Alaska governor proposes in-state gas line
Published Monday, July 7, 2008
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Stumble It!JUNEAU -- Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is proposing an in-state natural gas pipeline that could provide energy relief to the most populated areas of the state within five years.
Palin on Monday said the so-called in-state bullet line will not interfere with development of a proposed 1,715-mile natural gas pipeline designed to take North Slope natural gas to Canada and then to U.S. markets.
Palin said an in-state line could run north from Cook Inlet, near Anchorage, to the state's interior region and Fairbanks — the state's second largest city.
The prospective line could continue to the North Slope Foothills or potentially be connected to the proposed main line now under consideration by the Legislature.
Palin said the Alaska Natural Gas Development Authority and Enstar Natural Gas Co. would become partners in the state project. The line would ship 460 million cubic feet of natural gas a day.
Palin said she expects construction to begin by 2011 — "at the latest."
"The tide is turning in Alaska. This project is really going to propel this state forward. Good things are just on the horizon, but they are coming to fruition today," she said.
Enstar would be the operator of a line that would run between 690 to 790 miles, depending on the route, and would cost more than $3 billion.
Anchorage-based Enstar is a subsidiary of Continental Energy Systems from Troy, Mich. The company has 450 miles of transmission pipeline.
The natural gas authority is a state agency created by voters that wants to bring gas to Anchorage through a spur line tapping whatever main line is built.
Cook Inlet's production, which is led by ConocoPhillips, Marathon Oil Co. and Chevron Corp., is on a decline. The fields produced 196 billion cubic feet of natural gas in 2006; they produced 168 billion cubic feet last year.
The state and Enstar believes moving forward on an in-state line could enhance production in Cook Inlet as well as new exploration and discoveries in the Foothills region.
"We don't have enough gas past 2013 to meet needs of customers," said Eugene Dubay, chief operating officer for Continental Energy Systems. "We need more volume now; we need a lot more volume in 2013."
Dubay said the company will spend about $5 million to $6 million on engineering work this year. He said Enstar has been and will continue meeting with the state's natural gas producers to discuss filling future pipeline capacity.
On Wednesday, the Legislature enters a second special session and resumes debates on Palin's recommendation to award TransCanada Corp. a license toward construction of the larger pipeline.
Over the last month, lawmakers have reviewed the company's application, but the issue of an in-state line has never been far from their minds.
Some have said the in-state gas needs should be a priority over a main line such as the one proposed by TransCanada, or even the competing project offered by BP PLC and ConocoPhillips.
Several months ago, during the regular legislative session, lawmakers asked Palin expand the scope of a special session to include consideration of an in-state line.
Momentum for the in-state line continued during the special session when a Fairbanks rally implored lawmakers to keep the prospects of the shorter line on the table.
Rep. Jay Ramras, R-Fairbanks, has been pushing for the in-state development since last year. He said he likes the idea, but still doesn't see himself supporting Palin's recommendation to award TransCanada a license for the bigger line.
"The plight of many Alaskans was heard," said Ramras. adding that consumers in Fairbanks pay nearly four times what those in Anchorage pay for natural gas. "It's the best possible news."
Sen. Bill Wielechowski, D-Anchorage, however, said he questions building a northbound line rather than one that moves south.
"I think they are going in the wrong direction," Wielechowski said. "I don't know why we would be shipping gas from (Anchorage area) to Fairbanks when every bit of testimony we've heard so far tells us we're running out of gas here."
Joe Balash, Palin's special assistant on energy, said sending a pipeline toward Fairbanks means expanding the markets for Cook Inlet oil and gas.
"What we want to do is provide a market for somebody who drills for gas: ConocoPhillips, Chevron and Marathon," Balash said. "And you need the surety of a market for somebody to invest their exploration dollars."
The state's Alaska Gasline Inducement Act, under which TransCanada submitted its application, does allow the state to assist in building a separate small diameter pipeline.
But it also prevents the state from providing support if the line carries more than 500 million cubic feet of gas per day.
"Publicly, the focus obviously has been on AGIA," Palin said. "But we've also stayed true to our commitment to explore an in-state gas line to take care of Alaska first."
Community Discussion
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There you go, Distant Thunder.
And its about time!
The only way this is going to be built in 5 years is for Distant Thunder is to use his HDPE, duct tape, and Star Trek transporter.
So does this mean that our government is actually working for us? Crazy! :)
At least she had the common sense to go with ANGDA and a small bullet line. If it works out, will be built just in time for Anchorage to continue to benefit from cheap gas. Now what about rural Alaska.
Governor Palin: THANK YOU!!! ALASKA GAS FOR ALASKANS FIRST.
woodman: Right on!!! The State needs to get hopping on the rural energy alternative solutions ASAP. Enough of the Second and Third Class Citizens treatment.
That's the funniest thing I've heard all month !!!
www.fairbanksgas.com
Well, the state better get a move on, and start building intrastate pipelines out of HDPE and RTP because you won't be able to amortize the gasline network if it's built out of spendaholic-steel.
The cost of plastic-gaslines compared to the total cost of steel-gaslines over a 50year period is much more favorable.
For distances of under 1000miles it's cheaper to pass methane as CNG in big low-pressure glass reinforced HDPE than using steel for dense-phase..
..and with rapidly emerging technologies large RTP-gaslines will soon beat steel as the material of choice for 90% of all pipelines.
Rolling in artificially inflated construction costs won't fly, the public is watching things much more closely now than back when we blew big wads of dough building TAPS.
If you google these words>>>
microwave refining fuel
microwave hydrocarbons
klystron hydrocarbons
..etc, you'll start to see there's a real possibility that the world market value of "Black Gold" is soon going to return to non-psychotic levels.
...............THE BLACK CAT JUMPED OUT OF THE BAG [poor kitty!]
==========
http://www.globalresourcecorp.com/Engine...
==========
Not only will big-oil rush to benefit from the ability to profoundly streamline the architecture of oil refineries worldwide..
plastics industries will be able to shrink their facilities down to portable modular sizes.
http://www.linde-le.com/process_plants/c...
...no more smokestacks for big petrochemical plants..!!
Everybody at AOGCC needs to go home and study, you can't learn this at Texas Tech.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/craig...
Using Pringle's Klystrons in the processing of NorthSlope GTL--Fischer-Tropsch will radically reduce the up-front costs of building portable modular GTL-units.
DME-diesel will be embarrassingly cheap.
As we speak, college kids in Thailand are discovering how to make cobalt-osmium nano-silicate catalyst nonwoven-fibers in a kitchen microwave for making cheap FT-diesel.
No wonder Exxon is selling off their retail gas-stations...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSgL0Ie4z...
..soon you'll see college kids putting homemade klystron pyrolizers on their Volkswagens.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nf-dNLSnl...
I'm betting $100 that in 20years gasoline will be as easy to buy as it was in the 1960's, but most middle class folks will be driving cars that don't have a piston or crankshaft.
Rural and Remote Alaska can get LNG or CNG and ship via barge from the Yukon River down to most of the villages along the Yukon/Kuskokwim rivers, Bristol Bay, and up to the Northwest communities.
This could be a good bridge alternative as we look at renewable energy sources such as tidal, hydro, wind, geothermal, and biomass.
However, with all of those great possibilities, I still say we need to get state Royalty Oil and have that refined and distributed to us at no more than $2.00 a gallon for all fuels. We need that help now!
DT? What are you're ideas I went to the web site. But I can't believe the thoughts that where exposed there. Even I know better then believe everything I hear and not to always read on the Internet. The only way to move high pressure gas in threw a metal steel pipeline pcv pipe won't work. That's what's used for plumbing.
Nightshade...
sorry for sounding like I overdosed on coffee again...
...I had a big glass of beet juice and wheatgrass for lunch.
About using plastics for hi-press gas...
most of the good stuff on the web on this subject is not written in english.
Texas oil engineers are still tight-lipped about RTP--reinforced thermoplastic pipes.
Krauss Maffei in Germany is more open about their technologies, and they're busy teaching the Chinese how to mass produce the machinery for making RTP-gasline.
Yup... PVC poly-vinyl-chloride plumbing pipe is no good for rough service, just for water in warm climate houses.
try this>>
http://www.soluforce.net/
Soluforce gasline is now 10years old..
there's newer bigger better stuff being built, but it's hard to find in a catalog on the web.
ahh, but messing with hydrocarbons isn't everything...
....try catching the WAVE !
http://www.hydrovolts.com/
......splash/bubble
Yayyy!
2013 ???
2013 ???
2013 ???.....wow, who's embargoed the caffeinated coffee from Juneau ??
http://www.gov.state.ak.us/news.php?id=1...
Maybe the state should buy a couple of big diesel powered tree harvesters and a half-dozen wood-pellet mills for Fairbanks to use this fall.
I guess I'll have to post some designs for homebuilt woodfired-waterheaters so Fairbanks doesn't get a plague of staph infections this winter from not enough hot-water.
As the saying goes "The devil is in the details".
It sounds good. And I do support Governor Palin. She has been very capable so far.
The big "but". "But", I was hoping for more immediate relief for this coming winter. The $100/month stipends wont cover it. Perhaps, if it's still on the table, directly paying the energy companies to draw down their cost to the public is still the best immediate plan.
I'll make it, I hope you'll make it, but there will be hard times for many. Many, especially seniors on fixed incomes, will lose their homes. Others, without conscience, will resort to crime. Real estate values could easily plummet, like they did in the 80s, resulting in loss of life savings.
I love the idea of NG being more available. Really. I'm already heating with LNG. But I'm not sure that we'll all survive this coming winter.
Isn't Cook Inlet running out of gas? So if there is increased demand for gas from Cook Inlet (to ship it here) what does basic economics dictate will happen to price? Will the powerbase in Anchorage allow their gas costs to double? I don't think so...
Shouldn't they build the line from where the gas is?
(Pssst. Up North)
We now have a long term plan for financial stability when the oil runs out, a mid term plan for an in state line, and a short term rebate on our oil taxes. It sounds comprehensive, simple, and responsible on the surface.
These plans have flaws, and the first is that they have to go through the legislature for approval. AGIA has already been vetted, but still faces a lot of red tape not only in Alaska, but also from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
The bullet line needs to run from the north and south to the middle or better yet go in four times as fast with laying it north and south from Fairbanks and South from Prudhoe and North from Anchorage. We know for a fact that TC won't be done until 2020 at the earliest so it makes sense to ensure there is enough supply to serve Alaska until that time. We have that and it will take just as long to get the line from Anchorage to Fairbanks as it does to get it from Prudhoe to Fairbanks. Seven years is a long time to be without gas statewide and even the increase in demand won't increase production in the south fast enough to meet that demand.
As for the rebate on the oil revenue, I still have not seen how the amount was decided. I want to see the formula based on the end of year budget surplus and a plan to continue the program until a gas line is widely availabe or we see an equitable return on the revenue.
Currently at $10 Billion in revenue a year, the state is taxing each resident about $14,900. For a family of three, that's $44,700. From that we get 25% added back into the PFD, which is $11,175 at an annual return of about $4,500. The proposed direct rebate would be $3,600 leaving the state with $25,425 in revenue from the average family of three household. With a median income of $54,600 (including the PFD), I don't know how the average household is currently surviving.
Median home value in Alaska is $152,000, for an average monthly payment of about $1200. Add to that utilities about $300, car payment of $500 and groceries about $1000 and you end up with an average annual expense of $33,600 before fuel. I am currently spending $900 per month for gasoline and heating fuel on average. Federal taxes will eat up over $7,000, and our burrough gladly takes another $2,000 for property tax leaving us a grand total of $1,200 in disposable annual income for a family of three.
I used household size and income figures from the census bureau to present a balanced argument that we don't have much venture capital in our average individual budgets. There are families doing much better and families doing much worse in Alaska. What this shows is that unless you are above average, you and your kid's PFD is going to be used to pay bills to keep them fed, clothed, sheltered, and educated until they are 18.
Alaskans are being taxed nearly half of what they are earning. Our government needs to ensure they spend our taxes wisely to ensure the people don't end up falling behind durning this price cruch.
This north-bound gas line proposal is nuts. Only 1100 homes and businesses in Fairbanks use NG now. It would take years and lots of money before I could use NG to heat my home. I would need new appliances, a new furnace and the gas. Now give me cheap clean electricity and I can plug in my space heater today. There are over 40,000 electric meters in the GVEA region and everyone could use electric heat this winter if it were cheap enough to make sense.
NG gets more and more expensive every year. Just ask the current Anchorage or Fairbanks users. It won’t get any cheaper as the world market grows. Those that will benefit are not many residents of Fairbanks.
Build the Susitna Dam. A one-time capital cost and free fuel forever. Pennies per kilowatt delivered to you door without having to snow plow your driveway. Without ice fog producing gas. You won’t even have to have a furnace tune up !
If Cook Inlet needs a bigger market for it gas Fairbanks won’t help much. We are a small market. We have had what we needed delivered by truck for the last several years. Just add a couple of LNG rail cars to the empty oil trains heeded north and we can have all the gas we can use delivered in a day from Anchorage, without a pipeline.
If Cook Inlet needs a bigger market for it gas re-open the Agrium fertelizer plant. Ship more LNG to Japan. Promise Chugatch more gas for power production.
Someone out there is not telling the truth about Cook Inlet gas. We can’t have a shortage and a surplus at the same time.
Fairbanks don't need no stinkin' gas.
Scariest thing about this whole thing is when while it happen today tomorrow? You can't change your mind every week other wise you might have to be concerned to being an (Indian giver) even me being Native doesn't apply. But you can't change you mind weekly when you think you have a new idea it's called disrupting you friends. The ideas you have can't change daily you have to be backing something. Sure we need help now but if she keeps up the change in her decisions then she'll turn out being nothing regular petition. Some you can never really trust to have your best interest in mind....if this is the best for now just say it. Don't have everyone think that's something better when there really isn't. The cost will be 3.5 billion just to get gas to almost all Alaska otherwise wait 8 years for something else to be built then pay 9.5 billion in energy relief. That's a much easier way of saying we need it now!
That's my take on the people's perspective of the budget. What would the average family do with the rebate? Long vacations, flat screen tv, new snow machine? I think not. It does happen in above average homes, but not the average or below average homes. Subsidizing fuel is another form of the rebate, but it won't have an immediate and direct effect on household budgets, nor will the gas lines or lower electic bills. Indirectly these items will have an affect, but the direct benefit is going to go to the corporations that are paid directly by the state.
Investing in capital improvements and infrastructure is wise, subsidizing energy prices through corporations is wasteful spending of our taxes.
DT the piping you talk about won't make it tho a earthquake even steel won't I not saying it's a bad idea but put the picture's in a frame that likes like it would work sure plastics would for a while but if a tragedy where to happen what the safe guards would be it's no a fiber optic line this is a real gas that can blow up a whole 250 feet radius of exposed to an open flame. Even a steel line can really take a 7.5 earth quack. Please realize that to tell them that gas is dangerous if exposed to flame it will explode. Living in Michigan I heard of apartment buildings turn to ashes in minites. The line need to have safe guards if a leak is detected an override while automatically shut that part of the line down.
DT Ok now that I've read all the comment earlier. I used to work a a plastic injection molding company in Michigan we'd heat compress molds of plastic to things some would use daily. But the by product that was always left behind was a coat of oil. Now how can a plastic pipeline from a old line in gas line say it's a safe thing. Plastic can be turned to it bacis elements when exposed to oil even the smallest amounts. He's an example tank a stroyphom cup drink the coffee first and put a drop of gasoline in.
DT my hands on exp. with plasitcs might not be the equivalint to some internet exp. But I have seen what happens to plastic if exposed temp's to temp that might be called extreme. I'd call extreme a wildfire that happen yearly in Alaska now how many other fires could be caused by the plastic plan?
Onapa, really I can't help you on what they should really do. I've seen here in Michigan what has happened the money is in energy but it has to be almost prefect in it's execution. With no flaws. Expectations are high. Room for error we'll I won't say to much about that. You have to make the envormentialist happy with giving up you first and second born. Then yourself and spouse. Give up the trees and everything you lived. The polar bears to them I really can go on and one it's not really great for the future......
You had better call up Enstar and Fairbanks Natural Gas and let them know that plastic will not work for gas lines. Over 90% of the distribution network in the ground is plastic pipe.
2011, What about right NOW!. Today is the immediate problem. Guess another reason to leave Alaska, till someone actually does something. So far for the last 20 years, All I've herard is just tons of lip service and nothing happens. It's not just the high cost of fuel oil, that will hurt interior Alaskans the most, have you seen how outrageous your electric bills is getting. Enough is Enough
Nightshade brings up a few good points. An above ground plastic line would be exposed to fire and then once lit, would be really tough to extinguish. So DistantThunder, how do we fire proof the plastic until it is burried? Nothing is impossible right now and that is the exciting thing about being in Alaska.
Steve Estes, I couldn't agree more. Electricity is the primary energy source for interior homes and even if we had five years to convert the 40,000 homes to gas, we couldn't get the appliances, but we could convert some energy producers to gas, including the refinery and North Pole power plant.
Bringing the Healy Clean Coal Plant on-line this fall appears to be the most logical rapid energy relief plan. A Susitna dam will take longer than the Trans Canada pipeline. I am not against it, but it is a very long term idea that does nothing for the next 20 years.
Nightshade...
yup, I heard about the plastic-pipe gas disaster in Michigan, another in Wisconsin, another in Minnesota.
It was finally determined that the problem was caused by inexperienced cutcorner contractors making bad junctions between steel and plastic.
The industry has been succeeding in solving these problems and moving on making big progress.
Nowdays RTP-gasline is preferred by engineers to transit across the most difficult earthquake fault zones...
...kinda like bunkering fuel between two ships at sea, do you use steel pipes with a complex framework of swing-elbows with O-ring seals, or do you use high-strength hose??
Running gas through plastic pipe on the surface-->
ok, it's a calculated risk..
complex to describe.
But in many field applications today worldwide gas is commonly being transported in HDPE-gaslines on the surface.
I see the possibility of temporarily using 4"LPG on the surface in the winter when fire danger is very low, and in remote areas far from any human activity.
SCADA can automatically trigger inexpensive shotgun-stomper-valves placed every mile on the 4" line that can effectively pinch off the gasflow in the HDPE in arctic-temps.
With details like this in mind, it's possible to safely run a 4" LPG gasline from Prudhoe to the south side of Atigun for the first winter on the surface of the snow for 80-90% of the 818,000feet.
Shallow burial/fireproofing with cheap spray gunnite-mud is possible too.
The nice thing about shallow burial is it makes it much easier to roll the pipe back up when you want to move it.
Drastic Plastic pipe solutions...
..for Plastic Drastic mismanagement problems.
Not an energy crisis, just a mental health crisis.
The public policy managers should have been building small plastic pipe industries in Alaska since 1975 when large amounts of ethane became available.
But the elitist attitude has always been to look upon the Alaskan public as nuisance sluicerobbers, when it's always been the other way around.
Why is it that the wealthiest people in Alaska do the least amount of REAL-WORK?
So, the preferred architecture has been to spend billions on overpriced bolshevik resource extraction machinery.
It costs just a few hundred bucks to claim 5acres of mining property..
but if you starve everybody in the bush for affordable fuel, then you can drive all of the self-employed miners out and off their claims.
Juneau wants no more than two dozen mining companies to operate in Alaska.
......flash/rumble
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