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<br />~ <br />~ <br />en <br />~ Coal slurry pipelines present a viable future alternative to rail trans- <br />portation of western coal as demonstrated by the 273-mile Black Mesa <br />pipeline now supplying the Mohave Powerplant. The pipeline has a <br />capacity of 5 million tons per year and requires about 3,300 acre-feet <br />of water per year. Several slurry pipelines under planning study are <br />indicated in figure 9. Other slurry lines from the Rocky Mountain <br />Region to the West Coast are being considered. <br /> <br />While the West Coast, primarily California, is not currently a major <br />market for Colorado/Utah coal, it offers significant potential for <br />long-term utilization of these reserves. In addition to new power and <br />gasification plant construction, conversion of California's current oil <br />and natural gas-fired electrical generation capacity to coal would <br />require more than 50 million tons per year of coal, The same logistical <br />factors which make Utah and Colorado coals attractive for the West Coast <br />also reinforce the potential export of coal to the Orient, particularly <br />Japan. Exports of steam coal from the United States have grown by a <br />substantial 63 percent in the past year. Steam coal consumption in <br />Japan is projected to increase from 1 million tons/year today to about <br />50 million tons per year by 1990. <br /> <br />The Northwest Pipeline Corporation recently submitted to DOE a proposal <br />to study the feasibility of a large-scale coal slurry pipeline system. <br />The proposed project will move 25 to 35 million tons of subbituminous <br />coal per year from Wyoming's Powder River 8asin to the Pacific Northwest <br />via coal slurry pipeline. About 10 million tons of coal will be trans- <br />ported to a proposed 250-million-cubic-foot-per-day coal gasification <br />plant in Oregon. The plant can be designed to produce both high Btu gas <br />for pipeline use and/or medium Btu gas to be used as a fuel for combined <br />cycle electric generating plants. Combined cycle plants are more <br />economical than coal-fired steam plants and have inherently much lower <br />atmospheric emissions because the nitrogen and sulfur, major air pollu- <br />tion contaminants, are removed elementally and prevented from entering <br />the atmosphere, Approximately 10 million tons of coal would be exported <br />to markets in the Far East and the remaining 5 to 15 million tons will <br />be used by the electric utility industry in the northwest [19J. <br /> <br />In attempting to describe an energy scenario that lends support to the <br />projected development for coal slurry pipelines, the limitations and <br />constraints must also be acknowledged. A major limitation is the lack of <br />a transportation system to handle large increases in coal volumes at <br />reasonable conveyance rates. Large increases in rail rates have occurred <br />in recent years. The lack of West Coast port facilities represents a <br />limitation to the export market, but studies of port expansion are <br />currently underway, The alternative development of nuclear power, <br />Government regulation under the Clean Air Act, Fuel Use Act and Federal <br />leasing, rail deregulation, and rail mergers, all impact the forecasts <br />for slurry pipelines. <br /> <br />Yet coal slurry pipelines remain an attractive, long-term alternative <br />to rail transport of western coal, The primary advantage of slurry <br /> <br />IV-22 <br />