What's So Bad About LNG?

[pra_ggresion]

Good News

The Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals on Tuesday overturned Clatsop County's zoning approval of the Bradwood Landing liquefied natural gas terminal, proposed for a site 20 miles east of Astoria on the Columbia River.
The board's remand of the county's decision was on two fairly narrow questions. It was unclear Tuesday how big of a roadblock either could be for the controversial project.
It is not uncommon for LUBA to kick back land-use decisions to county authorities for more work, particularly on a decision as complicated as a natural-gas import terminal on such a heavily used river. At the very least, however, the decision makes it more difficult for the state to move forward with various permitting processes under way for the facility, said Richard Whitman, director of the Department of Land Conservation and Development.
"This certainly makes things murkier than they were before the decision," Whitman said.
The board asked the county to analyze and further clarify two findings in the land-use compatibility statement that it approved last March for Bradwood.
First, the board ruled that the county had adopted an overly narrow definition of the word "protect" when the county determined the project met the requirement to protect traditional fishing areas and endangered species habitat from incompatible development.
Second, the board asked the county to further justify the basis on which it determined the terminal would be a small- to medium-size industrial facility, versus a large one, and thus consistent with the county's land-use plan. The issue of scale has been controversial from the start and could be difficult to resolve, Whitman said.
Columbia Riverkeeper, a conservation group that was the lead petitioner in the appeal, described the decision as a big victory that would bring state agencies to a halt in processing a number of necessary permits for Bradwood.
Yet the board rejected the majority of the petitioners' complaints, including a raft of substantive and procedural errors alleged by the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission.
Bradwood's developer, Houston-based NorthernStar Natural Gas Inc., said it was comfortable with the findings and confident that the county will be able to address them in a timely manner.
On Monday, the state of Oregon asked the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn federal energy regulators' approval of the Bradwood project. State leaders believe the decision was unlawful because it was made before state permits were granted or a sufficiently rigorous analysis of the project's environmental impacts were completed.
www.oregonwaters.org

[Dr Sloth]

Yes, thanks for posting this. I was gonna do it, as I have not posted on this thread in a while, but I am stuck at airports and on planes going the wrong direction today and it has not allowed me much time.

To add to the above news, it is being reported that Oregon's Gov has decided to move forward and sue FERC over the FERC approved permit.

[Dr Sloth]

http://dailyastorian.com/main.asp?SectionID=23&SubSectionID=392&ArticleID=58237&TM=49381.57


WSJ admits Greenspan was off base on LNG

New market analysis says demand for natural gas was just plain wrong

The Wall Street Journal is one of those venerable American institutions whose editorial page inflames liberals but whose reporting crew is generally considered among the most credible in U.S. financial journalism.

So when such an institution says "we were wrong on liquefied natural gas demand" it's time to sit up and read on.

That's exactly what happened this week when a Texas-based energy writer looked back on former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan's take on LNG back in 2003, matched it with today's reality and found a pretty serious discrepancy.

Natural gas heats about half of U.S. homes and generates 20 percent of the nation's electricity, the newspaper reported. Recent price spikes, Greenspan told Congress in 2003, were the result of increased demand chasing limited U.S. supplies. To stabilize the market, Greenspan said the U.S. needed to become a major importer of LNG. Moreover, he added, "Access to world natural-gas supplies will require a major expansion of LNG terminal import capacity."

In part, this forceful comment from the federal government's leading financial expert helped spur pro-LNG forces. Locally here, one bulldozed its way through the Clatsop County Board of Commissioners and convinced the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that its terminal was needed.

The message from Greenspan was clear: New facilities would have to be built in the U.S. to handle the expected surge in imports.

But now the WSJ says, "Mr. Greenspan and the industry experts who shared this view - and there were many - couldn't have been more wrong."

The Journal reported that within a year of Greenspan's testimony, FERC revealed there were plans for 40 new or expanded LNG terminals under consideration in North America. By 2005, that list had grown to 55.

"Today only six have been built, and most of those sit idle. Weeks pass between visits from a tanker full of frosty LNG," The Journal wrote. "Even before the economic slowdown, it was clear the nation had ample natural-gas supplies. Large-scale imports simply weren't needed. And new reports suggest the U.S. won't need to turn into a massive importer of natural gas anytime soon.

"How did the conventional wisdom get it so wrong?"

A considerable part of the argument for allowing LNG terminals to desecrate the Columbia River was demand and the lack of domestic sources to meet it.

But as new technology has allowed companies to tap more domestic supplies, industry analysts are now saying the U.S. is more self-sufficient than they thought.

The trend is reflected in the federal government's outlook on LNG, The Journal reported.

In December, the Energy Information Administration slashed its forecast of LNG imports expected by 2025 to a sixth of the projections made three years ago.

The Journal article's conclusion is worth reading in full:

"...North America is becoming a dumping ground for the world's excess natural gas. In 2009, new LNG supplies from Indonesia, Qatar, Russia and Yemen are expected to enter global markets, at a time when a depressed global economy has shrunk demand for fuel. ...

"LNG sellers will first fill up markets in Asia and Europe, which pay top prices. What's left over will likely head to underused terminals in North America. It's "the market of last resort," says Ira Joseph, an LNG analyst with PIRA Energy in New York.

"The bad news is that the LNG will arrive at a time when big users, such as the petrochemical and fertilizer industry, are cutting demand, and as even more domestic supply comes from the giant new unconventional wells.

"The result: Storage will fill up, and prices could crater."

The miscalculation has cost some companies dearly, but not before they built LNG facilities worth hundreds of millions of dollars with the approval of FERC.

The state of Oregon has argued the Bradwood Landing facility should not be approved until a needs analysis proves the imported fuel is needed.

Oregon Attorney General John Kroger made the case last week for using domestic natural gas instead of imported LNG.

Now the numbers are showing domestic sources could provide for Oregon's natural gas needs - at least until renewable energy sources are more fully developed.

Thus there is still time to do an about-face - in our case before more millions are spent - and bring this sorry chapter to a close.

[Dr Sloth]

http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2010/02/high_stakes_lng_and_the_legisl.html

High stakes: LNG and the Legislature

By Guest Columnist
February 03, 2010, 7:05AM

By Nick Engelfried

Suppose you had one month to address Oregon's biggest challenges, from raising education standards to maintaining our competitiveness in the increasingly crowded green economy. This month the Oregon Legislature has just such a chance before it, as lawmakers meet in a special session.

Given the stakes, you'd hope legislators would use the limited time of the special session to make concrete deliverables in the realms of education, economic vitality and environmental safeguards. You might not want your elected officials devoting the session to a resurrected version of a bill that failed to pass in 2009, and which redefines the language in relatively obscure land-use codes.

But then, you probably haven't given thousands of dollars' worth of campaign contributions to your legislators. You're not Northwest Natural Gas.

Last year, House Bill 3058 failed in the Oregon Senate, but managed to make a name for several legislators as allies of the controversial liquefied natural gas industry. Dubbed the LNG fast-track bill by environmentalists and landowners, it would have speeded up the process by which LNG companies and other corporations apply for permits to begin environmentally destructive work on private land.

HB 3058 went down in flames, but not before The Oregonian published an investigation of the gas industry's power in politics, reporting that Northwest Natural donated $210,000 to political candidates since the beginning of 2008. With the Legislature poised to take up a new version of the LNG fast-track Bill this month, it's time to ask just how long the gas industry will be allowed to guide Oregon politics.

-Like last year's fast-track bill, this month's Senate Bill 1020 has been presented as unrelated to LNG. Yet the truth is SB 1020 is a windfall to the LNG industry and would directly benefit Northwest Natural. Along with out-of-state energy giant TransCanada, Northwest Natural is backing the controversial Palomar LNG pipeline through Oregon. With environmental and land- rights activists opposed to the project, the future of Palomar is far from certain. SB 1020 could give it a shot of adrenaline. With big money sitting on the outcome, the gas industry has set its sights on passing an LNG fast-track bill.

As a member of the steering committee for the Northwest Natural Accountability Project, I'm concerned about the company's undue influence in politics. Through the project's "Hey! NW Natural" campaign, environmentalists, landowners, students and stakeholders are pushing Northwest Natural to protect the interests of its customers, who are adversely affected when a corporate lobby decides which bills the Legislature takes seriously. In the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that corporations can give unlimited funds directly to political candidates, this cause has become all the more important.

So as lawmakers assemble for the special session, take a moment to ask yourself who your elected officials are representing. They should be serving you and the countless other Oregonians who voted them into office. Anyone got $210,000?

Nick Engelfried lives in Hillsboro.

[Spider]

it's not happening!

http://www.kgw.com/news/business/Natura ... 22134.html

[Dr Sloth]

Thank you for that update as I had not heard the news yet.

One down, one to go for the North Coast of Oregon.

Oregon LNG's proposed LNG facility off the Skipanon in Warrenton is still alive.

[Spider]

well, let's stop that one too.