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neuringe's comments:

on The Viability of LNG

Two corporate spokespeople paid to spout a highly slanted and often flat-out incorrect party line (one of them an OPB sponsor), against one defender of Oregon's environment-- this was hardly a fair or balanced presentation of a complex issue.
Kim Heiter made some demonstrably false statements.  One only has to look at a map of Palomar East to see that it does not provide a new interstate route to bring domestic natural gas into Oregon--at most it provides about 100 miles of alternate route to the current pipeline along the Gorge.  On the other hand, the Ruby pipeline from Wyoming to southern Oregon is now approved and preparation for construction has already begun.  Ruby will provide the needed alternate route and diversity of supply, and is part of the bigger picture of what sank Bradwood, and will sink the other LNG projects as well.
It is important to understand the sources of LNG.  Chuck Deister mentioned Australia, the only source that LNG proponents deceptively site, because all the others (which are in reality more likely) are far less palatable: Qatar, Algeria and Russia's Gazprom.  Gazprom has publically stated its goal to control 10 percent of the U.S. natural gas market.  It now has contracts to provide LNG to southern California, through an LNG terminal in Baja Mexico.  What a crazy, dumb idea, when a key bipartisan goal is to reduce our dependence on foreign energy, much less foreign sources that are both unstable and not our allies.

posted 3 years ago
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on The Viability of LNG

LNG projects have imposed severe burdens on state agencies, counties, and hundreds of landowners threatened with appropriation of their land by eminent domain.  These projects have no plausible justification now, if they ever did.  A large part of the blame for this abusive process lies with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and the mandate it was given by the Bush-Cheney administration and by the 2005 Congress to push through LNG projects, bypassing state siting and authorizing power.  FERC's explicit policy has been to refuse any strategic planning or assessment of national or regional need, but to "let the market decide".  If there's an energy speculator or hedge fund that wants to take a long-odds shot at making billions on global LNG trading, that constitutes need.  No matter if states' rights, property rights, public will and the environment are trampled by the process.  Not to mention our national energy independence and security. The quest for profit has trumped all of these under FERC. The new FERC chair, Jon Wellinghoff, has been a lone sane voice arguing for needs assessment and emphasis on renewals and energy efficiency, and we can only hope he will soon be joined by other like-minded commissioners.  Meanwhile Senators Wyden and Merkely have submitted a bill to return siting and approval power to the states, and end FERC's abuse of Oregon.

posted 3 years ago
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on Living with a Brain Tumor

My post of Ben William's website on glioma didn't work, so I'll try to list it again, and attach it. The url is http://virtualtrials.com/pdf/williams2006.pdf

posted 4 years, 12 months ago
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on Living with a Brain Tumor

I would like to highly recommend a book and website by a friend and colleague, Ben A. Williams, who was diagnosed with glioblastoma 13 years ago and is still alive, well, incredibly smart, and a professor at UC San Diego. When he was diagnosed he started to thoroughly search the literature on brain cancer and he designed his own treatment. He has made this issue a personal quest, and he put together the information he learned in a book, "Surviving 'Terminal' Cancer: Clinical Trials, Drug Cocktails, and Other Treatment Your Oncologist Won't Tell You About". He also has posted a summary of information on the web at http://virtualtrials.com/pdf/williams2006.pdf.

posted 4 years, 12 months ago
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on The Governor of Washington Takes Your Questions

Gov. Gregoire just told us that she's not sure what the connection is between LNG and global warming. Wow, she really does need to start studying this issue. A good place to start would be a very detailed report called Collision Course that documents the many ways that LNG will compete with and undermine renewable energy initiatives: http://www.pacificenvironment.org/article.php?id=2710. Washington as well as Oregon have committed to the goal of getting 25% of utilities' energy from renewables by 2025. This can happen only if most new sources are renewables, and will not happen if we instead commit to a multi-billion dollar infrastructure to import huge amounts of fossil fuel. Our Sec. of State, Bill Bradbury, and many others strongly oppose LNG based on their very negative effect on global warming.

posted 5 years, 1 month ago
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on Are You Down With LNG?

Imported LNG would lock us into dependence on foreign fossil fuel. LNG would be both an expensive and unstable source of energy--even more so than oil. Right now in the global market for LNG, Europe, China and Japan are paying more than twice the price of domestic natural gas. The four biggest sources are Russia, Iran, Qatar and Algeria, and these four countries are currently setting up a natural gas cartel like OPEC. Right now Russia uses its dominant place as a supplier to Europe to hold them hostage. Do we really want to be dependent on these countries for energy?

posted 5 years, 3 months ago
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on Are You Down With LNG?

The philosophy of FERC, and the current administration, is to "let the market decide." What's wrong with that? Allowing multiple projects to take millions of acres of private farm and forest land for these projects amounts to a multibillion dollar subsidy to energy speculators--Bush and Cheney's boys--involuntarily taken from Oregon citizens. Hundreds of family farms, some of them third- and fourth-generation farms, will be destroyed, as will about one million trees per pipeline (including 3000 from the land that we have spent the last 30 years reforesting). The companies do not pay the true costs--we do.

posted 5 years, 3 months ago
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