Shifting to LNG just trades devil for witch, energy expert says
By Cecil Johnson McClatchy-Tribune News Service Tucson, Arizona | Published: 01.05.2008

In energy industry parlance, LNG is short for liquefied natural gas. In the view of electricity production and delivery expert Jason Makansi, those letters should stand for "let's not go" there.

Makansi opines unequivocally in "Lights Out," his illuminating new book on the energy availability challenges confronting the U.S. and the world in the 21st century, that importing large amounts of LNG for bulk electricity generation is a bad idea whose time should not come. "What we absolutely, positively do not want is to be dependent on imported LNG, as we are on imported petroleum today and into the foreseeable future," he writes. "That should be painfully obvious. Threatening LNG imports could be helpful in tempering gas prices, but I wouldn't rely on them for anything else."

Makansi, an electricity-industry consultant, entrepreneur and author of two previous books on the industry, espies major problems with LNG. He says he considers LNG tankers "floating bombs" that are vulnerable to accidents and sabotage by terrorists. But the overriding reason for curtailing or limiting LNG imports is the geopolitical factor, he says, noting that the largest reserves of it are in the Middle East and Russia. If we must depend heavily on natural gas for electricity production, he argues, we should exploit our own substantial reserves.

Environmentalists, however, object to extracting it from areas in the Rocky Mountains and Alaska, he reminds readers. "At some point, people have to make a choice, in this case between national security and greater energy independence or retaining in a pristine condition the acreage where vast domestic sources of natural gas are located," Makansi writes. That assertion, however, does not mean Makansi is environmentally tone-deaf. In fact, Mankansi shows as much concern about pollution and global warming as former President Al Gore does in his documentary "An Inconvenient Truth."

But Makansi is a realist on electricity who embraces such unavoidable truths as the need to reach compromises and find "smart" solutions to the environmental problems attached to coal-fired and nuclear power plants. "Lights Out" is a highly readable, well-written tome, laced with wit and practical wisdom. It should be read and digested by politicians, business leaders and everyone else who has a stake in keeping the lights on and keeping the cost of doing so from ascending through the ozone layer.