From the editor: This page is dedicated to the Public Forum, where we publish opinions on public and social issues that affect the Malibu community and our readers at large.
The LNG debate-facts and fiction
There has been a great deal of heat generated around the plans for the Billiton Cabrillo liquefied natural gas terminal offshore of Malibu/Oxnard. Let’s try to put some light on the subject. The facts about LNG have been lost in the propaganda from both sides. There are still a number of questions that must be answered by the proponents, but the right questions will not be raised and the EIR cannot be properly evaluated if the facts are not separated from the fiction.
First, LNG is natural gas – chemically identical to the gas currently piped into our homes and used to generate about 20 percent of the electricity in the U.S. Natural gas, methane, has become the transitional fuel of choice because it burns cleaner than either coal or oil; the worldwide reserves are larger than oil, and the infrastructure for using and transporting it has been in use for more than 100 years. Until a few decades ago, the user had to be within a few hundred miles of gas wells, because the only economical way to deliver it was by pipeline. LNG is a solution to that problem. It is natural gas from remote locations that is cooled and compressed until it is a liquid (about minus 250 degrees Fahrenheit and 100 to 200 PSI). It can then be transported in specially designed cryogenic tankers. This is not new technology-you see cryogenic tanker trucks carrying “liquefied” gases (including hydrogen!) on the highways every day. Ocean-going LNG tankers have been in use for at least 30 years. There are huge reserves of this “stranded” gas around the world that cannot be economically pipelined to the end user. A great deal is produced along with oil, and, in areas remote from users, it is often flared-burned off producing carbon dioxide, but no useful energy. The Persian Gulf annually flares about as much natural gas as we use in the Western U.S.
Why should we even be interested in additional supplies of natural gas? First, gas-fired plants generate much of our electricity and California imports 87 percent of the gas we use. Oil or coal produce two to 10 times as much carbon dioxide (the primary suspect in global warming) per unit of energy as does natural gas. The gas-handling infrastructure is in place. Its use in public transportation is growing, because it is a cleaner alternative to diesel (that blue diamond with “CNG,” compressed natural gas, in it on buses is one example). We have no other large-scale source of energy that is as clean as methane-yet.
Some of the fiction and a few facts:
€ There is a real issue with regard to the stability of the platform. It is not the probability of a hurricane á la Gulf of Mexico nor is it a tsunami (the water depth of 2,900 feet means that tsunami wave height will be very small). However, this is new technology and nothing quite like it has been done before. If that anchor were to fail, from earthquake or other natural or manmade disaster, this would pose a serious threat to the coast. BHP Billiton and the state and federal governments must be held to task on this issue.
€ The news reports you may have read about the “foul smelling” additive in LNG is a red herring-methane is odorless and those “rotten egg” smelling compounds are always added to gas from any source to make sure you will smell leaks.
€ The idea that the instantaneous explosion of all the gas in the terminal would create a fireball that would engulf Oxnard or Malibu is false. The worst-case scenario is a fireball about three miles in diameter and one that would be out in less than an hour. Not good, but not incinerating our neighbors either.
€ The argument that it would be a target for terrorists is true, but so are the existing oil platforms and refineries in Carson, El Segundo and San Pedro, which store at least as much energy and are located in highly built-up areas. We should always be cognizant of security issues and require good risk analyses and proper safety factors.
€ The stories about “high pressure” pipelines through residential areas are reasons for concern. However, it is the location of the pipelines and the safety measures that should be addressed. High-pressure gas pipelines already exist all over this country-this is not new technology.
€ The issues of costs have been raised. We pay more than $6 per million Btu now for gas and it will soon go closer to $10. To explore, develop, liquefy, transport and regasify on the West Coast costs between $2.50 and $3.50 per million Btu.
Most of the gas we use is produced from nonrenewable sources. Certainly the goal is renewable energy, from solar, wind, or biomass, but these do not come without environmental impact either. It also takes energy to produce fuels from biomass; wind and solar are not continuous energy sources, and the hydrogen economy is at least a decade away. Conservation is also critical, but until we can economically generate clean energy from renewable sources on a large scale (and that is a subject for another exposition), we need a cleaner, transitional fuel like natural gas.
The lesson? Ask the hard and important questions about the safety of this offshore terminal and ignore the obfuscation and red herrings being raised on both sides.
John Sibert
Dr. Sibert has been a chemistry professor and administrator at Yale University and at California Institute of Technology. He is a Malibu planning commissioner.