Pacific Northwest Gears Up for Another Fossil Fuel Export Fight

Given the worldwide demand for methanol, failing to build the plant would mean other, dirtier [coal-based] projects would be built. 

Our technology is so superior,” Kent Caputo, general counsel and chief commercial officer for NWIW, told The Daily News in a briefing about the study Monday [Nov. 12] afternoon. The project “would have a gigantic displacement effect” on carbon sources elsewhere, Caputo added.

A slide in the article suggests that the Ultra Low Emission (ULE) technology would be similar to that used by a Coogee Chemical methanol plant in Melbourne, Australia. The Australian Financial Review reported in March 2017 that due to a lack of natural gas, the facility could be shipped to the U.S. where a gas surplus exists.

Opposition

Columbia Riverkeeper Executive Director Brett VandenHeuvel, perhap's the project's most outspoken opponent, took issue with the study's findings, calling it "speculative" that the displacement would occur. A white paper [pdf] prepared by the nonprofit group, whose mission is to protect and restore the Columbia River, asserts:

[T]he promised carbon reductions rely on a very big assumption: that the Kalama Methanol Refinery would replace coal-based forms of production. No one has supplied any evidence showing that this is true. So the Kalama refinery may simply add to global supplies of petrochemicals—and global greenhouse gas pollution—without actually replacing dirtier methanol production.

According to project partner Port of Kalama, "[t]hrough the use of natural gas and implementation of ULE technology, the Kalama facility will reduce carbon emissions by 90% compared to coal-to-methanol facilities."

Environmental NIMBYism?

Assuming that the Kalama plant will, in fact, displace coal-based methanol plants, which the project opponents contest, the net reduction on a global perspective in carbon emissions is huge, but there will local emissions of 1.1 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent annually. However, when taking into account emissions from coal-based plants, there will be net reductions of 9.7 to 12.6 (million tonneCO2e/annum) according to the greenhouse gas analysis [see executive summary, pg. 83/241 of the EIS (pdf)].

"In addition, NWIW also announced it would voluntarily work to reduce or compensate for all its carbon releases within the state," adds Fairbanks. 

The program would include purchasing verified carbon credits or paying a comparable amount to a greenhouse gas mitigation fund.

State Environmental Policy Act

The environmental review is being done in accordance with the State Environmental Policy Act under the state Department of Ecology with the Port of Kalama and Cowlitz County as co-lead agencies. 

A public hearing on the study will be held at 6 p.m. Dec. 13 at the Cowlitz Expo Center in Longview. The public comment period for the study is open until Dec. 28.

• Plans for World's Largest Methanol Plant Die in Tacoma, April 21, 2016
  The massive and controversial Tideflats methanol plant proposal will no longer trouble environmentalists in the Pacific Northwest.