76-04-B6

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The Alaska Gas Pipeline

Transcript As winter winds whip across Alaska's Prudhoe Bay, American utilities and gas pipeline companies are battling for the right to bring us its riches. I'll be right back. As it wound its way through environmental arguments toward final approval, the huge Alaska oil pipeline project was much in the news, but many people still haven't heard of a similar project which will one day carry large amounts of natural gas from Alaska to the "lower 48" states, supplying something on the order of 10% of our needs. There are three competing proposals for the gas pipeline, the Arctic Gas Project, the Alcan Project and the Trans-Alaska Project. All three begin where the oil pipeline will begin, at Prudhoe Bay. But there the similarities end. In seeking necessary government approvals, backers of the three plans cite timing, economics, environmental impact and security. The Trans-Alaska pipeline would parallel and make use of the oil pipeline's work roads, pads and camps for most of its distance; the Alcan pipeline for part of it. Trans-Alaska's pipeline would terminate at Gravina Point on the Pacific Ocean. There the gas would be liquified and transported by a fleet of eleven special ships to a new terminal in Southern California. Backers cite U.S. Coast Guard reports that Liquid Natural Gas shipment is among the safest ocean-going operation today. At the special terminal, the liquid gas would be converted back to a gaseous state and transported throughout the United States over the gas pipeline network. The other two projects both rely on long pipelines across Canada to transport the gas back into the United States. Both would carry gas to the Midwest, near Chicago, for further distribution. In addition, they would have a spur running south from Alberta into the Pacific states. The Trans-Alaska project will require laying 809 miles of pipe alongside the oil pipeline. The other two projects will require up to 5400 miles of new pipeline as they cross Canada. Construction time and environmental concerns aren't their only problems, though. The trans-Canada proposals between them face a battery of approval processes with Canadian, as well as United States agencies, along with competition for time and attention from two Canadian projects and unsettled native land claims in the Yukon and Northwest Territories. Candidates in the recent elections talked a great deal about jobs, but so far as I know didn't touch on these projects. The all-Alaska project would contract for all goods and services within the U.S., while the other projects must do a large amount of it in Canada. And, Trans-Alaska is expected to have direct employment in the U.S. at the peak of construction of 22,500. That's more than double one of the rival projects and about 50 percent greater than the other. The same ratios are projected for permanent employment on the competing systems. Supporters of the two trans-Canada systems argue that by bringing the gas pipeline straight into the midwest that area will have first crack at the gas, but that ignores the fact that the Federal Power Commission is the final authority on who gets how much additional gas. They make the determination on the basis of need, not availability. The U.S. pipeline network does the rest, distributing the gas wherever it has to go. There are arguments for each project, of course, but in terms of U.S. interests, the weight of the evidence seems to be coming down on the side of the Trans-Alaska project, the only all-U.S. one of the three. This is Ronald Reagan. Thanks for listening.		Details Batch Number 76-04-B6 Production Date 11/02/1976 Book/Page Online PDF Audio No Youtube? No
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