By ROBERT SEITZ
Reading the news and commentaries as we close out 2024 is interesting, especially when one reads the comments from readers.
My column, “What’s known about gas levels in Cook Inlet warrants immediate action,” of Nov 25, 2024 resulted in a lot of comments from people who were engrossed in taking shots at the other commenters. Very few seemed to have much interest in actually solving the problem of ensuring sufficient Cook Inlet gas availability until long into the future. I was hoping for some increase in positive thinking about the availability of natural gas in Cook Inlet.
It seems everyone has forgotten that the federal administration has provided negative support for oil and gas activity in Alaska, including for Cook Inlet gas. In addition to that, the ESG (Environmental, Social and Government) pressure on financial institutions and oil and gas companies strongly discourages oil and gas development because of the greenhouse gas craze. As a result there has been negative support for anyone trying to develop additional resource in Cook Inlet.
Reading other articles, I find the commenters dislike Hilcorp more than they dislike the anti-Alaska development forces that have been discouraging investment in Cook Inlet and other Alaska projects. Hilcorp is a reputable and reliable oil and gas producer that is faced with all the same negative support for oil and gas production that others face and are up against all the same environmental encumbrances the rest of us must battle, and they are still producing energy Alaskans need.
The Must Read Alaska column by Luke Saugier of Hilcorp, Hilcorp Alaska: Powering Southcentral Alaska’s past, present and future, was more convincing of Hilcorp’s commitment to Alaska energy than one commentor’s suggestion that Alaskans should support of a Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) would be preferable to Hilcorp’s threats and empty promises.
Hilcorp has been drilling new wells and producing gas, so they are meeting their commitment and promise.
Apparently one reader did not understand that the gas demand is fairly well fixed, with Hilcorp supplying most of that demand so that other producers cannot readily flow natural gas into the supply line without Hilcorp adjusting to allow more flow from an alternate source.
Arthur Miller, CEO of Chugach Electric and Mark Wiggin, Chair of the Chugach Electric board of directors co-authored a commentary on Monday in which they stated that CEA has co-invested with Hilcorp for new gas wells, and indicated they were looking forward to energy that will be available from renewables, imported LNG, possible North Slope gas and new gas from Cook Inlet.
For a correction to my article, I was advised that all the oil and gas tax incentives had been paid to Furie, so that wasn’t really part of the problems that Furie had to overcome, but there were various issues with financial support of oil and gas activities in Cook Inlet in recent decades that did have impact.
The summer 2024 edition of the Alaska Alliance LINK noted that one factor that slowed the royalty bill in the Alaska Senate was a delay in hiring a consultant who would model the effects of royalty reduction. The consultant and the State Division of Oil and Gas were both reported to have reached the decision that reducing the royalty was the quickest way to production of new gas. The whole idea of the reduced royalty on gas is not to make things more profitable for the producer but to make the gas supplied less expensive to Alaskans, to make our energy more affordable. During this next legislative session Cook Inlet gas production will, hopefully, receive more aggressive attention.
One bright spot this week was the commentary by Pedro Gonzalez in MRAK on Sunday, Dec 15. Gonzalez seemed to be confident that there is sufficient gas available to ensure a secure energy future for Southcentral Alaska. The certainty of Cook Inlet gas is better than the speculation on imported LNG, or North Slope Gas or renewables. Once we have confidence that Cook Inlet will be available for the foreseeable future, we can take our time to development the other sources of energy and avoid the extra expensive of rapidly building new infrastructure and rapidly develop new energy sources.
For the education portion of the title of my article I will reiterate my comment in an earlier article that there should not be an increase in funding for education without some offer of performance criteria for school districts for math, reading and capitalism; a reduction or elimination of social engineering indoctrination in the schools without parental consent; and improved graduation rate for students.
Gov. Dunleavy has stated for each budget that he expects a performance criterion before he will support increased funding for schools. That should put the burden on school boards and school districts around the State. We want our students to be qualified to become properly qualified engineers and scientists to work on our energy solutions and make real scientific decisions concerning our environment.
The environment comment I have is to make here deals with the pressure on the oil and gas industry. It is time to recognize that the climate change we have experienced is only a recovery from the Little Ice Age and is not due to greenhouse gas emissions. It is time for scientists to admit that the planet had higher temperatures before the Little Ice Age than we have now. Forests that are found beneath retreating glaciers should be one very good representation that the earth has been warmer than now, in the not too distant past.
It is time to get scientists to admit that they have been subverting good science, and have been perpetrating a lie. Fossil fuels are not a cause for warmer temperatures or the atmospheric rivers. If one keeps track of the position and route of the jet stream they will see where the high pressure areas will form to cause “heat domes.” There is no basis for court cases against the oil and gas companies concerning changes in climate.
Now is the time to remove the impediments to progress in oil and gas development in Alaska so our Cook Inlet natural gas production will become popular again, and increased production of oil from the North Slope can once again be a major focus for our efforts.
That is where our economy will be built and which will ensure our ability to put forth balanced budgets in the future, while still providing full Permanent Fund dividends to our citizens.
Robert Seitz is a professional electrical engineer and lifelong concerned Alaskan.
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It’s time for the author to admit that it isn’t the absolute global temperatures that are the concern. It’s the RATE at which greenhouse gasses and temperatures have increased since the Industrial Revolution.
Climatologists have repeatedly pointed this fact out and many, like the author, seem unwilling or unable to accept this.
Cman,
I didn’t see where the author denies that global temperatures have risen since the end of the Little Ice Age which happens to coincide with the Industrial Revolution. I have yet to see true believers acknowledge that using the end of the Little Ice Age/beginning of the Industrial Revolution as the starting point for global temperatures isn’t scientific. Look at any data set or graph that extends beyond the end of the Little Ice Age/beginning of the Industrial Revolution and please report back here what your findings are. Was it warmer before the Little Ice Age than it was at the end of the Little Ice Age/beginning of the Industrial Revolution? Was the end of the Little Ice Age/beginning of the Industrial Revolution the relatively coolest point in time in the last 10,000 years? Are we only now getting close to the same global temperatures seen before the end of the Little Ice Age/beginning of the Industrial Revolution? Is temperature known to suddenly rise after periods of slow cooling? Science tells us the answer these questions is yes. If you want to deny the science, that’s fine but you should at least ask and answer these questions before doing so.
Compared to the period before the Little Ice Age, global temperatures today, during the current period of global warming, are significantly higher, with the key difference being that the current warming is happening at a much faster rate due to human activity, unlike the natural fluctuations that caused the Little Ice Age; while the Little Ice Age saw a relatively small temperature drop, the current warming is considerably larger and occurring over a much shorter timeframe.
Correct. Watch it continue to speed up as freshwater from ice melt shuts off the conveyor system of the gulf stream in the Atlantic.
Since marginally reliable temperature records only go back about 140 years, and somewhat reliable data dates back to the early 1900’s, and actual reliable data only goes back to the 1970’s and maybe 1980’s scientists generally use proxy measurements that are averaged over hundreds of years. It is scientifically known that there is no data to support your assertions that the current warming is doing so at a rate never before seen, in fact science tells us that the climate historically slowly cools and suddenly warms, see Dansgaard–Oeschger events ‘https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Approximate_chronology_of_Heinrich_events_vs_Dansgaard-Oeschger_events_and_Antarctic_Isotope_Maxima.png#mw-jump-to-license’
And of course the Pleistocene saw suddenly warming near the end of the epoch with the Late Glacial Interstadial and when the Youner Dryas gave way to the Holocene. Slow cooling followed by sudden warming is a well known scientific event, even climate scientists who believe in anthropogenic global warming acknowledge this. Usually the only people who deny this well know basic science are ill-informed and simply repeat decades old and proven false talking points.
Cman, your assertions are fundamentally in error. The data you are relying upon are flawed. Much of the temperature records have been collected inaccurately. Conversely, professor R Linzen, PhD, (MIT) and Seong Choi (Georgia Tech) proved with satellite data that atmospheric temperature is not rising.
…. not rising at the anomalous rates you describe. Furthermore, in the multi-varied atmospheric system, the rate of temperature change itself is subject to change.
You are correct us normal people don’t believe the climate crisis from incomplete and fixed results so scientists can keep the dollars flowing for jobs.
Observations and evidence do not support that the warming temperatures are the result of increasing CO2. The evidence reflects that our observed warming is the recovery from the Little Ice Age. The hot spots are caused when high pressure area exist. If CO2 green house gas was the cause of warming it would be warmer on cloudy rainy days. IPCC and climatologists have it wrong.
Excellent article, sir! I have never understood how so many supposedly intelligent people have been hoodwinked by the man-made climate change scenario. It absolutely shows how propaganda and an anti-people agenda have taken over our society. Meanwhile we could be working on the few problems caused by natural cycles of weather rather than running around like a bunch of chicken littles.
For the actual climatistas out there like cman, it is a religious calling. When you don’t have the right stuff filling your spiritual side, it will be filled by anything else. Cheers
It’s just common sense and ugh…..science.
Yes! How on earth do these people get so easily swayed? They lack the necessary suspicion and questioning to delve more critically into their fields. Narrative accepted. On the flip side many in their camp will chide Christians for their fait and fail to realize they themselves are following false prophets.
I continue to believe that a foundational backstop for whatever decisions are made over the coming years for Anchorage energy consumers is to have Anchorage come under Power Cost Equalization. That would balance the $250 million state subsidy for the Interior Gas Utility, and it would tie rural and urban Alaskans together. Anchorage utilities could then maneuver from a position of strength and certainty. Anchorage is a magnet for homeless from throughout rural Alaska, and Anchorage taxpayers pay those bills. The incoming Alaska Legislature should place Anchorage in PCE early in the 2025 session, and Anchorage legislators in the House and the Senate have the stroke to easily do this. Why not?
Kayak, you espouse another attempt to have the Bush subsidize Anchorage’s alt-left insanity. Your policies, and your insensitivity of others, is in large part why many leave their villages – they can’t afford $15.00/gallon for heating oil, for an example. BTW, most of your homeless are not villagers.
I’m afraid that the way I see the Alaska economy for “the Bush (to) subsidize” anything that part of Alaska would first have to pay for something – education, police protection, the justice system, maintenance of transportation infrastructure, etc. What I think of as “the Bush” pays no property taxes, and it has nothing to do with racial make-up as last I looked Tok, Gustavus, Tenakee Springs and many other non-Native communities are in every way part of “the Bush.”
But that was not my point. My point was that just as the interior needed the IGU as the energy solution, Anchorage could be placed under PCE. PCE has no rural requirement that cannot be modified to include Anchorage.
Rich Thorne, your comment implies that “the bush” actually subsidizes anything when, in fact, it’s entire existence is based upon subsidies of every imaginable kind.
Arthur Miller is a poor leader who fits perfectly with Wiggin as Board Chair of Chugach Electric. Wiggin is really the one driving our utility into the ground. Miller is just his puppet.
Beneath Alaska’s northern skies so vast,
Where mountains guard the waters deep and fast,
A dreamer stands on shores both cold and far,
And whispers hope upon a twinkling star.
“Guide us,” they plead, “to treasures held below,
To natural gas where tides and currents flow.
Let wisdom shape the bounty we unseal,
For warmth and light, for progress we reveal.”
The star blinks bright, a promise in its gleam,
To balance nature’s gifts with mankind’s dream.
And as the Inlet whispers with the tide,
The seeker’s hope and nature’s truth collide.
If I were you, I’d be trying to remove the finding part from the new natural gas sourcing risk profile. You’re running out of gas NOW. Go with LNG. It’s a sure thing. Cook Inlet statistical gas or “I feel that it’s there” gas may not be real gas.
The point is, that there is more than just statistical evidence for sufficient natural gas in Cook Inlet. There appears to be much more than enough natural gas to depend on until we get whatever new energy source(s) set up for the distant future.
If we had a gas line from Prudhoe to Nikiski we wouldn’t have this problem.
Geez, why didn’t we think of that before??
In my opinion, after 40 years in the business lots of gas could be produced fast. I can tell what I believe oil and gas investors need to drill and increase Gas production in Alaska. It is not hard to cause a massive increase in production in the Cook Inlet if the people in power chose to eliminate the current failed oil and gas laws and regulations that only serve the regulators and monopolies, not the people of Alaska. The sad thing is the powerful don’t seem to want to change things and the people don’t seem to have the leadership needed. I am praying for a Christmas miracle. May I suggest three things, the right to have oil and gas matters/disputes heard by the Alaska state courts and not the agencies, (2.) eliminating all bonding and making Alaska a self-insured state,(3.) Provide a spot market for Gas or a set-aside market for investors to have an honest market for the Gas. I have three more, but I want others to jump in and see if a debate is possible.
Great Recommendations! Looking forward to seeing the remaining three.
10-4 Mr. Seitz, I’m in 100% agreement. That commenters snipe at each other is not at all surprising, since we know each other through these comments and there is vigorous disagreement among us. We enjoy the freedom that MRAK gives us. More mutual respect is needed, no doubt. Social commentary tends to promote sound-bite insults and disrespect, rather than well-reasoned debate – because of time and education restraints. Some comment for the “pleasure” (read that schadenfreude, a mental illness) of triggering an angry reaction in anyone perceived to be an opponent.
I look forward to more of your well-reasoned columns.
Very well put. Me, I appreciate the name calling. Need to be more artistic. Tired of the same old hate, liberal, coward, commie rhetoric.
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