Transportation energy, emissions, and endangered species: An environmental paradox

This article identifies potential effects on energy consumption and environmental emissions from wheat and barley transportation, if breaching the Snake River dams to restore the environment for endangered species of salmon occurs. Energy intensity and emissions coefficients were applied to ton-miles generated by a least cost Generalized Algebraic Modeling System (GAMS) model to identify impacts. Breaching causes a 0.61% increase in energy consumption for wheat transportation and a significant increase (37.16%) for barley. Emissions output for wheat and barley transportation increased 1.29% and 20.86%, and 2.77% in total. No conflict among environmental goals exists for energy consumption. However, environmental emissions output does conflict with salmon environment restoration goals.