Energy From Another Backyard

Wall Street Journal ^ | January 4, 2007 | Norval Scott

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

The oil and natural-gas industry is increasingly looking to Canada as a home for big energy projects Americans don't want in their backyards.

A patch of coniferous forest near here, on Canada's Atlantic coastline, represents both the promise and the challenges of that approach. The land, owned by closely held Canadian energy company Irving Oil, is earmarked for the possible construction of a 300,000-barrel-a-day crude-oil refinery that would cost $5 billion to $7 billion -- the first new refinery in the U.S. or Canada in more than 25 years. Irving hopes a refinery, if it chooses to build one, would be operational by 2013.

The challenges include drawing international partners and a skilled work force to the sparsely populated area, as well as convincing locals that the changes are for the better.

The refinery development is the cornerstone of a concerted regional attempt to construct a huge "energy hub" in New Brunswick, supplying the markets of Boston and New York with gasoline, natural gas and eventually petrochemicals and related products. That would increase U.S. energy reliance on Canada, which already supplies 16% of its imported oil and oil products and about 85% of its imported natural gas.

The effort is the latest sign of increased interest just outside U.S. borders, in part to supply the U.S. market. Two liquefied-natural-gas where gas shipped from overseas in transportable liquid form will be processed for consumer use -- are planned for British Columbia.

Mexico also has drawn interest. In August, an LNG terminal on the country's east coast owned by Royal Dutch Shell PLC of the U.K., Total SA of France and Mitsui & Co. of Japan accepted its first delivery. Others are planned for Mexico's west coast, intended to supply some gas to Southern California...

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

From the article:

Confronting 'Nimby'

The rise in U.S. energy demand shows no signs of easing, despite higher prices as supplies world-wide become harder to find. The country also has been slow to invest in the infrastructure necessary to bring extra imports to consumers, due in part to concerns about the cyclical nature of the energy business. Also hurting matters is the widespread not-in-my-backyard attitude -- "Nimby" for short -- toward new industrial investment, which has notably delayed development of LNG terminals in the U.S.

NIMBYs: all about ME ME ME rather than our energy needs.

[rellimpank]

--but the Great Midwest is gonna have plenty of teakettles capable of turning out subsidized ethanol--

[Paul Ross]

Pinging

[capt.P]

The Northeast US is also hamstrung because we can't build oil refineries here- the air quality is already too marginal from the upstream exhaust plumes from the midwest's power plants and refineries flying over the Northeast on their way around the world. There's already enormous asthma problems up here.

There are a half-dozen proposals for LNG receiving facilities that are being seriously investigated in New England.

IMO, and this is NOT to knock the Nimby association made here, I think that this is seen as a moneymaker for Irving, good relations from up north, eh, and also a chance to compete with the New Jersey refinery complexes for New England's massive fuel oil and gas market. I'm not convinced the NIMBY problem is hugely significant here... Even so, I am kinda glad that we don't have to have a refinery in my neighborhood, so maybe you're right...