Put your LNG tankers away children
When I was a child one of my favorite distractions was one of those games where the object is to maneuver a little steel ball through a three dimensional maze from a start point to an end point by twisting two little knobs on the sides of a wooden box that tilted a small table in two axis that allowed one to maneuver the ball around a series of holes. There were about 30 holes in total. Fall into any of the holes, you lose as the little steel ball would plummet 4 inches to the bottom of the box and make a slow, audible 'roll of shame' to an exit point where one could grab the ball and suffer through another episode. I believe the game was called 'Labyrinth' or some other clever name that the good folks at Parker Brothers or Milton Bradley thought of. Bottom line - Ball in hole was bad.
A few years later I began to enjoy basketball. At 13, my 6'1" 'growth spurt' riddled body may have been awkward and slow and had about as much grace as Rosanne but was a definitely a presence in the paint. I liked the game. The sport was simple. Take the ball and put it in the basket. Bottom line - Ball in hole was good.
What Pythagoras induced tangent am I off on now?
Looking at these two activities and their natural states of the game without any intervention one can see that in the game of Labyrinth, the natural state was for the ball to fall into the hole. In basketball, the natural order is for the ball not to be in the hole. One requires effort and skill to avoid the hole and... Enough, you get the point..
In our own little backyard called Passamaquoddy Bay there are a few groups of folks that are determined to build an LNG terminal to help bring this 'viable energy source' to the Northeast.
Of all the crazed and stupid things I've seen in my life this is about the most ridiculous plan I've ever come across. I mean ever. This one has all the foresight of a 17 year old pubescent teenage boy grabbing the Kleenex box or gym sock at the same time he went to his room after mommy and daddy left with his 'he's a bad influence' uncles copy of 'Big Jugs' magazine 'borrowed' from the back of unc's Lance camper.
I think about this and I get excited. I literally get an emotional charge inside from how stupid this plan is. I feel embarrassed for the guy that came up with this idea.
Let me explain why.
First off our little backyard is one of the few coastal areas that are still somewhat intact from a natural standpoint. There are eagles and whales and all the other Greenpeace propaganda goodies. Mother Nature hasn't packed her bags here yet. "OK, it's green. What else ya got", you may ask.
The body of water is part of the Bay of Fundy. Being geographically ignorant I couldn't have pointed the Bay of Fundy out to you on a map to save my life until I moved here. In fact, I thought it was overseas somewhere. However, the one thing I did know about the Bay of Fundy was that it had huge tides. I knew this because I read about it in the Guinness Book of World Records (when it had records that were meaningful; thing like world's tallest man, world's fattest woman and largest tree opposed to today’s variety which includes a record for the jag-off that can shove the most ping pong balls in various orifices of his body). Back then, if it was in Guinness, it meant something. I also knew that where there were big tides there were big currents. The tides on the Bay of Fundy are so large that there is actually a waterfall that forms when the current comes IN to the bay going uphill. The current is so strong that there is a whirlpool on one of the points of land. Not the type of whirlpool that you'd see on those 1492 maps in your Prentice-Hall high school history book with an 8 tentacled sea monster coming out of it. But it definitely looks like someone hit the lever and all things bad are on their way out. Bottom line.. Huge tides with 10-12 knot currents in some areas.
This bay is also comprised of several rocky points, small islands and is quite pinched. It is not what one would call an open body of water. The bay opens up onto the North Atlantic Ocean. I hear North Atlantic and I think, "That's where people die". Every movie I've watched that had scenes in the North Atlantic included death since the weather can be so tempestuous (which is a word I've never used before). Not that one should base his weather disaster information on such quality cinematic pieces as "The Perfect Storm" but if George "Save Darfur" Clooney can't make it then who the hell can. Seriously, this area is known for storms that produce 70 mile an hour winds (with 35 mile per hour winds being typical 4 months of the year), chowder thick fog (mine is the watery variety of pea soup) with a proclivity to change at a moments notice along the same lines as a college coed once you try and steal that extra base. From I'm gonna get some to a firm backhand is on par with cold with a mild breeze to an ass-kickin' Nor’easter.
So hopefully you get the picture.. This ain't Lake Tahoe on a sunny summer day.
Let's talk about the LNG tankers they want to bring in here. Big is a relative term so I'll simply describe them and you can make up your own mind as to how big or small they are. Let's start with a comparison. The size of the LNG tanker proposed to sail into “Pinchedamaquoddy Bay” is the same size as an aircraft carrier. Not one of those WWII carriers that prop driven Corsairs would call home but the Goose and Maverick variety needed to land F-14's. Over 1,000 feet long. Almost a quarter of a mile. In fact, when you try and find the length of one of these ships (because length always matters) it is difficult since the size of ship is listed in both gross tons (250 thousand ton - 200 million pounds) and cubic meters (160,000 cubic meters). They contain enough steel to build over 10,000 automobiles. Look, they are big ships. Enough comparison giving. You've all seen a big ship. Big fuckin' ship. Yes, big might be a relative term but since a ship is what people use as big to compare other things to we'll just let this be a given.
Remember when Tommy Franks would give his CNN war briefing. Remember that map he would have of the Persian Gulf that would be propped up on the Aaron Bothers purchased easel as if after the presentation he was going to work on a nice piece. Remember how they would have a couple Colorform ships that would be pressed onto the map in the Persian Gulf and you'd think somewhere in your still soft part of your mind, "Yeah, but this isn't to scale". Picture that map in your mind and how the ship almost filled the Persian Gulf. That same map could be used here only that the scale would be correct!
The ship is designed to keep its cargo liquefied. LNG in its natural form is a gas. However, to transport it efficiently one needs to liquefy it. To accomplish this, the 'viable energy option' is brought under enormous pressure and then must be maintained on the ship at -163 degrees Celsius. Even at the less impressive 'Celsius' scale the number is fantastic. This equates to around -300 degrees Fahrenheit and is approaching a mythical physical state called absolute freezing.
The more I write about this the crazier it gets. I start putting all of this together and it's like a Hollywood movie. I recall that quality film "Very, Very Bad Things" where several Hollywood writers sat in a room and kept trying to outdo each other and pile more extraordinarily bad shit onto the same situation which wound up with a gifted woman gone white trash wife taking care of her paraplegic husband while two rabid children run about the WalMart-toy filled yard foaming at the mouth..
Hollywood would have a hard time piling this much bad shit into an LNG scenario.
OK.. Huge ship. Tiny bay. Explosive cargo kept in an unnatural state at almost absolute freezing. Bitch slapping weather. You get the point.
Bringing ships into this bay is the equivalent of playing Labyrinth where the natural state of the ball is to fall into the hole. The natural state. If man's intervention were to go awry things go to the natural state. The natural state in this case would be a gizillion ton tanker filled with highly explosive cargo careening off of sharp rocky points in a closed off body of water surrounded by one of natures last bastions containing several species that are close to making their final exit off of planet earth.
The tugs will be good and their captains able. We all know how consistently accurate weather forecasting is. We can throw whatever bits of technology at this thing we want but the fact remains that things will always strive to go towards the natural order. The most technologically sophisticated jetliners are never intended to fall from the sky. However, if you're subscribing to the same cable channels I am you know differently. They go towards their natural order on a regular basis. That is how things are..
If LNG is indeed a viable energy option then the natural order for the environment for the terminal needs to be more like the game of basketball where it takes skill to get the ball into the hole rather than skill to keep the ball out of the hole. Where if 'all things man' fall apart the tanker is simply left to drift off into the middle of the ocean or worst case scenario ease up onto a soft sandbar. Transfer it offshore, transfer it on a vacant stretch of coast in an uninhabited and desolate area. If these areas don't exit then it wasn't meant to be. Don't force something where it doesn't belong. It never turns out right in the long run. NEVER. NEVER.
I can write for hours on this topic but will keep it to the ridiculous sub-heading of "Big Ship, Little Tempestuous Bay" (I got to use the word again). We'll save other topics such as 'How Long can a pier Be', 'How to Become a Thermodynamics Physicist with a Pulp Mill Background', 'Screw Canada', 'Indian Reservations are for Casinos, not LNG Terminals' and 'I'll Stick My Pipe where I want" for another day.
The idea of my kids picking up the good book of Guinness in 15 years and reading about the world's largest non-nuclear explosion and how it occurred in our backyard which is now one large piece of heat fused mass is a troubling one.
So to you Dean Girdis and Brian Smith, go grab your basketball, a six pack of beer, find a court with a hoop and I'll throw in a new nylon net so you can get some satisfaction from that nice swishy sound. Hell, I'll even throw in a couple Big Jugs magazines. But you're big boys now so don't forget your tissue..
A few years later I began to enjoy basketball. At 13, my 6'1" 'growth spurt' riddled body may have been awkward and slow and had about as much grace as Rosanne but was a definitely a presence in the paint. I liked the game. The sport was simple. Take the ball and put it in the basket. Bottom line - Ball in hole was good.
What Pythagoras induced tangent am I off on now?
Looking at these two activities and their natural states of the game without any intervention one can see that in the game of Labyrinth, the natural state was for the ball to fall into the hole. In basketball, the natural order is for the ball not to be in the hole. One requires effort and skill to avoid the hole and... Enough, you get the point..
In our own little backyard called Passamaquoddy Bay there are a few groups of folks that are determined to build an LNG terminal to help bring this 'viable energy source' to the Northeast.
Of all the crazed and stupid things I've seen in my life this is about the most ridiculous plan I've ever come across. I mean ever. This one has all the foresight of a 17 year old pubescent teenage boy grabbing the Kleenex box or gym sock at the same time he went to his room after mommy and daddy left with his 'he's a bad influence' uncles copy of 'Big Jugs' magazine 'borrowed' from the back of unc's Lance camper.
I think about this and I get excited. I literally get an emotional charge inside from how stupid this plan is. I feel embarrassed for the guy that came up with this idea.
Let me explain why.
First off our little backyard is one of the few coastal areas that are still somewhat intact from a natural standpoint. There are eagles and whales and all the other Greenpeace propaganda goodies. Mother Nature hasn't packed her bags here yet. "OK, it's green. What else ya got", you may ask.
The body of water is part of the Bay of Fundy. Being geographically ignorant I couldn't have pointed the Bay of Fundy out to you on a map to save my life until I moved here. In fact, I thought it was overseas somewhere. However, the one thing I did know about the Bay of Fundy was that it had huge tides. I knew this because I read about it in the Guinness Book of World Records (when it had records that were meaningful; thing like world's tallest man, world's fattest woman and largest tree opposed to today’s variety which includes a record for the jag-off that can shove the most ping pong balls in various orifices of his body). Back then, if it was in Guinness, it meant something. I also knew that where there were big tides there were big currents. The tides on the Bay of Fundy are so large that there is actually a waterfall that forms when the current comes IN to the bay going uphill. The current is so strong that there is a whirlpool on one of the points of land. Not the type of whirlpool that you'd see on those 1492 maps in your Prentice-Hall high school history book with an 8 tentacled sea monster coming out of it. But it definitely looks like someone hit the lever and all things bad are on their way out. Bottom line.. Huge tides with 10-12 knot currents in some areas.
This bay is also comprised of several rocky points, small islands and is quite pinched. It is not what one would call an open body of water. The bay opens up onto the North Atlantic Ocean. I hear North Atlantic and I think, "That's where people die". Every movie I've watched that had scenes in the North Atlantic included death since the weather can be so tempestuous (which is a word I've never used before). Not that one should base his weather disaster information on such quality cinematic pieces as "The Perfect Storm" but if George "Save Darfur" Clooney can't make it then who the hell can. Seriously, this area is known for storms that produce 70 mile an hour winds (with 35 mile per hour winds being typical 4 months of the year), chowder thick fog (mine is the watery variety of pea soup) with a proclivity to change at a moments notice along the same lines as a college coed once you try and steal that extra base. From I'm gonna get some to a firm backhand is on par with cold with a mild breeze to an ass-kickin' Nor’easter.
So hopefully you get the picture.. This ain't Lake Tahoe on a sunny summer day.
Let's talk about the LNG tankers they want to bring in here. Big is a relative term so I'll simply describe them and you can make up your own mind as to how big or small they are. Let's start with a comparison. The size of the LNG tanker proposed to sail into “Pinchedamaquoddy Bay” is the same size as an aircraft carrier. Not one of those WWII carriers that prop driven Corsairs would call home but the Goose and Maverick variety needed to land F-14's. Over 1,000 feet long. Almost a quarter of a mile. In fact, when you try and find the length of one of these ships (because length always matters) it is difficult since the size of ship is listed in both gross tons (250 thousand ton - 200 million pounds) and cubic meters (160,000 cubic meters). They contain enough steel to build over 10,000 automobiles. Look, they are big ships. Enough comparison giving. You've all seen a big ship. Big fuckin' ship. Yes, big might be a relative term but since a ship is what people use as big to compare other things to we'll just let this be a given.
Remember when Tommy Franks would give his CNN war briefing. Remember that map he would have of the Persian Gulf that would be propped up on the Aaron Bothers purchased easel as if after the presentation he was going to work on a nice piece. Remember how they would have a couple Colorform ships that would be pressed onto the map in the Persian Gulf and you'd think somewhere in your still soft part of your mind, "Yeah, but this isn't to scale". Picture that map in your mind and how the ship almost filled the Persian Gulf. That same map could be used here only that the scale would be correct!
The ship is designed to keep its cargo liquefied. LNG in its natural form is a gas. However, to transport it efficiently one needs to liquefy it. To accomplish this, the 'viable energy option' is brought under enormous pressure and then must be maintained on the ship at -163 degrees Celsius. Even at the less impressive 'Celsius' scale the number is fantastic. This equates to around -300 degrees Fahrenheit and is approaching a mythical physical state called absolute freezing.
The more I write about this the crazier it gets. I start putting all of this together and it's like a Hollywood movie. I recall that quality film "Very, Very Bad Things" where several Hollywood writers sat in a room and kept trying to outdo each other and pile more extraordinarily bad shit onto the same situation which wound up with a gifted woman gone white trash wife taking care of her paraplegic husband while two rabid children run about the WalMart-toy filled yard foaming at the mouth..
Hollywood would have a hard time piling this much bad shit into an LNG scenario.
OK.. Huge ship. Tiny bay. Explosive cargo kept in an unnatural state at almost absolute freezing. Bitch slapping weather. You get the point.
Bringing ships into this bay is the equivalent of playing Labyrinth where the natural state of the ball is to fall into the hole. The natural state. If man's intervention were to go awry things go to the natural state. The natural state in this case would be a gizillion ton tanker filled with highly explosive cargo careening off of sharp rocky points in a closed off body of water surrounded by one of natures last bastions containing several species that are close to making their final exit off of planet earth.
The tugs will be good and their captains able. We all know how consistently accurate weather forecasting is. We can throw whatever bits of technology at this thing we want but the fact remains that things will always strive to go towards the natural order. The most technologically sophisticated jetliners are never intended to fall from the sky. However, if you're subscribing to the same cable channels I am you know differently. They go towards their natural order on a regular basis. That is how things are..
If LNG is indeed a viable energy option then the natural order for the environment for the terminal needs to be more like the game of basketball where it takes skill to get the ball into the hole rather than skill to keep the ball out of the hole. Where if 'all things man' fall apart the tanker is simply left to drift off into the middle of the ocean or worst case scenario ease up onto a soft sandbar. Transfer it offshore, transfer it on a vacant stretch of coast in an uninhabited and desolate area. If these areas don't exit then it wasn't meant to be. Don't force something where it doesn't belong. It never turns out right in the long run. NEVER. NEVER.
I can write for hours on this topic but will keep it to the ridiculous sub-heading of "Big Ship, Little Tempestuous Bay" (I got to use the word again). We'll save other topics such as 'How Long can a pier Be', 'How to Become a Thermodynamics Physicist with a Pulp Mill Background', 'Screw Canada', 'Indian Reservations are for Casinos, not LNG Terminals' and 'I'll Stick My Pipe where I want" for another day.
The idea of my kids picking up the good book of Guinness in 15 years and reading about the world's largest non-nuclear explosion and how it occurred in our backyard which is now one large piece of heat fused mass is a troubling one.
So to you Dean Girdis and Brian Smith, go grab your basketball, a six pack of beer, find a court with a hoop and I'll throw in a new nylon net so you can get some satisfaction from that nice swishy sound. Hell, I'll even throw in a couple Big Jugs magazines. But you're big boys now so don't forget your tissue..
posted by Locster @ 2:38 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home