By Daniel M. Kammen and Michael Riordan
From Crosscut.com
If Peabody Energy, SSA Marine and Goldman Sachs really want to stimulate Washington jobs, as they claim, they can find much better ways to do so than build a sprawling $665 million coal terminal northwest of Bellingham. They could use the money instead to fund energy-efficiency and renewable-energy projects. Per dollar invested, efficiency and renewables generate many more jobs than fossil fuels.
Modern coal terminals are highly mechanized facilities, with towering, ten-story cranes pivoting massive arms above coal storage piles 60 feet high. At the ends of these arms, huge rotary shovels bigger than a house dig up the dusty coal and deposit it onto conveyor belts that snake away to bulk carriers three to four football fields long. Few workers are needed to operate these gargantuan “stacker/reclaimers.”
As estimated in official project documents, the Gateway Pacific Terminal would support only 257 steady jobs, including office workers, at full build-out. That’s just one new job for every $2.6 million invested, assuming the terminal can indeed be built for its advertised price. If you include “induced jobs” that may be added in maritime and railroad industries, the total increases to 430. But extra expenditures would occur in these areas, say for necessary railroad upgrades, so figure about one new job created per $2 million spent.
To read the full article, go to https://crosscut.com/2013/01/14/coal-ports-jobs-economy
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