Gas Pipeline from Alaska Won't Eliminate Long-Term Supply Challenge

[jpak]

http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=9935

WASHINGTON — A $25 billion pipeline carrying natural gas from Alaska to the lower 48 states would play an important role in satisfying the nation's long-term supply needs, but experts say it will not reverse America's rising dependence on imports or cause fuel prices to plunge.

Alaska moved the project to the front burner on Tuesday when it reached a tentative pact with three oil companies to build a pipeline to transport up to 4.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day -- an amount equal to 7 percent of present U.S. demand.

Still, the project could be a decade or more away from completion. Even after an anticipated multiyear design phase, some knotty economic and political issues will need to be hashed out, starting with getting the necessary environmental, right-of-way and construction permits from U.S. and Canadian authorities.

The oil companies -- Exxon Mobil Corp., BP PLC and ConocoPhillips -- and their contractors also would need to recruit some 4,000 workers to build the pipeline and get steelmakers to roll out enough high-strength, 52-inch diameter pipe for the 3,600 mile-long project.

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[hatrack]

1. Then there's that little thing about melting permafrost

And, of course, the fact that it'll take 10 years to finish this particular project.

[Oerdin]

2. I'm actually for this.

I would like to see us slash energy consumption especially fossil fuel consumption but since that isn't realisticly possible then we should at least promote cleaner fossil fuels like natural gas instead of coal or oil. Coal gasification might be a good way to go if it at least gets people to stop using coal and switch to natural gas. That would at least pollute less even if it won't solve the climate change problem.

[hatrack]

3. 2,000 landslides in McKenzie River valley since melting began

INUVIK, Canada - Environmental hearings on Canada's proposed $6 billion Mackenzie Valley pipeline opened with warnings that the safety of the pipeline and the natural gas fields that feed it is threatened by climate change that already is damaging northern roads and airstrips.

Government scientists and environmental groups said pipeline builder Imperial Oil hasn't accounted for permafrost melting under the pipeline. Nor has it considered the effect of higher sea levels and longer storm seasons along the low-lying gas fields that would serve Canada as well as the United States.

"It's really the frozen ground that creates the structure that protects the pipeline," said Stephen Hazell, conservation director of the Sierra Club of Canada. "You could get shearing of the pipeline. ... Whole slopes could subside as the permafrost melts."

EDIT

Two federal government departments echoed Hazell's concerns. "The Mackenzie Basin has experienced some of the greatest warming in the circumpolar North in the past 50 years," said Jim Vollmarshausen of Environment Canada. "Climate variability and change poses a serious threat to the viability and integrity of the project."

EDIT

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x42870

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11383809/

And the company that's trying to get the job didn't even account for this in their planning documents. Oops. I mean, I agree, far better this than coal, but I don't know if it's even going to be doable. Who the hell knows what kind of terrain Arctic Canada is even going to BE in ten years?

[NNadir]

4. Coal gasification is worse than normal coal.

You have all the pollutants - including sulfur - plus the need for extra process heat for the reforming.

Natural gas, being a fossil fuel, is a disaster. The sooner we're done with it, the better.

[Oerdin]

5. Do you have a cite?

I have seen articles in several reputable popular magazines (Time and the like) which have said coal gasification does vastly produce the release of particulate pollution as well as heavy metals which would be released if the coal was simply burned. True, you still produce lots of green house gases as is done with any fossil fuel but if we are creating less smog and less acid rain then we are at least better off then with a normal coal plant.

That does seem to be a major improvement over the status quo.

[NNadir]

6. I can poke around for some. I've read quite a bit on this topic over the

years, occasionally scanning some articles in Energy and Fuels with disgust, because coal is something I'm fighting against.

Just some general comments based on my general knowledge and you can take them for what they are worth. First off it is probably true that under some circumstances, one can reduce particulate production in such technology, if one ignores coal dust created in mining and transport of the coal.

The mines themselves, will continue to be exactly what they are now, vast acidic pits leaching highly contaminated water. Nothing about gasification will change that.

Some metals, notably mercury, are volatiles, and will be carried with the gas. This is certainly true of mercury metal, which may be produced under reducing conditions, and methyl mercury - which of course may be found in a methane production strategy.

The ash from the coal will still have to be dumped somewhere. Nothing in a gasification project effects the existence of the heavy metals therein - metals that have been stabilized for many millions of years in the coal - which is after all a naturally occurring carbon filter. Coal is typically 10% ash, brown coals can be worse. Even if they are not volatilized the heavy metals in this ash will still be in a highly divided form, the particles having large amounts of surface area. This creates plenty of opportunities for extraction by water, again in a medium that is ultimately acidic.

There are various ways to remove sulfur - temporarily at least - from the gas. (Some sulfur will be left in in the form of the familiar odorant probably.) These methods add expense of course, and coal gasification - although it is a process that is a century old - is already about 3 to 4 times more expensive for the production of hydrogen than production of hydrogen from natural gas. (Hydrogen is a key intermediate in the gasification process.) The sulfur too will have to ultimately dumped, although some may find its way in to use for the vulcanization of tires. That sulfur which is dumped on the surface or in waters will oxidize ultimately to sulfuric acid.

Finally, and most importantly, I object to the notion that carbon dioxide is somehow a less serious pollutant than particulates, acid, and heavy metals. The gasification temperatures are around 900^oC and obviously this involves thermal inefficiency, since ultimately some of this heat must be rejected to the atmosphere. Therefore if the heat source is coal - and why wouldn't it be? -this will require at least some burned coal with all the attendant difficulties now involved in coal combustion. Moreover it will involve using more coal than one would have used in just burning the stuff directly. This means more CO₂, and more greenhouse gases. To my mind CO₂ is not a trivial pollutant. On the contrary it is the most serious pollutant. It is the one that places humanity in the greatest danger.

People tell you of course, that they "could" sequester the gas, but in my mind, when people say what "could" be done, they are appealing to fantasy and engaged in hand waving. (One hears all the time about the solar flux of the continental United States and how much energy this "could" produce, but somehow it isn't produced.) Here is what I think will be done if coal is gasified. The carbon dioxide gas will continue to be dumped into the atmosphere, albeit in larger quantities. That is not acceptable.

You can take these comments of mine, which come off the top of my head and involve no search for links, for what they're worth.

[depakid]

7. This stuff is basically town gas

And I imagine that the historical adjectives- nasty, smelly, dirty and dangerous- still apply.

As far as the Mackenzie river gas fields are concerned, now that Harper's PM, my guess is that he'll be anxious to try to exploit the Alberta tar sands. That's going to take a lot of natural gas- and seeing as how North America is already in depletion- and tons of Americans have bought into gas to heat their homes (not to mention generating their electricity) it should be interesting to see how those competing uses play out.

Could spell a little trouble for NAFTA down the road....

[hatrack]

8. I can't see natural gas remaining an Athabascan feedstock for much longer

There's just not enough natural gas out there to allow for full development. And, as you note, there are, oh, a couple of hundred million Americans and Canadians who use it for the little things - like heat.

Aside from going nuclear for their heat source, I don't know what the hell the tar sands industry is going to do long-term.