Proponents

Although it cautioned that the proponents can develop remedies that would cause it to change its mind, the staff of the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) Friday filed its initial opposition to the proposed sale of Tucson-based utility holding company, UniSource Energy Corp., to a private investment group that includes three major Wall Street investment banking firms.

There are as many scenarios as there are proponents for hydrogen’s future dominance as a clean transportation and domestic energy source, and its long-term future is assured if the current political, environmental and regulatory backing it enjoys stays committed as it appeared to be during the National Hydrogen Association’s 15th annual conference in Los Angeles April 26-29. If there are skeptics, they are in the minority, and in the academic arena.

As a promotional and lobbying gesture, Mitsubishi Corp.-backed Sound Energy Solutions (SES) committed late Tuesday that its proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving terminal in Long Beach, CA, harbor will meet all of the new LNG safety standards released earlier in the month by the federal Department of Transportation (DOT). The new rules, however, won’t require any change in design or plans for the receiving terminal, said SES’s Long Beach-based chief executive Tom Giles.

As a promotional and lobbying gesture, Mitsubishi Corp.-backed Sound Energy Solutions (SES) committed late Tuesday that its proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving terminal in Long Beach, CA, harbor will meet all of the new LNG safety standards released earlier in the month by the federal Department of Transportation (DOT). The new rules, however, won’t require any change in design or plans for the receiving terminal, said SES’s Long Beach-based chief executive Tom Giles.

Last month’s tragic accident that killed at least 27 people at a liquefaction plant in Skikda, Algeria has had a chilling effect on the numerous plans for importing large quantities of liquefied natural gas (LNG) into the United States, according to speakers at a West Coast industry conference.

Both California and Mexico are committed to giving proponents of liquefied natural gas (LNG) import projects a chance to make their cases for new receiving terminals, but it is still unclear how many and where (on-land or offshore) those facilities will be built, according to government energy officials who spoke this week at a conference in Long Beach, CA.

In what is becoming a bizarre case of concern to future merchantenergy project proponents, California regulators rescued a secondmerchant underground natural gas storage project from the trashheap last week by refusing to support a recommendation to deny theproposal and postponing the item for a future meeting. Analternative to the proposed administrative law judge (ALJ) decisionis likely to be developed by one of the members of the CaliforniaPublic Utilities Commission.

Proponents and opponents of the controversial multi-state gaspipeline project — Independence Pipeline, SupplyLink andMarketLink — agree on one point: none are satisfied with theinterim order that put the projects on hold until they can produceenough contracts to justify market need. Both sides seek rehearing.

As T-shirted crowds of opponents and proponents lined the hallsof FERC yesterday, a small army of congressmen, staterepresentatives, local politicians and landowner representativesunloaded an arsenal on the $1.3 billion Independence/MarketLinkpipeline project, which would transport up to 1 Bcf/d of gas acrossOhio, Pennsylvania and New Jersey to New York City. It wasstrikingly clear that no pipeline project in history has been morestaunchly opposed.