Put Cook Inlet gas first

To the editor:

I just got my January 2013 MEA “Power Lines” newsletter, wherein general manager Joe Griffith writes: “I see no viable alternative ... but to pursue importation of natural gas” and that “by winter 2014, fuel costs (your bill) can be expected to rise ... predicting a 30 to 40 percent increase.”

He also writes that “a recent analysis ... confirms the stark reality of ... diminishing supply.”

However, it is also true that USGS reported in June 2011 that Cook Inlet is known to contain an average estimate of 19 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, 600 million barrels of oil and 46 million barrels of natural gas liquids in reserves. Since USGS is a very conservative outfit, it is very likely much more than that will be discovered soon.

So, why are oil corporations dragging their feet in proving up these known reserves and forcing us to make plans to import what we already have in abundance? Why are our governor and beloved state representatives pushing natural gas pipelines from North Slope of Alaska, while we have huge gas, tidal, geothermal and hydro power right here at tidewater?

What kind of political games are they playing at our expense? Do we really want to bring natural gas across 1,000 miles of Arctic wilderness so that it will cost us much more per cubic foot than our own Cook Inlet gas?

I suggest we stop and consider instead a pipeline from Cook Inlet along the Railbelt to Fairbanks so our cost would be far less and so the price of gas to us will be far cheaper. Such a plan to add the Fairbanks market and other markets along the Railbelt will stimulate more drilling to prove up those reserves in a hurry. Let us not allow our government to conspire with oil companies to bring the most expensive natural gas in the most expensive way possible to a market that may refuse to even buy it at such inflated prices.

Asian export contracts are also critical to stimulating more drilling and exploration to prove up even more reserves. Since our natural gas is already at tidewater and since it would be much cheaper than North Slope gas, it is far more likely that we can secure these critical Pacific Rim export contracts using Cook Inlet natural gas first.

It is also vital in securing long-term, low-cost energy that we quickly develop our enormous tidal, volcanic geothermal and hydro power potential, because natural gas will not remain low-cost for long, as Joe Griffith has predicted.

Daniel N. Russell,

physicist

Willow