Category Archives: Natural gas

Solar growth like compound interest has turned Al Gore into an optimist

Not even Al Gore saw that the continually decreasing price of solar power was causing exponential deployment growth that will win within a decade. But now he does. Since solar is going to win, building destructive and hazardous petroleum pipelines for short-term profit for a few executives and investors would be short-sighted at best. Let’s stop those pipelines, LNG export, and fracking, and plug in to sun, wind, and water power for a clean and prosperous future.

Experts predicted in 2000 that wind generated power worldwide would reach 30 gigawatts; by 2010, it was 200 gigawatts, and by last year it reached nearly 370, or more than 12 times higher. Installations of solar power would add one new gigawatt per year by 2010, predictions in 2002 stated. It turned out to be 17 times that by 2010 and 48 times that amount last year.

And you ain’t seen nothing yet: Continue reading

Don’t Frack Georgia –sing along

Alton Paul Burns commented yesterday on Fracking south Georgia and north Florida?

Mr Emmet Carlisle wrote a song about fracking Florida “Don’t Frack Florida”. So in support of that movement I wrote another verse:

The battle is on in Bama & Georgia too
Spectra wants to run a pipeline through,
They could care less ’bout me or you,
And they lie to FERC more than they have too,

More Solar energy, Yeah that’s the thing
To everyone this message we bring,
We don’t need Spectra’s pipeline, That’s a fact!
And we don’t have to Frack!

-apb

So this would be the chorus for that verse: Continue reading

Fracking south Georgia and north Florida?

Potential fracking in north Georgia was too close, but what about right here in south Georgia? Florida has a snowballing anti-fracking movement. Looks like Georgia needs one, too.

300x149 South Georgia and North Florida Basins Map, in Shale gas basins in South Georgia and north Florida, by USGS, 4 June 2012 Dan Chapman, AJC Online Athens, 10 March 2013, Gas drillers turn to Georgia,

Jim Kennedy, the state’s geologist, says another company is considering the shale gas fields of the Mesozoic Basin that covers 60 percent of the Coastal Plain in South Georgia.

Most of the story is about proposed fracking in north Georgia that we noted back in 2013, plus fossil fuel industry propaganda about how great they say that would be for the local economy, with very little about the immense destruction, environmental hazards, and invasions of private property that would ensue. The AJC version of that Dan Chapman story didn’t seem to have Continue reading

LNG export boom going bust?

U.S. too late to catch up with the competition, says one analyst. And solar is going to eat fracked methane’s lunch, say I.


US LNG exports according to the EIA

Colin Chilcoat, Oilprice.com, 16 December 2014, LNG Export Hopes Fading Fast For US,

The advent of liquefied natural gas (LNG) has revolutionized the way the commodity is transported and has brought increased parity to traditional pipeline relationships. In that regard, the United States’ natural gas boom was right on time. However, somewhat slow to react to market demand, the US may just be missing its window….

Approximately 80 percent of future capacity will be sourced from Australia, Canada, East Africa, Russia, and the United States. In the early goings, the field — namely Australia — has the jump on North America….

Russia, while also slow to react, cannot be counted out. President Vladimir Putin has sought to aggressively expand his country’s Asian market share following the conflict in Ukraine. While profitability is certainly is a concern, the government has demonstrated a willingness to push through prestige projects. The upcoming Power of Siberia pipeline will dampen LNG growth in China moving forward. The country is also working closely with India on nuclear and LNG cooperation.

Yep, Russia’s deal to sell Siberian gas to China undercuts the world’s largest market for U.S. LNG exports, as I mentioned 14 November 2014.

Back to the United States, a long regulatory process and a historical preference to keep hydrocarbons at home have delayed efforts to export LNG. Moreover, the relatively useless LNG import facilities, constructed pre-shale boom, serve as a reminder of how quickly fortunes can change.

Fortunes can change even quicker towards the fastest-growing industry in the world: solar power. When even the nation’s most corrupt state (Georgia) is half way through passing a solar financing bill (HB 57), the world is turning to the sun.

Add to that OPEC’s deliberate crashing of oil and gas prices, and:

So to recap: we’re looking at an already saturated market with little opportunity to make a buck. Sabine Pass and likely Cameron will have their chance, but the window is all but closed.

So the long lists of approved, proposed, and potential LNG export terminals may be largely pipe dreams (pun intended). And Sabine Pass and Cameron’s main market might end up being: Florida via Port Dolphin. Which if it causes the Sabal Trail pipeline to be cancelled would be some improvement.

Meanwhile, the more delay in all the fracking boondoggles, including pipelines and exports, the more people will realize solar power will produce more energy than any other U.S. source in less than a decade. Fossil fuel companies brag about potential 28% growth in shale gas over 28 years, while solar power already doubled twice in four years and is set to continue that compound interest growth rate for years to come due to economies of scale. And then innovations like improved storage will drive solar adoption even faster. Former FERC Chair Jon Wellinghoff said in 2013, “Solar is growing so fast it is going to overtake everything,” and the actual deployment numbers show he was right.

The smart money is not on doubling down on climate catastrophe through fracking. Fixing climate change is profitable, including investing in safer, faster, cleaner solar power now.

-jsq

Charges and findings for Quebec oil train explosion

Low-level employees taking the fall for railroad company executives, that’s what we can see in the future of yesterday’s West Virginia oil train explosion by looking at one in Quebec in 2013. Can we expect any different behavior from fracked methane pipeline executives?

Roger Annis, Truthout, 23 June 2014, What Happened in Last Summer’s Oil Train Disaster in Quebec That Killed 47,

Details of the events leading to last July’s oil train disaster in Lac Megantic, Quebec, have been made public for the first time. They reinforce an existing portrait of the accident as a perfect storm of corporate malfeasance.

Insufficient handbrakes applied, instead Continue reading

VSU’s S.A.V.E. protests Sabal Trail pipeline and for fossil fuel divestment

Stop the Sabal Trail pipeline to help fossil fuel divestment. WALB got the connection at VSU Thursday 11 February 2015.

Colter Anstaett, WALB, 12 February 2015, Lowndes environmental groups march through VSU,

“We’re using so much at a rate that, within our generation or our lifetime, there’s gonna be catastrophic changes that won’t be reversed,” SAVE President Adrianna Taylor….

Taylor also said she believed that if the university ultimately did divest from fossil fuels, it would show that VSU students have the ability to critically think at the same level as students at Stanford, Harvard, and Continue reading

Kinder Morgan’s Palmetto Pipe Line to Savannah and Jacksonville

If you thought Sabal Trail was a one-off pipeline, think again. Kinder Morgan wants to build another pipeline conveniently past Elba Island LNG through Savannah and Jacksonville. Apparently it’s not actually for methane, but it’s still another fossil fuel boondoggle among many that local and state governments and NGOs need to proactively deal with instead of each type one by one.

Chip Harp, Valdosta Today, 9 February 2015, New Nat Gas Pipeline to Fuel Coast, Continue reading

HB 59 to waive sovereign immunity in certain cases

Sue the state? You’ll lose, because of sovereign immunity, unless HB 59 passes. Then you might be able to sue GA-DNR for circumventing permiting in allowing construction on the Georgia Coast, or if it should approve a compressor station in Albany, or if it should issue any other permits for the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline.

State agencies such as the Department of Natural Resources (GA-DNR), can use “letters of permission” to do things like make alterations to Georgia’s coast, and anyone suing to stop it runs up against sovereign immunity unless the issuing agency has expressly waived it. Now that may change with HB 59, “State tort claims; waiver of sovereign immunity for declatory judgment or injunctive relief; provide”. It has six co-sponsors, including Jay Powell, District 171, Camilla, Mitchell County, GA.

Here’s the key part: Continue reading

Pipelines are bad economics: invest in renewable energy instead –Harvard

Let’s stop wasting money on the slide-rule technology of Keystone XL or Sabal Trail: they’re both bad investments, either short-term or long-term.

Andrew Winston wrote for Harvard Business Review 30 January 2015, Why the Keystone Pipeline Is the Wrong U.S. Energy Debate,

In the short run, with oil at $50 per barrel, Keystone will connect refineries to oil that may be unprofitable to extract. In the long run, as the world turns away from fossil fuels aggressively, the pipeline will be moot — a relic of the past.

Either way it’s a poor investment.

What, then? Continue reading

Fixing climate change is profitable

Batteries are just one of many reasons, including electric vehicles, smart grid, solar and wind power (including pass HB 57 and you can profit by getting financing for your own solar panels), plus massive savings on health care and electricity bills; batteries are one of many reasons that fixing climate change will save us all money, clean up our air and water, expand our forests, preserve property rights, and make some people rich:

In fact, a recent report suggests that revenue from the distributed energy storage market — meaning battery packs and other storage devices located directly at homes and businesses (many of which now generate electricity through solar) — could exceed $16.5 billion by 2024. Another report predicts $68 billion in revenue in the same time frame from the grid-scale storage market. This includes large-scale battery packs, hydro-storage systems that use cheap abundant electricity to pump water uphill to drive turbines later on, or even solar thermal systems that store energy as heat in molten salt.

And it’s all happening fast, so fast your jaw will drop if you’re not paying attention. So let’s stop talking about the costs of fixing climate change. It’s not just no-cost and free, not just in the future but right now; we’re all actually going to be better off through fixing climate change: healthier and more prosperous.

Sami Grover wrote Continue reading