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Priorities in DC

April 25, 2017
coal ash, decision-making, ecosystem, Leadership, pollution, power, Responsibility, social vunerability, water quality, water sewer management, water supplies, What could possibly go wrong?
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The concept of regulations is to address problems.  All regulations are based on trying to correct a problem that has already occurred.  We have rules that were developed to try to address contaminants in water, and rules designed to address a variety of potential threat to water supplies.  In a blog over a year ago I asked the question, in light of the mess in West Virginia, why do we permit power companies to store coal ash next to streams?  This is a huge potential health impact to water customers, as well as to the ecosystem that we rely on to protect water supplies in natural areas.  A 20 year old Congressional Act did sorta prohibit the discharge of coal ash to streams from mining, but did not address storage where the accidents actually occur.  So we have rules that didn’t remove the piles from the banks, and didn’t offer a solution to remove it which would have been the appropriate regulatory response.  We should all be on the bandwagon that urges Congress to require power companies to properly dispose of this stuff, and to provide a means to do so.

However, in classic “Failure to Learn from the Past” mode, instead we get a directive in Washington to review the rollback of the stream rule that was developed to address a 20 year old lawsuit over stream protections and “waters of the US.”  That revised stream rule got held up in 2015 by litigation (EPA Secretary Pruitt led one of those suits), and while the directive is not exactly allowing coal ash into streams as noted in the media, it does give you the sense that there will not be any effort to address this problem.  That should concern water industry leaders.

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Interesting news items

April 20, 2017
Climate, coal ash, finance, funding, pollution, power, power demands, power-water nexus, water sewer management
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WIFIA was approved:

https://www.epa.gov/wifia

Good news for water funding, but still a drop in the bucket of what is needed

 

Power utilities are not really interested in coal regardless what Congress and the President do to encourage it.

https://www.pressreader.com/usa/orlando-sentinel/20170208/281784218834781

Are we surprised?  Coal is dirty and creates obvious problems.  Coal emissions caused English kings to ban coal in London 400+ years ago.  Coal jobs are not coming back.  Nor are manufacturing jobs.  It has nothing to do with China – everything to do with technology (robots).

Broward College is seeking $29 million for classroom upgrades because there are not enough seats in the classrooms.  The rooms are cramped and the “old seal with a  wooden table on top isn’t big enough to accommodate students today.”  It doesn’t take much to read between those lines.  About like Texas making manholes 28 inches in diameter because the guys cant fit into the smaller ones anymore….

But Beijing is sinking:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/beijing-is-sinking-into-the-ground-says-report-a7114201.html

Not sure how that correlates, but interesting….

 

Renewables or Lost Jobs?

January 16, 2017
California, economy, energy, engineering, Environment, finance, innovation, Leadership, local government, management, power, Responsibility, water sewer management
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As 2017 gets rolling, we are set to swear in a new President.  The politics are already interesting.  The question is what will change, when and how.  For example there has been an ongoing discussion of infrastructure bills, but aside from WITAF approval, little clear direction has been forthcoming.  We only know that private sector participation will be encouraged.  Of course virtually all projects constructed in the public sector are constructed by private contractors, so how/if that will change is unclear.

It is also unclear which industries will be affected.  There are already comments about not pursuing he renewable energy opportunities  – China sees 13 million jobs in the coming 5 years as their economy cranks up to meet the needs.  They are contributing $360 billion to enhance this sector.  I have previously blogged about potential opportunities in the US to grow renewables.  But they are just like recycling in the 1970s.  Recycling needed to be subsidized until such time as the facilities and processes were in place to make it competitive.  Now for steel and aluminum, it is less costly than virgin iron or bauxite.  That has several benefits to the economy and the environment.

I have previously suggested that those who do the research, develop the solutions and control the patents tend to rule the economy.  The US did in throughout the 20th century.  Energy is the 21st century opportunity and I would hope we don’t cede that elsewhere due to politics.  13 million jobs would really help places in rural America and place like Detroit and Flint which have the workers.  It may be that instead of the federal government doing much in this arena, the state and local officials will lead the charge.  California has been successful to a degree in this regard.  Let’s see if making money will “trump” the politics of oil. That would be good for a lot of local governments that have workers and factories, but not jobs.  That would help people like those in Flint.  And it would help their utilities.  Let’s work on this with our local officials

21st Century Mapping

August 3, 2016
asset management, Education, engineering, infrastructure, innovation, Leadership, management, planning, power, Risk Management, stormwater, Transportation, water sewer management
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How many utilities have a 3D map of their infrastructure?  Not many I bet.  But FAU does.  Here is a recently completed project we did with students and the Facilities Maintenance staff at FAU (costs involved).  They needed better mapping and will tie this to their work order system.  It was an excellent opportunity for two groups within one organization that otherwise seem to have little in common wot work toward a great project.  We will be inputting this data into an online asset management system this summer along with some data for Dania Beach so they will have a portion of their utility system in 3D also.  This is part of a tiny project we did for their downtown area.

GIS is a powerful tool and one utilities should embrace wholeheartedly.  There is so much more than mapping to do.  Data gathering in critical, but with Leica and Trimble units, a lot of data can be gathered easily.  LiDAR can be expensive, but the value is tremendous.  You can see that the FAU system is laid on a 3D LiDAR topographic map (6 in vertical accuracy).  Asset condition assessments were also done concurrently, which adds a lot of information to the system (all assets were also photographed and linked).  Drawing files can be downloaded and extruded from 2D to 3D. Engineers know GIS or can learn it, which makes a fully expanded GIS system for the utility easy to derive if the time is spent.  This is a valuable tool when linked to work orders and asset management programs.

So is your utility in 3D?  Capture

 

Colorado Spill

August 21, 2015
Environment, ethics, finance, health risks, infrastructure, Leadership, Monitoring Water, planning, power, power-water nexus, Risk, Risk Management, rivers, Uncategorized, water quality, What could possibly go wrong?
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In an interesting twist of fate, USEPA caused a spill on the Animas River when a staffer accidently breached a dike holding back a solution of heavy metals at the Gold King mine because the misjudged the pressure behind the dike.  Pressure?  The spill flowed at 500 gpm (0.7 MGD), spilling yellow water spilled into the river.  Downstream, the plume has travelled through parts of Colorado, New Mexico and Utah, and will ultimately hit Lake Mead.  Officials, residents, and farmers are outraged.  People were told not to drink the water because the yellow water carried at least 200 times more arsenic and 3,500 times more lead than is considered safe for drinking. The conspiracy theorists are out.  The pictures are otherworldly.

colorado-mine-spillRayna Willhite holds a bottle of water she collected form the Animas River north of Durango Colo., on Thursday, August 6th, 2015. About a million gallons of toxic mine waste emptied out of the Gold King Mine north of Silverton that eventually made it into the Animas River. (Jerry McBride/Durango Herald via AP)

0807 colo spill epa-spill-

But they are all missing the point, and the problem.  This is one of hundreds of “legacy disasters” waiting to happen.  We are just surprised when they actually do.  A legacy disaster is one that is predicated on events that have happened in the past, that can impact the future.  In some cases the far past.  There are two big ones that linger over communities all over the west and the southeast – mines and coal.  Now don’t get me wrong, we have used coal and needed metals form mines.  That’s ok.  But the problem is no one has dealt with the effects of mining or coal ash for many years.  And then people are upset.  Why?  We can expect these issues to happen.

One major problem is that both are often located adjacent to or uphill from rivers.  That’s a disaster waiting to happen.  The King Gold mine is just the latest.  We had recent coal ash spills in Kingston, Tennessee (TVA, 2008) and the Dan River in 2014 (Duke Power). The Dan River spill was 30-40,000 tons.  Kingston cleanup has exceeded a billion dollars.  Coal ash is still stored at both places.  Next to rivers.  We had the federal government build ion exchange facilities in Leadville, CO and Idaho Springs, CO to deal with leaking water from mine tailings from the mountains. Examples are in the hundreds.  The photos are of the two coal spills, mine tailings that have been sitting the ground for 140 years in Leadville and one of the stormwater ponds – water is red in Leadville, not yellow.

kingston_coalash POLLUTE-master675 IMG_4803 IMG_6527 (2015_03_08 17_53_48 UTC)

When the disaster does occur, the federal government ends up fixing it, as opposed those responsible who are usually long gone or suddenly bankrupt, so it is no surprise that EPA and other regulatory folks are often very skeptical of mining operations, especially when large amounts of water are involved.  We can predict that a problem will happen, so expensive measures are often required to treat the waste and minimize the potential for damage from spills.  That costs money, but creates jobs.

For those long gone or bankrupt problems, Congress passed the Superfund legislation 40 years ago to provide cleanup funds.  But Congress deleted funding for the program in the early 2000s because they did not want to continue taxing the business community (mines, power plants, etc.).  So EPA uses ARRA funds from 2009.  And funding is down from historical levels, which makes some businesses and local communities happy.  The spectre of Superfund often impacts potential developers and buyers who are concerned about impacts to future residents.  We all remember Love Canals and Erin Brockovich.  Lack of development is “bad.”  They ignore the thousands or jobs and $31 billion in annual economic activity that cleanup creates, but it all about perception.

But squabbling about Superfund ignores the problem.  We continue to stockpile coal ash near rivers and have legacy mine problems.  Instead we should be asking different questions:

WHY are these sites permitted to store ash, tailings, and liquids near water bodies in the first place?  EPA would not be inspecting them if the wastes were not there.

WHY aren’t the current operators of these mines and power plants required to treat and remove the wastes immediately like wastewater operators do?  You cannot have millions of gallons of water, or tons of coal ash appear overnight on a site, which means these potential disasters are allowed to fester for long periods of time.  Coal ash is years.  Mine tailings… well, sometimes hundreds of years.

One resident on the news was reported to have said “Something should be done, something should be done to those who are responsible!”  Let’s start with not storing materials on site, next to rivers.  Let’s get the waste off site immediately and disposed of in a safe manner.  Let’s recover the metals.  Let’s start with Gold King mine.  Or Duke Power.  Or TVA.

Low Gas Prices = Bad Budgets

March 10, 2015
Economic Bubbles, economy, energy, finance, growth, infrastructure, innovation, Leadership, planning, power, power demands, power-water nexus
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Interesting that while we all love low gas prices and the low cost of energy is fueling an expansion of our economy, including the first gains in middle income salaries since 2008, the states reliant on oil and gas may be facing real problems financially.  A year ago I read an article that noted the reluctance of North Dakota residents and politicians to invest in roads and other infrastructure despite the influx of oil money.  Keep taxes low was the mantra.  SO they did.  A recent Governing magazine article notes that a dollar drop in oil means $7.5 million decrease in revenues for the State of New Mexico.  Since oil has lost about $30 a barrel in the past year – that is $200 million loss.  Louisiana sees a $12 million cost/dollar drop so they have $171 billion less to work with.  Alaska, perhaps the most oil dependent budget (90 percent) has a $3.4 billion shortfall, but $14.7 billion in revenues.  Texas, North Dakota, Oklahoma and Kansas are other states facing losses.  Fast growing states like North Dakota and Wyoming now have hard decisions to make.  Growth in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Arkansas may be cut by 2/3 of prior estimates as a result.  A double hit on anticipated revenues.

The comparison is interesting financial straights experienced by the “property value” states like Florida, Nevada and Arizona before and after the economic collapse in 2008.  Florida politicians couldn’t wait to cut taxes and slow spending during boom years, then got caught badly after the 2008 recession when property values dropped in half and state sales tax revenues (tourism) dropped steeply.  They ran out of reserves and refused to raise taxes (after cutting them), so cut things like education and health care to balance the budget.  Not sure how either helped low and middle class Floridians get back on track since Florida has primarily create low wage jobs since that time, not high paying jobs.  We are paying the price still.  I am guessing Nevada and Arizona are similar.

We clearly have not learned the lessons of the many mill towns in the south or the rust belt cities of the Midwest that encountered difficulties when those economies collapsed. Everyone refused to believe the good times would end.  Now Detroit is half of its former self and Akron has the same population as it did on 1910.

The moral of the story is that booms great, but short term.  Diversity in the economy is a key.  Florida will continue to be subject to economic downturns more severe than other states when it relies primarily on tourism and retirees to fuel the economy.  Detroit relied on automobiles, Akron rubber and chemicals, Cleveland steel, etc.  Some day the Silicon Valley will suffer when the next generation of technology occurs that makes the current works obsolete.  It is what happens when you are a “one economy” town.  It is also what happens when you believe the booms are “normal” and fail to financially plan by putting money aside during the boom to soften the subsequent period.

An argument could be made that if the federal government had not enacted tax cuts in 2000 when the budget was finally balanced and surpluses were presumed to loom ahead, we could have banked that money (or bought down our debts), and the amount of borrowing would have been less in 2008.  Buying down debt when times are good is good business.  So is putting money in reserve.  The question is why the politicians do not understand it.  We can run government like a business financially, but takes leadership to do it.  It takes leadership to explain why reserves are good and tax cuts are a future problem.  It takes leadership to make hard decisions like raising taxes, spending more on infrastructure, requiring people to move out of flood plains, not rebuilding in vulnerable areas, and curtaining water use policies when they damage society.  Leadership is making decisions that help the needs of the many, versus the needs of the few.  Oh wait, I see the issue now.  We need Spock to lead us…

 

Musings on the Energy Front

March 6, 2015
American Water Works Association, economy, energy, fracking, Greenhouse gas emissins, innovation, JObs, Leadership, power, power demands, power-water nexus, resource depletion, solar power, wind power
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Power costs are stable.  Gas prices decreased markedly in 2014 Oil futures are low compared to 2013 and earlier.  .  Production is constant.  Low energy likely is fueling an economic expansion.  Gas economy in vehicles is at an all-time high.  Fuel efficiency lowers GHGs and cuts oil imports.  America is less reliant on foreign oil.  We have more money in our pockets.  Utility power costs and vehicle costs are lower.  Generator operations are lower.  Life is great.  Or is it?

 

Well, that depends on who you talk to.  Politicians in states with in oil and gas based economies are scrambling to deal with large deficits in their budgets.  The railroads are not happy over the Keystone pipeline vote.  Green energy manufacturer are unhappy.  Environmentalists are unhappy.    Heck even the Koch brothers are probably not completely happy

 

The first issue is methane gas.  Pipelines and fracking operations lose about 6% of the gas. A Washington Post article estimates 8 million metric tons of methane is lost each year.  That is where we are trying to capture and transport it.  The Bakken fields lack pipelines for gas, so much if it may be flared.  The amount of fracking will continue (Florida Power and Light has said it will get into the business – but outside of Florida), so more exploration will likely lead to more methane escaping.  Why do we care?  Methane is 22 to 80 times the greenhouse gas that carbon dioxide it (depending on who you talk to).  It accounts for 9% of GHG emission in the US – a third of that from the oil and gas industry.  That gas is concentrated in the western US which makes them ripe for regulation.

 

Enter cap and trade.  The cap and trade “industry” has been opposed by the oil and gas industry for years.  However there are a number of groups –from Indian tribes to NextEra Energy are posed to benefit from cap and trade (C&T) rules.   They have reduced their carbon footprint enough that they can sell carbon credits.  It is doubtful that this Congress with pass C&T legislation, but much of the regulatory focus could be shifted if C&T was in place.  C&T could accelerate green energy efforts.

 

Green energy folks want continued subsides or policies that encourage increased green power supplies, improve technology and reduce prices – all at the same time.  Rolling out a major change in the energy picture is a huge investment that will not gain traction without policies to encourage it   At least for now, green energy creates more jobs per KW-hr than conventional oil and gas, primarily in research and development and product manufacturing.  Sewing up the patents would portend positively for America in the 21st century, much as sewing up the car, gas engine, and nuclear patents did for the 20th century.  He who owns the technology should benefit.  Unfortunately that isn’t the Koch brothers who are unhappy with green energy but are happy that lower oil prices might decrease the competition in the future when oil prices inevitably rise.  But America would be better off in a non-oil based economy in 50 years if we developed an energy policy to address these issues with a long-term view.

 

However, that would take a lot of business and political leadership to overcome some of those who do not want change.  These are people who have more money than the Concord coach makers who could not fight the technology change to automobiles in the early 20th century.  It also takes a vision of what America should look like in 50 years. We might be short on those visionaries.  And how will utilities be a part of it.

POWER PLAYS – Subsidies and water utilities

August 2, 2014
Climate, energy, Environment, fracking, infrastructure, innovation, power, power demands, power-water nexus, sustainability, Uncategorized, water sewer management, wind power
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So what does this mean for water and sewer utilities. First, we’d love to stay out of the fray. Water and sewer utilities recognize that they are the “peak” power supply for electric utilities. The means to expand power supplies is made difficult by the rules for capital recovery for power utilities that penalizes peak and redundant power supply construction. It must be used and useful to qualify for a return. Hence NextEra builds inexpensive, small increment renewable wind systems to be made whole and encourages residents to reduce demands so they do not need to build more large scale capacity. That works as long as access to renewables or increases in efficiency are available. The use of federal subsidies encourages the used of new technology but without the subsidies, expect the construction to slow.

The European Union is looking to phase out renewable power subsidies by 2017, which may have fairly significant consequences for the European renewable market. The Koch brothers and the Tea Party operatives they fund through many organizations like the Institute for Energy Research, Americans for Prosperity and the Heritage Foundation, are fighting federal tax credits for wind, while backing tax credits for oil and gas. Why do the Koch brothers keep showing up? Because as we noted in a prior blog – they stand to lose profits if the US depends less on oil and gas IT si a problem with big money interests using that money for self preservation as opposed to progression of technology and ideas.

Think what would have happened 100 years ago if big money was allowed to control progress. And I have just the perfect scenario pitting two sides of my family. My mother’s great uncle made Concord coaches. As long as horse drawn carriages and coaches were the primary transportation options, they made money. OF course many cities and towns found that they spend much of their tax money cleaning up after the horses, one of the all-time yuckiest jobs. Tons of horse poop was cleaned up nightly on the streets on many cities. Images are available on line. Of course there was also the stench, disease, vectors, etc associated with all that poop.

Then came Henry Ford. My Dad’s side of the family were Detroiters. They got jobs in the Ford factories, and made money from services to autoworkers as well. The cities loved having cars – less poop. In fact Henry’s cars worked so well, that very quickly cities didn’t have to pick up poop. And the stench and disease decreased. Of course back then, my mothers’ family did not have the same means to buy influence to prevent Henry Ford from producing cars. My uncle went broke, but America and my father’s family in Detroit, benefitted greatly as a result of the new technology. I think we all benefitted from the automobile. Thankfully the coachmakers didn’t have money.

Using politics and influence to resist new technology seems unAmerican. Using subsidies to encourage is seems far more beneficial to society as long as those subsidies actually benefit society. Subsidies have long been a means for governments to alter consumer and corporate behavior and encourage new technologies. Subsidies for recycling steel, aluminum, glass, paper and other materials remained in place until the technology was cost effective to compete with new materials. Now recovered steel is cheaper than new steel materials. The subsidies had their effect. The same is true with aluminum and glass. Subsidies in the form of grants encouraged water and sewer utilities to upgrade treatment and install pipes to serve new customers. Now those are low interest loans because most of the cost effective connections have been made. It benefitted society.

Subsides have been used for years in the US and Europe to encourage renewable power use. The result is a reduction in renewable costs as more people invested in the technology. Greater supply means lower costs (economy of scale, and, theory of economic supply and demand), and subsides are designed to reduce purchase prices sooner than the market might otherwise. Otherwise most of these industries never get off the ground because they cannot get to cost effective production levels. Stay tuned.

POWER PLAYS Part 2 Water and Power

July 30, 2014
Climate, energy, fracking, Greenhouse gas emissins, hydroelectric power, infrastructure, power, power demands, power-water nexus, Uncategorized
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Water limitations are a problem in many areas of the US and the world. Without water, the efficiency of power plants diminishes as the folks in Washington and California have found out when converting to air cooling their facilities. Losses can be 30% of output which makes that investment in upgrading to 40% efficiency, drop back to 30. Not a good investment, unless you have no option. In water limited places in the world, cooling water will limit the ability to use water-intensive coal, nuclear and oil facilities.

Nuclear power has been argued as a green option, but it is green only with respect to carbon production. Nuclear needs copious amount of water to cool the reactor. An while it remains an ongoing option, many are wary after the Japanese experience. There are 6 licenses in the US for nuclear facilities that expire by 2020, and 27 more by 2030. That means over a third of facilities are at their useful life. Creating second generation nuclear plants is a major, challenge at a financial and political level. For the most part China, Russia and India are leading the way with the US a distant 5th in proposed next generation reactors. We just don’t see a lot of nuclear reactors on the US horizon. Why? Renewable and gas.

The power generation picture has changed significantly in 10 years with respect to large increases in wind and gas. Renewables have increased from 2.4 to 6.5% of the market in 10 years (to 266 TWh). Wind has been the largest growth area (to 167 TWh) despite ongoing environmental issues associated with migratory birds, minimum wind speeds, and lobbying against wind projects (like Bill Koch did in Cape Cod) or the tax incentives used for renewables (like the Koch brothers continue to do along with Tea Party members in Texas). Wind energy costs have dropped by 40% in 10 years and today the majority of wind energy components are built in the US as opposed to overseas. The subsidies have made this possible by limited private capital risk. Nolan County, Texas alone produced more wind than the state of California, despite the ongoing lobbying against it in Texas. Texas has the largest “wind” reserves in the US and many in the public see the need to take advantage of the high wind areas like Texas ($25 billion to date, $13 billion proposed), the Rocky Mountains and coastal areas that do not conflict with migratory birds routes, landscape views or property rights issues. The Blackfeet Nation in Montana has long known that wind is a valuable resource on the reservation. Overall the state of Montana has the second largest wind potential behind Texas. But like Texas there is conflict – in Montana from the fracking industry. Note that the upper Rocky Mountains is where NextEra installs many of its wind fields. California has also gotten into the wind market with projects proposed in the Mojave Desert, although eagle conflicts impact those permits. However, uncertainty about the ongoing tax break , caused by inaction in the House, caused new wind projects to drop 92%, with a loss of 30,000 jobs in one year which creates questions about wind power expansion in the near future.

At the smaller level, combined heat and power (CHP) generation is located at 4200 commercial and industrial facilities today. States are interested. The demand is expected to rise to 40 GW by 2020. Solar markets are often local. Some communities provide incentives for residents to put panels on the roofs. Germany did this and now 25% of their power comes from these solar projects. 2% of houses in Arizona have solar on their roofs. In Hawaii, solar power is half the cost of generated power. However local solar has run into the same issue as wind power – this time the Koch brothers-funded American Legislative Exchange Council has encouraged local power utilities in 21 states to challenge laws that permit solar installations of houses as reducing profitability of power investments by those utilities. Others, like FPL still fund such installations creating and interesting conflict in the market.

Gas has replaced coal as the dominant source, both because of less greenhouse gases and because of much higher efficiency in source-power ratios. California, Texas, Florida and New York, among the four largest power demanding states, have seen natural gas use increase significantly in the past 20 years, virtually all at the expense of coal. Fracking has been the primary reason for the expansion of gas. High quality gas can be recovered from areas through horizontal drilling, but only 3-5% of the gas in the foundation is actually removed from the initial frack. Then the returns diminish to about 10-15% of initial withdrawal within 1-3 years, and refracking must occur to increase production. 100% of the gas is unlikely to ever be achievable. Still gas reserves are likely to be producers for some time, although industry experts expect the peak of current fracking technology in 2025, much sooner than some would hope. Despite there being over 2.4 million miles of gas pipelines in the US, the biggest issue with frack gas is pipeline absence in the big fields in Pennsylvania, Ohio and North Dakota. Refineries are starting to crop up in the Midwest and Pennsylvania to address the gas needs – which may reduce the need for longer pipelines and reduce loss (currently 6%).

Fracking is also a boon to the oil industry and the ability to recovery oil from tar sands in Alberta has increased the potential supply. Like gas, the problem is pipelines, but the lack of pipelines is a boon to the railroad industry, particularly in the Bakken Fields in North Dakota where abundant rail is available via BNSF (hence Warren Buffett bought it). Tank car demands are up to meet the 400,000 tank car loads of crude oil transported in 2013. Demands are expected to climb as new generation tank cars are built to minimize risks of hauling crude oil and coal tar sand products. Tight oil recovery is expected to rise through 2019, while a slow decrease is expected thereafter based on current technology. But note the lack of pipelines create a problem in getting the gas from North Dakota to useful markets. It is estimated that $1 billion per year in gas is flared in the Bakken fields alone. Pipelines and rail are needed, but both are controversial

The pipeline solution is varied and many. North American Oil and Gas Pipelines magazine sees a high investment in pipelines by 2020, with decreasing investments through 2035 as gas recovery drops. XL pipeline has dominated smaller pipeline projects designed to bring tar sands oil to refineries in Texas and Louisiana, but there are other spurs and different pipes are planned for different purposes. The obstacles are many – political, environmental, economic through a host of forces that either benefit directly from the pipelines or that benefit from not having the pipelines (think railroads). Of course a couple of recent rail accidents have created more controversy there, but rail is the current solution for many of these remote fields.

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