Many thanks to the Juneau Empire for reporter Sam DeGrave\u2019s informative and timely Nov. 1 article \u201cBringing LNG to the CBJ.\u201d If this were 1915 instead of 2015 I might say \u2018Hooray\u2019 for a cleaner fossil fuel for Juneau. But it\u2019s 2015, and we\u2019ve since learned that the carbon dioxide produced from using natural gas contributes to the destructive impacts of the global climate changes we are witnessing today.<\/p>\n
This must have been overlooked by Avista Vice President Don Kopczynski and Alaska Electric Light & Power Company President Tim McLeod when they recently blitzed our elected officials with the benefits of natural gas. But in order to stem impacts from climate change we need to produce less carbon dioxide, not more.<\/p>\n
A number of troubling questions arose when reading this article about proposed natural gas use in Juneau:<\/p>\n
First, the corporate executives proposed asking the State Industrial Development Authority (AIDEA) for a $58 million low interest loan, but the remaining $72 million they say they need would come as an \u201cequity investment\u201d from Avista. But wait, corporations never give that kind of money away because they\u2019re nice guys \u2014 so in reality that amount of money (plus the payback for the $58 million to the state) would have to come from elsewhere. Who? The homeowner converting their heating source to natural gas!<\/p>\n
Second, why is my hydroelectric utility that uses a renewable energy source, AEL&P, planning and lobbying for a natural gas utility in the hydroelectric capital of the world? (Its parent company, Avista, sells electricity and natural gas.)<\/p>\n
Third, would the modest savings from using natural gas versus heating oil be worth the home heating conversion costs, the construction of an LNG (liquid natural gas) unloading facility at Sheep Creek, and the nightmare of years of gas distribution piping construction in every street and highway in the city?<\/p>\n
Fourth, why did the City and Borough of Juneau Assembly turn down a similar LNG scheme years ago, but now supports this new plan from AEL&P\/Avista (according to the Empire article)? Instead of supporting replacement of one carbon dioxide-producing source (heating oil) with another (natural gas), why isn\u2019t the Assembly promoting efforts to meet Juneau\u2019s heating demand with renewables and off-the-shelf electrically based heating technology that is superior to what currently exists in most homes (examples discussed in the article)?<\/p>\n
Dick Farnell<\/strong><\/p>\n Juneau<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Many thanks to the Juneau Empire for reporter Sam DeGrave\u2019s informative and timely Nov. 1 article \u201cBringing LNG to the CBJ.\u201d If this were 1915 instead of 2015 I might say \u2018Hooray\u2019 for a cleaner fossil fuel for Juneau. But it\u2019s 2015, and we\u2019ve since learned that the carbon dioxide produced from using natural gas […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":14,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-8685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-letters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8685\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8685"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=8685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}