Tag Archives: LNG export

Senators from Rhode Island and Colorado show how FERC can use social cost of carbon

Senators from two states far away just did what none of the senators from Alabama, Georgia, or Florida have done: called out FERC on its failure to do what the judges ordered about the social cost of carbon for the fracked methane pipelines Sabal Trail, Transco, and Florida Southeast Connection.

Sheldon Whitehouse Michael Bennet

FERC Accession Number 20171114-0043, “Comments of Senator Sheldon Whitehouse et al re the Southeast Market Pipelines Project under CP14-554 et al.” FERC’s generated PDF is not very legible, so the text below is from Sheldon Whitehouse, Press Releases, 8 November 2017, WHITEHOUSE, BENNET CALL ON FERC TO USE SOCIAL COST OF CARBON IN REVIEW OF PIPELINES, which also has linked to it a legible PDF. Continue reading →

FERC alleged SEIS for Sabal Trail and Sierra Club Petition

The agency most responsible for pushing new greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) is “not aware of” and “could not find a suitable method to attribute discrete environmental effects to GHG emissions.” That epitomizes the lack of seriousness of the five-page Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) FERC issued last month for Sabal Trail and the rest of the Southeast Market Pipelines (SMP) Project. If “the ability to determine localized or regional impacts from GHGs by use of these models is not possible at this time,” FERC should take Sabal Trail out of service and stop approving any more pipelines until such models are possible.

Maybe the agency pushing the most GHG should create such a model if it does not exist.

Maybe it could at last get the history straight about which coal plants FPL claimed Sabal Trail was needed to “modernize”.

Until then, this alleged SEIS is junk and Sabal Trail should be shut down.

You can sign Sierra Club’s petition against this fake SEIS, even though FERC can’t be bothered to hold public hearings. If you need reasons, read on below.


Susan Salisbury, Palm Beach Post, 1 April 2014, FPL’s Riviera Beach plant goes online Tuesday.
It’s already built, even though in 2013 FPL said Sabal Trail was needed to do that.
Now FERC’s SEIS names different plants as excuses.

Fracked methane emissions divided by Solar Power zero emissions

The SEIS explicitly mentions solar power: Continue reading →

Sinkhole half a mile from FPL pipeline, FSC 2017-09-11

Hurricane Irma caused a sinkhole that destroyed the entrance to a subdivision less than half a mile from an FPL pipeline to the sea, about two miles from Floridian Natural Gas (FlING), and about seven miles from the end of Florida Southeast Connection (FSC). What other sinkholes appeared, and were any under that pipeline, FSC, Sabal Trail, or Transco?

Sinkhole, FPL pipeline, FLiNG, FSC
Sinkhole, FPL pipeline, FLiNG, FSC; map by John S. Quarterman for WWALS.
Click on this link for the interactive google map.

Julius Whigham II, Palm Beach Post, 12:39 a.m. Monday, Sept. 11, 2017, Hurricane Irma: Storm creates sinkhole in western Martin community, Continue reading →

Video: Will you lead to sun and wind power? —John S. Quarterman to Tom Fanning, CEO, at Southern Company stockholder meeting 2017-05-24

Update 2017-07-28: See also VDT op-ed and letter to GA-PSC.

Five years ago I asked Southern Company (SO) CEO Tom Fanning what was his exit plan when the Big Bets on Kemper Coal in Mississippi and the two new Plant Vogtle nuclear units on the Savannah River go bad. This Wednesday SO stopped using coal at Kemper Coal after the MS PSC refused to authorize further cost overruns. Thursday GA PSC staff said Plant Vogtle is no longer economical. It is time for GA PSC to do for Plant Vogtle what MS PSC did for Kemper Coal.

We dont your coal ash in any landfill in the Suwannee River Basin --Suwannee Riverkeeper

As Suwannee Riverkeeper at this year’s meeting in May, I told Fanning we don’t want SO’s coal ash in any landfill on any river in the Suwannee River Basin; I asked him for solar panels at Moody Air Force Base to shut down a natural gas pipeline; and I questioned SO’s acquisition of Pivotal LNG with its deal to ship liquid natural gas in bomb trucks down I-75 and I-10 to Jacksonville, Florida.

I reminded our genial host of my question five years ago, with the handwriting already on the wall since the Atlanta Journal-Constitution had then just referred to Plant Vogtle as a financial quagmire. This time I asked Fanning to lead us all to sun and wind power.

In SO’s own video you can see them Continue reading →

U.S. Chamber wants FERC nominees approved 2017-05-31

The key phrase is actually exactly why FERC nominees should not be approved: 170531 FERCNominations-PowellChatterjee Murkowski Cantwell-0001

“…but of increasingly vital importance, also oversees the permitting and construction of natural gas pipelines, gas storage projects, and liquefied natural gas terminals.”

Funny how the Chamber didn’t mention fracking or LNG export. We don’t need more pipelines taking people’s property and risking our water and lives for the profit of a few fossil fuel executives cashing out before their industry goes belly-up.

WWALS recommends a swift vote to deny these FERC nominees and any others who do not vow to “to develop the new energy infrastructure necessary to ensure future domestic energy security” by rapidly deploying sun and wind power with no more new pipelines. Please call your Senators or members of that Committee to recommend they get on with real renewable energy, not 20th century fossil fuel stranded assets.

U.S. Chamber letter to U.S. Senate Energy Committee

Continue reading →

Crystal River overflight, Sabal Trail End of Line @ WWALS 2017-02-07

Detail, End of Sabal Trail Citrus County Line, 28.9643640, -82.6679600 What’s going on at the end of Sabal Trail’s Citrus County Line at Duke’s new natural gas plant in Crystal River, Florida?

The End of Line is the square in the upper left of the picture. But what’s all that equipment just east across the access road at 14001 West Power Line Street, Crystal River, FL, 28.963298, -82.667413? According to the Citrus County Property Appraiser, that other property is one small corner of a huge tract owned by HCR LIMESTONE INC, ATTN HOLCIM TAX DEPARTMENT, 201 JONES RD, WALTHAM MA 02451.

Meanwhile, there’s no activity at Continue reading →

Stop Sabal Trail pipeline –Harriet Heywood, Citrus County Chronicle 2017-02-03

Harriet Heywood, Op-ed, Citrus County Chronicle, 2017-02-03, Stop Sabal Trail pipeline

Harriet Heywood Today Sabal Trail Inc. is pounding a 36-inch pipe under the Withlacoochee River to force-feed us Marcellus Shale fracked gas. The powers who own decision-makers have made sure laws and regulations designed to protect the planet don’t apply to themselves. Twentieth century mindset — 21st century reality notwithstanding, they’ll offer a few hundred temporary jobs, conduct corporate social responsibility PR programs before moving on to other ventures, enabled by government agencies and politicians eager to board the fracked-gas crony capitalist bullet train, while the people, our waters and health are classified acceptable risks.

Mission accomplished while taking land through eminent domain with an unknown (by the public) quantity for export — unsurprising since there are Continue reading →

Ask your federal representative to ask GAO to investigate FERC and rubberstamps like Sabal Trail

You can send a message to your member of Congress asking them to support a petition from hundreds of organizations and even more individuals asking them to:

Help secure an independent investigation by the Government Accountability Office into the abuses of power, process and law by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) when it comes to interstate natural gas pipelines and LNG export facilities. Write your congressional representative now to urge their help in securing this necessary independent review.

Abuses like Continue reading →

WWALS to SBOCC about the Corps, site visits, and independent investigation

Sent this morning to the Suwannee Board of County Commissioners. They meet 6PM tonight, 5 April 2016, at the Suwannee County Judicial Annex, 218 Parshley St. SW, Live Oak, FL, and Sabal Trail is on the agenda.

Exhibit F: Compressors and loops; Suwannee, Columbia, and Bradford Counties, Florida, in Jacksonville Expansion Project, by FGT, for SpectraBusters.org, 31 March 2015 Dear Chairman Bashaw and Commissioners,

Thank you for coming to see with your own eyes at Suwannee River State Park and Falmouth Spring some of what Sabal Trail did not tell FERC. As you know, after that site visit, the Hamilton Board of County Commissioners sent a letter to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers inviting them to come see for themselves, as well.

Despite what Sabal Trail and FPL will tell you, pipelines are not inevitable.

As you may be aware, Continue reading →

WWALS invites Army Corps of Engineers to inspect and investigate Sabal Trail

Sent 5 April 20156. PDF.

Transco-atlantic-sunrise.jpg

You can join this fun and work by becoming a WWALS member today!

Continue reading →