Posted on 03/06/2025 6:09:24 PM PST by SeekAndFind
On Tuesday, President Trump gave his first major speech to a joint session of Congress, and it was a big deal. One thing in particular, though, had ears perking up all across the Great Land - you could almost hear them. That thing was the president's announcement of an intended natural gas pipeline, from the North Slope to the Kenai Peninsula town of Nikiski.
And it will be a huge, beautiful pipeline:
“My administration is working on a gigantic natural gas pipeline in Alaska, among the largest in the world, where Japan, South Korea and other nations want to be our partner with investments of trillions of dollars each,” he said during Tuesday night’s speech. “There’s never been anything like that one. It will be truly spectacular. It’s all set to go. The permitting is gotten.”
That pipeline is known as Alaska LNG, a massive proposed project that would send natural gas from Alaska’s North Slope 800 miles south to Nikiski, where it would get cooled to a liquid state and exported overseas — most likely to America’s Pacific allies like Japan.
So, how big, and how beautiful will it be? Well, not the world's biggest, but it's big. Beauty, we concede, is in the eye of the beholder; but Alaskans with jobs - now, that's beautiful:
The Alaska LNG Project pipeline would be far from the longest in the world. That title goes to Russia’s Druzhba Pipeline, which covers more than 3,100 miles in Europe. In North America, the Keystone Oil Pipeline runs more than 2,100 miles between Canada and the United states.
But at 42 inches, it would be large in diameter. A 2021 report from Global Energy Monitor puts the average pipeline diameter at 30 inches. The Keystone pipeline is 36 inches in diameter.
What some may be curious about is this: The current Alaska oil pipeline runs to the port at Valdez, overland the whole way - it passes through mountainous terrain, including the Brooks and Alaska ranges, but over land. This new LNG pipeline, to go to Nikiski, would have to either run way east and then back west over more mountains to get around the Turnagain Arm or across the mouth of the Turnagain to get to the Kenai Peninsula.
Why Nikiski? There's already an LNG facility there. It's inactive, but it's there, and it would seem to be easier to restart an existing facility than to build a new one.
There are already prospective buyers for the gas:
In 2023, the Wall Street Journal reported ambivalence about the project from prospective buyers in Japan and South Korea, who had concerns about the project’s costs, timeline and impact on climate change.
But last week, the New York Times described new interest from prospective partners in Asia as a way to placate Trump amid tariff threats.
And there are local parties, as well:
Still, as of Wednesday, there aren’t any binding agreements with anyone to buy gas from the project, if it’s built. But the project does have what’s called a gas sales precedent agreement with Great Bear Pantheon, an Alaska-based oil exploration company, to buy up to 500 million cubic feet of gas per day. The Alaska Gasline Development Corporation says that’s “more than enough” to meet in-state gas needs.
So, the whole thing is hardly a done deal yet. But it's looking a lot more likely than it was before, oh, say, November 5th, 2024.
See Related: Unleashing Our Energy: House Passes Pro-Fracking Bill in Bipartisan Vote
President Trump Opens Up America's Treasure Chest With Alaska Resource Executive Order
President Trump has referred to Alaska as America's treasure chest. It is that, for a broad number of reasons, not least of which are gas and oil - not to mention all our mineral resources, along with the unmatched scenery and the vast, wild places.
We can have the resources and the scenery. Alaska's a place that is, literally, big enough for us to have our cake and eat it, too.
President Trump's speech to a joint session of Congress has radical Democrats in panic mode, and their childish protests won't stop all of the winning.
‘All we needed was a new president’
“A pipeline like nobody’s ever seen before.”
Come through Alberta, we’ll treat you right.
He’s right. Every pipeline is different, because we cannot control the atomic arrangement when we make a pipeline. So, it will be a pipeline we’ve never seen before.
Knowing President Trump, it will be made with American steel.
He can cancel Bidon’s EO, but building it in the first place was a moonshot or Manhattan project. It was a continent wide project that required dozens and dozens of companies cooperating on scheduling to get it built.
It’s unlikely that so many companies will coordinate their efforts to build it on the scale they were building it. The best that might happens is it will be built in smaller bits and use less companies than before.
A shame, it was due to be finished in Aug 2020, eight months after Joe Bidon killed it.
..well, I support the pipeline because the world needs gas. That said, and as one who has gone down about 1,200 miles of the Yukon by himself, I hate to see the damage it will do to untouched and beautiful Alaska wilderness.
Full speed ahead with this and DRILL ANWR.
Alaska - America’s treasure chest
So the purchase of Alaska was not that much of a folly after all
Seward is vindicated...
Pipeline has to cross Cook Inlet, site of a major salmon fishery - what could go wrong?
No that pipeline is deader than a doornail now...
President Trump can raise the dead.
Natural gas pipelines cannot leak oil into water like a tanker grounding. If they leak it’s lighter than air methane that just floats to the sky. The initial laying of the pipeline can use industry best practices to minimize sediment movement inot the water column. As well as doing that period of construction when the salmon are out at sea not during the run season. There is no reason not to run a pipeline through a shallow trench across any river or estuary. Once buried in gravel it is inert as far as the wildlife is concerned. There are dozens of pipelines in the Baltic another prime fishing area even the bombing of the Nordstream didn’t mess up the fishing industry.
As well as doing that period of construction when the salmon are out at sea not during the run season.
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FYI salmon are either returning from or migrating to the ocean - there is really no period when salmon are not present.
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