Long Beach Gas Plant Could Be Boon, Curse

To its supporters, the energy terminal planned for the Long Beach seaport would provide not only a reliable supply of liquefied natural gas, but relief for residents breathing some of the most unhealthful air in the country.

Yet the promise of cleaner air pales for some in the face of predictions that a worst-case liquefied natural gas accident could send highly flammable fumes spewing into downtown Long Beach and nearby neighborhoods.

A Mitsubishi Corp. subsidiary on Monday applied for federal and state permission to build the $400-million import facility, launching a formal review that the company hopes could allow construction to start in a year.

If local, state and federal approvals are secured, the first tanker carrying LNG, a highly chilled and condensed form of natural gas, could sail into San Pedro Bay by early 2008.Whether the West Coast’s first LNG terminal would be a boon or a curse -- or both -- poses one of the most tangled energy questions to emerge in the Los Angeles region. Vehicles that burn cancer-causing diesel fuel could be replaced with those burning cleaner LNG, air quality experts say, and one of the area’s biggest air pollution threats could be reduced.

Only four LNG terminals operate in the United States today, but a burst of interest in the moneymaking potential of LNG imports has touched off plans for 31 plants from Long Beach to Maine.

Although the LNG industry has what experts call a relatively safe record, some plans are creating a stir.

The governor of Alabama vowed this month to block an LNG terminal planned for Mobile Bay unless an independent study proves that it would be safe. The Bay Area city of Vallejo helped defeat an LNG plant a year ago when a study raised significant safety concerns.

Residents of tiny Harpswell, Maine, will vote March 9 on whether to allow an LNG terminal on their coast. And in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino has attempted to block LNG tankers from moving through Boston Harbor to reach one of the nation’s oldest LNG terminals in nearby Everett.

Just last week, an explosion at an Algerian LNG plant killed at least 27 people and injured 74 others. That plant performs a different purpose -- it chills natural gas into a liquid, while plants here turn it into a gaseous form again -- but U.S. officials are investigating the accident to make sure similar problems will not occur here.

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Staunch Support

Proponents of the Long Beach project say that they are unfazed by opposition in other cities or by local criticism raised in recent weeks.

“This is going to be the safest LNG receiving terminal in the world,” said Tom Giles, head of Sound Energy Solutions, the Mitsubishi subsidiary. In an interview last week, he and James P. Lewis, an LNG safety expert working for the subsidiary, described plans for shielding massive LNG storage tanks with double walls -- one built of concrete and the other of nickel-reinforced metal -- to ensure that no gas can escape.

What makes LNG most attractive to importers is that it packs well.

Natural gas is chilled at minus 260 degrees, turning it into a clear, odorless liquid that takes up a tiny faction of the space of gas. When warmed and returned to gaseous form, it is used just like natural gas transported in pipes for warming homes, cooking meals and drying clothes.

“It’s wonderful. We need the gas,” said Ronald Koopman, a retired scientist from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory who spent 11 years testing LNG safety.

But Koopman also warned that a terminal should not be located within two or three miles of a populated area. In Long Beach, such tourist meccas as the Queen Mary and the Aquarium of the Pacific are less than two miles downwind from the proposed site. So is the Long Beach Convention Center and an ambitious new restaurant and theater complex known as the Pike.

The Long Beach proposal is the furthest along of four LNG import plants proposed for California, and the only one in a highly populated area. A proposal for Humboldt Bay in Eureka is roiling some residents. Two offshore plants proposed along the Ventura County coast would convert the LNG back to gas form and ship it to the mainland via pipelines.

The LNG proposal for Long Beach illustrates the economic and social crossroads reached by the city, which suffered mightily in the early 1990s when the U.S. Navy left town and the aerospace industry fizzled.

The city’s downtown is trying to remake itself with the Pike, posh restaurants along Pine Street and 3,000 to 4,000 downtown residential units for upscale clientele. At the same time, the mushrooming port complex has produced new jobs -- albeit with increased air pollution and truck traffic.

It may also provide cheaper gas prices to city residents and small businesses, who buy their gas from the city-owned gas company, Long Beach Energy. The city is negotiating with Mitsubishi in hopes of ensuring discounted gas.

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Industry Precautions

Industry experts note that although the United States has a short history of importing LNG because domestic supplies were plentiful and cheap, other countries have imported LNG for decades. Key to that success, industry officials say, are myriad protections built into LNG transportation and handling, from double-hulled tankers to onshore storage tanks built with thick, protective walls.

The surge of national interest in LNG stems from rising demand -- and rising prices -- for natural gas and a paucity of new supplies in the U.S. and Canada. The gas industry is looking overseas at the Pacific Rim, the Middle East and Africa, which now export LNG to Europe and Asia.

Mitsubishi, for instance, handles half of Japan’s natural gas imports from such countries as Brunei, Malaysia, Australia and Indonesia.

LNG is shipped in double-hulled ships as long as three football fields. The ships typically have a distinctive appearance, with five bulbous white tanks protruding above the hull. Mitsubishi ships would call at Long Beach 70 times a year, about once every five days.

Mammoth container ships and large oil tankers already dock daily at the Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex, the largest in the United States. The terminal would include a tanker berth, the plant, fuel terminal and two 160,000-cubic-meter LNG tanks 170 feet high.

After being transformed back into gaseous form, the LNG would be shipped by pipeline to distribution centers.

In June, Long Beach harbor commissioners gave Mitsubishi the exclusive right to pursue the plan, but will still need to vote on environmental reviews now being drawn up and on a lease for the project.

The Long Beach City Council will not vote directly on the proposal, although some critics say the city has already given tacit approval. In fact, the hard-hitting local news website called LBreport.com has taken the council to task for its speedy decision last year to ask the director of Long Beach Energy to launch talks with Mitsubishi to buy gas from the new plant.

“They have held no conversation with the public about whether putting an LNG facility in our port is a good thing,” said Bry Myown, a Long Beach community activist. She complained that officials have not held special meetings to inform citizens. “Nobody knows about it.”

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which will oversee the federal environmental review, will conduct at least two public meetings in the Long Beach area, said Mark Robinson, director of the panel’s Office of Energy Projects. The Port of Long Beach will oversee the state review, with a number of state agencies weighing in.

Although many hazardous materials already course through the port complex, the size of the LNG proposal and its proximity to downtown Long Beach worry critics.

Some local critics say the Long Beach terminal should be moved offshore, but at the Mitsubishi subsidiary, Giles said an offshore facility could not easily provide the liquefied form of natural gas prized by the port and clean-air activists.

Mayor Beverly O’Neill was traveling and unavailable for an interview, but said in a statement: “The most stringent construction and environmental standards ... will be appropriately addressed before the actual building of any terminal.”

Koopman, the LNG safety expert, said the Long Beach project will need to be studied closely because so many people live and work nearby.

“It’s a hard argument to make, that hazardous facilities with large amounts of hazardous material be separated from people,” Koopman said.

“But it’s very logical, and you just wish local governments would have the courage to make that decision.”