noLNG

Shipping impacts left out of LNG report

Again, from Cassandra Profita at the Daily Astorian:

"Federal officials are not satisfied with the biological impact report submitted by Northern Star Natural Gas Co. for its proposed Bradwood Landing liquefied natural gas terminal, according to a document recently filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

The Bradwood Landing report left out the impact of LNG ships on the Columbia River and in the Pacific Ocean and key details are missing from its mitigation plans, according to the filing, the result of a phone conversation among multiple agencies' officials and the company's contracted engineer. Because of the company's outstanding data issues, FERC project manager Paul Friedman said his agency, which will ultimately approve or deny the terminal siting request, has not set a project review schedule for other officials to follow."

Northern Star contends that

"...large vessel traffic on the Columbia River had already been assessed by other projects such as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Channel Improvement Project, which considered the impacts of deepening the shipping channel for vessels traveling upriver. Northern Star did not feel the need to do another review based on the impacts of LNG vessels.

Nice try guys, but the Coast Guard begs to differ.

"Jack Hug, a Coast Guard attorney, told the company LNG ships are different types of vessels than those considered in the channel deepening project, and the review for the Corps project did not consider terrorist acts. Dean Amundson of the Coast Guard said the company's project raises its own potential issues of vessel traffic and ship strikes off the coast.

Cathy Tortorici, chief of the Oregon Coast and Lower Columbia branch of National Marine Fisheries Service, said her agency looked at the impact of dredging for the Corps project, but the dredging project was designed for existing ships on the river, and a change in the type of vessels on the river was never considered.

Officials concluded the company should address the increase in ship traffic caused by the project, which is expected to bring in three or four LNG ships a week, as well as the fact that LNG ships are different types of vessels, and generally larger, than other ships using the river."

According to the article, other LNG projects discuss the impacts of ship traffic within a 200-nautical-mile zone of the coast, but Northern Star did not. There is also a list of other aspects of the project that Northern Star avoided addressing in their plan.

Gee, unanswered questions, ducking responsibility for the impact of their project, ignoring the concerns of both the federal licensing agency and the Coast Guard, which is tasked with keeping our river secure. I feel so much better about the proposed plant now. Don't you?

Read the entire article here.

The Lower Columbia Estuary Partnership has a plan for the endangered fish recovery

Another interesting read from The Daily Astorian
Estuary plan includes $500 million for salmon, steelhead recovery Lower Columbia Partnership analysis is open for review
By CASSANDRA PROFITA

Degraded Columbia River estuary habitat is contributing to the decline of endangered species of salmon and steelhead trout, but it is hard to tell how much because so little is known about the complex ecosystem.

Nevertheless the Lower Columbia Estuary Partnership (LCREP) has designed a plan for the recovery of the endangered fish.

The proposal that LCREP created is available at NOAA (the sponsoring agency) for public review and comment. You can download the 200 page report here. (It is a 7 MB PDF file so you might want to right-click on that link and save it to read with your next cup of coffee rather than opening it in your browser.) The piece goes on.

"There is general agreement that the estuary ecosystem is degraded and no longer provides the same level of support to native species assemblages that it did historically," the module's executive summary says. "Unfortunately, this field of research is perhaps the least understood, and its impact on salmon and steelhead is not well documented or studied."

The report notes the size of the estuary is about 20 percent smaller than it was when Lewis and Clark camped along the shore. "This reduction in estuary size is due mostly to dike and filling practices used to convert the flood plain to agricultural, industrial, commercial and residential uses," it says.

There has been a 44 percent decrease in spring freshets or floods in the last 200 years, and the flows in the estuary "do not resemble" their historic patterns, according to the report. Hydropower, water withdrawal for irrigation and water supplies and climate fluctuations have all taken their toll on the health of the system, which, in turn, has affected salmon and trout.

Water quality has been degraded by human practices within the estuary and upstream, the document says. Increased water temperatures, by an average of 4 degrees since 1938, and the presence of toxic contaminants are key threats to salmon and steelhead. A study in the estuary linked contaminants to fatal diseases in up to 18 percent of salmon tested.

The report has a number of suggestions for projects to address the little understood problem, including:

"monitoring the estuary for contaminants and restoring contaminated sites...changing main- and side-channel dredging to reduce negative impacts and removing tide gates and jetties and navigational structures that have 'low navigational value but high impact on estuary circulation or juvenile predation effects.' "

Gee, weren't we just talking about dredging?

LCREP Executive Director Debrah Marriott says that she is looking forward to hearing from people. Through the wonders of technology, we can help with that: Send LCREP' email at lcrep@lcrep.org or get the rest of their contact information here.

This report is one of a series of recovery planning “modules” that NOAA's Northwest Region is developing. It looks like those reports will be available here when they are released.

Interesting sidenote: A reader of ours wrote to point out that the increased water useage by industry, water intake for ballast and so on has a serious impact on this problem. Looking at just two proposed facilities -- Bradwood and NorthWest Energy  at Kalama -- the combined water usage will be 6.6 Billion Gallons a Year. And that's just two of the many project proposals that seem to be popping up all over the beautiful Lower Columbia River, where speculators seem bound and determined to turn our river into another ugly, polluted, heavy industrial zone.

Concerns about the estuary at the proposed Bradwood LNG site

This is an excerpt from a letter to The Daily Astorian, published today (11.24.06)

"...the zoning does not permit dredging of 55 acres of estuary used as prime salmon habitat. This has been a bone of contention for quite some time between Northern Star and Clatsop County. Kathleen Sellman, the Clatsop County Community Development director, stated in a letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on March 29, "Of particular concern is the proposed dredging activity within the AC-2 zone. Note: Dredging is not a permitted, conditional or review use in this zone. In other words, the site is not zoned appropriately for the proposed use."

Cheryl Johnson and Ted Messing
Estuary coordinators -- Columbia Riverkeeper

read the complete letter

Clatsop County planning for Bradwood

 Warrenton City Manager Ed Madere received approval to ask Clatsop County officials to develop a comprehensive approach to developing a public safety corridor to deal with hazards related to the Bradwood LNG facility, rather than tackling the issue piecemeal. Last month, the county signed a privacy agreement with Bradwood Landing to allow eight employees to view privileged safety information on the project, including the U.S. Coast Guard assessment of LNG ships on the river.

Madere recommended that the county hire expert consultants to represent itself and other local agencies, including Warrenton and Astoria, in developing and reviewing plans with Bradwood Landing officials, to address safety and transportation issues. Mayor Pro-tem Mark Kujala and Commissioners Terry Ferguson, Frank Orrell and Dick Hellberg were in favor. Mayor Gil Gramson was absent.

from The Daily Astorian

LNG supply and demand

Here are some interesting articles, both local and international, that paint an interesting picture about LNG supply and demand.

Northwest could see energy surplus this winter (link)

The Pacific Northwest power supply stands at about 2,400 megawatts in excess of average annual demand - enough electricity to light two cities the size of Seattle, according to a recent analysis by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.

In 1999, the region was at a 4,000 average megawatt deficit - meaning that generating capacity was not keeping pace with electricity demand, Fazio said.

By 2001, "it was a mess," he said - with a Northwest drought sharply reducing regional hydroelectric production, Enron Corp. influence on the energy market before its bankruptcy and deregulation efforts foundering in California.

But since 1999, the region has lost about 10 percent of its demand - largely from the decline of the aluminum industry - and increased its generating capacity by about 15 percent, Fazio said.

US LNG Imports Falling Fast, Surprising Analysts (link)

2006 Currently Trending Below 2003, Conference to Examine Why

HOUSTON, TX -- (MARKET WIRE) -- November 13, 2006 -- Just a couple of years ago energy analysts predicted U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports would rise sharply to fill a yawning gap between declining production and greater demand for gas-fired power.

Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA), for one, predicted North America would "require about 11 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) of LNG supply by 2010" -- an increase of tenfold over current levels to roughly 15% of North America's gas consumption.
...
Yet, shortages of natural gas and higher U.S. prices have not netted more cargoes. Since July 2004, the number of cargoes imported into the United States has fallen from a high of 28 to just 12 in March 2006. Some 17 were imported in August. Meanwhile, developers have expanded import capacity to more than 5.0 bcfd -- four times the level necessary.

Adding current construction and planned expansions at existing terminals, capacity is likely to exceed 23 bcfd by the year 2011, creating possibly a glut of terminal space like what occurred in the 1980s when LNG was expected to fill a large portion U.S. demand.

India and Japan hunting for LNG Due to Tightening Supply  (link)

(PressZoom) - India and Japan are amongst the largest consumers of LNG ( Liquefied Natural Gas ), which are hunting the world for spot cargos and endeavoring to negotiate new supply contracts due to stiffening competition in a tightening marketplace. India, whose rapidly emerging economy is fueling energy demand, has begun to buy spot cargos of Liquefied Natural Gas to supplement contracted supplies.

In spite of booming construction plants for freezing natural gas into Liquefied Natural Gas, supply is far behind the demand for it. This is, partially, due to a decline in exports from Indonesian suppliers.

Inadequacies of capacity for converting LNG back to normal gas for consumption, plus other problems due to differing gas qualities among regions are also causing supply problems for both India and Japan. According to Keiji Takemori, who's GM with Energy Resources Development at Osaka Gas- 2nd largest utility in Japan, "LNG market, at present, is a market of a seller".

If I have this right, Washington state doesn't need LNG, the US is having a hard time getting LNG, and there are countries that need the LNG more who are having a hard time getting it (and are on the spot market ahead of us). But this is what stands out:

We already have four time the import capacity that we need and they want to increase that FIVE-fold. Even though we already can't get enough gas.

What's up with that?

LNG pipelines: ruptures and rivers

Officials dissect fatal Wyoming blaze (link)

Communications glitches delayed the response to a fire that killed a bulldozer operator, they concur.

Bulldozer operator Bobby Ray Owens Jr., 52, of Louisiana died Saturday when his machine hit a natural-gas pipeline. The ensuing fire sent flames hundreds of feet into the air, and it took crews about 45 minutes to extinguish it.

Sheriff Danny Glick said responding to the situation was tough because different organizations were trying to get information about what was happening and because there was a lot of emotion on the scene.

Dennis West, chief of Laramie County Fire District 1, said some crews were delayed in getting directions to the scene because cellphones didn't work and radio traffic was jammed.

West said the emergency management communications center in Cheyenne was inundated with calls within minutes of the start of the fire.
...
"(That) was our biggest downfall," West said. "Getting the information and the answers to our questions was the hardest part about it all."

With so many calls coming through the communications center Saturday, determining exactly where the explosion had occurred became a problem.

"The size of the blaze itself made it look further away than we actually were," West said. "Our perception was thrown off."

Spotty cell phone service, a small emergency call center that would be quickly overwhelmed in a catastrophe like this, and a hard time getting information and answers to questions. Sounds sort of familiar, doesn't it?

and another interesting aspect...  (link)

The Wyoming Interstate pipeline was struck and ruptured on Saturday just west of the Cheyenne compressor station. The company declared a force majeure event due to the damage.

You really should take a look at the link on "force majeure" above. Here's a snippet:

"...frees one or both parties from liability or obligation when an extraordinary event or circumstance beyond the control of the parties, such as war, strike, riot, crime, act of God (e.g., flood, earthquake, volcano), prevents one or both parties from fulfilling their obligations under the contract."

...and yet, one might think that a piece of construction equipment hitting a pipeline (or buried power line or other such) is pretty darned controllable. I'm not a lawyer, nor do I play one on the Internet, but this seems like an awfully easy way for a company to duck liability.

Let's move close to home next. This is particularly interesting in light of the above article.

Pipeline falls into Toutle River (link)

A 300- to 400-foot section of the Williams Northwest natural gas pipeline dropped into the Toutle River near Castle Rock when the river bank gave way Thursday and is now bobbing in the water. Pipeline officials say it poses no immediate danger and repairs are under way.

The exposed pipe has not ruptured but is moving as it is buffeted by river water. The pipe needs to be protected from any debris in the rain-swollen river, and workers have reduced the pressure to guard against any explosions if the pipe was damaged, said Williams spokeswoman Michele Swaner.

(ed. So, while the pipeline dangled in the river, the pressure was reduced by 50% -- not cut-off, just reduced. Because a pipeline floating amongst the debris of the rain-swollen river would never rupture.)

Long-term, Swaner said they'll have to replace all of the exposed pipe and may well move that entire section of pipeline because of on-going worries about the integrity of the river bank.

Update: The pipeline is now back to more usual operations, meaning full pressure. In a pipe that, according to the above article is half the size of the usual pipeline. Is that a good idea?