Community Perspective
Rally now for gas to Fairbanks
Published Thursday, March 27, 2008
Digg
delicious
Facebook
Mixx
Reddit
Stumble It!In Fairbanks, we need to restore our discretionary household incomes. Did you know that Anchorage has the lowest natural gas prices in the United States at $8.73 per thousand cubic feet and Fairbanks has the highest in the United States at $22.91?
That’s terrible — unacceptable.
Our quality of life, as measured by economics, is devolving. The intangibles of love, family and liberty are strong and still the most meaningful, but we can ill afford the deteriorating nature of fuel costs that is turning our dispositions away from Emersonian self reliance to an outright victim psychology — “It’s Big Oil’s fault, or Flint Hills’ fault.” In fact, the state of Alaska is selling its royalty oil at top dollar to the refiners, as constitutionally mandated.
It’s like we have an illness, an energy cancer attacking our town and our electric meters. What if a cure for our sickness is coming in 10 to 15 years, but we were going to die from the ailment in two to three? Some older homes in Aurora and Hamilton Acres have heating bills larger than their mortgages. They may use the same number of gallons, but at triple the cost compared to a couple of years ago. We have downtown churches literally being siphoned of heating oil.
What are we going to do as the state measures its treasury’s surplus in the billions but regular households in Fairbanks hemorrhage deficits?
What happens to the discretionary income in our community if the staples of mortgage, heat, electricity, food and clothing begin to consume the economic elasticity of our permanent residents?
Meanwhile, the legislature and our governor toil with an obtuse, long-lead AGIA plan and an alienated group of cold, emotionless mega-giant oil companies. Regardless of your position on AGPA, AGIA or Conoco’s we’ll-go-it-alone plan, there is no relief headed toward our furnaces in the form of natural gas or heating oil anytime soon.
And LNG from the Dalton Highway is sexy but probably not in our community’s best interest from a cost-per-thousand-cubic-feet point of view.
So the problem is framed. And, is there a solution to be proposed or will we dwindle to a community of 80,000 waiting for Godot and cheaper energy? Is there a rescue to be had? I say we need an action plan — an energy day.
Just as 5,000 of our residents gathered at the Carlson Center clamoring to “Save Eielson,” so should we plan a summer rally at the Carlson Center to say “energize Fairbanks.”
What we need is a bullet line of natural gas from the North Slope, and we need it now.
Yes, we will honor the constitution of the state of Alaska and pay market price for the resource. But we need gas now. And we need it from the private sector.
We need to invite all the potential stakeholders to the Carlson Center: BP, Exxon, Conoco, Anadarko, Doyon, Arctic Slope Regional Corporation, Alaska Gasline Port Authority, Enstar, Fairbanks Natural Gas, Gov. Palin, Commissioners Irwin and Galvin, our congressional delegation, our mayors, the newly appointed Energy Coordinator Steve Haagenson, Fairbanks Economic Development Corp., Flint Hills, the people at Agrium and a few thousand of us!
Let us have a community dialogue. Let’s plead our case, let’s tell our story — let’s bang that antiquated oil drum and demand natural gas — let’s tell the story of our beautiful community of 100,000 stranded energy users being decimated by our “E-Z pay” automated delivery plans.
We need relief. A bullet line is the answer. The gas is there and we are an already established in-state market in desperate need of rejuvenation. So let’s find our voice — access our energy!
Let’s demand a bullet line of North Slope, Foothills, or Nenana natural gas and not in AGIA time — in urgent now time! We need cheap energy for a rich, but strangled, community.
Jay Ramras, R-Fairbanks, is the state house representative from Fairbanks District 10.
Community Discussion
Newsminer.com doesn't necessarily condone the comments here, nor does it review every post. Read our full user's agreement.
I got an empty 55 gallon drum and a stick to pound it, too...now where is that meeting being held? Do you think we need a bucket of tar and some ptarmagin feathers for the NAY-SAYERS? And as far as for the "TALK", we have had more than enough time for that. It is time for ACTION.
Hey Jaybird...
When we were doing the design of TAPS before 1974, it was originally designed to ship warmed-up high-viscosity crude at 150F.
Since then the producers have been cheating Alaskans by cramming as much NGL's as they possibly can into the crude with their EOR "enrichment" process..
..this drops the viscosity to where it's a gassy runny soup worth twice as much at the refineries in the Lowdown48.
This is why the shipwreck Exxon-Valdez made such a mess out of Prince William Sound, and is why the TAPS-line often shudders causing damage at the pump-stations.
Lesson in maritime lingo: Do you know what a "coiled tanker" is?
>>it's a tanker-ship that has steam heating coils in it to melt the solidified crude oil in the cargo-hold.
Do you think if responsible adults would maintain control of this madhouse that we could require Alyeska to ship only hi-viscosity crude from Valdez???
Alyeska has been smuggling your precious Royalty-Gas right through town under your nose for 30years.
http://www.chemexinc.com/600_bpd.html
If you want Fairbanks to solve it's gas shortage problem ASAP, then set up a few small cheap and EZ topping-plants at all of the TAPS pump-stations again to replace the ones that were removed a few years ago... like, who's bright idea was that???
Money isn't everything, and being gullible enough to believe a bunch of lawyers that all oil must be monetized at top market value has caused some of our families and friends to die trying to survive through winter living in a stingy-greedy society.
Joe Vogler was right....
......flash/rumble
All Alaska... Smart Gasline Network
Build a thermoplastic 3" 200psi CNG gasline from Nuiqsut to Anaktuvuk first.
SPARTAN GAS PIPE
PE 3408 (Black Gas & Oil) ASTM-D2513
High Density
SDR 7.3 (Maximum Working Pressure is 255PSI)
3” G6065 500’roll 12,000’per truckload
cost $343.62 per 100'
$3.2mil for 160mi gasline
Build a 27mile 8" RTP-gasline from Galbraith to Chandalar.
143,000ft @ $10ft $1.43mil
http://www.soluforce.net/
http://www.extrusion.com.cn/esp/product/...
Goog this-->
"reinforced thermoplastic" gas pipe
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...
Goog this-->
smartgaslinenetwork
Goog this-->
rtp-gasline
A $26B 1715mile 48" big-steal pipeline will cost $15,160,350 per mile == $2,872 per foot
....a real steal of a deal !!! .....barf !
Fairbanks needs to invest in importing some plastic pipe extrusion machinery...
http://www.alibaba.com/trade/search?Type...
...and you don't need to spent any of the precious Alaska State Horde to buy these machines, these folks will barter for an LNG-I.O.U. if you grease them up with a few tons of vac-pac squaw candy.
Built by Alaskans for Alaskans using Alaskan NGL's to make the polyethylene.
In the meantime, Rep. Ramras, how about the legislature curtailing taxes on consumer bought fuel for the duration of this crisis? That would help buy us time for a solution that should already be in place. And it would be easy for the legislature to do, although I'm sure hard for the legislature to stomach.
Here's an interesting question all of the "shakers & movers" in Fairbanks should ask themselves...
Will a tunnel be built under the Bering Strait by an independent businessman BEFORE Fairbanks gets around to making a recognizable effort to get a bulletline-gasline built south from the slope ?????
```````````````````````
http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/view/334...
```````````````````````
Abramovich, 41, has just ordered the world’s biggest drill, which is capable of boring a 63ft-wide hole.
Now being built in Germany, the drill will be even bigger than the current world record holder, a 50ft monster which was used to construct a tunnel under the Yangtze river in China.
And it will dwarf the 25ft tiddler used to build the Channel Tunnel.
Abramovich plans to use his £80million purchase to build a 55-mile tunnel under the Bering Strait. It would connect Russia’s Chukotka region, where Abramovich is governor, to Alaska, opening up trade between the two nations that were once deadly enemies.
His plan has the full backing of his close pal, Russia’s president Vladimir Putin, 55. Abramovich’s Infrastruktura firm proudly announced the acquisition of the drill yesterday, but denied the tunnel plans.
However, a source said: “It is one of Putin’s dream projects and he has already had secret talks with Washington about it.
“He sees Russia as the hub of the world and wants Europe to transport its goods, as well as his own, across his country to the US.”
The drill will take two years to build. It will take a further 10 years to finish the tunnel, which would be the world’s longest undersea link.
The idea to connect the USA and Russia was first suggested by Tsar Nicholas II, but the Russian Revolution put paid it. The Cold War kept the plans on ice, but they were revived after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The tunnel could carry around 100 million tonnes of freight every year, as well as oil and gas from [or to] Siberia.
---------------------------------
or, are there NO "shakers & movers" alive in Fairbanks ???
...just posers & groaners ??
The year 2012, a propane truck with a sign on the side written in russian is seen selling 5gallon propane refills on the streets of Fairbanks..
..worthless dollars are refused,sorry!!
.....flash/rumble
Nanushuk & Itkillik Fire in 2007...
...may have been a Lucky Lightning Strike for Anadarko. The fire burnt 250sq.mi. from Gubik southward, racing rapidly because of methane saturated tundra during record ground warmth conditions in the foothills.
James Dalton was right on the button..
..but the military gave him a lump of coal for Christmas.
$3.3billion for a bulletline today is a cruel joke.... as if it was to be built out of "unobtainium" !!
Heck, don't be fooled kids!!!!!!
We can still build it and pass gas for the same price as 1957...
...thanks to modern technology.
$1 per gallon LPG for Yukon-Koyukuk....forever....(;-P)
It's 2million feet from pump-4 to Fairbanks.
3" dia gasline designed to ship LPG could be installed before freezeup-2008.
Total installed cost $20million.
Rate of amortization: 100% in 6months @ $1/gal LPG.
Imagine a 200psi 3"LPG-gasline filling a railcar at 100gallons per minute.
And a 2nd 3"gasline to Homer will be even cheaper,easier,quicker..
The 3rd and 4th will be really fun, and 5th and 6th will be passing gas to Juneau before the end of 2009.
FLEXIBLE POLYETHYLENE GASLINE -- LPG PIPE
NOMINAL PIPE SIZE -- 3”
Maximum Working Pressure is 255PSI
PART NUMBER -- G6065
NOMINAL O. D. -- 3.500”
WALL THICKNESS -- 0.479”
NOMINAL WEIGHT PER FT -- 2.00#
COIL LENGTH -- 500’
MAX FT PER TRUCK -- 12,000’
LIST PRICE PER 100’ -- $343.62
If we passed the fur-hat around Fairbanks we can quickly come up with enough dough to buy a machine that makes 3" LPG-gasline.
http://www.alibaba.com/trade/search?Type...
....with a machine like this we could be making our own gaslines/waterlines/sewerlines/geothermlines/mininglines for CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP !!!
Made from Alaskan NGL's, By Alaskans, For Alaskans
NORTH STAR GAS....BIG DIPPER PIPE MFG. LLC
The nice thing about little plastic-gaslines is they don't require roads to build them, and they disappear into the wilderness nicely, but they put gas where you need it...
where it's cold while panning for gold on your claim.
......now, I challenge anybody to tell me why this plastic gasline project won't work..
..try me.
***"Would it not be easier and cheaper to change the gas to electricity on the Slope and then send it south by power lines and plug it into the Railbelt Energy grid?"***
*** NOPE ***
[I happen to know the guy who erected the first powerlines on the slope longer than 10miles]
The cost of constructing a powerplant on the slope, and the cost of the transmission lines will cost much more than building a vortex-tube gas-processor and pumps, and rtp-gasline, and all the bells and whistles safety equipment, etc.
....this is not a pipe dream.
I'm not kidding.
You can take it to the bank, from a guy who has nearly frozen to death more than a few dozen times.
Post a comment
Commenting requires registration.