T&T: Energy cost (was Fatal Collision On The Sound)
Faure, Marin
I don't think there's anything wrong with our coal. It's all about
cost. The cost of labor in the US is very high compared to places like
Indonesia. The cost of adhering to environmental and safety (OSHA)
regulations is also very high in the US. So when you factor in the
wages of US miners, the cost of operating a mine to meet US
environmental and safety requirements, the cost of the crews that
operate and maintain the Norfolk Southern trains and tracks that move
the coal from the mines to the east coast, the cost to Norfolk Southern
of operating their railroad in conformance to US environmental and
safety regulations, the salaries paid to the executives, attorneys, etc.
who oversee the mines and transportation companies, and the political
and lobbying costs associated with operating a mine or transportation
company in the US, it can become--- at least for now--- considerably
cheaper to buy and import coal from Indonesia than to buy and transport
coal from the US.
The fact that the coal from Indonesia has to come all this way on a ship
doesn't add as much to the cost as one might think. Today's ships have
very small crews and are usually registered in a country that requires
minimal, if any, conformance to safety or operating regulations.
Compared to the cost of moving coal by train from West Virginia to the
east coast, it's probably far cheaper to move it by ship from Indonesia
to the east coast.
______________________________
C. Marin Faure
GB36-403 "La Perouse"
Bellingham, Washington
_______________________________________________
http://lists.samurai.com/mailman/listinfo/trawlers-and-trawlering
To unsubscribe send email to
trawlers-and-tr...@lists.samurai.com with the word
UNSUBSCRIBE and nothing else in the subject or body of the message.
Trawlers & Trawlering and T&T are trademarks of Water World
Productions. Unauthorized use is prohibited.
Arild Jensen
> From: Faure, Marin
> >What's wrong with OUR coal?
>
> I don't think there's anything wrong with our coal. It's all about
> The fact that the coal from Indonesia has to come all this way on a ship
> doesn't add as much to the cost as one might think. Today's ships have
> very small crews and are usually registered in a country that requires
> minimal, if any, conformance to safety or operating regulations.
> Compared to the cost of moving coal by train from West Virginia to the
> east coast, it's probably far cheaper to move it by ship from Indonesia
> to the east coast.
REPLY
Lets not forget that non American lives are cheap! (not!)
Who cares if a few hundred coal miners in a distant place die each year.
Same thing with manufactured goods for our boats.
Many Asian factories have absolutely no work place safety. Who cares if the
workers get mangled or poisoned by toxic chemicals during the manufacturing
process; as long as we get our consumer goods real cheap!
This has a great deal to do with boating because every week we hear a
request for where to buy a boat product "real cheap" or euphemistically
"at a good price". Boat products are usually luxury goods and as such carry
the greatest markup.
Regrettably low volume in the marine market has convinced many manufacturers
to shift their manufacturing of marine products offshore.
Higher volume sales of some necessities means domestic automated production
lines can still remain competitive.
Not so with low volume marine products.
regards
Arild
Faure, Marin
I wouldn't confine this statement to non-American lives. I believe the
same situation exists in Europe, or at least western Europe, where
safety and environmental concerns are in many cases greater than those
in the US and Canada.
The reason it costs less to build a trawler in China or Sri Lanka or
wherever is precisely as Arild describes---- when worker safety and
well-being is low on the priority list, production costs go way down.
On average, materials cost pretty much the same world over. One country
may have to import this, another country may have to import that, but
given the many different materials and components it takes to make a
trawler, I suspect that on average the total cost of materials for a
recreational boat built in Taiwan will not be that much different than
the total cost of the same materials in the PRC, Singapore, or
Anacortes, Washington. The big difference is the cost of labor.
An interesting (to some) parallel to boat manufacturing can be found in
the model railroad industry. The best model locomotives have
traditionally been considered to be the ones built out of brass.
Virtually handmade, it quickly became apparent that making them in the
US would result in prices that model railroad enthusiasts would not pay.
So by the late 1960s virtually all brass models were made in Japan where
labor was much, much cheaper. But then the Japanese economy grew,
people wanted to buy more "stuff," wages went up, and by the 1980s
Japanese labor costs were threatening to price brass models higher than
the market would bear. So the entire industry moved to South Korea
where labor costs were far less than in Japan. This worked great for
the next ten years or so, but then the same thing happened. Labor
prices were forced up in South Korea as that country's economy grew. So
the industry is now moving to China where labor costs for this kind of
work are far lower than South Korea's. It's the only way to keep
production costs in line with what the market is willing to pay and
still let the importer make a profit.
Grand Banks had the same problem with the once-very-popular GB36. By
the late 1990s the cost of producing this boat to GB's standards reached
the point where the selling price exceeded what most buyers were willing
to pay for a 36' boat. GB tried to solve this by making a "stripped"
version of the GB36 which didn't compromise their high build standards
but lowered the manufacturing cost by eliminating many of the more
labor-intensive details on the boat. This didn't really work either and
in the end they opted to simply drop the model from their lineup (they
had already done this with the also-popular GB32).
______________________________
C. Marin Faure
GB36-403 "La Perouse"
Bellingham, Washington