by Nicholas Simons We can agree that the amount of coal we produce and export is small compared to China and the United States, and probably if we didn’t sell it to the Asian markets, someone else would. It is true that the way we measure it, coal contributes significantly to our economy. Also, we mostly export the metallurgical coal we produce ourselves, the cleaner kind of coal.
But British Columbia is in the middle of a crescendo of thermal coal exports. We are increasing our yearly coal export capacity from 49 million tonnes in 2010 to 94.5 million tonnes by 2015. This is being pushed by our senior governments, and it is irresponsible.
We have three coal export terminals in BC which mostly export metallurgical coal from the 10 mines within our province. All three terminals have been given approval to increase their coal handling capacity. Texada Island would receive coal from a proposed fourth terminal currently under review.
We don’t export coal to full capacity, but three things are changing that: the appetite for thermal coal from Asia, the abundant supply of coal from the US and Alberta, and the encouragement from senior levels of government. Once known primarily for our export of high quality BC metallurgical coal used in making steel, we are fast becoming a coal pipeline for lower quality US and Alberta thermal coal to Asia, with almost no discussion about its local, regional or global impact.
BC’s coal exports have remained relatively constant over the past two decades. Clearly, the purpose of this increased capacity is to ship thermal coal from the US and Alberta to feed Asia’s appetite as it grows. This could mean that in seven years, thermal coal exports of US and Alberta coal from BC could go from five to eight million tonnes per year to 67 million tonnes per year, an increase of over 1,000 per cent, while metallurgical and thermal coal exports from our own mines within BC would remain unchanged. I don’t remember this in the election platform.
Expanding our thermal coal exports contradicts the provincial government’s message on responsible environmental policies. While we are paying carbon taxes and harnessing rivers, claiming to be “green,” we are facilitating the expansion of the worst culprit in greenhouse gas emitters, known to have the single-biggest impact on global climate change.
As British Columbians, we are practicing willful ignorance if we don’t calculate, or at least acknowledge the contributions the expansion of thermal coal exports have on global greenhouse gas emissions. By investing in thermal coal export infrastructure we are not only expanding the amount of thermal coal we would be exporting, we are expanding the lifespan of cheap coal—an energy source we should be doing everything we can to quit.
Nicholas Simons is the MLA for Powell River-Sunshine Coast.
