Edit post

Edit your reply below.

Post Body
Enter your post below.
Some comments from an electric utility guy....... 1. Unless a project is going to make a substantial difference in the amount of avialable coal from the PRB, it will not realistically make a difference. According to the forcasts the PRB production will have to increase something on the order of 50% to keep up with the anticipated demand over the next few years. We need to be talking about how to serve that increased demand. 2. Slurry pipelines sound great on paper, but have problems. One that has been mentioned is water. You have to buy the water in order to have it, not matter what you think is or is not in the ground. Reality is that there is NO excess water, and what is there is scarce and poor quality. Wars have started and people killed over water in the west. Water is life. You take my water, you die. It's that simple. Unless you can convince a LOT of farmers to dry up and blow away you're not going to find the water. 3. If you're going to build a slurry line, AND if you have the water and financing lined up, it takes at least 5 years to get all of the approvals and start construction. All the while some rabid environmentalist is filing suit on your for disturbing a prarie dog town.... 4. Local generation is a great idea to by pass the RR's, as you could build a transmission line(s) and simply burn the coal. This has problems as well. First, have you tried to get approval lately for routing a big transmission line? Power plants also prefer to have water, as it greatly reduces their construction costs and increases the efficiency of the plant. You'd probably have to ship the coal to at least as far as the Missouri before you can have enough water, but THEN you'd have to buy the water rights, and negotiate with 87 Federal agencies, and fight the environmentalists over some little snail that nobody likes anyway.... 5. The RR's won't build more rails until somebody starts to build their OWN RR service into the PRB. You can bet that if the PRB mines banded together and built their own double-track line into a major shipping point that the RR's would stand up and take notice REAL fast. I honestly don't expect either UP of BNSF to do squat until this happens. Mark in Utah
Tags (Optional)
Tags are keywords that get attached to your post. They are used to categorize your submission and make it easier to search for. To add tags to your post type a tag into the box below and click the "Add Tag" button.
Add Tag