ANGA over LNG

It’s been a tough couple of weeks for LNG. Up in Astoria, a Clatsop County commissioner who supported LNG was recalled (pending a recount; she lost by only four votes). And the Oregon Department of Justice announced that it had enough evidence to convict a former Port of Astoria director of misconduct in the lease for the Skipanon Peninsula site — but he’s off the hook because of a statute of limitations.

However, the real blow to LNG comes from the natural gas industry itself.

A consortium called the American Natural Gas Alliance has started running ads that trumpet natural gas as the fuel of the future. And one of the best things about it, say the ads, is that we don’t have to import it.

I’m guessing that companies like Northwest Natural Gas and Pacific Gas & Electric, who are investing in infrastructure to import LNG, are pretty pissed off at ANGA (yes, that’s the acronym). According to the ads (and the website at http://www.newnaturalgas.org/) “we have more than 100 year’s worth of natural gas, right here in the States!”

The gist of the ads is that natural gas burns cleaner than coal (true enough), that it “makes solar and wind energy more viable,” and that there are such massive amounts of it buried right here in North American that we’ll never, ever, ever run out.

Strangely enough, I caught these ads from a motel room in Medford, Oregon, last night. It was the last night of my LNG-themed road trip. And the show I was watching, on CNBC, is called “American Greed.”