17 replies to this topic

[VicHockeyFan]

OK, so what does everyone think of this? Should we be eco-friendly and just say no to expansion? Because this will certainly contribute increase greenhouse gasses no matter who uses it......

Island mine set to double coal output
Chinese demand fuels $32-million upgrade to open pits; environmental groups decry 'short-sighted' move
Andrew A. Duffy, Times Colonist
Published: Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Spurred by record-high prices for coal, Hillsborough Resources wants to spend $32 million to double the size of its Quinsam open-pit coal mine near Campbell River.

Hillsborough can't meet demand and wants to take advantage of a hot market by expanding its thermal coal-mining operation, said company president David Slater.

"Without any question, we have understated things by saying the market was robust; we've never seen markets like this in the history of coal mining."


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Font: ****Hillsborough produces 520,000 tonnes of coal annually at Quinsam. It wants to expand production to as much as 1.2 million tonnes annually through new surface mining options on its site and building its own shiploading facility.

Several firms have said they'd buy more coal from Quinsam if it was available, and have expressed interest in being investors in an expansion, Hillsborough said in a statement.

China in particular, with its booming economy, is anxious to buy more coal, said Slater.

China is the world's largest producer and consumer of coal, but is having to import it for the first time since 1946 to drive its industrial revolution, he said. China has been a net importer for the last five months.

The price for thermal coal rose to record levels last week -- $66.30 US per tonne at the world's largest coal port at Newcastle, Australia -- and Slater says it could stay in that range for some time.

While demand is rising, supply problems have emerged.

Major storms have disrupted coal shipments from Australia and Indonesia.

Combined, those factors have taken millions of tonnes of coal off the market, leaving countries such as South Korea and Japan scrambling to find the fuel.

"It's made for a very tight market," Slater said.

The decision, however, seems at odds with recent government and community initiatives to reduce production and consumption of fossil-fuel energy, and it's left environmentalists fuming.

A Sierra Club spokeswoman called it a cash grab. "This seems so short-sighted; we have to be removing our economy and dependence from fossil fuels and that means not using them and producing and exporting them," said Lisa Matthaus, campaign director for the B.C. chapter of the Sierra Club. "This is not what our planet needs."

Matthaus said as the world faces climate change, it will be forced to deal with a "massive change" in the way it uses fossil fuels.

"Coal is not a fuel of the future, and for Vancouver Island residents to have to consider more open-pit mining at the same time the Island tries to reposition itself economically [away from] its resource base ... this seems like it's a very short-term initiative," she said. "At some point, B.C. is going to have to take responsibility for the fossil fuels it pulls out of the ground, which are then ultimately added to the atmosphere."

Hillsborough is in the midst of seeking regulatory approvals to allow for expansion, and will soon hold public meetings in the Campbell River area to explain its plans.

The company intends to structure its capital investment in such a manner that any debt it takes on will be associated directly with production, meaning as the coal is produced the debt is paid down.

[Holden West]

Coal? WTF, is it 1842? Why stop there? Let's fuel our lamps with baby whale oil and upholster our transit with otter pelts while we're at it.

[m0nkyman]

upholster our transit with otter pelts while we're at it.

I suspect we could find a few fisherfolk who would think that's a wonderful idea.

[Holden West]

^Hey, if it helps the economy it's all good, right?

[Baro]

Most of the world generates its power via Coal, not all countries are blessed with so much hydro as us. The only two options are to drastically change our life-styles world-wide (specially china) and simply not use 90% of the power we currently do, or go to nuclear for the next few generations till we figure out fusion power or crazy solar power microwave satelites. There's no other way to shake our dependance on Coal and Oil. Oil will become too expensive to use in the future, but the earth has enough coal to keep us powered for centuries still. Windmills don't last long enough and arn't reliable enough, Solar wastes massive amounts of land and create more polution in their construction than they ever save via their use (and are even more expensive than solar). Nuclear is the only option we have at the moment. Anyone who doesn't adamently support Nuclear is de-facto supporting coal. And I rather have a couple tons of pollution sealed in barrels hurting no one than thousands of tons of radioactive ash tossed up into the air.

I used to be a lot more pro-wind power and "alternative" power, and a lot of that stuff does have its uses. There's some great places on the island here (once again, canada being blessed with alternatives) to build wind, but it will only ever be supplimental power. One of my areas of amateur study over the last couple years has been exactly this issue, energy use. And I seem to agree with the vast majority of experts that currently our only alternative for primary power generation is nuclear. All things considered it isn't even on the same graph as other power generation methods when it comes to safety, reliability, and enivonmental damage. Specially as we need oil alternatives for our vehicles in the future. Oil is a very portable energy source, but it's not like we can have little coal plants or nuclear plants or wind farms on our cars. We'll need to make our own fuel in the form of either hydrogen or just electricity (electric or hydrogen powered cars). Right now due to some recent advances in batteries and such I'm generally on the electric side of the fence (specially since this mean we'd need no middle-man in the energy chain in the form of hydrogen). I believe about 40% of our energy use (not electricity use, overall energy use) is via oil for our cars and trucks and things. That means if we want to shake the oil habbit we'll need to increase our total electric production by 40% to make up for the lost energy from oil. Then we need to pick a portable storage method for that energy, hydrogen or electric look like our best bets so far.

So there's my little rant on why we still dig up massive amounts of coal. We're going to need massive amounts of power in the future when Oil starts to become too expensive to be of efficient economic use, do we want this powered by coal or nuclear? Those are our only two real options and we need to pick one.

[gumgum]

There was a study done recently I read about in the paper. Forgive me for the vagueness, I don't remember the details.
Apparently there are enough appropriate places (isolated, windy enough, etc..) for 27 times the amount of power the world requires today.
And with the efficiency of this wind turbines increasing all the time, as well as solar, soon it would make complete economy sense to consider these alternatives as a viable option for everyone.
Imagine all the roofs in the Victoria area covered by solar panels. Imagine also a couple smaller wind turbines for each building as well. Would we need any other source of energy?

[Baro]

Right, but where is this technology now? It's easy to say "well maybe in the future we could do this.. or that" but what do we do now?

Don't forget, a TON of power is lost in transmission. A mountain covered by wind farms is useless if it's over a certain distance away from the city it's powering. There's a reason we don't have a global energy grid. Power needs to be fairly regional. We need to make choises right now though with the technology we have now and will have in the near future, not 50 from now. We have 2 options right now and the world needs power today. Build what ever is currently safe and efficient at the moment. Maybe if we had some super cheap long-distance power transmission tech wind and solar could fill a greater niche. Jupiter is practically made out of hydrogen, but it's useless right now since we can't get at it, just like those great wind sites.

Also, every roof covered in solar panels woudl be one of the largest environmental and economic disasters to face mankind. Do you know what those panels are made out of?? Do you know how long they last and how much they cost? Solar power right now is nothing but a giant money pit that ends up giving you a pathetic amount of power for your investment and a load of horrible toxic materials that are very hard to recycle. Solar is ok if it's your only option, but it's not at all suitable for anything else yet. Solar power on your boat or your RV? Great. Solar power on your house? There's far more cost-effective and environmentally friendly options on the table today.

[gumgum]

You're right.
I wasn't disagreeing with you.
But the future is now and lots of people are building houses that are completely off the grid and they're not sacrificing anything apart from a hefty bill. Something that could be alleviated by mass-producing these products, based on government initiatives that could encourage greater demand. Coal and oil is a necessary evil. But looking to alternative forms of energy has been disregarded by too many as only for the hippy flakes out there that don't live in the real world. The fact is, if we don't start taking these alternatives just a little more seriously and think about the LONG TERM, not just as far as the next long weekend, when gas prices jump, or th next election, we're doomed.
We need to start thinking in units of 100 years, not 5 or 10.

[m0nkyman]

Sure. They're off the grid. Single Family Dwellings in the boonies. You think maybe they're not as eco sensitive as a high density urban area designed to LEED specs? I'll take a walkable LEED Gold community like Dockside over the hippie model.

[gumgum]

I've not advocating one over the other. I was only using those sfd's as an example.
Geez, why are people picking a fight with me today? :?
Dockside is LEED Platinum btw.

[aastra]

...every roof covered in solar panels woudl be one of the largest environmental and economic disasters to face mankind. Do you know what those panels are made out of?? Do you know how long they last and how much they cost? Solar power right now is nothing but a giant money pit that ends up giving you a pathetic amount of power for your investment and a load of horrible toxic materials that are very hard to recycle.

Sounds almost as bad as the consumer electronics industry.

[Caramia]

/cuddles computer and growls at aastra

[Bingo]

Beijing choking on thick smog -- again.

http://edition.cnn.c....html?hpt=hp_t3

This current event led me to some old postings from 5 years ago.

OK, so what does everyone think of this? Should we be eco-friendly and just say no to expansion? Because this will certainly contribute increase greenhouse gasses no matter who uses it......

Island mine set to double coal output
Chinese demand fuels $32-million upgrade to open pits; environmental groups decry 'short-sighted' move
Andrew A. Duffy, Times Colonist
Published: Tuesday, June 26, 2007


"China is the world's largest producer and consumer of coal, but is having to import it for the first time since 1946 to drive its industrial revolution, he said. China has been a net importer for the last five months."

"Coal is not a fuel of the future, and for Vancouver Island residents to have to consider more open-pit mining at the same time the Island tries to reposition itself economically [away from] its resource base ... this seems like it's a very short-term initiative," she said. "At some point, B.C. is going to have to take responsibility for the fossil fuels it pulls out of the ground, which are then ultimately added to the atmosphere."

[Bernard]

Another thing that has happened in the last five years, coal has become the main mining product in BC.

2007 value of metal production - $2,887,070,973
2007 value of coal production - $1,948,999,000

2011 value of metal production - $2,095,597,004
2011 value of coal production - $5,691,021,000

BC has only really got into significant coal production in the second of the 70s but it is now the primary part of the mining industry in our province.

[Mike K.]

What's the state of coal mining on the Island?

[Kikadee]

What's the state of coal mining on the Island?

In the Comox Valley, the Raven Underground Coal Mine Project is underway on private land.

[Mike K.]

Thanks, kikadee.

Btw, a great show on coal mining and miners is Coal. It's available on Netflix and was originally aired on Spike.

[Bernard]

The only operating mine on the island is Quinsam near Campbell River