Letter to the Editor
Anyone listening?
Published Wednesday, April 9, 2008
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Stumble It!April 5, 2008
To the editor:
Over the past six months I have read about several different major energy projects proposed for the Fairbanks area. TransCanada pipeline, Port Authority pipeline, bullet pipeline, Fairbanks Natural Gas is building a liquefaction plant in Prudhoe Bay and trucking it to Fairbanks, the Enstar pipeline to Anchorage and the coal-to-gas project.
The Fairbanks area can not support all these projects. There will be hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars spent on feasibility studies that will be wasted. It will benefit all the parties involved including the city and the borough to get together, pick one project and do it now. The longer we posture and play politics, the more expensive the project will cost and the harder it will be to complete.
What is the possibility of the Port Authority helping Enstar with their funding with the idea of a spur into Valdez? Fairbanks Natural Gas could be partners and put money from not building the liquefaction plant into the kitty.
Can we all work together? A novel idea. At least start talking and listening.
Community Discussion
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Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't Enstar primarily an Anchorage company? Hasn't Enstar been having problems finding reserves in that area that are sufficient to keep Anchorage supplied? Isn't that why the fertilizer plant north of Kenai-Soldatna shut down?
I'll bet you dollars to dimes Enstar would bypass Fairbanks and pipe all the North Slope natural gas straight to Anchorage if they could get away with it.
Some of the proposals you mention are aimed at getting natural gas to Fairbanks. Other proposals are aimed primarily at getting the North Slope natural gas to market, without a lot of regard for whether that market is Fairbanks, Anchorage, Canada, the Lower 48, Korea, or elsewhere.
I doubt Enstar would pass up Fairbanks if it meant more demand for the same amount of gas, thus driving the price they could charge upward.
YES - Working together for an in State pipeline sounds like a great option. And YES - the gas demand of Fairbanks alone won't drive a project. And YES a short line to Valdez sounds cheaper than a long line to the Canadian Tar Sands.
Folks deserve more transparency - where's the side by side Net Positive Value and Rate of Return comparison of the in-state LNG option vs. the TransCanada option.
http://alaska-gas-pipeline.blogspot.com/...
A most important part of this gas project seems to have been missed - at least I have not heard it discussed. Right now, the oil Flint Hills uses to make our local gas and heating oil is 'Royalty Oil' the produces use to pay the State of Alaska and it's price is tied into the selling price of the oil delivered on the West Coast. This means if China is willing to pay $400 barrel for it, we'll be paying $8 gallon for gas and home heating oil.
We need to make sure the same mistake does not happen again. When the natural gas becomes available in the Interior - we need to make damn sure we are not paying the same cost people at the end of the pipe are. Sure, we'll have some transportation cost from the North Slope to Fairbanks - but - no reason gas from an Interior spur line should cost the same as gas 1600 miles furthur down the pipe.
So many things in Alaska do this. Another good example - Halibut and King Crab in Kodiak are processed in Kodiak, shipped to Seattle, then flown up here from Seattle for distribution in our stores. It's less expensive to buy these in Seattle since the return trip from Seattle to Alaska isn't tagged on.
Let's not let the lawyers do this to us again.
Piping our natural gas through Canada is yet another example of our state government looking after itself instead of meeting the will of the people. Shipping gas to the lower 48 generates revenue the state can use to expand its own already inflated budget requirements; whereas an in-state pipeline produces nothing but an almost limitless fuel supply for the people.
I believe we should demand first use of the resources our state holds in trust for its citizens, then we can sell our surplus AFTER we use our share.
Natural gas in redily available form would lower cost and create jobs as Alaska builds the infrastructure to utilize these reserves. The present administration needs to focus on this; the legislators need to learn to do with less like the rest of us, who are being forced to do so by current fuel prices.
FYI - geologists estimate the Minto field outside of Nenana alone contains 3 - 10 TRILLION cubic feet of natural gas; enough to completely provide Alaskas current and projected energy usage for over 3000 years...and more fields being discovered all the time.
Yes Yes And Yes with a large investment from the permanent fund to make it a privately held solely owned subsidiaries of The People of the State of Alaska thus developing the future for all of us and thusly making all of us share holders not just recipients.
Sounds interesting. We should be first in line. What if we converted are gas automobiles also. More get abouts, front wheel drives. Set aside the heavy haulers as necessary (Trucks) who are dependant on the heavier fuels.
This sounds good, but we could be creating a new monster! Profiteering by supply and demand. Monopolies, and lack of competition.
It still sounds interesting.
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