Natural Gas Issues

Some honest information for you and your liberal friends:

AES corporation has been applying for all the permits and permissions
for a couple of years now
to build an LNG terminal on the site of
the old Bethlehem Steel plant at Sparrows Point, Baltimore Harbor.

Governor O'Malley, numerous Maryland politicians and pressure groups
have been trying to block this terminal construction for years.

5 years ago, after Katrina devastated wells in the GOM,
US gas supplies were dangerously low. Gas went over $15/therm.
Since then, however, new "unconventional" sources have been exploited
at a feverish rate. The current spot price of natural gas,
about $4.20 per million btu, is about 50 cents per gallon of gasoline equivalence,
the cheapest that it has been for almost ten years.
Future development in the Marcellus shale, in hydrofracking, and in coalbed methane pockets suggest that the east coast will have a plentiful supply for decades to come.

Me and my friends are thoroughly convinced that this terminal is meant to be
an EXPORT terminal, not import.
I'm sure you can understand the benefits
that the USA would receive for selling gas to western Europe.
This also includes their dependence on us and their future stability
and their independence from Russian gas, Gazprom, and the Ukraine pipeline issues.

There is a prevailing street myth that LNG terminals are dangerous.
Certainly all forms of energy involve some risk.
Do you believe that the people who tell you these stories really care about you?
Even if you only rely on a mule to plow your field,
there is always the chance that he will kick you in the keister.
However, there are numerous LNG terminals in operation all over the world,
including another in the State of Maryland,
and none have ever incurred any serious accidents.
In fact, natural gas is not prone to creating large explosions in the open air
because it will only burn when the percentage mixture of gas and oxygen is within
a very tight range.

On the other hand much of the "spring water" bottled water which we enjoy in the region,
which tastes so much better than city water,
originates from coalbed methane gas wells.
Who knows what other unintended benefits might come our way?

One of the strongest causes for the current economic crisis in the USA
is that we have virtually no products for the rest of the world.
The only things that we currently export
are suspicious Wall Street paper,
and Hollywood movies,
and all our miscellaneous and endless wars.
These do not win us friends, nor do they win us hard currency.

Building the terminal would make jobs.
Operating the terminal would make jobs.
Drilling for gas, building pipelines to the harbor, and selling it
would make jobs.
Heck, all of this activity would even generate new tax revenues!

That seems like a good thing, to me, right now.
Worth a little risk, don't you think?