From Stark
SSA Marine has announced the filing of additional information about the Gateway Pacific Terminal project with Whatcom County.
The announcement hit my inbox a few minutes ago and there is no immediate indication of exactly what this new information consists of. But the material should be posted shortly here on the county website.
Here is the press release:
Seattle – SSA Marine today took another important step toward the full environmental review of the Gateway Pacific Terminal project by filing additional information about the project with Whatcom County planning officials.
The information responds to an earlier request by the County for more information on the multi-commodity export terminal proposed for the Cherry Point heavy industry zone.
“We have put a lot of time and effort into being as responsive and thorough as possible,” SSA Marine Senior Vice President Bob Watters said. “We realize the public has a high interest in our project. While today’s filing is an important step, we look forward to addressing all these issues in even greater depth as the public review of the project moves forward,” he said.
Gateway Pacific Terminal will be a highly efficient cargo-handling facility for American producers to export dry bulk commodities such as grain, coal, and potash to Asian markets. Construction of the full project is expected to employ about 4,400 people and operation at full capacity is expected to create about 1,250 long-term family wage jobs. In total, the annual economic impact of the project – payroll and tax revenues – would be $140 million a year, ongoing.
The company said it would post the new information to the Gateway project website, www.gatewaypacificterminal.com, once Whatcom County posts the materials on the County website.
End of press release
The Gateway Pacific project has also drawn a storm of opposition, partly because it would get coal and other cargoes via trains that would move through Bellingham.
A citizens’ group, CommunityWise Bellingham, recently released a study indicating that the terminal could be a net negative if it undermines the tourism industry or interferes with efforts to redevelop the Bellingham waterfront. But that report offered little guidance as to the likelihood of those negative outcomes.
“Additional information” being a euphemism for, “They didn’t buy that we didn’t need a new shoreline permit.”
John, “the likelihood of those negative outcomes” needs to be measured by the EIS. The CWB report tighted up the questions to ask.
“Let the Games Begin!”
It seems like it would be more accurate to describe it as a facility to export coal with the possibility of exporting potash and grain down the road. I know SSA likes to put forward the image of grain but that image is not the reality. It’s simply their PR.
Indeed, Lisa. The Project Information Doc says they’ll build in two phases. The eastern, coal, terminal is phase one. Phase two, the western “other commodities” terminal, wasn’t projected to be built for at least 10 years in the first version of the PID. Interesting to see what the current version says. But other comments on this board are well taken. There was a major “grain party” to which govs of major grain producing states, et al., were invited. Are we really dealing with Peabody & BNSF now, and Monsanto & BNSF down the road when Asian demand for our coal isn’t so hot?
Terry – The question that I have been asking, since the grain grower conference, is why, if the Chinese market for coal is so time limited and dependent on the weak US dollar, are there so many coal terminals being proposed?
There is a huge LNG port being built off the coast of Australia. China is a partner. The rest of the world is going with gas. China is using every kind of energy available, but they won’t need so much coal.
I just don’t get it.
After GPT is completed; maybe a LNG project could be next for Cherry Point, I’s sure the NIMBY’s of Whatcom would love that too, don’t ya know!
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
AFY: LNG has been evaluated at Cherry Point. Never really got any traction as a project and would require a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission permit. Funny how you need FERC for exporting or importing natural gas but not coal.
Dan, to the best of my knowledge everywhere any LNG export facilities have been proposed in the NW they are being opposed by the same/similar groups that are in opposition to coal export anywhere it is proposed.
Makes you wonder if the opposition to these projects are not about what these projects are but that they are? Sounds like the work of NIMBY’s or even worst possibly, don’t ya know!
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
We will create jobs! Trust us! We really will! Take no notice of that man behind the curtain!
“The question that I have been asking, since the grain grower conference, is why, if the Chinese market for coal is so time limited and dependent on the weak US dollar, are there so many coal terminals being proposed?”
The Japanese at last report are operating only three of their 50 or so nuclear reactors and may stop using nuclear. The Indians burn a lot of coal, and their economy is growing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVZ-mbypO94
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
LNG go Boom!
You need an FERC permit for LNG because it’s so damn dangerous when you pressurize it for transport.
LNG terminals have an exemplary safety record. Their safety is a product of advanced technology, well-trained professionals, a thorough understanding of LNG risks, robust safety systems and procedures, and rigidly adhered-to standards, codes and regulations. In the past 30 years, no death or serious accident involving an LNG terminal has occurred in the United States….
http://lngfacts.com/About-LNG/terminal-Safety.asp
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
Perhaps you have read recently that bunker fuel (what ships use) production is down, due to decreased capacity and Asian nations buying up the supply. This is a desperation play to get as much control over shipping as possible. Of course it will also drive up the price.
In a world of 20% or more yearly increases in fuel prices, it is to China’s advantage to use as much foreign coal as they can to conserve their own coal. Nuclear is dead capital-wise, and costs of liquification price LNG out of the heavy industry market (like steel furnaces). The US would be foolish to sell any of its coal to anybody, especially as coal is the best carbon storage device we have. As crude prices skyrocket, it will become foolisher and foolisher (!!!) to use a refined fuel to transport a bulk fuel across a huge ocean. Thus two reasons why China is desperate to get this coal port now.
SSA Marine and Craig Cole are modern day traitors, selling off natural resources that will result in making us militarily weaker than China in 20 years.
No deaths or serious injuries have resulted er…proven to have resulted from a nuclear reactor accident in the past 30 years,
well except in Russia and maybe Japan or on a ship or submarine.
But that doesn’t mean the things aren’t dangerous and so need to be sited away from populations.
LNG is instantly vaporized upon release and so forms a dense and highly explosive cloud not easily dissipated.
I am sure the coal producers would be happy to sell coal to a domestic market but there is just one little problem, our domestic market has/is being destroyed by the O & his policies.
Destroying our domestic coal industry only makes our coal go elsewhere kinda like stopping the keystone pipe line which will only make the oil go elsewhere.
There another sidebar if you are destroying the domestic market for coal in the name of pollution in reality you are causing more pollution by sending it somewhere where they do not have as clean of power producers as us (same for keystone oil).
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
This just in! – The Keystone Pipeline tar sand oils was meant for the world market not domestic consumption. Funny an industrialist wouldn’t know that.
America now exports more refined fuel than we import in crude oil.
Name one Obama policy that has/is destroying our domestic energy market.
The pollution impact of tar sands Keystone pipeline oil is in the million tons of coke burned every year to process it,
the water poisoned by that same process,
the square miles of waste ponds that kill wildlife
and the stripping of thousands of hectares of forested tracts that will never recover.
Add to that it’s in the delta of the major watershed for that part of Alberta
and the impact of moving refined petroleum up there to mix with it
and you’ve got yerself a pillaging and raping situation par none.
How do you do it?
I know I couldn’t sleep if I advocated the silly stuff you say.
“President Obama incessantly claims energy open-mindedness,… Except, of course, for drilling:
…off the Mid-Atlantic coast…, in the broader Gulf of Mexico.., in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge…,on federal lands in the Rockies….,
But the event that drove home the extent of Obama’s antipathy to nearby, abundant, available oil was his veto of the Keystone pipeline, after the most extensive environmental vetting of any pipeline in U.S. history….
After Solyndra, Keystone and promises of seaweed in their gas tanks, Americans sense a president so ideologically antipathetic to fossil fuels — which we possess in staggering abundance — that he is utterly unserious about the real world of oil in which the rest of us live….
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/obamas-oil-flimflam/2012/03/15/gIQA7x77ES_story.html
But inflating our tires, the volt, and algae will save us!
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
There are presently over 7,000 federal lands permits for drilling that are not being used.
Domestic oil production is at its highest level since 1999.
Refined fuels are now our Number 1 export.
Name one policy? How about a war or two and several covert operations? Soldiers are the ultimate consumers on top of being wasteful in their use of fossil fuels. Tanks have worse gas mileage than semi-trailers. The amount of joules/BTUs/KWHs of energy wasted per soldier per day DWARFS all other energy use in the US. If Obama would stop his wars of empire, we would have a lot more oil for domestic energy use. This would drive the price down.
You want to drive your SUV a little longer? Get out of Iraq (including the 15,000 still there), Afghanistan and the covert operations in Iran, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, Nigeria, Uganda, etc.
“The United States has some 20 billion barrels of oil in reserves…we have 20 billion barrels of oil that is recoverable at current prices and under lands currently available for development….
That definition excludes many oil reserves that Obama has declared off-limits. According to the Institute for Energy Research, we have more than 1.4 trillion barrels of oil that is technically recoverable in the United States with existing technology….
To put this in context, Saudi Arabia has about 260 billion barrels of oil in proved reserves.”
For overblown and in some cases completely fabricated environmental concerns, Obama is preventing us from greatly expanding the pie of our oil reserves,…and at the same time throwing government money down the ratholes of projects that aren’t sound and economically prudent enough to warrant substantial private investment dollars.
He’s told us he wants to bankrupt the coal industry, get us out of gas-driven cars and into electrical clunkers and onto bike paths, and increase the price of gas.
Why don’t we believe him?
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=50085
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
“…the new EIA report shows:
•Fossil fuel (coal, oil, and natural gas) production on Federal and Indian lands is the lowest in the 9 years EIA reports data and is 6 percent less than in fiscal year 2010.
•Crude oil and lease condensate production on Federal and Indian lands is 13 percent lower than in fiscal year 2010.
•Natural gas production on Federal and Indian lands is the lowest in the 9 years that EIA reports data and is 10 percent lower than in fiscal year 2010.
•Natural gas plant liquids production on Federal and Indian lands is 3 percent lower than in fiscal year 2010….
The big picture is clear that government policies undertaken by the Obama Administration have produced a significant decline in offshore oil production on federal lands in fiscal year 2011. That is certainly not a way to increase domestic production of oil and keep oil and thus gasoline prices in check.
http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/2012/03/15/fossil-fuel-production-on-federal-lands-at-9-year-low/
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
Just a few years ago, there was a push to get LNG import terminals in place on the West Coast. But now, natural gas is abundant in North America, and people are talking about the EXPORT of LNG.
Sounds like a need for LNG terminals that can give and receive!
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
Walter has a good point about the fuel used and wasted in wartime.
But i don’t really believe that Obama or the Dept. of Energy have much to say about that.
If you say roadblocks are put in place by this Obama policy or that department,
you should be able to back up your claims with facts.
export terminals have to chill and liquify. Import terminals have to warm it up and regasify it for use at site, or for transmission via pipe
Sounds like a hot and cold proposition!
I have faith in American innovation if government gets out to the way!
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
Sounds like a hot and cold proposition!
I have faith in American innovation if government gets out of the way!
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!