On Monday, Gov. Parnell posted a new state of Alaska website touting that the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act open season provides an option for both a gas pipeline project into Canada and a Valdez liquefied natural gas option. But the website fails to inform Alaskans that after the initial open season, TransCanada will no longer pursue the Valdez LNG option, yet TransCanada will control that route.
Why is Parnell using public funds at the peak of the campaign season to advertise a Valdez option that will not be pursued after the open season closes in two weeks?
Although Parnell refuses to release the results until after the election, TransCanada’s open season will not produce condition-free, firm commitments to ship gas. Breakthroughs in tapping shale gas formations have led to gluts in North American natural gas markets. The Department of Energy estimates the Lower 48 now has a 100-plus years of gas reserves. Prices have collapsed accordingly. The new CEO of TransCanada recently stated that the Alaska project is not a priority.
Nonetheless, Parnell admits he will stay the Canada course after the open season fails, even though Alaskans will pay 90 percent of the costs for the next open season. Parnell justifies continued subsidization of the doomed effort — to the tune of $20 billion-plus in Alaska taxpayers’ money — on the basis that if the LNG markets wanted Alaska’s gas they would have bid in the initial open season. This fallacy must be exposed.
Recognizing the political dynamics, TransCanada made two short ambiguous statements in its 2007 AGIA application indicating it would build a pipeline to Valdez if insufficient volumes were committed to Alberta. When the TransCanada application was before the legislature in 2008, as project manager for the Alaska Gasline Port Authority and its partners — Mitsubishi Corp. and Sempra LNG — I met with TransCanada executives to confirm this commitment. The all-Alaska project sponsors were dubious about whether TransCanada’s commitment to the Valdez option was genuine. Throughout 2008 and 2009, I tried repeatedly to secure TransCanada’s commitment to work with the parties interested in constructing an all-Alaska project as a precedent to expending millions of dollars on the work necessary to participate in the open season. Ultimately, TransCanada refused to commit in writing that it would build the line to Valdez if sufficient gas was nominated during the open season.
If Parnell truly is advancing all options, why has he not worked with Mitsubishi Corp., the largest global purchaser of LNG, and Sempra LNG, which owns the only LNG receiving terminal on the West Coast? Why has his administration not had a continuous presence in Tokyo, Seoul and Taipei during the past year, as it has in Alberta? Why did Parnell applaud the recent Federal Energy Regulatory Commission decision to require reapplication for one of numerous environmental permits obtained for the Valdez LNG option rather than challenge yet another federal effort to delay Alaska’s resource development?
Parnell’s and TransCanada’s refusal to work with global LNG markets is proof that AGIA’s Valdez option is nothing more than a political sham. His use of public funds for obvious campaign purposes to advertise the Valdez option is a hypocrisy. Do not be surprised if Alaska taxpayers fund last-minute trips to the Asian market so Parnell can give the pre-election impression that he, too, is pursuing the Valdez LNG project.
In March, former Sen. Ted Stevens recognized that Canada and Lower 48 gas markets are saturated, yet Asian buyers are willing to enter into lucrative, long-term purchase contracts in volumes sufficient to construct an all-Alaska project.
To ensure economic prosperity for the next generation, the state must take the reins and aggressively pursue the development of a gas pipeline to Valdez with a spur line to Southcentral. This project would be financed by the world markets through long-term LNG contracts and built and operated by the private sector. Control of our future must be seized from a Canada company unwilling to work in our best interests and from a governor whose personal political ambitions impair his judgment in doing what is right for Alaska.
Bill Walker is a lifelong Alaskan and Republican candidate for governor. A businessman and an attorney, he specializes in municipal and oil and gas law. He served as Valdez mayor at age 27. He and his wife have raised their four children in Anchorage, where they have been active in church, community and youth activities.
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=algae oil&aq=f
...it's the architecture stupid
...it's the architecture stupid.
http://www.tarsandswatch.org/
...big steel pipelines really suck !!!
megaprojects are for megalomaniacs
I checked on the web and discovered that constructing a two billion cubic feet per day natural gas pipeline to Valdez was a part of Trans Canada's initial AGIA application. It was not a last minute addition after the fact as Bill and others have falsely stated many times.
We know that things changed with this Valdez option as Trans Canada prepared to file their FERC application for open season approval and it was a change for the better. Trans Canada has stated publicly that based on the requests from potential customers, they increased the capacity of the Valdez line from two billion cubic feet to 3 billion cubic feet per day. Was that change made at Bill's request on behalf of the Port Authority? Let me be more direct, did Walker bill the Port Authority for legal work involved in negotiating an increase in the size of the Trans Canada Valdez pipeline and then after his request was granted walked away from the deal and his client in order to run for Governor?
It is a pretty simple yes or no question. Did Trans Canada increase the volume of the pipeline they designed to Valdez at Bill Walkers request.
I bet the answer is "YES".
Is that part of the legal work that the Port Authority has paid him over 6 million dollars for according to the News-Miner?
I bet the answer is "YES".
Pretty nice gig if you can bill the client millions. Get the response you asked for. Claim a twisted conspiracy and then walk away with the cash.
The parasitic vultures operating in Alaska rove in packs under corporate sponsorship and behave like hyenas attacking only the weak spots, or attack the leaders of the group working to protect Alaska's resources from predation. Yes, I have been physically assaulted over this same contest.. my apologies to the 7 Texholes who jumped me and tried to rearrange my face and leave my frozen corpse in an alley, I won the scuffle, and they ran for protection onto Ft.Wainright.. actually almost everybody listens to the ideas I propose, and my photobucket slideshow has recieved nearly 2 million visits so far, so I suspect even Rex Tillerson at Exxon has had a look at it too (;-P)
Most Alaskans nowdays are programmed by their paycheck, and they live in fear afraid of bears while huddled in cities and towns under the comfort of electric lights while clutching their guns. The minority of Real Alaskans are comfortable wherever they are, under a cloud of mosquitoes in the boondox**, or in a hammock in CostaRica swatting at skeeters under a mango tree.
You can notice these "trolls" rarely try to make a contest out of my electrified truths.. if they really tick me off I'll turn up the amplification and build a blockbuster widely broadcast highly entertaining rich content website that will make their witchy little pickpocket fingers wither with arthritis.
--You are absolutely right about the Jones Act being easily waived, I have friends in the shipping biz who have done it many times.
**after 1974 I quit calling it the "Bush" and began to prefer the Tagalog derived word "boondox" ..for a very strange reason
And, why did YPC choose the Valdez route over the Parks Hwy route?
Would it be the 2 parks-one State, one FEDERAL-the Minto Wildlife Refuge, and several streams and rivers--about 12--, and the fact that FERC and others opined back then, that if NS gas or oil was to go to tidewater, TAPS was it, baby.
Otherwise, you and the rest of the dream of on garden hose bullet line Denali Conoco supporters would have a half way believable story. As it is, no permits, not defined route--a line on a map of greater than 50000:1 does not define anything.
Why are we bothering with this malarkey of selling out to the Canucks that is Denali and AGIA?
Why are we bothering with a bullet line that will double the cost of our gas in south central and run in the red ad infinitum?
How do any of the aforementioned projects and conjecture--no permits, nothing concrete, just talk so far--resolve the looming fiscal crisis when TAPS NS production reaches the cut off point of 300,000 bpd?
The bullet line will not produce any revenue.
The cost of gas is so low, the big pipe dreams to Canucksville will never be built.
You criticize the only guy with a viable plan that has permits and can start construction upon achievement of financing.
With that kind of outlook, Alaska is certainly . . . screwed.
We need to reject those up for reelection who ignored our will since the vote of 2002 creating ANGDA and Title 41 Sec. 41 of Alaska statutes.
We need to elect a governor who intends to BUILD, not ignore, not sell out to the Canucks, who wants jobs and industry HERE, not someplace else. That man is Bill Walker.
With the recent disasterous and nearly unprecedented release of huge volumes of methane into the Gulf of Mexico it's now more important than ever for Alaskans to keep a lid on our vast Arctic reserves of methane. Alaskan methane seeps have contributed to the recent plague of huge tundra fires...
http://s281.photobucket.com/albums/kk209/DistantThunderbolt/?action=view¤t=e2-TundraFire2007NorthSlope.jpg
We now have the affordable technology to keep track of methane seeps statewide using airborne sensing equipment..
http://www.synodon.com/solutions.php
The standard method for gas gathering is the use of large amounts of polypipe. Alaskans can make our own polypipe less-expensive than any other source of polyethylene-pipe worldwide.
Distant Thunder---in all the years you have been talking about this, why is it nobody listens to you? This is a sincere question.
http://s281.photobucket.com/albums/kk209/DistantThunderbolt/?action=view¤t=6inchgaslineP2FBX.jpg
We have had the technology to build this little propane in polypipe gasline since 1974 when I first proposed the idea, and the technology has been improvong ever since, so now this little noodle pipe will pay for itself quicker than 9months and will yield steady income to the State of Alaska for the next 100 years of it's rated service life. Just the profits from this little propane pipeline alone will be sufficient to buy all the tunneling machines and pipe extrusion equipment needed to install a 5bcfd cryogenic-LNG gasline within the next 24 months of operation... but why stop at building just one little plastic gasline when we can keep building many of them from the N-slope across the Brooks Range to everywhere in Alaska ensuring rapid, direct, and reliable energy throughout the state. Nunamiut Inupiat in AKP can soon enjoy gas from Gubik. Arctic Village can get a polypipe gasline thru Carter Pass much cheaper and quicker than you think. It doesn't take long to pay for the project when the installed cost of these little gaslines can be as cheap as $40 per foot, compared to over $2000/foot for problematic big steel whopper pipelines.
Statewide gas-distribution is most reliable when collected and redistributed through a big webwork of redundant little gasline/fiberoptic-SCADA networks.
Alaskan made polypipe has many more markets than passing gas.. hydroelectric penstocks, vacuum sewers, freshwater, electrical conduit including subsea power interties, geothermal, and mining wastewater and slurry pipes..etc,etc.
Did you know that it's possible to build a 63" plastic-gasline from Deadhorse over Atigun past Sukakpak, and we can put 500psi methane in the north end, and the south end of this same gasline is a 6" pipe that puts out methanol at a rate of 200gpm??? -- process in polypipe technology is soon coming to a theatre near you !!
C2H6 >>>>>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyethylene
...pull my finger
"economies of scale" is a wrong way rabbithole for Alice in Blunderland
Tell me how wonderful this guy is and I'll keep refering back to what he said with his own mouth that doesn't stand up under the microscope - or even the naked eye.
"Examiner"- you missed the fact that Alaska has been exporting LNG to Japan (out of Kenai) since 1969?
We've been doing that because we can make the most money doing so. And there are no problems with Congress or LNG tankers or any of the other nonsense you've heard.
The All Alaska Gasline as promoted by Bill Walker means Alaska will have new revenue, and really, really affordable energy. Most of us will save thousands of dollars per year.
Bill Walker is easy to talk to- if you REALLY wanted to ask him questions. He has been on the radio many times- taking questions, and you can contact him through his web site: www.billwalkerforgovernor.com
Let us know when you've talked with him.
PS- Walker stands nothing to gain financially by building the gasline. He is doing this for Alaskans- and our children and grandchildren.
In my opinion the whole pipeline to Alberta is (a) just a facade to keep us spinning our wheels on a pipeline project until its too late to avoid a major Oil Bust in this state or (b) something that serves the interests of the oil companies twenty years from now--after the Oil Bust, in other words.
The only way to ensure our future is to build our own gas pipeline and do it now.
..6,584,766,846,937,930,399,744 US short tons
IMHO, BigBiz is programmed to monetize everything in it's path..
..the final result would be all humans would be trying to survive on a big ball of money that weighs 6,584,766,846,937,930,399,744 US short tons .. there would be no trees, no ocean, no topsoil, no air... just a big lifeless ball of poorly executed architecture.
""If we build a big whopper pipeline to Alberta, why don't we build it all the way to Argentina ??
http://www.tarsandswatch.org/
http://www.oilsandswatch.org/
..cost of construction is of no concern, we just need to make everybody sing the Economies of Scale song, it will be built out of magic funny money, and too expensive for any competition""
What's going on in this masquerade party of character assassination is a subtext of who or what gets to control the future of all of Alaska's molecules [resources], and this includes Alaska's hydrocarbons.
At the time of statehood Alaska invited oil-drilling companies to come and prospect for oil and gas.. soon Alaska became a defacto annex to Texas and BigOil meganational-corporations.
..who gets to decide what happens to the molecules?.. it seems the average Alaskan gets to participate only if they enlist into a company.
Not just Alaskans, but the majority of humans worldwide are sick and tired of being played for suckers by BigBiz.. the recent BP oilspill is just the tip of the iceberg. The Pebble Mine boondoggle is another disaster waiting to happen.
AGIA was a poorly rigged beauty contest that resulted in another paperwork trafficjam.. and the resulting architecture is no better than what the goofballs in WashingtonState have produced over the past few decades, eg: WPPSS, and the still un-amortized Kingdome sports arena.. and the stillborn tunnel replacement for the Alaskan Way Viaduct.
There's a lot more hockey pucks on the ice than just who gets to score with a gasline.. An Alaskan based polyolefin industry can be self-sustaining without immediately needing a gasline, because it's easier to make a polyolefin plant mobile than building all you guys goofy gasline projects [except for one: the polypipe propane gasline from Deadhorse to Railbelt] --- Why are the Alberta Oilies all hot and bothered about Alaska's Gas ?? ..because they want to steal Alaska's economic future and produce the polyolefins that are desperately needed in America's infrastructure revitalization market. This market is worth $500billion producing HDPE-polypipe to repair all of the old collapsing municipal storm-sewer and freshwater supply systems. The meganational predators want to keep America weakened and stuck on stupid as a "Can't Do Nation"
Decentralization is a solid path toward Sustainability and Efficiency
...the only thing I see here is needless turbulence and wasteful bickering.
Bill Walker has the insight and leadership qualities to help us all cough up this hairball.
The producer's "Denali Pipeline" is the same as the TC/AGIA pipeline, except for one important difference. The Palin/Parnell AGIA pipeline leaves us, Alaskans, paying over $20 billion for the tab.
Parnell is an oil company candidate.
Samuels doesn't tell people that "oil taxes" aren't taxes in the conventional sense---they are the sales price of our oil. Nor does he tell that the oil companies make $19-23 per barrel off our gas and only $2 per barrel off Iraqi gas, but they are still poor-mouthing us.
Samuels is an oil company candidate.
We are being asked to choose our poison given a choice between Parnell and Samuels. The only real Alaskan candidate is Bill Walker, or if you are a Democrat, Hollis French.
Time to make them the front runners in the August 24th Primary Election.