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If you've been following the will-they/won't-they? drama around shipping Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) to Hawai'i, the first 40' containerized and refrigerated tankload finally arrived a bit over a week ago, supplying about 12% of one day's consumption to Oahu's pipeline customers. So what's the big deal? That it ever got here at all.
Quote:
Clean Energy Fuels delivers first LNG shipment to Hawaii Gas (April 2014)
Clean Energy Fuels of Newport Beach, Calif., said Thursday that it is the company that supplied Hawaii Gas with the first shipment of liquefied natural gas to the Islands, which arrived at Honolulu Harbor last week.
The initial shipment totaled about 7,000 LNG gallons, shipped in a 40-foot container to the Hawaii Gas facility at Pier 38, where it was regassified using a mobile vaporizer and injected into the company's synthetic natural gas distribution system.
There's been a tug of war going on for years over various plans to shipping LNG to Hawai'i, with all kinds of ups and downs. The Syngas that Hawai'i Gas currently delivers to customers is manufactured from naptha feedstock at the old Tesoro refinery. When it looked like that refinery might close for good last May, the possibility of switching to LNG became more pressing. Then when the refinery was sold and a new SNG agreement struck, it became less pressing. Meanwhile Honolulu County commissioners haven't approved a terminal for full scale LNG tankers to unload, so these 40' containerized tanks were offered instead. And those got an initial OK, then it was delayed again about a year ago... ... anyway, here's a detailed article from back then explaining the situation better than I can...
Quote:
Hawaii Gas delays LNG shipping container program (May 2013)
Last week Thursday, the Gas Company LLC d.b.a. Hawaii Gas announced that it had withdrawn its application with the Hawaii State Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to bring-in Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) in shipping containers.
Hawaii Gas planned to source LNG from Southern California and utilize the existing ocean container carriers – Matson Inc. and Horizon Lines Inc. – to ship their LNG containers to and from Honolulu. The LNG was to be shipped in highly specialized 40 foot refrigerated tank containers meeting International Standard Organization (ISO) criteria. Natural gas is predominately methane gas (CH4) and is liquefied by cooling it to minus 260° F which reduces its volume by 1/600th.
Another LNG container development was announced this week Wednesday by Crowley Maritime Corporation. They purchased Carib Energy LLC, which developed the LNG shipping container model. Carib uses containers to serve smaller LNG markets in the Caribbean Islands shipping from the United States Gulf Coast, which has a plentiful supply of lower cost natural gas.
Anyway, the point is, they finally got one here. Proof of concept, I guess. And they only need about $15 mil to purchase the other 149 containerized tanks they'll need to establish a floating pipeline from California.
Yeah, another reason why it's good to have multiple ways to get things done. If we want coffee in the morning, we have the propane stove as well as an electric coffeepot. We also, in case things get dire indeed, have a percolator and a small hibachi.
There was about a month and half or so when there wasn't any propane available in Hawaii because the propane producing plant on Oahu was broken and needed a part brought in. There also isn't any natural gas in Hawaii, so that's not an option, either. So a lot of folks who rely on propane for their stoves were SOL. Electric rates are so high that that's not a viable option either, really. So, be flexible people and figure a way when it's necessary.
I keep thinking we should do something with solar cooking, but then we'd have to make coffee in the afternoon and keep it in a Thermos. Which would be okay as long as nobody drank it all up at night.
Propane not available? Didn't even notice with my 80gal tank that lasts 6 months or more. Also, if things get bad, my camping stove runs on gasoline if necessary, I think that'll be the last thing they stop shipping to the (neighbor) islands--visions of Mad Max now. I'm glad you mentioned solar, because that would be the ultimate step in Hawaii. Either that or those forests on Big Island will become valuable property.
Back to the original topic: LNG is slightly different from the Synthetic Natural Gas (SNG) that Hawaii Gas distributes in Hawaii (from the aforementioned refinery). That is why you need different injectors in your appliances when using SNG. So what happens when they mix LNG with their SNG? I assume it is very low concentration right now, but if they ramp it up, how does that affect the flames on my appliances?
Back to the original topic: LNG is slightly different from the Synthetic Natural Gas (SNG) that Hawaii Gas distributes in Hawaii (from the aforementioned refinery). That is why you need different injectors in your appliances when using SNG. So what happens when they mix LNG with their SNG? I assume it is very low concentration right now, but if they ramp it up, how does that affect the flames on my appliances?
Exactly right. I've read that the NG (Natural Gas) that results when LNG (Liguified Natural Gas) is regassified, expanding 600 times in the process, has twice the heat energy when burned than an equivalent volume of SNG (Synthetic Natural Gas). So presumably this proof-of-concept project, apparently intended to persuade both regulators and investors that this is a safe, practical step forward, can only work at some fraction of the total volume supplied to customers. It seems to me that at some point the dilution or complete replacement of SNG by NG would apparently require replacement of the burner jets, which would be a very big job in itself.
Still, given that the ongoing supply of SNG in Hawai'i is on shaky grounds, relying entirely on continued output from a single aging refinery, I suppose this experiment could be considered a kind of progress. I do wonder, however, about the impact in Hawai'i of the volatility of NG prices in general, the higher prices of West Coast NG that would be headed this way, and the logistics of shipping 40' refrigerated gas bottles the 2,500+ miles to get here - 7 every day on average. It seems fraught with potential hazards... at least to Hawaiian wallets.
Yeah, another reason why it's good to have multiple ways to get things done. If we want coffee in the morning, we have the propane stove as well as an electric coffeepot. We also, in case things get dire indeed, have a percolator and a small hibachi.
My personal favorite, for SHTF planning, is the rocket stove. Originally created to provide nearly smokeless cooking in third world countries from any burnable fuel source, such as branches, twigs, dry manure patties, charcoal, dried biomass, etc. using a chimney/blast furnace principle, it's actually quite practical for use on the lanai, and for camping, as well as inclusion in one's bug-out kit.
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... anyway, here's a detailed article from back then explaining the situation better than I can... 
