1. Ohio River Basin Energy Commodity Trends
PIANC-SmartRivers 2017
Ohio River Basin Energy Commodity Trends
Presenter: Marin Kress, PhD
USACE-ERDC
Coastal & Hydraulics Lab
Navigation Branch

2. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Navigation Mission
…safe, reliable, efficient, and environmentally sustainable waterborne transportation systems (channels, harbors, and waterways) for movement of commerce, national security needs, and recreation.
Research objective: Examine historical commodity movements of the inland waterway system, focusing on the Ohio River, identify changes in origin-destination reach pairs that may function as indicators of transportation trends that could inform maintenance practices.

4. 1-30 June 2016
67 Unique Vessels
32 Towing
5 Tug
14 Other
Passenger
3 Military/LE/SAR

6. More than 90 percent of the coal consumed in the United States is used for power generation.
Domestic coal production and use has been declining since 2007.

7. - U.S Department of Energy, 2017
“ …the largest number of coal plant retirements occurred in 2015—the deadline for coal and oil plants to add pollution control equipment for Mercury and Air Toxics Standard (MATS) compliance.”
“In 2016, natural gas was the largest source of electricity generation in the United States—overtaking coal for the first time since data collection began.”
- U.S Department of Energy, 2017
Source: Dept. of Energy. Staff Report to the Secretary on Electricity Markets and Reliability. August

8. Source: Dept. of Energy. Staff Report to the Secretary on Electricity Markets and Reliability. August

9. Most coal-fired capacity (88%) was built between 1950 and 1990.
Coal energy production peaked in 2007 and has been declining since.
No new coal plants have been built for domestic utility electricity production since 2014.
Source: Dept. of Energy. Staff Report to the Secretary on Electricity Markets and Reliability. August

10. Flow Map
Huntington District
Ohio River reaches,
coal commodity
OD flows
2008
USACE Huntington District outlined in yellow

11. USACE Huntington District outlined in yellow
Flow Map
Huntington District
Ohio River reaches,
coal commodity
OD flows
2015
USACE Huntington District outlined in yellow
Scale is not the same between images. This image note that the red seems more concentrated, fewer ‘pink’ parts of the rest of the system. Of the coal that is leaving from Huntington District reaches, more of it is staying within the Ohio River system.
This might be bringing down the price of coal, which could change the economics slightly and make the remaining plants more competitive, but would still have to consider competition from natural gas.

12. Destination reaches for waterway coal shipments originating along a 145 mile section of the Ohio River
Color-coded by waterway
Coal shipments originated along the Huntington District, where did they go to?

13. Summary Points
Despite declining trend, coal is the largest commodity moving on the Ohio River system, millions of tons every year
Despite declines in the variety of destination reaches, commodity movements originating on the Ohio River are economically connected to the entire inland waterway system
Extensive barge traffic along entire Ohio River, each mile can see hundreds of transits/month
Archived AIS vessel position data can be used to quantify traffic changes, valuable research tool, multiple potential uses
Cheap and abundant natural gas has changed electricity production landscape, will trends continue or level out?

14. Thank you

15. Ohio River Mile 870
1 month in 2016
119 unique vessels
300+ vessel transits