Gas delivery limitations may factor into power plant plans

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Gas delivery limitations may factor into power plant plans

Updated: Feb. 20, 2001 - 8:48 a.m.

Plans to bring new power plants on line this summer face capacity problems in the vast network of pipelines that deliver natural gas necessary to fuel the plants.

Only two of seven new pipelines have been approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, so capacity could remain stagnant for at least one year.

The gas distribution network has not been expanded in eight years and is already running close to capacity, experts say. Natural gas is the source for more than half of California's electricity supply, with the state relying less and less on oil or nuclear energy because of environmental concerns.

Opposition over 20 years to nuclear energy and smog-producing oil and coal plants has led California to make a deliberate shift toward natural gas, an invisible, odorless, tasteless hydrocarbon that burns cleaner than most fuels.

Gov. Gray Davis is aware of the potential shortfall and is working with state regulators to keep his plan on track, spokesman Roger Salazar told the Los Angeles Times for Tuesday editions.

"Obviously, it's one of the many important parts of the puzzle we have to solve in order to get through this challenge," Salazar said. Davis assured Californians Feb. 8 that an additional 5,000 megawatts would be brought on line by summer, and another 5,000 megawatts by summer 2002.

No one is exactly sure what level of capacity will be needed to carry out Davis' plan, and the state is now conducting a feasibility study. To boost the power supply by another 5,000 megawatts, some estimate that existing pipelines would have to increase capacity by about 10 percent.

Whether the pipeline can carry the extra natural gas will depend on the rearranging of flow schedules and the closure of older, less efficient plants.

"I don't think we're going to be able to move as much additional gas as we'll need to without doing something to the infrastructure," said J. Stuart Ryan, an executive vice president overseeing the Western region for AES Corp., the state's largest supplier.

"We're scrambling to catch up and we're going to have to move faster than we're used to," he added.

The underground, interstate pipelines that snake California's borders are basketball-sized in diameter and can carry enough gas to fuel nearly 350 power plants and heat millions of homes and businesses.

In the state, four big pipes hook up to sprawling distribution systems owned by utilities. A fifth pipe principally serves oil recovery operations and other industrial gas deliveries.

The first gas deliveries arrived shortly after World War II from El Paso(Texas) Energy. El Paso Energy now owns two of the five major interstate pipes that export gas to California, which produces only 16 percent of what it needs.

Nearly half of the state's imports come from the San Juan and Permian basins in the Southwest. Canada and the Rockies provide the rest.

Eight years ago, 40 percent of California's power plants could operate on either oil or natural gas. Now, more than 95 percent operate only on natural gas.

Three projects that would have expanded pipeline capacity by about 30 percent were cleared for construction in the 1990s. All were abandoned.

-- Associated Press

-- Swissrose (cellier@azstarnet.com), February 20, 2001

Answers

Wasn't there just a post about capacity being purchased and it not being used.

-- (perry@ofuzzy1.com), February 20, 2001.

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