A Perennial Alaska Energy Challenge

Q.  Does Being Off The North American Gas/Elecetric Grid Point To Future Natural Gas Imports…Or An Economic ANS Gas Transportation Scheme?

A.  We have always held that Alaska’s politicians, for once, should wisely support the due diligent efforts of private industry to create economic solutions to ANS gas export potential.  Likewise, since our particpation on the Regulatory Commission of Alaska, we have urged state government restraint in favor of supporting private sector due diligence in defining, funding, building and opetating the infrastructure necessary to both export ANS gas and to supply citizens with adequaate supplies of natural gas, whether it be inported or produced locally. 

See Alaska Public Media.Report Below. -dh

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Alaska Public Media, 11/22.  As temperatures have dropped and prompted many of Southcentral Alaska’s natural gas-powered furnaces to kick on more often, local utilities are talking about the need to import natural gas from abroad, rather than continuing to get it from nearby Cook Inlet.

That’s not something that’ll happen in the near term, and there’s no worry that gas utility Enstar or power utility Chugach Electric will run out of gas for people to heat and electrify their homes. Not yet anyway.

But both companies have hired consultants to explore the idea of importing liquefied natural gas, or LNG, to fulfill their customers’ needs as gas contracts expire….(More)

Northern plans temporary compression stations – CompressorTECH² – CompressorTECH2

(Opinion Column: Letter to the editor)

A Voting Day Letter To Critical Thinking Citizens

by

Glen Biegel

Dear Anchoragians (Anchorageites?):

Glen Biegel

Zelenskiy Addresses U.N.

Today’s outstanding video-confeeence presentation was an emotional but professional description to the United Nations of Russia’s Ukranian invasion. 

President Zelenskiy encouraged removal of Russia from the Security Council if not the U.N. itself, followed by the convening of an investigative body to correctly deliver justice in wake of Russian criminal genocide.  Zelenskiy suggested that if the U.N. cannot take such justified action, perhaps it shoulc consider its own dissolution. 

Aside from the horrendous impact of Russia’s unprovoked attack on its sovereign neighbot, we in the energy idustry are also sensitive to the indirect adverse effects of Russia’s criminal attack on the energy and food industries, specifically– and worldwide economic impacts. 

(Search Internet for impacts on commodoties & services like oil, gas, coal, hydro, alternative energy, ocean and overland transport, grain, fertilizer, cement, minerals, etc.)

-dh

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As 2021 Comes To An End, We Capture The Last Few Northern Energy Links

Natural Gas Intelligence: Lawsuit Said Imminent to Stop Peregrine Oil, Gas Project in Alaska’s NPR-A

Sarah Palin, NGP photo, Copyright 2015 by Dave Harbour (“Ah, yes, I remember it well….”) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BGE3cX3ZWQ

Exclusive — Sarah Palin on Joe Biden: ‘It’s Too Late to Get Through to Him’ – Breitbart

Natural Gas Intelligence. January Natural Gas Futures Soar to $4.06 in Thin Holiday Trading; Cash Mostly Higher

See right column….
 

More…

CHUGACH ELECTRIC GOES FOR RATE INCREASE AFTER PROMISING VOTERS PRICES WOULD BE STABLE.  We were fooled, perhaps, by Ethan Berkowitz’ promises. The public comment period is ending Jan. 7. If you voted for the merger of ML&P and Chugach because you thought it would keep rates stable, you might have a comment. Read more here, Must Read Alaska.

Pine Journal  Intertribal agency raises concerns with Wisconsin DNR’s draft review of proposed Line 5 …

B.C. Mounties say they are monitoring protest against gas pipeline – MSN

Thorpe Watson

Thorpe Watson

Tue, Dec 21, 5:08 AM (7 days ago)

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The following defense of the gas of life was prompted by a report published by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Not to be outdone by virologists with their dangerous gain-of-function research, the report suggests that the natural sequestration of CO2 in the oceans should be accelerated.

Unlike the COVID pandemic, the lack of bioavailable CO2 places all carbon life forms at risk. Attacking CO2’s primary store represents a most serious escalation of the war on CO2 and, conceivably, could be much more effective than all the carbon-capture-storage facilities.

This paper, entitled “A Threat Greater Than Climate Change”, completely demolishes the belief that CO2 is a climate-control variable. A recognition of the role being played by Henry’s Law reveals that the IPCC’s own alarmist numbers provide maximum annual temperature increases of 0.00117 degrees Celsius over the next millennium. This is certainly not a climate emergency!

It would appear that we are suffering a pandemic of fear supported by unscrupulous politicians and journalists. I regret to inform you that this paper replaces an imaginary hobgoblin with a truly real and much more dangerous hobgoblin. However, it is one that can be easily annihilated simply by accepting the truth about CO2 and recognizing the fact that we can’t generate too much CO2.

May all your hobgoblins be vanquished. 

MERRY CHRISTMAS and a HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Thorpe

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A THREAT GREATER THAN CLIMATE CHANGE

Politicians are lying when they proclaim climate change an existential threat to life on Earth. Nevertheless, they are close to the truth because the real threat is the alleged climate-control strategy adopted by Western Civilization. The strategy has the potential not only to facilitate the economic and cultural suicide of a society but also to transform Earth into a dead planet.

This warning is not hyperbole. It is based on sound scientific principles.

The destructive strategy may be described as a war on carbon dioxide (aka “CO2”, “carbon emission”) with an ultimate goal of curtailing or banning the use of fossil fuels. Initial tactics involved the closure of coal-fired power plants and the commissioning of wind and solar farms. The war on CO2 quickly escalated with the introduction of carbon-capture-storage (“CCS”) facilities.

CCS facilities are proliferating with up to 30 units now operational and hundreds more in the planning stages. Much more threatening (or terrifying) is the proposal contained in “A Consensus Study Report of The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine” and entitled: “A Research Strategy for Ocean-based Carbon Dioxide Removal and Sequestration“.

 

The following paragraphs will explain why such attacks against CO2 should be denounced and deemed not only a crime against humanity but also a threat to all carbon life forms; that is, a threat to both plant and animal life.

This anti-CO2 insanity is tantamount to sequestering atmospheric oxygen to fight forest fires. However, there is a difference. An oxygen-deprived atmosphere will fight forest fires but a CO2-deprived atmosphere will not fight climate change. Both tactics will destroy animal life; that is, one by asphyxiation and the latter by starvation.

CO2’s history and its role in sustaining life on the planet clearly repudiate the belief that CO2 is a climate control variable. Rather than explain why CO2 is NOT a climate control variable, this article will focus on why a dearth of CO2 is the real threat to all life on the planet. It will also explain why it is impossible to generate too much CO2.

Without CO2, Earth is a dead planet! In fact, any reduction in CO2 reduces a plant’s growth rate and its drought resistance. At 150 parts per million (“ppm”), the plant will cease to grow. The cold oceans of the Earth’s reoccurring glacial periods absorb CO2 and reduce the atmospheric content to 180 ppm, a level dangerously close to the no-growth level.

The primary store of CO2 is in the oceans with 2% of it allowed to circulate through the atmosphere. The store has been severely depleted by more than 99% as a result of natural, ongoing processes that form carbonate sediments on the ocean floor. The layered limestone bed that can be seen at a road cut is one example of the final product.

The following figure reveals the natural depletion of CO2 since the dinosaur era, which enjoyed a CO2-rich atmosphere more than five times the current level of 416 ppm. The declining trend should set off alarm bells!

 

Because of this severe depletion, the quantity of CO2 circulating through the atmosphere has been reduced to a level well below the optimal level for plant growth and is approaching the survival threshold for vegetation.

Unfortunately, the consumption of all known fossil-fuel reserves will not materially restore the CO2 content of the atmosphere. Based on the emissions identified in Figure 7.3 of the UN’s IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, the contribution by fossil fuels to the annual increase of atmospheric CO2 is only 2.9%.

Respiration                  =  119.5 GtC
Land Use                     =     1.6
Oceans (70.6+20)       =    90.6
Fossil Fuels                 =      6.4   –  2.9%
TOTAL EMISSIONS    =  218.1 GtC

 

Another method of estimating the fossil-fuel contribution to the annual increase of atmospheric CO2 is to recognize the role of Henry’s Law in determining the distribution of CO2 between the oceans and atmosphere. The primary store for bioavailable CO2 is in the oceans (roughly 38,000 GtC) with 2% (762 GtC) of this severely-depleted store allowed to circulate through the atmosphere in accordance with Henry’s Law.

Typical of phase equilibria systems, the dilute solute is constantly moving between the two phases. The figure above shows a flux of 90 GtC of CO2 per year, which is many times man-made emissions. Adding solute to the gas or liquid phase will result in a redistribution of the solute to restore equilibrium conditions; that is, the CO2 ratio of 38,000 to 762 or 50 to 1.

In other words, the addition of CO2 to the atmosphere increases its partial pressure, thereby suppressing the outgassing flux and enhancing the absorption flux until equilibrium conditions are restored (i.e. 50/1). Consequently, atmospheric CO2 will increase by an amount equal to 2% of fossil-fuel emissions, which is materially in agreement with the 2.9% calculated above.

The time to restore equilibrium conditions can be estimated from the Keeling curve found on the NOAA website. Accordingly, the restoration of atmospheric CO2 related to the annual greening of the Northern Hemisphere is about 26 GtC per year, suggesting an equilibrium time of less than a year. This time must not be confused with the much longer, irrelevant “residence time”.

Atmospheric CO2 is increasing at a rate of about 1.7 ppm per year. If the increase were solely attributable to man made emissions, the rate of increase would be 4 to 5 ppm per year. Obviously, the equilibria redistribution process controls the CO2 content of the atmosphere while fossil-fuel emissions are responsible for less than 0.1 ppm per year.

The UN, through its IPCC, has reported that a doubling of atmospheric CO2 will result in a temperature increase of 1.5 to 4.5 degrees Celsius. This projection, which is from climate models, is failing to materialize. Furthermore, it is impossible to double the CO2 content of the atmosphere because the CO2 content of the oceans would also have to be doubled, which would require about 4 times the planet’s carbon reserves.

Using the most optimistic estimate of the planet’s carbon reserves from the following figure (10,000 GtC), fossil-fuel emissions will be responsible for only a 26% increase over a thousand-year period at current consumption rates. According to the IPCC’s own exaggerated projections, this translates into a maximum 0.00117C increase per year, an increase far from being a climate emergency. For readers interested in what really determines the Earth’s climate, I recommend a Vimeo video by Dr. Ned Nikolov. It is also on YouTube.

 

With the foregoing knowledge, it would be reasonable to ask why the anti-CO2 hysteria has so much traction. Obviously, humans are very vulnerable to the machinations of groupthink especially when aided and abetted by agendas involving power, money, and ideology. Needless to say, a corrupt media plays an important role. “Fear sells”!

Perhaps the simplest explanation for the impressive traction of climate groupthink was stated by H.L. Mencken about 100 years ago.
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.”

In conclusion, carbon dioxide is as important as water, oxygen, and sunlight in sustaining life on the planet. Tragically, CO2 has been reduced to dangerously low levels by natural processes. Therefore, it is imperative that we condemn CO2 sequestration projects and allow our relatively meager fossil-fuel emissions to replenish the planet’s severely-depleted store of bioavailable carbon dioxide.

Although it is impossible to restore the CO2-rich ancient atmospheres, our carbon emissions will nevertheless materially extend the green period of the planet.

Dr. Thorpe Watson
Warfield, BC

A Day Of Thanks For God, Country, Founders and Generations of Patriots

Transcript for President Abraham Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation from October 3, 1863

By the President of the United States: A Proclamation

The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature that they cannot fail to penetrate and even soften the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God.

In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and provoke their aggressions, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict; while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.

Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore.

Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American people. I do, therefore, invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a Day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that, while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation, and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union

America Continues To Evolve Into An Appeasement Country

“I want it now at someone else’s expense”

By

Dave Harbour

The disturbing trend continues.  Modern generations, particularly this one, want what they want when they want it and they want it NOW.  But only if someone else pays for it.  And who would that be?  It would be someone who cannot vote who can be involuntarily indebted and who would ONLY have to pay interest and not the principle for decades to come. 

In short, politicians can appease constituents by giving them things that will cause greater indebtedness for their non-voting children and grandchildren.  Trouble is, for the first time in history, this generation is gambling with trillion dollar numbers, numbers that truly can never be repaid and which will certainly cause an the financial default of a faultless, future generation.

In an October 6, 2021 Fox Business Network interview, GM CEO Mary Barra sought Congressional support in the proposed $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, for charging stations, and EV tax credits in the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill, “…so we have a level playing field”… with traditional gas engine autos.  “GM is transitioning from an auto manufacturer to a platform innovator.”  (But, obviously, not without taxpayer subsidies to transfer auto costs from wealthy car purchasers to hapless, future, non-voting taxpayers…because, oh my gosh, “we mean well, we want it now and Congress must appease us!”)

Using this logic, Barra would have supported the federal government, early in the last century, providing taxpayer funded gas stations for Henry Ford’s new vehicles and a tax credit for their purchase, and a national highway system in the pre-WWI America so that, “Congress would provide cars with a level playing field so that cars could successfully compete against horses and horse drawn carriages.”

We hope that the Business Roundtable, U.S. and local chambers of commerce, trade organizations and citizens of faith and principle will recognize the national risk, rise up and begin to vigorously oppose such federal government intervention and appeasement for one at the expense of another.

True Cost Of Electric Vehicle Fuel

Why don’t fossil fuel companies help educate consumers to the true realities of the misleaading green movement?

Edmunds asks, “What if a gallon of gasoline cost $3 at breakfast, was free at lunch, bumped up to $8 in the afternoon but was only $2 in the middle of the night”  Welcome to the world of charging up plug-in vehicles.”

Maybe buyers remorse would follow E-Car purchases when one considers the limited range, lack of fueling stations, cost of home electricity bills, decreased electric grid certainty, and the reality that the E-car is created mostly from fossil fuel mining, manufacture, transportation, distribution, and marketing.

We would encourage fellow citizens to carefully study this webpage, especially: scientists, consumers who evaluate costs against benefits, taxpayers who depend upon the government to act reasonably — and green proponents who seek the truth about their advocacy.

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