Having just moved from Astoria to Portland, I know that this is not just another “not in my backyard” plea from the Coast. Think about the extreme danger of ships crossing the Columbia River Bar in any bad storm. In storms two winters ago, not one but two barges snapped from their tugs as the tugs were crossing the bar, and a Columbia River Bar Pilot drowned while trying to cross from a ship back to his boat. Every gigantic LNG tanker (which dwarfs other tankers) that would be coming from the ocean to the Warrenton and Bradwood terminals would need to cross that bar.

Next, the Bradwood-bound LNG tankers would need to pass under the long Astoria-Megler bridge (a somewhat easy terrorist position). All LNG tankers would necessitate a huge Coast-Guard-patrolled circle of no-boat zone along the river. The only deep river channel running by Astoria means that an LNG tanker would need to pass within yards of Astoria’s town center. That’s how dangerous it is, just transporting it *to* the terminal.

Newspapers on the Coast have printed maps of the circle of destruction created by an explosion of a terminal itself. Easily hundreds of people could be wiped out in a Ground Zero blast, and many more outside the circle could be maimed and burned. But as I wrote in an earlier blog, the LNG people have called those who live near the mouth of the Columbia an “acceptable risk.” The LNG people know the fallout could be fatal to whole towns, but to them (since they don’t live there) a small Hiroshima-type detonation is acceptable. Many along the Columbia, and others who are watching this closely, don’t agree.

It seems whenever a new power plant of some kind is proposed, the businesspeople tell us, “We need this because we are running out of natural resources.” It’s true the Earth will never have more oil, coal or water than it has now. Because of that, we will always be running out of natural resources. That means we need to conserve and use wisely, and open up the system to encourage much more alternative energy production. It doesn’t always mean we need to build another power plant.

“Relative Greenhouse Heating from the Use of Fuel Oil and the Use of Natural Gas, D. Abrahamson (Public Affairs, Univ. Minn.), 50 pp., June 1989. Request from Oil Heat Task Force, c/o New England Fuel Inst., POB 888, Watertown MA 02272 (617-924-1000).

While combustion of natural gas produces less carbon dioxide than combustion of fuel oil, leakage in natural gas distribution systems releases methane, which has a much larger greenhouse heating potential than carbon dioxide. Using government and industry data on production and transportation of natural gas, this study estimates that if total leakage exceeds 1-2%, the resulting greenhouse heating exceeds that from the use of fuel oil. Based on aggregate U.S. data, leakage is about 0.13%; if the maximum amount of gas reported “lost and unaccounted for” is included, leakage would be 6%, leading to at least twice as much total greenhouse heating as from fuel oil. Stabilization of greenhouse heating from methane emissions may best be achieved by limiting venting and leakage associated with natural gas use.”

No informed person wants to extend the output of the Boardman Plant any longer than necessary, but your model of the LNG – coal tradeoff doesn’t take in to account the extent to which renewable sources are ramping up, and are increasingly making coal unnecessary. I agree that the timing relationship could be better, but your argument assumes change in some areas, and no change in other areas, like renewable technology, which has already demonstrated exponential growth. Plug-in hybrids, for example, can use EnvisionSolar’s integrated charging panels and parking structures: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Envision_Solar.

Gas has half the carbon of coal and has none of the other nasties (mercury, polonium, etc.–essentially burning coal releases every element in the table, because it’s all present in the coal). We should be building many small natural gas turbines with the exhaust heat powering district heating plants as fast as we can, making our grid more supple and far, far more efficient than it is today.

Coal is the enemy of the human race, as more people are starting to realize. We can either get off coal or watch helplessly as climate hits tripping points and runs into runaway positive feedback loops.

Keeping LNG out without first shutting down Boardman means that you want to use coal to supply Oregon electricity for the foreseeable future. If we can conserve enough to shut down Boardman AND live with constantly declining volumes of natural gas, I say fine — but I don’ think you’re going to like it. All those plug-in hybrids that people keep spurring green fantasies run on electricity, for one thing.

Oregon gets about 40% of its electricity from hydro, about 40% from coal, and essentially all the rest from the Hanford nuclear plant and a little bit of geothermal, and wood waste; nobody’s burning much natural gas to make electricity right now because it’s so valuable that the price is real high. And if the winter is cold, you are going to really see price shoot up, because N. America is no longer self-sufficient in nat. gas supply if demand spikes. But at that point, with gas back up at $15/therm, you aren’t going to get far trying to shut down Boardman, even though it’s essential that it (and the ugly plant at Centralia in WA) go away as fast as possible.

Now I don’t heat with natural gas, so I’m not going to suffer much if we run out of natural gas, but if I did (and many of us in Oregon do), I’d feel a little odd about saying “No LNG here.”

Also, I am concerned that you haven’t explained to people what it means that the feds took control of LNG siting in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 — that means that the feds took control of siting in the Energy Policy Act of 2005, and that all the dreams of permit denials are going to be getting a dose of cold water in the face. Believe me, the feds are going to be much happier to stick it to Oregon to site an LNG terminal than they are either California or Washington.

So knock yourself out trying to stop LNG terminals if you like–but I sure wish you’d put at least the same amount of effort into getting some backbone into our climate change law so we can actually do something good for the environment rather than just tilt at this LNG windmill.