Environment
LNG was supposed to be for Peak Shaving-Per PSE
BY Lahar
On January 1st 2024, rates for gas utility customers went up to pay for 43% of the Puget Sound Energy LNG (liquified fracked gas) refinery in the Port of Tacoma.
The total capital cost of the Tacoma LNG is $489 million, of which $243 million is to be allocated to PSE’s regulated customers. When the Utilities and Transportation Commission approved the cost of allocation a few years ago, the rate payer share was supposed to be $133 million, but refinery costs ballooned and increased the public share by 93%.
The Puyallup Tribe and the Attorney General’s Public Counsel opposed the agreement, according to the UTC. During the last few days we had a 33-year cold record. That was the exact scenario why PSE demanded 43% of refinery costs must be allocated to the public—they said it would be necessary for peak shaving a few days every few years, or about 1-2% of all LNG produced.
Now we learned that even though we pay $243 million for the private, for-profit fracked gas refinery, the peak shaving was a myth.
PSE co-owns and operates the Pacific Northwest’s largest natural gas storage depot, the Jackson Prairie Underground Natural Gas Storage Facility in Lewis County. According to PSE, the facility is capable of delivering 1.15 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day. But when the cold hit, the gas pipeline was not able to function and PSE saw a strain on the grid. They apparently were surprised by higher energy use, even though the cold snap was long announced in many news outlets.
News: Puget Sound Energy withdraws permit application to barge Liquified Natural Gas LNG from the TOTE dock in the Port
Last week, Puget Sound Energy withdrew the city-approved Shoreline Revision Permit, that would have allowed PSE to load barges at the TOTE dock and move about up to 74% of LNG refined from the Port of Tacoma to other locations. Despite many previous city statements that any changes, specifically barging, at the PSE LNG refinery would require a new public process, the city had swiftly approved the permit, circumventing the public altogether and breaking their own promises.
The Puyallup Tribe, Advocates for a Cleaner Tacoma (ACT), Earth Justice, Sierra Club, Washington Conservation Action Education Fund, Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility and Stand Earth filed appeals with the Shoreline Hearings Board. Shortly before these hearings began, Puget Sound Energy decided to withdraw their application altogether.
The City of Tacoma refused to answer any questions on this issue. City ignored calls for a meeting and directed us to make a public records request instead. The last records request we filed with the city regarding Puget Sound Energy barging resulted (after months of delays) in thousands of 100% censured pages, as well as hundreds of pages totally unrelated to PSE or barging. City legal refused to reply to questions about the delays and wrong records.
In 2019, The Puget Sound Clean Air Agency approved a flawed Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement, which allows for up to 74% of LNG to be barged. Barging is this case means loading LNG on barges, which are not self-propelled and need diesel tugs and Coast Guard accompaniment, to send the condensed methane where PSE likes to. The loading was supposed to be at the TOTE dock on the Blair Waterway. PSE’s previous plan to build a barge dock on the Hylebos was successfully stopped by the Puyallup Tribe, due to the very toxic sediments in that waterway.
The LNG is pumped from the LNG refinery on Alexander Ave via underground cryogenic pipeline, the first and only cryogenic pipeline in this state. The pipeline runs under a public road, under mile-long oil trains and is in permanently wet and saline conditions. PSE is allowed to refine up to 500,000 gallons of LNG/day from fracked gas they import mainly from Canada.
74% of that is 134,050,000 gallons of LNG each year – which equals to 81,030,000,000 gallons of pure, refined methane (LNG is 600 times condensed methane) that could potentially be barged past dense population and economic centers, other marine traffic and human powered vessels, and have negative impacts on endangered species and all creatures in the Sound.
At this point, all we have is speculation how Puget Sound Energy plans to move about hundreds millions of gallons of volatile methane - as frozen LNG. PSE is allowed to load LNG on road tanker trucks, but it is federally prohibited to move LNG via train cars due to the extreme dangers in case of accidents.