Editorial Rationalizing Canadian Coal Markets

Two coal mining companies in British Columbia’s Elk Valley, for example, are considering the possibility of generating electricity at their mine sites for export to other markets. Their coal product is of the low-sulphur variety — the kind required by electric utilities in Ontario. For several years now, the federal and provincial governments of Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario have been investigating ways of bringing that coal to markets in the east to assist in alleviating the acid rain problem there. In November, 1987, the Intergovernmental Secretariat to the Action Committee on Western Canadian Low-sulphur Coal to Ontario made public recommendations to spend $10-$15 million on various research projects designed to develop the necessary technology to bring western coal to eastern markets. Among the ideas considered were: increasing railway efficiency, shipping coal through the Panama Canal, and transporting coal as a slurry in pipelines.

But now, with the Canada/U.S. Free Trade deal about to come into effect, thoughts have turned, instead, to developing southern markets for western coal. Fording Coal and Westar Mining have made public their proposals to build two separate coal-fired electric generating stations at their mine sites in the Kootenay region of British Columbia. The intention is apparently to sell the power to B.C. Hydro which would then have enough excess power to export to the U.S.

As for Ontario’s need for a low-sulphur alternative to high- sulphur U.S. coal, a far more rational approach would be to look for a source closer to home. Nova Scotia coal might be a better bet. Esso Resources, another long-time coal miner, is spending $1 million to find a mineable coal deposit near Springhill, N.S., to supply thermal coal plants in Nova Scotia. But, owing to its favorable location on tidewater, a mine there could potentially supply Ontario, too, with the low-sulphur coal needed to fuel its generating stations — and do it at a more reasonable cost than shipping coal 3,000 km across the country by rail.

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