Anti-Frackers Not Yet Resigned to Gas Docks Expansion

Anti-LNG protesters arrested in DC

Dozens of protesters were arrested in Washington DC this week in demonstrations against the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (Ferc), which anti-fossil fuel groups claim is "rubberstamping" gas projects across the US.

If rubber stamping is defined as a long drawn out regulatory process with numerous opportunities for the anti-fracking, anti fossil fuels groups to make their opinions known, then yes, they were rubber stamped.

Margarette Flowers, an organiser with Baltimore-based Popular Resistance, said 25 people were arrested on Monday while protesting in front of the Ferc headquarters, and another 12 were arrested on Tuesday. Another 15 were arrested in Seneca Falls, New York, at the site of a gas-storage project approved by Ferc.

I hope Sheriff Mike treated them well in custody, and allowed them to heat and light their cells with wood that they cut and split, and candles that they dipped from beeswax and beef tallow.

Among the protesters' targets is Dominion Resources' $3.8 billion Cove Point liquefaction and export project. Seven people were arrested at the construction site in Maryland on Monday as part of the larger demonstration, Flowers said.  Protesters claim that Ferc has approved gas projects like Cove Point without adequate study of the potential impacts on communities and the environment. Industry proponents view the Ferc approval process as particularly rigorous and time-consuming.

Dominion Gas Docks 10/16/14

There are no number of studies with favorable results that could ever convince them that improvements are more valuable than detrimental. Their opinions are religious, not fact based.

In the case of the Cove Point project - the fourth and latest LNG export project to get Ferc's approval out of dozens that are proposed - the regulator spent nearly two years studying the potential impacts of the project and issued a 241-page report on its findings.

Ferc ultimately concluded that the project would have no significant impact on the local environment as long as certain mitigating factors were taken into account during construction.

The proposed export facility will be built within the 131-acre footprint of an existing LNG receiving terminal site, which has been in Calvert County on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay for nearly 40 years. No new pipelines or storage tanks are needed. 

What will be needed is the liquefaction facility to convert natural gas piped in to liquid natural gass for loading onto ships for export. That will require  relatively small, on site gas powered generator to produce the energy to power it.

The two-train liquefaction project proposes to export around 5.75 million tonnes per annum of LNG by sea from the existing pier.

Flowers, who describes her group's opposition as "against fossil fuels", said further protests are planned this week in front of the headquarters of public radio network NPR, due to its acceptance of ad dollars from the oil and gas industry.

At least she admits her objection is to fossil fuels, and not just to "fracking" which has long been a screen for anti-technology bent Luddites.

By all available evidence locally, Dominion is proceeding rapidly with the project, preparing several sites around the area to stage major work.

I saw a big LNG tanker on the Bay back on my trip with Pete to the Eastern Shore on Oct. 12th, coming south. It's too early to be from Cove Point though, and it had be coming from somewhere else: