“BC is just 4.5 million people sharing a planet with seven billion others…” aka How to justify LNG expansion in BC in the middle of a state of emergency

28 thoughts on ““BC is just 4.5 million people sharing a planet with seven billion others…” aka How to justify LNG expansion in BC in the middle of a state of emergency”

1. Bang on Laila! You hit the nail on the head. As I drove to Port Renfrew last week I saw slashpiles the size of my house on the side of the highway, why were they not dealt with before fire season?

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   1. Its not even slash piles that are the big issue in forest fuel but it certainly is an issue. Here in the valley there are many that have been sitting for at least two years and are bone dry. Insane because the ones I reference are in interface zones.

      This was all identified in the Filmon report years ago. And I suspect there may even be more to be added to the high risk forest designation based on our last two drought filled summers in many regions of BC.

      I wrote this in 2015, frustrated at the then Liberals continued slowness following the Filmon report.
      https://www.google.ca/amp/s/lailayuile.com/2015/07/06/at-what-point-does-inaction-become-negligence/amp/

      From that post:

      ”
      Knowing that wildfires have an even greater economic impact on annual provincial and local government budgets than originally estimated should compel the province to invest more in proactive wildfire-hazard mitigation. Unfortunately, that has not been the case.

      In 2014, the province didn’t invest any money in wildfire-hazard mitigation through investment in the Union of B.C. Municipalities Strategic Wildfire Prevention Program Initiative. It did, however, invest over $70 million in flood mitigation.

      Since 2002, the province has invested over $2 billion in earthquake mitigation. In the 11 years since the 2003 fire season and the release of the Filmon Report, the province has invested only $100 million in wildfire-hazard mitigation, yet the cost of suppression alone over that same period has been $2.2 billion. Investments in hazard mitigation are only a fraction of the total amount being spent on fighting fires plus the damage caused by those fires — a pattern that runs counter to sensible cost-benefit risk-management practices.

      It’s true no one can point a finger at any politician for this weather, or the drought we are experiencing. Nor can you lay blame for the rampant stupidity that leads to so many fire starts across the province.

      But when reports commissioned by the government, make recommendation to the government to prevent similar situations in the future-a dire warning by any standard of commensense- are not fully implemented or funded, who takes the responsibility?

      fuelreduction

      Who is in charge of legislating forest policy, forest management, removing fuel loads that feed fires? The province of BC is.

      In April of 2014, a full decade after the Filmon report was commissioned, Glen Sanders- a former firefighter and fire chief, took a look at the lessons learned- or not- by government and found the results lacking. http://www.abcfp.ca/publications_forms/documents/BCFORPRO-2014-2_Sanders.pdf

      “I am dubious about the lessons learned by government, however, and many of the missteps identified in the Filmon Report will be repeated when the next firestorm strikes.

      A wise person once said, “The worst mistake a person can make is to think that those in charge actually know what they are doing.”

      In a recent post, I reflected on how hindsight is only 20/20 if one applies the lessons learned to future actions and decisions.

      And if fire and forestry experts are concerned, I’m also concerned the government did not learn an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Did the government ensure every single one of the recommendations they were responsible for completing in Filmons report were undertaken? I don’t have that answer yet.

      I hope we don’t have to wait for yet another firestorm report, to find out.”

      I am trying to find out how much of that high risk forest was treated since the ndp took power, but no luck so far.
      If anyone knows, please use the contact page

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2. cause were trying to balance the budget by kicking the can down the road the past decade,in all departments?defer delay deny deflect deflate.
   -the more that gets burned the easier it is for fracking access.?

   https://lailayuile.com/2015/07/06/at-what-point-does-inaction-become-negligence/

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   1. Geez thats not a good thought, r!!

      We know what the libs did. I just pointed it out….the point is the ndp didnt have to wait for a new report to aggressively expand on forest treatment. It was a known and identified issue prior to them taking power!

      I’ve got a friend flying in this. A few more fighting front lines and numerous friends and readers impacted again this year as many of us do.

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3. I didn’t hear the entire interview in context, but is Horgan not referring to BC’s roll in the global environment? How replacing coal burning electricity generation with natural gas will help lessen the emissions on earth in general, if not emissions directly released in BC? I get that it’s replacing filthy technology with still dirty technology, but if the market is there for that use, and we have an abundance, why would we not develop that relationship? We’re admittedly late to the game, but it would be a shame to sit on a resource that has the potential to lessen emissions, while boosting the economy in BC. They say evolution happens in fits and starts, it’s not just one long, drawn out process, and we’re going to see that in action very quickly here. For all of our cognitive abilities we’re terribly short-sighted and reactionary.

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   1. Lets ignore for a moment that Horgan, after slamming and voting against Clarks lng giveaway tax regime calling it a gift to producers ( it was) has since gone on to give lng producers an even bigger gift than Clark did…https://www.google.ca/amp/s/vancouversun.com/news/politics/premier-horgan-offers-up-tax-breaks-for-lng-industry/amp

      Lets also forget for a moment that the ndo went onto make the amount of royalties BC gets a secret. ( maybe because with all these giveaways we arent getting many royalties at all)

      https://www.google.ca/amp/s/vancouversun.com/opinion/op-ed/ben-parfitt-british-columbians-shortchanged-billions-from-fossil-fuel-industry-revenues/amp

      Lets even forget for a moment that BC continues to export the dirty thermal coal shipped up from the US to Asia out of our ports, also at odds with any claimed LNG goodness being done in our global community. Funny enough Gordon Wilson tried the moral obligation of lng argument too, so using that argument is just ridiculous ( see here:https://www.google.ca/amp/s/lailayuile.com/2016/06/03/about-that-moral-obligation-to-the-people-of-china-suffering-from-air-pollution/amp/)

      BC has suffered through years of bad fire seasons and two years of smoke so bad it beats Beijing. Reconcile for me if you will,why meeting our own targets for emissions should fall to the wayside here in BC again? Will that LNG be heading over to Asia with that dirty US thermal coal or on seperate ships?

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   2. In a piece I’m working on now, I quote from a peer reviewed paper published after an independent review of BC gas fields found a large proportion of existing and old gas wells are leaking methane.

      “However, the primary component of natural gas is methane (CH4), a very potent greenhouse gas (GHG), so leaks of natural gas directly to the atmosphere contribute to climate change. The radiative forcing of CH4 is greater than 30 times that of CO2 over a 100-year timespan (IPCC, 2014). A recent study suggests that if more than 3.2 % of total natural gas production is emitted into the atmosphere during upstream operations, the environmental benefit of combusting natural gas, instead of coal or oil, is negated (Alvarez et al., 2012).”

      Little effort has been made to measure – much less prevent – fugitive emissions. It’s another of those cases where failure to collect evidence allows them to say, “We don’t know of any leakage problem.”

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   3. The fossil fuel industry and politicians who aim to see greater production have sold the idea that natural gas is a harmless fuel. Scientists independent of industry have been warning us for years of the dangers of gas production that is not carefully monitored and regulated.

      Let us not forget that enormous amounts of energy is expended to process raw gas for transport, refrigerate it to -162 degrees C for overseas shipments and then depressurize and distribute fuel for burning. Yes, if you only count that final stage, it is cleaner than other fossil fuels. But, that ignores the real impact.

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4. Thank you, Laila, for this coherent, fact-based, heartfelt piece. You speak truth to power. We sure miss you in the Twittersphere, and welcome to Vancouver Island.

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   1. I’m glad you enjoyed it 🙂 I miss the good peeps too,but twitter deteriorated into a place where little reason can be found anymore.And I still need to manage stress better…all the bullshittery stresses me out!!

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5. John Horgan’s number one concern is that BCNDP Insiders & lobbyist (The James Gang) get to feast at the public trough. Big paydays for these cronies of Horgan & Eby. The best for the province, the best for the environment, the best for the world is far down his list of priorities. Trudeau is simply an elitist politico; paying off the donors to the LPC (like KM). The lesser of two evils is still evil.

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   1. Yes there is a fair amount of feasting going on with all the ndp lobbyists….Bob Mackin has so much to read on that and there is an air of ‘get as much as you can while we can’ among certain quarters mentioned.And I think every party does the same.

      However, they’ve done well on several files and on quite a few important issues.
      I just wish supporters would hold their own party as accountable as they held the BC Libs. And voters too! We don’t work for politicians…they work for us, so instead of just accepting whats handed out…like Horgans crap lng giveaway and secret royalties…people need to speak out and call their mla’s. Not just sit and say:” oh well I dont agree with site c or lng or this or that, but I’m not quitting.”

      No ones saying leave the party. What I am saying is that caucus can do the things they do because their own supporters and core voters allow them to get away with it. They are so fearful of losing power they wont even criticize what should be criticized.

      They say often that perfection is the enemy of progress. Failing on climate action isn’t progress. Giving bigger subsidies to lng producers than Clark isnt progress. Nor is continuing the over budget, growing debt disaster known as site c.

      No one is perfect nor does anyone expect perfection. But overlooking or staying silent on bad policy is how the Libs became as arrogant as they were.
      Think about that.

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6. What a disappointment this government is. Been NDP my entire life. Not any more at this point in time. Nor are family members. I guess we all had too high of hopes for John. Yes, a few good things have happened, but allowing Site C to continue? That was it. We citizens don’t need the power, the corps do (LNG co.) So John, you’ll now ruin an entire fertile valley, kill off animals that rely on that valley, ruin peoples lives, take away their homesteads. Honestly! What a disappointment you and your government are.
   Laila, miss your posts. But always like when I hear you’ve got another up. Thanks Norm.

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   1. Always nice to hear from you 🙂

      Don’t forget we’ve still got to push for a corruption inquiry. There is clear evidence of malfeasance and I have always said that if they start one,more evidence *will* come forward.
      This is why it is so damn imperative supporters and members hold Horgan and others on the straight and narrow!!

      I’ve been calling for a corruption inquiry for nearly 8 years for a damn good reason totally seperate from all this money laundering business.

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7. We are but a few million amongst the billions, but we do have to start somewhere. Its just that most don’t want to be the first to give up the third car, the 5th t.v., the new stero, the latest cell phone, etc. No one wants to be the first to do something, beyond the cash grab for plastic bags in grocery stores. MAkes everyone think they’re doing something while doing nothing.

   No one is going to say no more building in this town, its too crowded and we don’t have the resources. No one is going to say no tearing down of decent buildings and put it all in the land fill and then manufacture all sorts of new stuff for new bigger houses. I’d like to see a city/town council pass that one. Developers would be screaming to the heavens that the world had come to an end.

   The pipeline is simply contributing to the use of fossil fuels. Some may say, they’ll simply purchase it else where. Yes, they will, but at least it will cost them more and thus purchase less. This isn’t something we’re going to refine and keep in our country for our own use. No its going to be shipped on the ocean in tankers, which may or may not make it safely to the next port. Then there is the use of all the fuel to ship that stuff.

   Horgan and Green Weaver aren’t enviornmentalists. they’re politicians. They want to be there for the distance. Neither of them are going to pull at Barrett/Williams; get in, do everything you want because you may never get back in. They don’t make them like that anymore.

   To be environmental means changing our standard of living. Not lowering it, changing it. By spending less on all the stuff we buy, we will actually help the environment and save money.

   Today I watch a B.C. noon news hour show regarding children returning to school. Yes, there was the plastic, foam lunch thing, with all the plastic lunch items for each food group. How about a lunch kit which goes a couple of years with wax paper? its better for the environment. However, the advertisers for the station would not have been amused.

   We may not be able to change the world or even effect the environment that much, give the orange oaf south of the border and his quest to lower standards for the coal industry. However, if we don’t try, we won’t get anywhere.

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   1. Amen. Such a great comment. 💕

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8. Some argue the climate has changed without people in the world or a whole lot less of them and that is true. However, if the climate is changing because the climate is just changing, we ought to mitigate the impact. Over history we have seen lush growing areas turn into deserts. it may be happening again. Its why we need to ensure the farm land we have now, remains farm land and not paved over or flooded. We’ll be needing it in a decade if not before.

   Read an interesting book, on water, which discussed the severe drought on Vancouver Island 10K years ago. It was so severe trees simply stopped growing. So if we are coming around to that again shouldn’t we do our best to ensure what we have remains in good condition and not destroy it for the sake of corporate greed or the expansion of foreign corporations. yes, jobs are needed, but not all the money in the world is going to help when you can’t grow food and the bees are gone. Only the 1% of the 1%ers will remain.

   Today was the first day in awhile in which I could see the sun. Nanaimo was so smokey at times I thought there was a fire some where. Richmond was no better last week. Filmon wrote a good report after 2003, but the B.C. Lieberals never implemented it and el gordo made things worse by deciding private land did not have to be reforested after it had been logged. Has the NDP/gREEN parties changed that? Not so much. It would take a few minutes in the Leg. to change that one.

   Some of these fires are caused by lightening and that is nature. the ones started by human, really isnt’ good. it might not be popular, but perhaps we need to ban people from forested areas once it becomes dry and hot. In the late 1960s, in the Gulf Islands, they banned people from camping or using their own properties if they didn’t have an indoor kitchen, they were so concerned about forest fires. Now I'[m sure the tourist industry would scream if we banned going into the forest, but hey its the smoke which is going to kill my lungs and I’m not happy about that either. there haven’t been problems with formal camp grounds, but this going for a hike in the wood stuff, isn’t good, it causes fires.

   We need to ensure road ways are kept clear on the margins for some 10 to 20 ft. so there aren’t brush fires/.

   Not much will be done because in any case some one’s ox is going to be gored. There is too much money at stake.

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   1. All excellent points.

      People need to wake the heck up. Andrew Kurjata has a great personal blog post up that I linked to above but will post here too.

      It is a very poignant read.https://andrewkurjata.ca/confluence/2018/08/19/when-i-woke-up-this-week-the-sun-was-blocked-out-by-smoke/

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9. We can do what we can do, and it’s always better than nothing, or, worse yet, caving in and doing even the smallest thing to aggravate the climate disruption we’re seeing.

   “I would encourage people to look around them in their community and find an organization that is doing something that they believe in, even if that organization has only five people, or ten people, or twenty people, or a hundred people. And to look at history and understand that when change takes place it takes place as a result of large, large numbers of people doing little things unbeknownst to one another. And that history is very important for people to not get discouraged. … History is instructive. And what it suggests to people is that even if they do little things, if they walk on the picket line, if they join a vigil, if they write a letter to their local newspaper. Anything they do, however small, becomes part of a much, much larger sort of flow of energy. And when enough people do enough things, however small they are, then change takes place”

   -Howard Zinn, historian, playwright, and social activist (24 Aug 1922-2010)

   Good to see you’re still on the case.

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   1. Beautiful comment 🙂

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      1. https://thetyee.ca/Solutions/2018/08/27/BC-Timid-Climate-Change-Plans/

         This isn’t going away John Horgan & Andrew Weaver. All the talk and faux outrage in the world isn’t going mean a thing without firm action NOW.

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10. better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.

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    1. Yes but sometimes r, you’ve got to beat back the darkness with one hand so it doesn’t blow out the light you are holding up high to shine bright in the other. 😉🙏

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11. You report, It was known in 2016 that these areas weren’t being treated fast enough. So why did the NDP spend a winter reading yet another report and not budgeting for an aggressive treatment of already identified high risk areas? 

    You add, And I have to ask if and why an entire wet season was wasted while yet another report was being read, knowing full well fire waits for no one. We knew we were behind two years ago.

    Well stated. But what is it that opposes rational action and thought? Let’s consider a closer look at plausible cause and effect.

    An outsider’s expectation that survival within bureaucratic precincts represents the best work life has to offer is not supported by fact. The hope that the best and brightest policies trickle upwards through the ranks to impatient bosses anxiously awaiting genius-driven ideas is hilariously wrong. Says who?

    How many of your readers have ever worked within a large bureaucracy? How many have witnessed senior executives – immortal souls blessed with divinatory gifts and supreme confidence – make exceptionally stupid decisions which resulted in the enterprise’s complete collapse? How many of your readers were well-informed insiders who foresaw what was coming and could do nothing?

    You say, We need to have those discussions because we need to truly understand what a world of increasing extremes of heat or cold or natural disasters  might be like…and plan for our children’s and grandchildren’s  increasingly unknown future world.

    You add, Most of all we need to approach these very real scenarios and public discussion in a strong tone of empowerment so people are moved to rise to the challenge.

    Ponder the last 60 years of similarly earnest discussions in the present glare of BC’s sudden public awareness that both forest conflagrations and Organized Crime are out of control…

    No rational human could deny that we are long overdue to organize against and combat our biggest threats to human survival: we must fight not only climate change but also parasitic organized crime. Instead what has been emphasized?

    Modern secular debates avoid finding fault with a new Idol, an invisible near-paralytic elite regnant above terrified bureaucrats.

    Too often discussions first conclude that elites and bureaucrats are… psychopathic, narcissistic, immune to the public interest, stupid, and self-serving. But analysis can’t halt with the negative. So up pops a faint hope effort to assume that somehow these same obnoxious farts are perfectly willing to ponder objective appeals from every dissatisfied interlocutor.

    This is possible? Since when?

    Put country simple how clever is it to demand that a bald man grow hair?

    The hairlessness problem is not due a person’s will, his refusal to recognize the effect his appearance has on others, his unreadiness to make significant changes, or a bad attitude. The problem is physiological incapacity.

    By the time a leader becomes a Leader his mentality is conditioned to believe that dumb ideas imposed by powerful people must be accepted, not merely acceptable. If that coin flips and public interest is allowed to intervene, down goes the latest CEO, Mayor, provincial Premier, federal leader and so on.

    For a leader to escape his own “skin”, the zeitgeist he rode that brought him to where he is, it is seldom possible to abandon what worked.

    To paraphrase John Cleese, at worst, stupid people haven’t the wit to understand that they haven’t the wit to understand. Cartoonist Kliban put it this way, “I’m the King and you have to do what I say or I can’t be King any more!”

    Bureaucracy? To create a self-destructive corporate and governmental disaster zone is easy. Consider all the authoritarian wars of Europe and Asia last century.

    If you will, start with Parkinson’s Law, paraphrased, it informs us that the purpose of a bureaucracy is to expand itself indefinitely and absorb every revenue source possible by any means it can invent and impose.

    Within the world’s menagerie of corporate snake pits, each lower rank quickly learns that no one is allowed to think too independently. It is never safe to recommend bold new policies. It is far too risky to offer a suggestion that a dominant political overlord or a competing colleague might reject or ridicule in front of colleagues. It is always safer to keep one’s mouth shut and never rock the boat..

    Granted, such institutionalized bureaucratic timidity is Kafkaesque social poison. Nothing gets past the Castle walls. Nothing that needs to change may be recognized as a priority. Otherwise, it’s bad luck. Certain dastardly clerks must be found responsible for decisions they never made, never implemented, never knew existed. Designated heartless bastard\scapegoats must be identified, reprimanded and sacked..

    Meanwhile? The reasons millions protested the harm done to them must be suppressed, ignored, and gainsaid at every opportunity.

    Has any failed or dysfunctional state ever noticed it was becoming a failed state and acted promptly enough to halt the slide?

    What can people do?

    Of course keep pressuring for change, for reform. But step away from traps and dependencies. Organize and disengage. Improvise local solutions and go rounds, and go off-grid as much as possible..

    To afford contesting the typical idiocies of a bureaucracy, the public, like the rich, must be sufficiently self-reliant. Otherwise we all face more years of implemented untested spinoff versions of the Phoenix Payroll System. FUBAR technological fixes, approved at every point where they fail and every time everyone watching knew they would never work.

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    1. I’m still thinking about your comment. I’ll respond more when I have articulated my thoughts 🙂

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12. While our politicians fantasize wondrous merits to justify continuing the LNG Gold Rush and faithfully oblige themselves to ignore all evidence that fracking to get at LNG is a known disaster, global evidence mounts that there are far better, cheaper and less destructive ways to route electricity to the old cabin in the woods. Home sweet home. A provincial bungalow now facing seasonal incineration by firestorms, when not being swept away by floods and\or turning into hot house kindling during droughts, in the same season.

    Fossil fuel driven cars too?

    It’s all an archaic ridiculously bad joke. Why say so?

    In 2003 the Pentagon released its first study on the potential effects of climate change. Meaning, negative effects on US military readiness across the globe. Curious, I read it.

    It’s possible the authors anticipated considerable irrational political blow back, because they placed a box on page one wherein they stated that the study would include potential Worst Case projections based on existing data.

    As if to say, “See? These are Projections. Possibilities. Science-based analysis not claims of infallible divination.”

    It didn’t help. Instantly the study was attacked as being: entirely false, contemptible lies, unduly alarmist, and just plain wrong. America’s loudest Republicans stood together. Against what? Against the US military advising the US military on what could happen to the US military if climate change got out of hand.

    In the years afterwards additional military studies appeared. As usual they were subjected to intense political pressure to deliberately shift focus away from concluding that climate change need be a major factor in military decision making.

    Regardless of what the pols wanted, the US military became enormously fond of funding research into and purchasing the very best green technology. Lots of it. As in solar-powered tech for remote bases, and so on. Recently it was argued that the best electric car technology has nothing to do with Wall Street’s favourite pirate taxi cab companies – it has to do with transporting weapons and materiel across zones known to be subject to IED attacks. Drones? Not pilots?

    Last night PBS ran a program called The Age of Consequences. The big surprise was that the documentary did not interview the usual hyper-cautious academics. People prone to statements like, “Well look, at this point we are very nearly convinced that some of us could possibly state that notwithstanding our imperfect understanding…uh, well, there may be a problem.” Instead retired combat vets and military brass were asked what they had experienced and whether they could connect any dots. They did just that. That was 2016.

    In a later interview at her alma mater, the documentary’s producer was asked who hated her doc the most. Her answer? It wasn’t the far right it was the far left, because to them, anything that made the military look good was bad.

    Lost in the debate? Facts beyond dispute, facts driven in large part by Climate Change, were more dire and threatening to our species than anything the Pentagon had hinted might be the worst case.

    The doc can be found here:

    https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=the+age+of+consequences&&view=detail&mid=D9C2E6246944B3E332E0D9C2E6246944B3E332E0&&FORM=VDRVRV

    You prefer reading? Here’s Option Two:

    https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/immediate-risk-to-national-security-posed-by-global-warming/

    Please advise…

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    1. That Scientific American link is compelling reading. As is your commentary. Thank you.
       I don’t even know what to say except send the Scientific American link to our govt. Oh never mind, they’ll hopefully read it here.

       I get what you are saying between the lines. ( gee maybe flooding good farmland in the context of global and national security re Climate change is an even more assinine act)
       I’m upset that politicians at every level right now are unwilling to do and say what needs to be done. Former premier chases wind energy out of BC,current premier chases former premiers dream & locks us into project that essentially puts a stop to all other alternate energy sources for the province. Critics of the dam shunned where once their same efforts were lauded. Political expediency wins.

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13. About that Lib\NDP Gold Rush Coalition determined to sell huge quantities of BC LNG to a “desperate” China. For some reason nobody in government seems to check what other countries are doing. Or if they do no one appears to have said maybe this fantasy of ours is a bridge too far.

    https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Russias-Huge-Natural-Gas-Pipeline-To-China-Nearly-Complete.html

    Sept 06, 2018

    Russia’s Huge Natural Gas Pipeline To China Nearly Complete

    Gazprom’s Power of Siberia natural gas pipeline from Russia to China is 93 percent complete,
    the Russian gas giant said in an update on its major projects.

    A total of 2,010 kilometers (1,249 miles) of pipes are laid for the Power of Siberia gas pipeline between Yakutia and the Russian-Chinese border, or on 93 percent of the route’s length, Gazprom said in a statement.

    The natural gas pipeline is expected to start sending gas to China at the end of 2019 and its completion is among Gazprom’s top priorities.

    Gazprom has a 30-year contract with CNPC for the supply of an annual 1.3 trillion cu ft of natural gas via the infrastructure.

    This year, Gazprom plans to invest nearly US$3.2 billion (218 billion Russian rubles) in the pipeline project, up from the US$2.3 billion (158.8 billion rubles) investment last year, according to Russia’s TASS news agency.

    Gazprom and CNPC have also discussed another pipeline from Russia to China via the western route—the so-called Power of Siberia 2 pipeline—that would source gas from Western Siberian gas fields, but little progress has been made regarding the specifics of this project.

    OK, that’s not good news. But with so few competitors with lots of LNG to sell what’s the risk to BC to go head to head?

    =========================================================================

    May 31, 2018.

    https://oilprice.com/Energy/Natural-Gas/Is-A-Natural-Gas-Pipeline-Between-Alaska-And-China-Realistic.html

    Is A Natural Gas Pipeline Between Alaska And China Realistic?

    When Alaska’s governor Bill Walker headed with a trade delegation to China earlier this week, he must have hoped to bring back good news about an 800-mile gas pipeline project that would see the state’s gas reserves flow into an increasingly gas-hungry Chinese economy. However, the only news the delegation brought home was that Sinopec and Bank of China were still interested in the project.

    This declaration of interest is hardly worth a headline, but one outtake from the meeting with Sinopec’s president, as reported by Alaska’s Energy Desk Rashah McChesney, is worth mentioning. The president of China’s largest refiner said, “After some of the work we did, in terms of assessment and evaluation in technology, economics and in terms of the resources of Sinopec — I think there’s a lot more work for us to be done than originally imagined.”

    The latter part of this remark should be a cause for concern for the project’s proponents as it is a clear sign that Sinopec will be taking a cautious approach to what could be a multibillion-dollar investment.

    This, by the way, happened after the original companies behind the deal, including Exxon, BP, and ConocoPhillips, quit, worried about a surge in global LNG supplies that made the project “one of the least competitive” globally, according to Wood Mackenzie.

    But Alaska is not giving up. With falling oil production and revenues, tapping the U.S.’s huge Arctic gas reserves, which estimates peg at as much as 200 trillion cubic feet, makes perfect economic sense, provided that Chinese demand lives up to the promise and there isn’t too much competition, which is doubtful, what with all the megaprojects in Australia, and Russia joining the LNG game with its eyes set mainly on Asia.

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