LNG no solution to energy crisis

The Electricity Crisis,
The Global Economy
and What It Means to You

By Jason Makansi, John Wiley & Sons Inc., 306 pp. $27.95

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Reviewed by Cecil Johnson

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

Makansi opines unequivocally in Lights Out, his illuminating new book on the electricity-availability challenges confronting America and the world in the 21st century, that importing large amounts of LNG for electricity generation is a bad idea whose time should not come.

What we do not want, he writes, "is to be dependent on imported LNG like we are on imported petroleum today and into the foreseeable future. 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 sector, espies major problems with LNG. He considers LNG tankers "floating bombs," vulnerable to accidents and sabotage. And he points out that coastal facilities where LNG is converted back into a gaseous state are at the mercy of severe coastal storms.

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, 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.

But Makansi is far from environmentally tone-deaf. In fact, he shows as much concern about pollution and global warming as former Vice 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.

More coal-fired plants will have to be built, he says, because coal is the country's most abundant energy resource. He wants to see those plants built near the coal mines to cut transportation costs and reduce the amount of energy used and the pollution spewed in transporting coal long distances.

At the same time, he insists, coal refineries also should be placed at the plants to convert the residue of the burned coal into useful and profitable products.

Makansi considers nuclear power plants the most environmentally friendly way to make electricity. He points to the experiences of France, Britain, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, Belgium and Finland, which rely heavily on nuclear, and maintains that the problems real and imagined that beset the nuclear-power industry in its infancy have been largely overcome.

However, the radioactive leak last month at an earthquake-damaged reactor in Japan may reinvigorate some of those old concerns.

Makansi says that nuclear power has prospered more in other developed countries than it has in the United States because those other countries take global warming more seriously.

On the delicate subject of managing nuclear wastes, Makansi suggests abandoning the idea of a national nuclear-waste depository, which would involve transporting the spent nuclear rods over great distances and placing the public at risk. The answer for him is reprocessing. Again, he points out that France, the United Kingdom and Japan are already doing it.

"It's not like we're reinventing the wheel or anything," he writes. "Reprocessing is a form of recycling."

Although he recognizes the value of renewable-energy alternatives such as solar and wind, he sees them as relatively minor ingredients of the mix, because of their intermittency and environmental drawbacks. The so-called hydrogen economy, from his perspective, is a pipe dream.

The author recommends that consumers do their part by using their electric appliances more prudently. But he does not put much faith in such self-restraint. He sees needed new technology coming to the rescue with smart appliances, and lights that will turn themselves on and off when not needed, and smart grids that will adjust to demand automatically.

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.