Today’s San Francisco Chronicle has done a good write up on the proposed LNG plant in Coos Bay and the Pacific Connector pipeline
Resident Jody McCaffree sees it as a place of sand dunes and shore birds, where the slumping local economy hasn’t destroyed a high quality of life. But a group of energy companies, including PG&E Corp., sees Coos Bay as a potential source of fossil fuel.
The companies plan to build on the bay’s northern shore a terminal for importing liquefied natural gas, deeply chilled fuel that, when warmed up, can run power plants, furnaces and stoves.
A proposed pipeline from the terminal would cut through 234 miles of rural land, mostly forest, before stopping at the town of Malin on the California border. There, an existing pipeline would move the gas north to the Pacific Northwest and south to California.
Suspicions the pipeline claimed to be for importation of natural gas will ultimately be used for export raises the specter that Pacific Gas & Electric is trying to take advantage of eminent domain rules.
…McCaffree and other Jordan Cove opponents wonder if it isn’t an export terminal in disguise.
The Pacific Connector pipeline, they note, could easily link to another proposed pipeline, called Ruby, that would enter Oregon from the east, supplying the West Coast with natural gas from the Rocky Mountains. If Jordan Cove is really designed for export, then any private property condemned to build the Pacific Connector pipeline would be condemned solely for corporate profit…
Project manager Bob Braddock says “…turning Jordan Cove into an export terminal would require completely redesigning the project and reapplying for government permits…”
Read the article here
