Editorial: Choices, choices, choices - Natural gas imports part of balanced solution

Sacramento Bee ^ | 10/30/6 | Editor

[SmithL]

When it comes to natural gas, California faces a quandary.

On one hand, the state does not have a terminal anywhere along its coast that can off-load LNG (natural gas that is stored in a ship in its super-cooled, liquefied form). On the other hand, California does have an increasing demand for natural gas. It has become the clean-burning fuel of choice to generate electricity and heat homes. Yet new domestic supplies aren't keeping up with future demands.

That leaves foreign sources to fill the gap with LNG, and a ship has to unload this natural gas at a terminal -- somewhere.

Where? Nowhere, say Pierce Brosnan, Cindy Crawford, Daryl Hannah and other Hollywood stars who recently lent a little limelight to the battle against an LNG terminal in California. Beware, however, of that nasty law of unintended consequences.

Rejecting an LNG terminal along the Southern California coast means embracing something else that has its own set of risks.

There are three proposals for liquefied natural gas terminals along the Southern California coast. One is 14 miles off shore of Malibu Beach. Two other proposals are at Long Beach and Port Hueneme. On Mexico's Baja coast, plans are under way to build an LNG terminal there as well.

California Public Utilities Commissioner Michael Peevey said at a conference the other day that the market will likely sustain two LNG terminals, one off Baja and one in Southern California. So the first in California to get approved may be the only one that gets built in the foreseeable future. Opponents of the terminals, however, are afraid...

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Thanks for posting this....pinging others.

[kingu]

As I've said before, every Hollyweird freak that's interested in preventing the LNG terminal should have to go 14 miles off the coast and stay there until the terminal is built somewhere else.

And of course, none of the actors have taken on this task because cameras can't zoom that far out.

[sr4402]

California ditched it's nukes and coal electric plants for Natural Gas ones. So keeping LNG means limiting that form of electicity as well. Can anyone in California say "BLACKOUTS".

[tubebender]

Start buying firewood futures...

[Amerigomag]

So let's review the options. If it's wrong to build an LNG terminal off the coast of California, surely the one off Mexico is noxious as well. And if the goal is to constrict the state's supply of natural gas, what alternative should the state embrace to generate large amounts of electricity? Coal-fired facilities in Arizona and Nevada? New nuclear plants? Boy, talk about protests

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