A little coal dust on my breakfast

The Washington Spectator has a big article on a worrying proposal (links only for subscribers). Several years ago Warren Buffet made news when he bought a railroad. He now sees a big use for it: to haul coal from Montana to the Pacific Ocean to be shipped to China. This is coal that is too dirty, and thus outlawed, for use in America.

There are environmental problems every step of the way. Damage to the beautiful landscape of Montana. Lots of coal dust would blow off the train in transit from Montana and it would be at least one long train per day. Coal dust would be a big mess for whatever town hosted the transfer docks -- beautiful Bellingham, Washington is at the top of the list. The water around the docks would be filled with dust or sucked out of rivers in a vain attempt to keep the dust down. And the lovely San Juan Islands would be a mess if any ship had an accident trying to navigate the narrow waterways.

But the biggest problem would be when the coal was burned for power in China. There is so much dirty coal and China is so hungry for more electricity that this would contribute significantly more to global warming than the proposed Keystone Pipeline.

Though the transfer docks aren't built yet, coal is being transported to Asia. It looks like the price is very low now. That would encourage Asian countries to build more power plants that burn this kind of coal. And once built the operators would be trapped into buying the dirty coal. Naturally that's when the price would be boosted.

There is good news in this story. It's not a done deal. The governors of Washington, Oregon, and California all oppose building the transfer docks in their state. A long list of environmental groups are filing as many lawsuits as they can think up. And the Native American Lummi Nation, who fish in the waters off Bellingham, are doing all they can to stop it.