Obama undermining or usurping AGIA pipeline?
| Mar 10, 2010A recent article from the Juneau Empire regarding the final steps toward Larry Persily's confirmation as head of the Office of the Federal Coordinator for Alaska Natural Gas Transportation Projects and rumors that the president plans to elevate the position's profile are causing consternation among some Sarah Palin fans. A post on Conservatives4Palin says the news means that the president will try to take credit for the pipeline that the Palin-era Alaska Gasline Inducement Act (AGIA) intends to create. Read more of that, here (but if you want facts and opinions about AGIA and other Alaska natural gas projects more current than the ones C4P links to, start with the following Alaska Dispatch site-search: results). Furthermore, another blog, US4Palin, worries that Persily and President Obama are instead going to kill the AGIA pipeline to discredit Palin's claims of competence. Read more of that, here, and don't forget that despite Persily's past remarks about former Gov. Palin, Alaskans on both sides of the aisle respect his candor when it comes to matters of policy.
Really though, it would be awesome if the federal coordinator's only concern were the AGIA line, as both sources above seem to assume, but the office is actually tasked with coordinating an Alaska gas line without a preference for any of the projects currently afloat. It would also be neat if the AGIA line's success -- or any large-diameter, Arctic gas pipeline's for that matter -- were predicated on simple politics, but it's not. AGIA will fail or succeed based primarily on market forces and producers' willingness to supply gas to the line. Period. President Obama has less to do with an Arctic gas line being built than do many trillions of cubic feet of North American shale gas near markets and established transportation infrastructure, to say nothing of depressed gas commodity prices that appear increasingly decoupled from oil commodity prices. To insinuate that political forces are stronger than market forces when discussing a complex, $41 billion petroleum project is irresponsible ... or come to think of it ... really, really wise. If the two blame narratives above take hold (judging from a verbatim re-post on The Cypress Times, one of them -- the version where AGIA fails -- may be starting to catch on), there won't be a downside for Palin no matter what happens to the AGIA project.
...will dump all of Alaska's gas into the Tarpits of Alberta. Very little gas will be allowed to stay in Alaska, just enough to keep a megacorporate stranglehold on the battered wife until she coughs up her gold.
International Corporations look at Alaska the same way they look at Africa...
to them Alaska is just another Rape&Run resource extraction colony.
Boom&Bust from Dreams to Dust
The total carbon footprint of building a megawhopper boondoggle pipeline to Alberta will be bigger than if Yellowstone erupted into a megavolcano...
just all of the increased jet-flights shuttling out of state workers and dependents back and forth will consume more kerosene than needed to build 10 All-Alaska Gaslines.
...it's a wasteful fools errand.
Did you know it's possible to bring a multi-billion$$ market to Deadhorse-LNG without needing to build a gasline longer than 20-miles? Yes, it's easier to move one of the worlds best markets for Alaska-LNG to N-slope than trying to beat a "deadhorse" to market.
BW4AKgov
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Not so, Scott. Market forces have already been taken out of the picture with the half billlion dollars-plus the state has committed to AGIA and the $18 billion dollars in federal "loan" guarantees committed, with much more to come (Lisa M. has already cranked that up to $30 billion) which will inevitably morph into outright grants. That's pure politics, and it's the only way any large diameter gas line (not necessarily under AGIA) to move North Slope gas to Canadian and Lower 48 markets will materialize.
If you don't think the president can't force the North Slope producers to make their arctic gas reserves available to a heavily federally-subsidized pipeline, you'd better think again. That's also realpoliticks. Further, if you don't think politics killed the 1970s-80s predecessor gas pipeline proposal, you'd better read my book.
"Alaskans on both sides of the aisle respect his (Persily's) candor when it comes to matters of policy."
I've know Persily a lot longer than you have, and if you trust his "candor," you're in for a rude awakening. Larry is a political chameleon who will adopt whatever political protective coloration promotes his ambitions and prospects. And he's slick enough to delude just about anyone into thinking otherwise. The reason he's where he is has more to do with the politicalization than the rationalization of a gas pipeline. Like Tip O'Neill said: All politics are local.
Joe LaRocca
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I expect more.
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Alaska would be better off if the federal government decided to spend the $40billion on building a solid strip of greenhouses along the Mexico border from SanDiego to Brownsville,TX. The Obama administration could supply North America with all of the biodiesel it needs forever with sustainable carbon-neutral algae-oil production.
The Best Market for Alaska's Gas is: ALASKA!!
.......a 5bcfd cryogenic pipeline can be tunneled from Deadhorse to Valdez for cheaper than trenching in a big whopper expensive steel pipe. A cryogenic pipeline can be made with 95% polymers, using VIP-PIP vacuum-wall design. High-efficiency magnetocaloric cryostat chillers are small-modular cryoboosters easy to install along the cryopipe. Modern tunneling machines can be purchased and used to install this gasline cheaper than a big fleet of sidebooms and excavators.
http://www.tbmexchange.com/index.php
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I understand that politics is, and has been, involved with these gas projects, but I stand by my original claim that laying blame or praise on a single cause or single person isn't a responsible representation of a project which would be one piece of a dynamic, global market.
Finally, I have no way of verifying what you say about Mr. Persily, but I'm sure you've had long experience in these matters. To be certain, while it's true that there are Alaskans on both sides of the aisle who appreciate his candor, I never said I was or was not one of them.