RECENTLY ON TOL:
The TOL Blog
TAGS:
brockowitch's comments:
on The Viability of LNG
OPB...I hope you have, and will continue to review the comments on this site in regard to the LNG issue. This entire enterprize was not about jobs, it was not about providing the pacific northwest with natural gas, it was not meant to solve our fossil fuel requirements. It was meant to make money, lots of money for market gamblers. This plan was mapped out early in the new century. It included plans to import a domestic product through a foreign country( Canada) in order to side slip the Jones Act. A provision that benifits American marine employees. It was meant to engulf the entire western coast and parts of the southern mid-west with foreign imports of fossil fues. It was meant to insure another 30 to 50 years of foreign control over the United States energy grid. And it almost succedded by keeping our attention focused on close to home issues. Organizations like OPB are obligated to present the big picture here and I don't think this story is over yet so I encourage OPB to continue to press on with the investigation of LNG as a viable commodity in this country over our domestic product which will buffer the time it will take to develope new renewable branches of industry that will have a much better chance if the watchdogs don't bury them like a bone and hope that they can dig them up later.
posted 2 years ago
view in context
on The Viability of LNG
once again there is reality and there is utopia. In all reality the entire country is webbed with pipeline infrastructure and will continue to be until such future time when renewable energy is the rule and not the exception. The reality is that until much further along when our kitchen utilities, our cars, and everyting else you can imagine have been invented or retrofitted to run on renewable energy sources, when our airplanes don't use jet fuel, when we don't need natural gas to run our electric generator plants, when there is the most money to be made in renewable markets we will have natural gas. Better it be our own domestic product. Geology was my college major and yes this area of the country is fragile in regard to quakes , floods and ocean reared storms which hydrate our soils so much that they collapse into land slides. We do however use and have used natural gas for decades. Natural disasters are something that no one can control. The best precautions that can be taken generally are taken. One can't throw out the baby with the bathwater. One can plan ahead, set in place rules and regulators to those rules and monitor , monitor, monitor. Cold turkey is something one might do to stop smoking, but for a nation to go cold turkey in regard to a built in infrastructure propelled by the market that depends on natural gas is a little over the edge.
posted 2 years ago
view in context
on The Viability of LNG
I know that your answer sounds wonderful but it is not at all practical. We must deal with things that are practical. That means working with our environment and accepting the gifts that it offeres while always trying to lessen the impact often needed to aqire those gifts. There is no way the utopian idea that you express will ever happen as you wish it to. After all this time , all of our history and the fact that we are a capitolistic society money will always engender power. That is why it took five years and hours, days, months, time and personal expenditures of money to win this particular battle. There has to be a middle ground and to date with Federal Agencies like FERC that just isn't the case. We can make individual choices and many of us have but to try to force green , green , green down the throat of the masses does not work. Living by example is a better way and taking on the big guys when ever we can.
posted 2 years ago
view in context
on The Viability of LNG
Again not true. If a liquefaction facility were to be built that would be the case. however taking on tankfulls of LNG and then utilizing a simple retrofit that costs as little as $10,000 and changes the intake lines to push out lines is affective as has been proven by LNG facilities in the south. Another half to non -truth. This facility would become a satilite holding facility for the overabundance of LNG that needs a market and would then be exported to higher profit markets overseas.
posted 2 years ago
view in context
on The Viability of LNG
Another great example of your spin. Your arguments are infantile and uninmormed or meant to cloud the issue. Once again check out El Pasos' Ruby natural gas pipeline and Williams BlueBridge pipeline. Domestic natural gas is by far the best choice for us as we work toward long term renewables. That will take time and cause and effect before the right inventions finally win their place in the market.
posted 2 years ago
view in context
on The Viability of LNG
Then packrat you should know that NorthernStar does not give a damn about US maritime industry. Their plan was to ship LNG from a liquefaction terminal in Valdez, Alaska to Kitimat, Canada, and transfer the methane dirivative there back into an LNG tanker and import it From Canada to the planned terminals on the west coast.. Can you say " to hell with the Jones Act? A little research will prove my statements. Just check out The All Alaska Pipeline being pushed by gubernatorial candidate Bill Walker He has been working with Sempra Energy for almost ten years now with a plan to do just that. Supply the West Coast with imported LNG, all be it domestic, but no thanks to our maritime industry
posted 2 years ago
view in context
on The Viability of LNG
And once again we have the spin factor and the shame on you element here. There will be ample supplies of natural gas for Oregon and Washington for years to come and the infrastructure that you say does not exist does and will. One pipline from Canada has been supplying natural gas to the US for years now and Williams intended blue bridge pipeline will be sufficient to increase the natural gas supply in the Pacific Northwest from the Wyoming shale deposits. Your statement just smells of Union power that didn't get in on this one nor the fact that most of those "jobs" you refer to would be filled by specialized workers who have experience building these kinds of terminals. You are all about global markets and corporate profit, not concern for short term construction jobs.
posted 2 years ago
view in context
on The Viability of LNG
Any new LNG terminal built in Oregon, or near the Pacific Ocean would now serve as a satilite for storage for re-export. Oregon is not about that kind of global market. Domestic natural gas will serve its purpose in the western united states and with much less pipeline impact because the infrastructure and the hub network is already in place within Oregon state to send domestic natural gas north and south. The Ruby natural gas pipeline going through the FERC proccess and the Williams natural gas pipeine (BlueBridge), also flying through FERC , are working closely with environmental agencies and a majority of the planned construction will lie within already established rights of way. The speculators who planned these LNG projects can no longer say that our natural gas supply is maturing, or that it will cost more to ship that gas by pipeline than by LNG tanker. These are moot statements. Because of our capitolistic system, energy conglomerates sought to corner the Western United States LNG market. That would certainly benifit their position in the global market. But things have changed. And just as importantly LNG facilities need to be placed in areas where they can function for profit with the least long term damage to the environment and often the economy which is tied to that environment. A viable shipping channel and agrarian commerce along with our still prestine forests and geologic potential for renewable energy sources is a far better blue print in the long term when stewarding this region than the "buy it now pay later" gold rush hysteria that has failed to influence the common sense of the citizens of this beautiful region and who do understand the workings of democracy within the courts. I believe our founding fathers would be proud of this example of that. The future of LNG in the Pacific Northwest is questionable because the mantra of "let the market decide" is no longer supportable.
posted 2 years ago
view in context
