Die Global Kohle-Handel komplexe Berechnung

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To feed China's insatiable demand for coal, U.S. companies are trying to sell and ship the lucrative commodity to the Asian market from new West Coast ports. Above, the cooling towers of a coal-fired power plant are seen on the outskirts of Beijing.

This is the second of two reports on plans to export U.S. coal to China.

Coal producers in Wyoming and Montana are hoping new export terminals will be built in Washington state so they can ramp up their sales to China. Activists are trying to stop those ports, in part because they're concerned about global warming. But a thriving export market could also drive up the price of coal here in the United States, and that has climate implications as well.

Energy economics can sometimes be like a hall of mirrors, where what you see is not actually what you get. Let's start this story from the top.

Enlarge Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images

A 133-car coal train is loaded at the Buckskin Coal Mine in Gillete, Wyo. Each car carries 120 tons of coal. New terminals in Washington state could eventually be destinations for coal, which is currently used for power in St. Louis, Detroit, Chicago and the eastern U.S.

Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images

A 133-car coal train is loaded at the Buckskin Coal Mine in Gillete, Wyo. Each car carries 120 tons of coal. New terminals in Washington state could eventually be destinations for coal, which is currently used for power in St. Louis, Detroit, Chicago and the eastern U.S.

Developers want to build a huge coal export terminal in Bellingham, Wash., and another one in Longview, on the south side of the state. K.C. Golden, at the nonprofit group Climate Solutions in Seattle, says this is a terrible idea for a state that is phasing out its lone coal-burning plant as it strives to become a leader in clean energy.

"Now, to become the conveyor belt and launching pad for a huge expansion of global carbon commerce would be exactly the opposite of the future we envision, the kind of economic strategy that we're doubling down on in the Northwest," he says.

Contrast that to what's happening in China, where they're still building new coal plants like crazy. Golden says coal exports would feed that beast.

"Our fear is that if there is an unlimited supply from around the world to fuel these new coal plants in Asia, that will act as a big green thumbs-up for them to build a whole new fleet of coal plants, and we'll essentially be locked into catastrophic climate change."

But U.S. coal exports to China would not be a game-changer. China's current appetite for coal is so massive that even if the two proposed U.S. terminals ended up exporting at full capacity — that is, 100 million tons a year, or 10 percent of current production levels — that would only satisfy 3 percent of China's appetite.

If the U.S. enters the global market in a bigger way in the future, the price of coal in the international market will increasingly affect our prices at home.

- Bill Watson, U.S. Energy Information Administration

And here's where the first turn in the hall of mirrors comes. Bill Watson from the U.S. government's Energy Information Administration (EIA) says that right now, coal from Wyoming and Montana is mostly sold at a low price, since those are land-locked resources that can't reach the lucrative world market.

"But if the U.S. enters the global market in a bigger way in the future, the price of coal in the international market will increasingly affect our prices at home," Watson says.

The Coal Pricing Conundrum

The logic goes like this: If coal companies can sell coal for, say, $100 a ton on the world market, they will be less inclined to keep selling it for $20 a ton at home.

"Now, that's bad news if you're a consumer in Texas who buys electricity generated with Wyoming coal," says Trevor Houser, an energy analyst at the Rhodium Group in New York. "But it could potentially be good news for U.S. emissions, as an increase in coal prices domestically switches coal plants over to natural gas."

And when utilities switch to cheaper natural gas, they'll also emit less carbon dioxide, because natural gas is much better than coal in that regard.

So welcome to the central room in the hall of mirrors. Houser says if coal exports hasten our switch to natural gas, he figures that would essentially make up for any added fumes from American coal being burned in China. So he says it's a wash.

"I think what's more important is what it does to the politics of climate change in the U.S.," Houser says.

His window on politics is as a climate adviser to the Obama administration's State Department. He argues that coal companies might be more receptive to limits on U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide if they can sell less coal for more money overseas.

And there's one final illusion in this house of mirrors. Watson from the EIA notes that the world price for coal fluctuates widely, and right now, "the prices are relatively high. China has bid them up, and that's why producers are willing to enter the market. But it's going to attract other producers in other parts of the world also."

In particular, if Mongolia beefs up its railways, it can cheaply transport coal to China. China can then stop paying top dollar for coal that is currently shipped in from Australia, Indonesia and the United States. So the bottom could fall out of the U.S. export market faster than the companies can build the shipping terminals in Washington state.

In fact, that's exactly what happened in the 1980s, the last time coal prices skyrocketed. Some port cities scrambled to build coal terminals. Ross Macfarlane at Climate Solutions says companies and ports invested hugely in export terminals.

"One of those that did bite in that cycle was the port of Portland," Macfarlane says. "They locked up a very valuable piece of property for over 10 years — planned, built a facility. Not a single lump of coal was ever shipped."

If that happens again, we're right back to where we started.

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Shipping coal to China might help the U.S. switch to more environmentally friendly natural gas.

Bellingham, Wash., says a proposed terminal that would ship coal to China would mar its green image.

The oil tanker S.S. Montebello was sunk by a Japanese submarine during World War II.

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'First ever' fall in global TB

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11 October 2011 Last updated at 14:28 GMT By Matt McGrath Science reporter, BBC World Service A mucus sample is tested for TB The number of people falling ill with tuberculosis has declined for the first time, according to the World Health Organization.

New figures show the global death toll has also fallen, to its lowest level in a decade, with major headway made in China, Brazil, Kenya and Tanzania.

But the WHO warns that a lack of funds threatens progress, especially in relation to multi-drug resistant TB.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said there was no cause for complacency.

According to the WHO, the figures represent a significant milestone in the battle against a disease that infects one third of the world's population, although only a small proportion become sick as a result.

The number of people who died from tuberculosis peaked at 1.8 million people in 2003; by 2010 this had declined to 1.4 million.

Challenges ahead

Spectacular progress was made in China, said the WHO, where the death rate fell by almost 80% between 1990 and 2010. In Kenya and Tanzania there has also been a substantial decline in the last decade after a peak linked to the HIV epidemic.

"This is major progress. But it is no cause for complacency," the UN Secretary-General said in a statement.

"Too many millions still develop TB each year, and too many die. I urge serious and sustained support for TB prevention and care, especially for the world's poorest and most vulnerable people."

Continue reading the main story Tuberculosis is an infectious disease that usually affects the lungsIt is transmitted via droplets from the lungs of people with the active form of the disease Symptoms of TB include coughing, chest pains, weakness, weight loss, fever and night sweatsTuberculosis is treatable with a course of antibioticsMoney is the key to the current progress, said the WHO, particularly domestic funding in larger countries like Brazil.

But the organisation warned that substantial challenges lie ahead, with a projected gap in funding of $1bn for 2012.

Another problem is the multi-drug resistant form of the disease.

A new rapid test is revolutionising diagnosis but there is a concern that only a small percentage of the people diagnosed with multi-drug resistant TB are receiving treatment.

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How That Food You Throw Out Is Linked To Global Warming

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Enlarge iStockphoto.com

The greenhouse gas emissions associated with food waste amount to 135 million tons a year, a company has found.

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The greenhouse gas emissions associated with food waste amount to 135 million tons a year, a company has found.

It's funny how some people are embarrassed by the state of their refrigerator – perhaps because it's full of beer and condiments and nothing else.

For me, it's the guilt of seeing off-color sausage or slimy lettuce disintegrating in my refrigerator drawer. Sadly, I am just another American prone to wasting food. Collectively, we waste about 55 million tons of the stuff a year, or 40 percent of the food supply, researchers estimate.

For the guilt-ridden food wasters among us, a little company out of Oregon recently found a way to poke us to shop more prudently. They've crunched the numbers to show how the greenhouse gas emissions from the production, transport and disposal of all the food we could eat — but don't — adds up.

 

CleanMetrics builds software that does life cycle analysis for companies and organizations who want to measure and reduce their environmental impact. Last year, Kumar Venkat, the company's founder and president, was asked by the Environmental Working Group to measure the climate impact of meat consumption, which resulted in its Meat Eater's Guide to Climate Change & Health.

That project got him thinking about other emissions associated with food, and wasted food in particular, Venkat tells The Salt. So he gathered USDA's estimates of food loss from retail and consumers for 2009. And when he fed it into his software he found that food waste is responsible for 135 million tons of greenhouse gases every year, or about 1.5 percent of all emissions.

So how does that break down for a family or an individual? The average family is responsible for about 1,800 pounds of emissions from food waste, while an individual contributes about 440 pounds a year, Venkat found. A typical car, meanwhile, emits about 9,000 pounds a year. The emissions from food waste don't include food eaten in restaurants or the energy used in cooking or packaging wasted food, however.

Enlarge USDA and CleanMetrics Corp.

Greenhouse gas emissions from wasted food: Comparing commodities

USDA and CleanMetrics Corp.

Greenhouse gas emissions from wasted food: Comparing commodities

But all this food that goes to rot isn't evenly distributed across the grocery store. For example, we waste about 35 percent of the chicken, fish and fruit we produce, while we only waste about 15 percent of the nuts and legumes on the market, according to USDA.

And some foods also have a much bigger impact on the climate than others. "If you compare beef to tomatoes, beef has a much higher footprint," says Venkat. "So if you're going to reduce waste, you need to prioritize."

And by the time the food has reached you, the consumer, a lot of those emissions are already on their way to the atmosphere. Venkat says that nearly 80 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions come from producing and processing food.

But not only does food waste make a sizable contribution to global warming – it's also a lot of money. Venkat calculated that if household food waste could be cut in half, a family of four could save $600 a year. And since there are no regulations that force companies or individuals to reduce their emissions yet, the opportunity to save money is probably the best incentive to reduce food waste there is, says Venkat.

But most people will always have some food waste no matter how hard they try to avoid it, and so the next best thing to do is compost it. That, at least, will keep it out of a landfill, where huge piles of decomposing material generates methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

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More youngsters having unsafe sex: global study

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LONDON | Sun Sep 25, 2011 7:14pm EDT

LONDON (Reuters) - Young people across the globe are having more unprotected sex and know less about effective contraception options, a multinational survey revealed on Monday.

The "Clueless or Clued Up: Your Right to be informed about contraception" study prepared for World Contraception Day (WCD) reports that the number of young people having unsafe sex with a new partner increased by 111 percent in France, 39 percent in the USA and 19 percent in Britain in the last three years.

"No matter where you are in the world, barriers exist which prevent teenagers from receiving trustworthy information about sex and contraception, which is probably why myths and misconceptions remain so widespread even today," a member of the WCD task force, Denise Keller, said in a statement with the results of the study.

"When young people have access to contraceptive information and services, they can make choices that affect every aspect of their lives which is why it's so important that accurate and unbiased information is easily available for young people to obtain," Keller said.

The survey, commissioned by Bayer Healthcare Pharmaceuticals and endorsed by 11 international non-governmental organizations, questioned more than 6,000 young people from 26 countries including Chile, Poland and China, on their attitudes toward sex and contraception.

The level of unplanned pregnancies among young people is a major global issue, campaigners say, and the rise in unprotected sex in several counties has sparked concern about the quality of sex education available to youngsters.

In Europe, only half of respondents receive sex education from school, compared to three quarters across Latin America, Asia Pacific and the USA.

Many respondents also said that they felt too embarrassed to ask a healthcare professional for contraception.

"What young people are telling us is that they are not receiving enough sex education or the wrong type of information about sex and sexuality," spokeswoman for the International Planned Parenthood Federation, Jennifer Woodside said in a statement.

"The results show that too many young people either lack good knowledge about sexual health, do not feel empowered enough to ask for contraception or have not learned the skills to negotiate contraceptive use with their partners to protect themselves from unwanted pregnancies or STIs (sexually transmitted infections)," she said.

More than a third of respondents in Egypt believe bathing or showering after sex will prevent pregnancy, and more than a quarter of those in Thailand and India believe that having intercourse during menstruation is an effective form of contraception.

But the fact that many young people engage in unprotected sex and the prevalence of harmful myths should not come as a surprise, Woodside said.

"How can young people make decisions that are right for them and protect them from unwanted pregnancy and STIs, if we do not empower them and enable them to acquire the skills they need to make those choices?" she said.

(Edited by Paul Casciato)

View the original article here

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