tom Sanzillo for the Tacoma News Tribune:
The outlook for coal markets off the West Coast of the U.S. continues to weaken.
This fast-developing erosion is rooted in a structural, long-term move that makes elaborate coal-export schemes more and more ill advised as coal’s decline deepens.
Projects pitched at the Port of Oakland and for the Chuitna River near Anchorage today are more pie-in-the-sky than ever. And the Millennium Bulk Terminals proposal for Longview is as high-risk as they come.
Proponents push these projects, nonetheless, because one way or another they bring taxpayer-funded subsidies to the increasingly desperate U.S. coal industry. Coal producers are seeing domestic demand for coal-fired electricity generation falling, and so the industry is placing a huge if misguided bet on foreign markets.