Arctic offshore drilling plan cleared for Beaufort Sea

The march of offshore oil development into the Arctic has been given a boost by the federal Minerals Management Service, which approved Shell Offshore Inc.'s plan to drill exploratory wells in the Beaufort Sea off the coast of Alaska.

Conservationists have been fighting in the courts to delay further offshore oil development until  studies of the Arctic's fragile and interconnected ecosystem can be done. But the minerals agency said it will work with the company to make sure the development can be conducted "in a safe and environmentally responsible manner."

The company has agreed to take a mid-season break in its drilling program, scheduled to begin in July 2010, to accommodate the fall hunting season on bowhead whales undertaken by Native Alaskan villagers, who had feared that noisy drilling activities could injure or scare off the whales.

"We sincerely believe this exploration plan reflects concerns we have heard in the North Slope communities which have resulted in the programs being adjusted accordingly," Pete Slaiby, Shell Alaska's vice president, said in a statement.

The Beaufort Sea contains an estimated 8.22 billion barrels of oil and 27.65 million cubic feet of natural gas. Oil operations on the North Slope at Prudhoe Bay have already begun to move into the near-coastal waters, but Shell's drilling plan would take place in two leases located 16 and 23 miles offshore.

T. Boone Pickens talks natural gas at WasteCon event in Long Beach

Oil magnate and clean energy champion T. Boone Pickens tried to whip up enthusiasm for domestic natural gas this morning while speaking at the Long Beach Convention Center.

Pickens, founder and chairman of investment firm BP Capital Management, delivered the presidential keynote address for the Solid Waste Assn. of North America’s WasteCon 2009 event. He took a folksy, can-do approach while touting his Pickens Plan for energy reform, cheerleading for U.S.-produced fuel sources while urging the country to “get off foreign oil from the enemy.”

The plan, first publicized in July and later through millions of dollars worth of air time, would end dependence on foreign oil. It would also create millions of jobs by integrating alternative energy sources such as wind and solar into the national grid and using natural gas – “the trump card in the deck” - as fuel.

 “I don’t want to get out of Saudi oil and onto the Chinese battery,” he said in a Texan lilt. “That is unacceptable. We’ve got to do it here, at home, not somewhere else.”

Over three days, WasteCon participants pore over issues spanning solid waste management to greenhouse gasses to recycling.

When not trying to recruit the audience to join his “Pickens army,” the 81-year-old also name-dropped supporters such as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).

Pickens said he expected votes on several bills in Congress, including the “Natural Gas Act,” HR 1835, “just as soon as we get healthcare out of the way.” He then railed a bit against cap-and-trade emissions trading programs and general environmental illiteracy in political circles.

“We know more in this room about energy in America than all of Washington,” he told the large, crowded hall.

But although he faulted Americans for allowing years of cheap oil to distract from growing concerns about dependency, Pickens suggested that America still has more barrels of oil equivalent (BOEs) of natural gas than Saudi Arabia has oil.

“It’s cleaner, it’s cheaper, it’s abundant, and it’s ours,” he said.

-- Tiffany Hsu

Photo: Pickens in 2007. Mark Boster, Los Angeles Times

BioJet Corp. to sell 4 million barrels of aviation biofuel

Santa Barbara-based BioJet Corp. agreed this week to sell 4 million barrels of aviation biojet fuel to Las Vegas oil and fuel broker E85.

The contract is likely to go into effect over two years beginning in 2011, said BioJet Chief Executive Mitch Hawkins, once jet biofuel is projected to be approved for use by the end of 2010. The fuel standard is being developed by ASTM International, formerly known as the American Society for Testing and Materials.

BioJet Corp., formerly known as JatrophaBioJet, did not disclose other details of the contract. But the company is aiming to provide 30 million barrels of biofuel annually by 2017, when the International Air Transport Assn. hopes to reach its goal of 10% biofuel use.

By then, Hawkins said, he expects demand for aviation biofuel to exceed 280 million barrels annually, with 42 gallons per barrel.

The bulk of the biofuel is likely to be produced using seeds from the jatropha plant, Hawkins said, though BioJet is also exploring camelina, algae and “designer,” or chemically engineered, sources as potential feedstocks.  

Though BioJet is capable of growing its own jatropha, it also contracts with suppliers including Abundant Biofuels Corp., which operates in the Philippines, Peru, the Dominican Republic and other countries.

-- Tiffany Hsu

Decision due soon on Arctic Ocean oil drilling

Opponents of offshore oil drilling in the Arctic are making a last-ditch effort to convince the Obama administration to impose the same kind of moratorium on oil and gas development that it did on major commercial fishing in the Far North.

Signatures from nearly 300,000 people supporting a halt on new drilling in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas, and also in Alaska's Bristol Bay, were unveiled outside the Department of Interior in Washington, on the last day available for public comment before the department decides on future leases on the Outer Continental Shelf.

A group of more than 400 scientists also is joining the public push against Arctic drilling. In a letter to the president timed to the deadline for offshore oil comments, a large group of biologists, oceanographers and other scientists warned that profound physical and biological changes in the Arctic Ocean connected to the rapid shrinking of sea ice leave too many unanswered questions to proceed with new oil and gas development.

"Offshore oil and gas activity poses risks to marine mammals, sea birds and fishes from oil spills and chronic habitat degradation through noise, bottom disturbance, and pollution," the scientists said in their letter. "Adequate technology does not exist to clean up oil spills in broken ice, and the cumulative impacts of widespread industrial activity will only grow."

Alaska weighs in on new federal oceans policy

With the world's oceans facing mounting threats from pollution, climate change and overfishing, the Obama administration held the first of several public hearings intended to help it draft a coordinated policy for managing the health of the seas.

During their stop in Alaska, members of the White House's Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force said they expected to have a list of priorities for improving ocean stewardship in place by mid-September. By December, officials said, they planned to set out a broad strategy for sustainably allocating natural resources among interests such as fishing, oil and gas development, shipping, wind and tidal energy, boating and wildlife preservation.

“In every ... ocean around the world, over-exploitation has led to widespread depletion and disruption, often despite good intentions,” said Jane Lubchenko, administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is part of the task force.

“This is not to say we can't use the ocean,” she said. “We need to be able to use it. Just not use it up.”

Making fuel at home: Waste wine primes the pump

It sounds too good to be true: A residential system that allows people to make fuel from waste products  and use it to run their vehicles. That’s what inventors of the E-Fuel MicroFueler claim, and there's support for the idea in government, industry, technology and pop culture. MicroFueler buyers are eligible for a $5,000 tax credit. Former L.A. Laker Shaquille O'Neal is an investor in the company that distributes them.

The $10,000 E-Fuel MicroFueler consists of a 250-gallon holding tank for organic feedstock, such as waste wine and beer, and a still that converts it to 100% ethanol, or E-Fuel. The still doubles as a fuel pump, which works similarly to those at traditional gas stations. The only waste product is distilled water, which can flow down a drain or be used to irrigate plants.

"If we give everybody the ability to make their own fuel, you break the oil infrastructure," said MicroFueler inventor Tom Quinn, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who also developed the motion-control system for the Nintendo Wii gaming system, a version of which is used in his new micro refinery. "Three years ago, I looked at where the world was going and energy caught my eye. As a world, we had no replacement fuel for gasoline, and that led me to alternative fuels, such as ethanol."

Guilty plea in San Francisco Bay oil spill case

 

The operator of a tanker that spilled 53,000 gallons of fuel oil into the San Francisco Bay pleaded guilty Thursday to two criminal charges and will pay a $10 million fine, according to federal officials.

Hong Kong-based Fleet Management Ltd. pleaded guilty to violating the federal Oil Pollution Act of 1990. The company also pleaded guilty to felony obstruction of justice and false statement charges in the spill’s aftermath.

On Nov. 7, 2007, the Cosco Busan sideswiped the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge in the dense fog. The incident fouled 26 miles of shoreline and delayed the start of crab season.

At least 2,000 migratory birds died in the spill, including brown pelicans, a federally endangered species, and marbled murrelets, which are on the California endangered species list.

“In pleading guilty, Fleet admitted that after the ship hit the Bay Bridge, it concealed ship records and created materially false, fictitious and forged documents with an intent to influence the Coast Guard’s investigation,” the said U.S. Department of Justice in a written statement.

Marc Greenberg, Fleet’s attorney, declined to comment on the agreement Thursday because he said it has yet to be accepted by the court. Two earlier pleas were turned down. A hearing is set for Dec. 11.

In March, the ship’s pilot pleaded guilty to two counts of breaking federal environmental laws.
John Joseph Cota of Petaluma acknowledged negligence and was sentenced to 10 months in prison, a year of supervised release and 200 hours of community service. He is scheduled to surrender to authorities on Sept. 18.

-- Maria LaGanga

Photo: Crews clean up oil on Rodeo Beach in Marin County in November 2007, after spill by the Cosco Busan. Credit: Robert Durell / Los Angeles Times

 

Battle brewing over new off-shore oil drilling

Staff writer Shane Goldmacher reports today on our sister blog, L.A. Now, that environmental groups and some Democratic lawmakers are planning to fight against a state budget proposal that would allow the first new oil drilling off the California coast in 40 years:

“We’re getting ready for war,” said Assemblyman Pedro Nava (D-Santa Barbara), who opposes the plan.      

Environment California, an advocacy group, has blitzed its 150,000-strong e-mail list asking for action and put together a YouTube video of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s past opposition to oil drilling.

Dan Jacobson, the group’s legislative director, said his goal is to have the project removed from the budget. “Let’s go back to the drawing board,” he said.

Read the rest at L.A. Now.

Gas prices down a little, oil up

Retail gasoline prices fell in California and nationally for the first time in several weeks, the Energy Department said Monday, but not deeply or early enough to stem what is expected to be another decline in local holiday driving over the Fourth of July weekend. The relief might also be short-lived as renewed violence in oil-rich Nigeria sent crude prices back above $71 a barrel.

At this time last June, the average cost of a gallon of self-serve regular gasoline was $4.573 in California and $4.095 nationally. Both were within range of the all-time record high fuel prices that were recorded last July.

It was the more recent past, however, that seemed to be bothering motorists Monday. California’s average price dropped 2.1 cents a gallon over the last week to $2.984, according to the Energy Department’s weekly survey of filling stations. But that small decline was the first drop since March 23 in a year in which California fuel prices have soared by more than 65%. They ended the year at just $1.81 a gallon.

"They go up like a rocket and come down like they are on a parachute," said Lloyd Haines, an auto repair mechanic as he filled up on $2.85-a-gallon gasoline at a Chevron station on his way to work Monday morning.

That might be one reason why the Auto Club of Southern California was reporting that fewer Southern Californians will travel for the Fourth of July holiday weekend, despite the availability of many travel bargains.

Long Beach port, BP pioneer shore-power system

Docked in Long Beach today with a fresh load of oil from Valdez, the Alaskan Navigator sat silently, with a few thin cables draping down to some gray metal boxes. Missing was the incessant rumble of diesel engines, which on an average cargo ship would be running constantly to keep electrical systems going, burning quite a bit of diesel fuel and generating a significant amount of pollution.

But the 941-foot Navigator, anchored at the BP Oil Terminal’s Pier T on the Long Beach port’s main channel, isn’t average. The vessel, owned by Alaska Tanker Co. of Portland, Ore., was plugged into what is billed as the world’s first shore-side electrical grid.

Only the Navigator’s sister ship, the Frontier, is similarly equipped. Oil tankers are special fuel guzzlers and air polluters because of the power needed to pump vast amounts of crude out of a ship. It’s the rough energy equivalent of a day’s worth of driving by 187,000 cars, according to the Port of Long Beach.

At a ceremony formally unveiling the port’s new dockside power system, port Executive Director Dick Steinke described it as “another giant step” toward cleaning up the air.