In his column today, AWB president Don Brunell weighs in on the “war on coal.” Specifically, he looks at the mounting challenges to proposed shipping terminals in the Northwest. Don points out that, although such projects are already subject to a review process including an Environmental Impact Statement, opponents want more.

But opponents want to insert a second, more expansive layer of environmental review, which some are calling a Programmatic EIS, which would have to be completed before each individual project EIS could begin. This additional review would include all of the Washington and Oregon proposals and expand to analyze their potential “cumulative” economic and environmental impacts across the region, the United States or perhaps the world.

A PEIS is historically reserved for assessing the broad national impacts of a federal action or a new federal policy. But the activists want to apply that same scope of review to a local shipping terminal.

Read Don’s column to understand the dangerous implications this new standard would have for major developments in our state. It’s sobering.

Sobering … and timely. A commentary by Robert Bryce in Slate, which notes the proposed EPA rule banning construction of new coal fired plants in the US, points out the increased global demand. The war on coal is the wrong war.

Coal use is soaring because demand for electricity is soaring. Between 1990 and 2010, global electricity production increased by about 450 terawatt-hours per year. That’s the equivalent of adding one Brazil (which used 485 terawatt-hours of electricity in 2010) to the electricity sector every year.

Why coal?

…coal continues to present a compelling value for electricity production because deposits of the fuel are abundant, widely dispersed, easily mined, and not controlled by any OPEC-like cartel

… Global coal consumption is now about 71 million barrels of oil equivalent per day, which is approximately equal to the daily oil output of more than eight Saudi Arabias.

Bryce has been busy. In the Wall Street Journal, he explains why renewable energy won’t run the cloud.

 U.S. data centers are now consuming about 86 terawatt-hours of electricity per year, or about 43 times as much electricity as is produced by all the solar-energy projects in America.

With our hydro power, Washington is home to several productive data centers, the benefits of which are abundant (like our energy resources). For a long time to come, coal will be a significant part of the global grid. Sensible energy policy will recognize reality.