Received Sunday on Stranded fossil fuel assets. -jsq

Governmental eminent domain powers have been growing for more than 115 years, to the point where courts have upheld the taking of property from one private owner for the purpose of transferring it to another, as long as it benefits the public. The Natural Gas Act delegates eminent domain powers to the pipeline companies, subject to court approval. However there’s no mechanism in place to dispute the taking. Things to consider:

• How does this benefit the public by taking land from the public?
• Is there an irrefutable study that shows this act of taking of private land is justifiable by needs other than capitalistic greed?
• Also, what about the mineral rights of the property?
• How many “pipes” or infrastructures can the Pipeline Company sell or lease access to other entities without any future benefits paid to the original land owners?
• Are all contracts wrote the same or different?
• What about additional easements taken to access this type of pipeline project?
• Does the projected pipeline run the centerline of the easement?
• If not, why?
• Why is 100′ needed for a 3′ pipe?
• Is there any government funding in this project to FPL?
• Is this a union project?
• How will this project employee 4500 local people?

There’s only two union contractors in Lowndes County one is at Moody Air Force Base and one is at the Paper Mill and nether are local businesses.

Let’s look at the numbers:

The cost of building natural gas pipeline infrastructure varied between $30,000 and $100,000 per inch-mile from 1993 to 2007.Through 2004, increases in pipeline construction costs were generally modest. After 2004, however, costs began to escalate dramatically, nearly doubling previous levels by 2006. This was due, in part, to high world commodity prices, especially the price of steel. Costs have declined recently and the several year cost run-up is expected to only be temporary. Since all three cases have similar GDP assumptions, input costs are assumed to be the same in all cases. Construction costs are projected to decline through 2010. After 2010, costs resume a general upward pattern consistent with the pre-2004 cost trends, which are slightly less than the assumed future inflation rate of 2.5 percent per year. The cost of pipeline construction is divided roughly equally between materials, labor, and miscellaneous cost.

In 2007, materials costs accounted for over 35 percent of total costs, but have since declined. The miscellaneous category includes engineering, surveying, administration, and environmental costs. Costs for right-of-way account for 8 to 9 percent of total construction costs. This component has recently increased at a slightly faster rate than the other components. It is projected that the labor and right-of-way components will grow slightly faster than the other components, as skilled labor remains a premium commodity and pipeline permitting and sitting continue to increase in complexity. The cost of materials is projected to increase at a rate slightly less than inflation and account for about 25 percent of total pipeline construction costs by 2030. Pipeline only, excluding compression to provide clarity, a 36-inch diameter pipeline at a cost of $100,000 per inch-mile would cost $2,400,000 per mile. Basically if this is a 5.1 Billion project the Pipe Line Builders have in there budget to pay $53,000.00 per acre to landowners According to the Natural Gas Pipeline and Storage Infrastructure Projections through 2030. Even with all this, there remains 1.7 Billion unaccounted for.

-jsq

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