All that GAS and no where

Tim McElwain

to go:



§                                 <a href="http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/uWxYdojnmkzLpssYamaKyAalIygg?format=standard">[u][size=12]Arctic gas pipeline won't flow until 2018[/size][/u]</a>

A proposed pipeline connecting Canadian natural gas reserves with U.S. markets won't be given the green light until late 2013, and it won't be operational until at least 2018, thanks to red tape and restaffing problems. The delays could also reduce impetus for the construction of a similar, albeit larger and riskier, gas pipeline linking Alaska's North Slope to U.S. consumers. "To be honest, I don't believe anybody is really expecting either of them to go forward and actually deliver gas within the next 10 years," said one analyst. <a href="http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/uWxYdojnmkzLpssYamaKyAalIygg?format=standard">[u][color=#003399]Calgary Herald (Alberta)[/color][/u]</a> (3/16) <a href="http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/uWxYdojnmkzLpuqkamaKyAalUqTN"></a><a href="http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/uWxYdojnmkzLpusYamaKyAalbZzQ"></a><a href="http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/uWxYdojnmkzLpuvMamaKyAallcOB"></a><a href="http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/uWxYdojnmkzLpuyAamaKyAalvATA"></a>

Constantin

Does it make sense?

Due to hydrofracturing, there seems to be an ample supply of methane all over the country, including regions that traditionally have been importers of the stuff. Seems to me that keeping the methane below the ground for the time being is a better course of action, rather than spending $$$ to build a long pipeline. So economics is as good a reason for killing this project as red tape. Would a pipeline make sense for the folk living in Alaska? Sure, doubtlessly it would reduce reliance on #2 oil, kerosene as a heating oil, potentially reducing heating bills. However, I'd want the beneficiaries to pay for the infrastructure, ALaska already gets the most $ / citizen from the federal bureaucracy.

Unknown

Methane is interesting,,,,

IF we all could have an "eat beans" holiday for 2 days,,, then extract(and save) what we (as humans) expel on day 2 farts, would we need NG at all?



Come to think of it,,,, it`s NATURAL gas anyway,,, LOL ;-)  

bill_105

Probably will never happen

The state of Alaska has been schmoozing the oil companies for about 10 years in trying to get them to build. The owners of the gas complain of tax instability regarding the oil line. After that comes an enormous task and real spendy!

My bet is a line to Valdez and sell LNG. The service road and the oil pipeline being already there makes things much easier. And all the permits from the Feds are in place. And once it's in Valdez your customer base is a bit bigger, It's the whole world!

Just bring your tanker over to Valdez and we'll fill er up.

Jean-David Beyer

Probably will never happen

I do not know if shipping LNG around will be all that popular either. While people do not have much NIMBY over natural gas, there is a lot of fear about LNG as being much more dangerous (I do not know the facts, but I do know the impressions around here). We had an LNG accident here in Staten Island in an empty LNG tank about 25 years ago, and people still remember it (several dozen people killed). You may not agree with anything in the following, or you may not think it is relevant, but people wishing to build LNG pipelines or shipping facilities may have to contend with the perceptions represented here.



http://timrileylaw.com/LNG_PIPELINES.htm

Ex Maine Doug

LNG facilities etc

Of course we have learned a lot about LNG in 25 years.  But we have not done well with some other "dangerous" things including oil/gasoline refining/transportation which has a perfect record.

Around 6000 teenagers die each year in traffic accidents.

Around 250,000 deaths from medical care each year.

Around 30,000 from suicide each year.

Around 10,000 firearms homicides each year.

Several 100,000 from smoking.

3000 from airplanes flying into the WTC buildings.

Could not find any from LNG storage and transportation.



Irrational fear and paranoid beliefs should not get in the way for LNG energy management and distribution.

Jean-David Beyer

Irrational fear

"Irrational fear and paranoid beliefs should not get in the way for LNG energy management and distribution."



I did not suggest they should, I just suggested that they would.

Ex Maine Doug

Yes, I saw that JD

and I did not intend my response to suggest otherwise. I should have made that more clear. Sorry.



  You point out the big weakness in how we approach solving energy issues. "I don't fly because it is too dangerous" so I will drive where the odds are in favor of a serious accident within 25 miles of the home.  We will warp our decisions, future energy policies and practices based on Chicken Little. One of the reasons I laugh at the speeches about reducing "foreign" oil dependence.

bill_105

Valdez, New York??

Just a few days ago are former U.S. Senator spoke to a group of energy industry folks here in Alaska. He now says Valdez is the best destination. Valdez is in Alaska.

There is a big company here that has the right of way permits for the route. It's Yukon Pacific Co. They dropped a ton of cash for them. Not one iota of danger concerns arose here ever.

Funny you New Yorkers!

Tim McElwain

LNG is not only an issue

in New york but a big time problem here in the RI and Mass area especially super tankers coming into the bay to deliver. We have some bridges that only have 7 foot clearance from the top of tankers at low tide. LNG is a political football here in New England if you are for it you will not get elected.

Constantin

Funny isn't it...

Every time the Distrigas LNG terminal in Everret has a ship come in, they clear the harbor, send along USCG ships for protection, etc. All that for a ship with 2 hulls, 8 feet of cork insulation (at minimum), a gas lighter than air that is fairly hard to explode when the mixture is too rich, etc.



Compare that to line of oil tankers frequenting the nearby Chelsea River (by Route 1A/Airport) that arrive without escort and which, until recently, were not required to have double-hulls either. Considering the very real dangers of a volatile, liquid compound like gasoline floating down the chelsea river, I think the hullaboloo regarding LNG tankers in the main harbor is a bit misplaced. Seems to me that there are bigger symbolic targets in the area that do not move and if economic damage is your thing, there are better targets for that also.



Like any energy source, the stuff has to be respected and handled appropriately to prevent damage and loss of life. Additionally, consider the mostly sight unseen damages caused by other sources, such as mercury poisoning, acid rain, etc. in coal power plants that do not have dramatic explosive impacts but which may very well have killed more people than all LNG accidents combined. Every energy source has costs associated with it, either now or in the future.

bill_105

Agreed

Don't get me wrong I'm, I'm on the Northeast's side of the Aisle

The problem here is not the top of the boat getting whacked, It's the bottom! A while back a tug hit Bligh reef and dumped like 6500  Gallons of diesel. Interesting that national news said nothing. Exxon Valdez found it earlier!

Jean-David Beyer

a gas lighter than air

The gas may be lighter than air, once it is warmed up to the temperature of the air around it, but when it has just evaporated from liquid form, it is very much colder than the air and tends to sink to the ground level, displacing the air somewhat. Furthermore, the molecular weight of the gas molecules will not make it rise especially unless it is segregated from the air. Otherwise, gasses mix freely and they will not separate out based on molecular weight. This is true of all miscible fluids (gasses and liquids). The fact that oil or mercury does not mix with water and stay mixed is because they are not miscible, for example.



I, myself, am not concerned with getting the mixture of recently evaporated (thus very cold) LNG and air just right for an explosion. I would worry about getting the mixture good enough to sustain a fire, and that is easier and undesirable too. And it does not seem to take much. The empty LNG tank in Staten Island that exploded seems to have gone off just because some of the LNG had leaked under the tank and the vapors re-entered the tank and that explosion killed 40 people according to the news report I read.

Constantin

Good Point

Empty tanks are in fact more dangerous than full ones, doesn't matter if it's LNG, gasoline, etc. Any fuel that has compounds in it that are volatile will be much closer to a stoichometric mix when the tank is empty than if the tank is full.



Allegedly, one of the distrigas guys here had demos of pouring liquid methane into a bucket (where it sat, as you describe, heavier than air) and then dropping lit matches in there. No fire, the matches would go out. Never saw it myself. Maybe there is a YouTube video?



IIRC, LNG tankers use nitrogen to increase the safety of the tanks as they are emptied. Another interesting tidbit is that they often run on the boiled-off methane that the tanks develop during transit.



A localized fire and/or conflagration is indeed an unhappy event but it's detonations and/or the ability of water to carry burning oil vast distances that are likely a bigger concern in densely-populated areas like the Chelsea river.



No question, no-one likes to have vast quantities of fuel being stored nearby, there are risks associated with that. But any fuel has risks. If the storage/handling of fuel is such an issue, I suggest people adjust their fuel use to the point where enormous depots are no longer necessary. Not going to happen without a fight, IMO.

Jean-David Beyer

Large quantities of stuff and safety.

Where I used to work, there were people in a nearby lab who made experimental semiconductor devices. So they would take a silicon wafer, and dope it with arsenic or phosphorous. Now the way you do that is you have an electric furnace that heats up white hot. The furnace is a wide tube with a quartz tube down the middle where the semiconductor is placed. At one end you blow in some arsine or phosphine gas, depending on what you want, and hydrogen (so the as to exclude air) and at the other end is a constant gas flame to burn off what comes out there. These gasses are 200x more toxic than hydrogen cyanide that has been used in gas chambers to kill people.



You do not want to store a lot of that stuff in one place, so these gasses come in compressed gas cylinders, but only in the size of about a 2# fire extinguisher, not the big ones welders use. The reason they do not supply them in larger cylinders is because if one were to leak or something, the consequences would be too terrible to contemplate. They also have electronic gas detectors to detect problems for obvious reasons.

bill_105

Today's News

Believe you me, There was no picketing in Juneau.

http://www.adn.com/2010/03/18/1189964/push-for-in-state-gas-line-gets.html