Some Power Generating Plants Run Out Of Natural Gas

[tex]

1-16-04, 2000 hrs (FTW) – For almost two years FTW has been following an imminent natural gas crisis connected to Peak Oil. Last summer at a conference in Mexico, I predicted the August 14th blackout more than a month before it happened. In previous stories and in one which we will publish for our subscribers in a few days, we have reported that going into this winter, the US had just barely met the absolute minimum storage requirements of three trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of gas which might have been enough if the weather stayed mild. We warned repeatedly that seriously cold weather might trigger gas shortages and events such as those reported by CNN today.

Here are some quotes from the CNN story which is reposted in its entirety below:

“Temperatures remained below zero Friday morning across New England after plunging to near-record lows, straining power grids and bringing life to a near standstill in some places. Officials asked residents to conserve energy voluntarily or face rolling blackouts.”

“…A spokeswoman for ISO New England Inc., the company responsible for maintaining the region's power grid, said it would launch rolling blackouts only ‘under extreme circumstances’…”

“The weather has created high demand for electricity, and as a result some power generating plants ran out of natural gas Thursday and increased the burden on other plants, according to ISO New England.”

What our readers must understand is that this crisis is not one that can be solved by more drilling. A reading of FTW’s previous extensive reporting on Peak Oil and Gas reveals that there are no more significant gas fields left and that no amount of drilling for oil and gas is going to prevent a darker and colder future. Any appreciable supplies of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) from overseas are decades of construction and billions of dollars of investment away and even that is at best only a short-term supply which will be taken away from others who will have to do without.

What is happening today is just the beginning.

For all of the Pollyanna advocates of alternative energy who assure us that there is nothing to worry about, that the world, and especially the United States can go on consuming at current levels and that the fatally flawed fallacy of a hydrogen economy will somehow solve our problems with regard to oil and gas, I suggest that they go and live in the northeast today and see how warm their windmills, solar panels, biomass and hydrogen myths keep them. Where is the infrastructure to employ even the pitiful solutions that solar, wind and biomass might provide? Mother Earth is laughing at Dick Cheney’s arrogant position that “the American way of life is not negotiable”.

Now is the time when the presidential candidates and every leader in the world must come to acknowledge Peak Oil and tell the world the truth. It is here. It is now. And sadly, as we have consistently said since 9/11, people are dying. Whether from hypothermia and frostbite, or from bombs and “terror” attacks, the cause is the same: the world is running out of hydrocarbon energy.

FTW would like to express its deepest gratitude to our Energy Editor Dale Allen Pfeiffer for his dedicated and breathtakingly accurate work on this subject. Dale, the good news is that you were right. And the bad news is that you were right.

Mike Ruppert

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'Extremely dangerous' cold grips Northeast

Friday, January 16, 2004 Posted: 1:23 AM EST (0623 GMT)

BOSTON, Massachusetts (CNN) -- The northeastern United States faced more bitter cold and high winds Thursday, with forecasters warning of "extremely dangerous" wind chills as low as 45 degrees below zero in eastern Massachusetts.

In Vermont , Gov. James Douglas appeared live on the state's largest television network to urge New England residents to conserve energy and help prevent rolling blackouts, which may be needed in an extreme circumstance.

Douglas said ISO New England, the company responsible for maintaining the region's power grid, is preparing to shut off power to some customers on Friday, if necessary, in order to keep the grid working.

The weather has created high demand for electricity and as a result some power generating plants ran out of natural gas Thursday and increased the burden on other plants, according to ISO New England.

Steve Costello, a spokesman for the Central Vermont Public Service Corp., said if the rolling blackouts are needed it would be a first for the region.

"We've never had to resort to that to maintain the stability of the system," Costello said. "But there has been very, very high demand in New England today."

Galen Crader, CNN weather forecaster, predicts the sub-freezing temperatures will remain through the middle of next week. Sub-zero temperatures, however, could begin to fade away as early as Friday afternoon.

"These values can produce frostbite in just 10 or 15 minutes," a National Weather Service advisory said. "If you don't have to travel or be outside late tonight or early tomorrow, then stay indoors."

In Maine , where wind chills could dip to 50 below zero Friday morning, Gov. John Baldacci declared a state of emergency in hopes of convincing federal highway regulators to allow longer driving hours for truckers carrying fuel oil.

"These conditions threaten public health and safety and endanger public property if fuel oil cannot be delivered to Maine homes and businesses," Baldacci's declaration said.

About 20 coffee-drinkers were crammed into a coffee shop in Portland , Maine , on Thursday morning, according to server Jamie Deering. "It's really cold, I mean, it's going down to 15 below at night," Deering said. "I didn't even take my trash out last night and my car is frozen."

In Boston the temperature reached a high of negative 2 degrees Thursday. The city's largest homeless shelter, which provides 700 beds, has been packed.

But one woman on a Boston street said area residents know how to deal with that type of weather:

"Dress in layers, keep moving and just try to have that old, good New England character," she said.

Business was off Thursday at a Waffle House restaurant in Tewkesbury , Massachusetts , said cook Sandra Starke. "It's awful, very cold," she said. "We just got a dusting [of snow] but it's so cold nobody wants to come out."

New Hampshire's Mount Washington Observatory, which boasts of having "The world's worst weather," recorded temperatures of 28 degrees below zero Fahrenheit on Thursday morning with a wind chill of 71 degrees below zero.

"It's actually very wonderful to be up here, to just be able to experience the weather extremes here that Mother Nature throws at you," said meteorologist Tim Markle from a weather station on the mountain. "A lot of people don't like the cold, but we're loving it up here."

-- CNN's Adaora Udoji, Laura Bernardini and CNN.com writer Thom Patterson contributed to this report.

NATURAL GAS UPDATES – A DARK AND COLD FUTURE

by

Dale Allen Pfeiffer -- FTW Energy Editor

© Copyright 2003, From The Wilderness Publications, www.fromthewilderness.com. All Rights Reserved. This story may NOT be posted on any Internet web site without express written permission. Contact admin@copvcia.com. May be circulated, distributed or transmitted for non-profit purposes only.

On January 16th CNN posted a news story regarding the demands posed by an arctic weather front which contained the quote, “The weather has created high demand for electricity, and as a result some power generating plants ran out of natural gas Thursday and increased the burden on other plants, according to ISO New England.” As this story began to circulate it was quickly realized that panic might follow a confirmed announcement of gas shortages. The following day, Connecticut’s New Haven Register published a banner story headlined Natural Gas Alarm Spurs Probe” which opened with the lead:

“There is no natural gas shortage.

“But in an investigation also launched Friday, State Attorney General Richard

Blumenthal alleged that profiteering power-generation companies nearly forced

blackouts in New England Thursday. Blumenthal said that electrical-generation companies sold fuel needed by their power plants on the spot markets to capitalize on soaring prices for natural gas.”

Blaming the power companies for these events is a weak attempt to disguise an ever-more-apparent catastrophe looming in the near future for North America. Experts familiar with natural gas production figures understand that this is just the beginning of what is to come. Australia’s THE AGE reported on January 14th that, “Australia is confident it can win liquified natural gas contracts with the United States worth up to $50 billion, amid warnings that America is facing a looming energy crisis.”

In describing the new LNG contracts The AGE went on to report: “American liquefied natural gas imports are expected to increase ten-fold over the next six years and total US energy consumption is expected to surge by about 32 per cent over the next two decades.

“The Bush Administration has admitted that America's capacity to meet its voracious hunger for energy through domestic production is limited.

“[Energy Minister] Macfarlane warned that the US could face an energy crisis that would rival the 1973 and 1980 oil price shocks. Both events triggered a combination of soaring inflation and economic stagnation in the major economies of the world. ‘The US has only very recently become open about their energy requirements, and some say it's as big a crisis, or potential crisis, as during the oil shocks,’ he said.”

The difference is that in past oil shocks there were other places to go to obtain immediate supplies. Given the fact that LNG imports require huge, costly and dangerous terminals which don’t exist, and a tanker fleet which has not been built, the comparison falls short. With the crisis now firmly on the table it is time for a close and honest look at the real natural gas production numbers and to understand that significant LNG imports are perhaps a decade and billions of dollars of investment away. They will certainly not be enough -- or in time -- to prevent what is becoming a stark reality. FTW’s Energy Editor Dale Allen Pfeiffer takes us through the hard, cold and unforgiving numbers. – MCR

[Chrisbob74]

Time to get nuclear.

[tex]

Originally posted by Chrisbob74

Time to get nuclear.

The sooner the better. It may give us time to begin harvesting clean electrical power from moon based solar collectors.

[Sarge]

Talk to the eco weenie Democrats who block every attempt to let us drill for our own oil and natural gas.

[Ancalagon the Black]

What part of the following is unclear?

What our readers must understand is that this crisis is not one that can be solved by more drilling. A reading of FTW’s previous extensive reporting on Peak Oil and Gas reveals that there are no more significant gas fields left and that no amount of drilling for oil and gas is going to prevent a darker and colder future. Any appreciable supplies of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) from overseas are decades of construction and billions of dollars of investment away and even that is at best only a short-term supply which will be taken away from others who will have to do without.

[Sarge]

Originally posted by Ancalagon the Black

What part of the following is unclear?

WHO IS MICHAEL C. RUPPERT?

"This is the man who cost CIA Director Deutch his guaranteed appointment as Secretary of Defense after confronting him at Locke High School with hard facts about CIA dealing drugs." - Dick Gregory

" ...in the course of investigations in the mid 70's he came across information that the CIA was trading drugs in order to fund covert operations in the Middle East...Perot called him back to offer encouragement...Ruppert says that his main objective is to see that the country gets a leader worthy of its people. Even for Ross Perot those will be tough shoes to fill." - PEOPLE MAGAZINE 6/22/92

The Record is Here

Learn More: OPENING REMARKS OF MICHAEL C. RUPPERT for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (WRITTEN STATEMENT WITH EXHIBITS)

Full Disclosure Part I – Michael Ruppert's LAPD records

Full Disclosure Part II – The Legal Record Around His 1978 LAPD Resignation

The 1981 Herald Examiner Stories – Two consecutive front page stories got it mostly right but confirmed that Ruppert had stumbled on illegal covert operations:

Part One

Part Two

"Mike Ruppert is a one man crusade trying to expose America's bogus war on drugs. From the time we met on the campaign trail in 1992 while filming THE LAST PARTY, through his challenge to John Deutch, Mike Ruppert has been on the front line trying to get the story out." - Marc Levin, - Emmy award winning Director of PBS's The Secret Government, THE LAST PARTY and Producer of Bill Moyers' 1998 series on Addiction.

----------

Mike Ruppert, 52, is the Publisher/Editor of From the Wilderness or FTW, a newsletter he founded in March 1998 by mailing out 68 copies to friends and researchers. FTW is now read by more than 10,000 subscribers in 38 countries including 35 members of the US Congress, the intelligence committees of both houses, and professors at 20 universities around the world. Through the newsletter and his website at www.fromthewilderness.com, Mike has pioneered innovative analysis and groundbreaking original stories on the impact of $5-600 billion per year in drug money moving through the US economy and the illegal covert operations which maintain control of that cash flow for US economic interests.

Since 9-11-01 he has been the point man in breaking major stories involving government foreknowledge, corruption and violations of the Constitution. He has also pioneered the effort to educate the world about the consequences of Peak Oil -- the fact that the world is running out of hydrocarbon energy, and what this might mean for human civilization.

An Honors graduate of UCLA in Political Science (1973), Mike is a former LAPD narcotics investigator who discovered CIA trafficking in drugs in 1977. After attempting to expose this he was forced out of LAPD in 1978 while earning the highest rating reports possible and having no pending disciplinary actions. In 1996, after 18 years of struggle, he finally achieved one of his deepest wishes in a face to face public encounter with then CIA Director John Deutch on national television. Washington sources later told Mike that Deutch's mishandling of the encounter cost him a guaranteed appointment as Secretary of Defense.

On November 28, 2001 Mike gave his first post 9-11 lecture at Portland State University, which was attended by more than 1,000 and resulted in a standing ovation. FTW's video, The Truth and Lies About 9-11, has sold more than 10,000 copies. It includes special exclusive interviews with Representatives Ron Paul (R-TX), Cynthia McKinney (D-GA), Barbara Lee (D-CA), Professor Peter Dale Scott, (UC, Berkeley), Professor John Metzger (Michigan State) and Catherine Austin Fitts (former Assistant Secretary of Housing and Managing Director, Dillon Read).

FTW's stories, which have expanded to include economic and military analysis, detailed exposés of the CIA and the American political and economic system, have been reprinted all over the world. A popular lecturer who has spoken in seven countries Mike’s new book, Crossing the Rubicon: America’s Descent into Fascism at the End of the Age of Oil will be available in early 2004.

FTW has had a standing offer of $1,000 for anyone who could show that any of the entries in FTW's "Oh Lucy" timeline were either not authentic or had been quoted inaccurately. The full legally binding offer is in writing at the end of FTW's video "The Truth and Lies of 9-11". That offer will expire one (1) year from the date the lecture was given, which was Nov. 28, 2001. This statement supercedes any other previous statements on this website concerning this offer.

[Ancalagon the Black]

FTW has had a standing offer of $1,000 for anyone who could show that any of the entries in FTW's "Oh Lucy" timeline were either not authentic or had been quoted inaccurately.

Looks like you missed out on your chance for $1000, Sarge.

[Sarge]

:laugh: Maybe next time