http://www.npr.org/2011/10/27/141731707/it-s-economy-vs-environment-in-global-coal-tradeThe Global Coal Trade's Complex Calculation
by Richard Harris
October 27, 2011
This is the second of two reports on plans to export U.S. coal to China.
Coal producers in Wyoming and Montana are hoping new export terminals will be built in Washington state so they can ramp up their sales to China. Activists are trying to stop those ports, in part because they're concerned about global warming. But a thriving export market could also drive up the price of coal here in the United States, and that has climate implications as well.
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But U.S. coal exports to China would not be a game-changer. China's current appetite for coal is so massive that even if the two proposed U.S. terminals ended up exporting at full capacity — that is, 100 million tons a year, or 10 percent of current production levels — that would only satisfy 3 percent of China's appetite.
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"But if the U.S. enters the global market in a bigger way in the future, the price of coal in the international market will increasingly affect our prices at home," Watson says.
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"Now, that's bad news if you're a consumer in Texas who buys electricity generated with Wyoming coal," says Trevor Houser, an energy analyst at the Rhodium Group in New York. "But it could potentially be good news for U.S. emissions, as an increase in coal prices domestically switches coal plants over to natural gas."
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