Alaska’s oil windfall

Oil revenue accounts for 90% of Alaska’s tax haul, and a booming energy sector puts more money into residents’ pockets.

CNNMoneyMarkets | Feb 29, 2012

By Maureen Farrell

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Alaska has a big vested interest in high oil and gas prices.

Oil revenue accounts for 90% of the state’s tax haul. So its budget swells and oil royalties gush into a special state investment fund — the only one of its kind in the United States.

And that can translate into windfalls for residents, who share in the oil bounty through annual dividends paid by the fund and, in boom times, direct payments from the state.

For example, when oil and gas hit record highs in 2008, residents received $3,000 checks, twice what they normally get.

“Things become much easier for the state when oil prices are high,” said Gerald McBeath, a professor at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks. “It makes it possible for them to increase funding for schools, construction and protection services.”

But, of course, there’s a dark side to high oil prices.

Alaska is a net importer of food and other consumer staples, the cost of which rise when energy prices spike. Residents get hit with outsize fuel and food prices.
What’s behind the gas price spike

In addition, the state investment fund’s investments — primarily stocks, bonds and real estate — usually take a hit if the economy cools.

Still overall, rising gas prices mean higher revenues for the state’s treasury.

In 2011, Alaska collected $7 billion from oil companies, up from $6.2 billion in 2010.

Now if oil prices continue to climb, the state will exceed the $8.9 billion it had projected it would earn in 2012. Back in 2008, revenues hit $11.3 billion.

And unlike fiscally-strapped states struggling over which public services to cut, Alaskan officials are deciding whether to increase state-backed programs or create new ones. Examples include a $4.3 billion hydroelectric dam or more dividend checks to residents.

“Whenever we have money in the treasury, people come forward with ideas to spend it,” said Steve Colt, a professor at the University of Alaska at Anchorage. “There’s a long laundry list of smaller projects that people are advocating for.”

The state’s treasury now holds reserves of $12.1 billion, the largest amount of any U.S. state.

Alaska collects income from oil companies in three ways: excavation taxes, corporate taxes on oil profits and royalties. The treasury gets 75% of the royalty payments, and the oil investment fund gets the rest.

The Alaska Permanent Fund was created in 1976, soon after oil started moving through the TransAlaska pipeline. The idea was to give residents a cut of the state’s oil revenues in the form of an annual dividend.

The royalties have helped the fund build a $41 billion portfolio.

The dividend to residents is based on the fund’s returns over the past five years. That helps smooth out oil’s boom and bust years. During good years, the fund gets more in royalties, but typically those years coincide with challenging economic times and tougher market conditions.

“You’ve got more money to make money with, and more money to lose money with too,” said Mike Burns, executive director of the Alaska Permanent Fund.

Indeed, the fund’s 2009 fiscal year covered both record oil prices and the fall of Lehman Brothers — and the ensuing stock market plunge. The fund reported a loss of 18.5% that year, but it generated 20.5% returns in fiscal year 2011.

he fund also makes longer-term bets on real estate and infrastructure.

Alaska’s fund is a 50% owner of the Manhattan headquarters of megabank UBS. It also owns a piece of Tyson’s Corner mall outside of Washington, D.C., and the North Bridge shopping mall in downtown Chicago.

The fund even has stakes in airports in London and Vancouver, a waste disposal plant in Great Britain and a propane storage plant in India. To top of page

How the Yakuza went nuclear

Suzuki Tomohiko’s book on the ties between the yakuza and the nuclear industry

What really went wrong at the Fukushima plant? One undercover reporter risked his life to find out

Telegraph | Feb 21, 2012

By Jake Adelstein

On March 11 2011, at 2:46pm, a 9.0 magnitude earthquake struck Japan. The earthquake, followed by a colossal tsunami, devastated the nation, together killing over 10,000 people. The earthquake also triggered the start of a triple nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant, run by Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco). Of the three reactors that melted down, one was nearly 40 years old and should have been decommissioned two decades ago. The cooling pipes, “the veins and arteries of the old nuclear reactors”, which circulated fluid to keep the core temperature down, ruptured.

Approximately 40 minutes after the shocks, the tsunami reached the power plant and knocked out the electrical systems. Japan’s Nuclear Industrial Safety Agency (Nisa) had warned Tepco about safety violations and problems at the plant days before the earthquake; they’d been warned about the possibility of a tsunami hitting the plant for years.

The denials began almost immediately. “There has been no meltdown,” government spokesman Yukio Edano intoned in the days after March 11. “It was an unforeseeable disaster,” Tepco’s then president Masataka Shimizu chimed in. As we now know, the meltdown was already taking place. And the disaster was far from unforeseeable.

Tepco has long been a scandal-ridden company, caught time and time again covering up data on safety lapses at their power plants, or doctoring film footage which showed fissures in pipes. How was the company able to get away with such long-standing behaviour? According to an explosive book recently published in Japan, they owe it to what the author, Tomohiko Suzuki, calls “Japan’s nuclear mafia… A conglomeration of corrupt politicians and bureaucrats, the shady nuclear industry, their lobbyists…” And at the centre of it all stands Japan’s actual mafia: the yakuza.

It might surprise the Western reader that gangsters are involved in Japan’s nuclear industry and even more that they would risk their lives in a nuclear crisis. But the yakuza roots in Japanese society are very deep. In fact, they were some of the first responders after the earthquake, providing food and supplies to the devastated area and patrolling the streets to make sure no looting occurred.

As the scale of the catastrophe at Fukushima became apparent, many workers fled the scene. To contain the nuclear meltdown, a handful of workers stayed behind, being exposed to large amounts of radiation: the so-called “Fukushima Fifty”. Among this heroic group, according to Suzuki, were several members of the yakuza.

The yakuza are not a secret society in Japan. The government tacitly recognises their existence, and they are classified, designated and regulated. Yakuza make their money from extortion, blackmail, construction, real estate, collection services, financial market manipulation, protection rackets, fraud and a labyrinth of front companies including labour dispatch services and private detective agencies. They do the work that no one else will do or find the workers for jobs no one wants.

“Almost all nuclear power plants that are built in Japan are built taking the risk that the workers may well be exposed to large amounts of radiation,” says Suzuki. “That they will get sick, they will die early, or they will die on the job. And the people bringing the workers to the plants and also doing the construction are often yakuza.” Suzuki says he’s met over 1,000 yakuza in his career as an investigative journalist and former editor of yakuza fanzines. For his book, The Yakuza and the Nuclear Industry, Suzuki went undercover at Fukushima to find first-hand evidence of the long-rumoured ties between the nuclear industry and the yakuza. First he documents how remarkably easy it was to become a nuclear worker at Fukushima after the meltdown. After signing up with a legitimate company providing labour, he entered the plant armed only with a wristwatch with a hidden camera. Working there over several months, he quickly found yakuza-supplied labour, and many former yakuza working on site themselves.

Suzuki discovered evidence of Tepco subcontractors paying yakuza front companies to obtain lucrative construction contracts; of money destined for construction work flying into yakuza accounts; and of politicians and media being paid to look the other way. More shocking, perhaps, were the conditions he says he found inside the plant.

His fellow workers, found Suzuki, were a motley crew of homeless, chronically unemployed Japanese men, former yakuza, debtors who owed money to the yakuza, and the mentally handicapped. Suzuki claims the regular employees at the plant were often given better radiation suits than the yakuza recruits. (Tepco has admitted that there was a shortage of equipment in the disaster’s early days.) The regular employees were allowed to pass through sophisticated radiation monitors while the temporary labourers were simply given hand rods to monitor their radiation exposure.

When Suzuki was working in the plant in August, he had to wear a full-body radiation protective suit and a gas mask that covered his entire face. The hot summer temperatures and the lack of breathability in the suits ensured that almost every day a worker would keel over with heat exhaustion and be carried out; they would invariably return to work the next day. Going to the bathroom was virtually impossible, so workers were simply told to “hold it”. According to Suzuki, the temperature monitors in the plant weren’t even working, and were ignored. Removing the mask during work was against the rules; no matter how thirsty workers became, they could not drink water. After an hour fixing pipes and doing other work, Suzuki says his body felt like it was enveloped in flames. Workers were not checked to see if they were coping, they were expected to report it to their supervisors. However, while Tepco officials on the ground told the workers not to risk injury, it seemed that anyone complaining of the working conditions or fatigue would be fired. Few took their allotted rest breaks.

Related

The Yakuza and the Nuclear Mafia

Those who reported feeling unwell were treated by Tepco doctors, nearly always with what Suzuki says was essentially cold medicine.The risk of radiation exposure was 100 per cent. The masks, if their filters were cleaned regularly, which they were not, could only remove 60 per cent of the radioactive particles in the air. Anonymous workers claimed that the filters themselves were ill-fitting; if they accidentally bumped their masks, radiation could easily get in. The workers’ dosimeter badges, meanwhile, used to measure an individual’s exposure to radiation, could be easily manipulated to give false readings. According to Suzuki, tricks like pinning a badge on backwards, or putting it in your sock, were commonplace. Regular workers were given dosimeters which would sound an alarm when radiation exceeded safe levels, but it made such a racket that, says Suzuki, “people just turned them off or over and kept working.”

The initial work, directly after a series of hydrogen explosions in March, was extremely dangerous. Radiation was reaching levels so high that the Japanese government raised the safety exposure levels and even ordered scientists to stop monitoring radiation levels in some areas of the plants. Tepco sent out word to their contractors to gather as many people as possible and to offer substantial wages. Yakuza recruited from all over Japan; the initial workers were paid 50,000 yen (£407) per day, but one dispatch company offered 200,000 yen (£1,627) per day.

Even then, recruits were hard to find. Officials in Fukushima reportedly told local businesses, “Bring us the living dead. People no one will miss.” The labour crunch was eased somewhat when the Japanese government and Tepco raised the “safe” radiation exposure levels at the plant from pre-earthquake levels of 130-180cpm (radiation exposure per minute) to 100,000cpm.

The work would be further subcontracted to the point where labourers were being sent from sixth-tier firms. A representative from one company told Suzuki of an agreement made with a Tepco subcontractor right after the accident: “Normally, to even enter the grounds of a nuclear power plant a nuclear radiation personal data management pocketbook is required. We were told that wasn’t necessary. We didn’t even have time to give the workers physical examinations before they were sent to the plant.”

A former yakuza boss tells me that his group has “always” been involved in recruiting labourers for the nuclear industry. “It’s dirty, dangerous work,” he says, “and the only people who will do it are homeless, yakuza, or people so badly in debt that they see no other way to pay it off.” Suzuki found people who’d been threatened into working at Fukushima, but others who’d volunteered. Why? “Of course, if it was a matter of dying today or tomorrow they wouldn’t work there,” he explains. “It’s because it could take 10 years or more for someone to possibly die of radiation excess. It’s like Russian roulette. If you owe enough money to the yakuza, working at a nuclear plant is a safer bet. Wouldn’t you rather take a chance at dying 10 years later than being stabbed to death now?” (Suzuki’s own feeling was that the effects of low-level radiation are still unknown and that, as a drinker and smoker, he’s probably no more likely to get cancer than he was before.)

A recent report in Japan’s Mainichi newspaper alleged that workers from southern Japan were brought to the plant in July on false pretences and told to get to work. Many had to enter dangerous radioactive buildings. One man was reportedly tasked with carrying 20kg kilogram sheets of lead from the bottom floor of a damaged reactor up to the sixth floor, where his Geiger counters went into the danger zone. One worker said, “When I tried to quit, the people employing me mentioned the name of a local yakuza group. I got the hint. If Tepco didn’t know what was going on, I believe they should have.” Former Tepco executives, workers, police officials, as well as investigative journalist, Katsunobu Onda, author of TEPCO: The Dark Empire, all agree: Tepco have always known they were working with the yakuza; they just didn’t care. However, the articles Suzuki wrote before his book was published, and my own work, helped create enough public outcry to force Tepco into action. On July 19, four months after the meltdowns, they announced that they would be cutting ties with organised crime.

“They asked the companies that have been working with them for years to send them papers showing they’d cut organised crime ties,” Suzuki says. “They followed up by taking a survey.” Tepco has not answered my own questions on their anti-organised crime initiative as of this date; they’ve previously called Suzuki’s claims “groundless”.

The situation at Fukushima is still dire. Number-two reactor continues to heat up, and appears to be out of control. Rolling blackouts are a regular occurrence. Nuclear reactors are being shut down, one by one, all over Japan. Meanwhile, there is talk that Tepco will be nationalised and its top executives are under investigation for criminal negligence, in relation to the 3/11 disaster. As for the yakuza, the police are beginning to investigate their front companies more closely. “Yakuza may be a plague on society,” says Suzuki, “but they don’t ruin the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and irradiate the planet out of sheer greed and incompetence.” Suzuki says he’s had little trouble from the yakuza about his book’s allegations. He suspects this is because he showed they were prepared to risk their lives at Fukushima – he almost made them look good.

Shocker: dirty electric cars

From the University of Tennessee at Knoxville  comes this surprising bit of research. Taken in entirety, and electric vehicle has a greater impact on pollution than a comparable gasoline vehicle.

wattsupwiththat.com | Feb 13, 2012

UT researchers find China’s pollution related to E-cars may be more harmful than gasoline cars

by Anthony Watts

Electric cars have been heralded as environmentally friendly, but findings from University of Tennessee, Knoxville, researchers show that electric cars in China have an overall impact on pollution that could be more harmful to health than gasoline vehicles.

Chris Cherry, assistant professor in civil and environmental engineering, and graduate student Shuguang Ji, analyzed the emissions and environmental health impacts of five vehicle technologies in 34 major Chinese cities, focusing on dangerous fine particles. What Cherry and his team found defies conventional logic: electric cars cause much more overall harmful particulate matter pollution than gasoline cars.

“An implicit assumption has been that air quality and health impacts are lower for electric vehicles than for conventional vehicles,” Cherry said. “Our findings challenge that by comparing what is emitted by vehicle use to what people are actually exposed to. Prior studies have only examined environmental impacts by comparing emission factors or greenhouse gas emissions.”

Particulate matter includes acids, organic chemicals, metals, and soil or dust particles. It is also generated through the combustion of fossil fuels.

For electric vehicles, combustion emissions occur where electricity is generated rather than where the vehicle is used. In China, 85 percent of electricity production is from fossil fuels, about 90 percent of that is from coal. The authors discovered that the power generated in China to operate electric vehicles emit fine particles at a much higher rate than gasoline vehicles. However, because the emissions related to the electric vehicles often come from power plants located away from population centers, people breathe in the emissions a lower rate than they do emissions from conventional vehicles.

Still, the rate isn’t low enough to level the playing field between the vehicles. In terms of air pollution impacts, electric cars are more harmful to public health per kilometer traveled in China than conventional vehicles.

Read More

Study Finds that Childhood Leukemia Rates Double Near Nuclear Power Stations

oilprice.com | Jan 19, 2012

By John Daly

In a report certain to cause fear and loathing in the global nuclear industry, an eminent French research institute published a study in the International Journal of Cancer, which notes increased rates of leukemia in children living close to French nuclear power plants (NPPs.)

How much greater?

The study by the Institut National de la Sante et de la Recherche Medicale (French Institute of Health and Medical Research, or INSERM) found a leukemia rate twice as high among children under the age of 15 living within a 3.1-mile radius of France’s 19 nuclear power plants.

INSERM has carried out similar research in conjunction with the Institut de Radioprotection et de Surete Nucleaire (Institute for Radioprotection and Nuclear Safety, or IRSN) CEPA UMRS1018, team 6 for over two decades, but has never before found a higher incidence of leukemia.

The report builds upon the findings of a German study published in late 2007 studying German children under 5 years old, which found that children of that age in the vicinity of German NPPs had suffered an increase in the incidence of childhood leukemia.

IRSN epidemiology research laboratory head Dominique Laurier observed, “This is a result which has been checked thoroughly and which is statistically significant.”

For those wishing to read the International Journal of Cancer study by C. Sermage-Faure, D. Laurier, S. Goujon-Bellec, M. Chartier, A. Guyot-Goubin, J. Rudant, D. Hemon and J. Clavel, “Childhood leukemia around French nuclear power plants – the Geocap study, 2002 – 2007,” the document is online in English at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ijc.27425/pdf.

The study has ominous implications for the future of the nuclear industry in France, which opted for a full-blown nuclear energy program with minimal public debate after the first oil crisis in 1974 and whose 19 NPPs’ 58 reactors now provide more than 78 percent of the country’s electricity.

As for the study’s methodology, “The case-control study included all the 2,753 French childhood leukemia cases aged up to 15 years at the end of the year of diagnosis, diagnosed between 2002 and 2007, and residing in metropolitan France. The cases were obtained from the French National Registry of Childhood Hematological Malignancies (NRCH).”

Other unsettling findings from the study -

“The age distribution of the cases included in the study showed the expected peak of incidence, between 2 and 4 years old.”

“Overall, the results suggest a possible excess risk of AL (Acute lymphoblastic leukemia) in the close vicinity of French NPPs in 2002-2007.”

Nuclear power proponents will immediately seize upon the fact that the study fell short of establishing a direct causal link between the higher incidence of leukemia in children living near nuclear power plants. Laurier, one of the study’s authors remarked, “But we are working on numbers which are very small and results have to be analyzed with a lot of care. It’s a rare disease and working on a bigger scale would allow more stable results.”

Read More

Russian ship leaves after ice-bound Alaska fuel run

Russian-flagged tanker Renda sits just off the coast of Nome, Alaska with two fuel transfer hoses running to a causeway in the harbor, in this January 16, 2012 handout photo. Reuters

AFP | Jan 21, 2012

NOME, Alaska — A Russian tanker left the Alaskan coast Saturday bound for home after delivering fuel to a remote Alaskan port, in an unprecedented winter operation helped by a US Coast Guard ice-breaker.

The Vladivostok-based Renda followed its escort the USCG Healy into the mist, leaving Nome after supplying 1.3 million gallons of fuel to top off the ice-locked town’s winter fuel supply.

The Russian ship had arrived a week earlier after battling across 300 miles (480 kilometers) of Arctic ice to reach Nome, a town of 3,500 people, with the help of the Healy.

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• Treacherous sea ice delays fuel delivery to Nome, Alaska

In some cases, the ice has been so thick that the Healy has opened a path for the Renda, only to see it close before the Renda could use it, forcing the Healy to circle around and reopen a path.

The remote town did not get its usual pre-winter oil delivery due to a storm, necessitating the unprecedented operation to bring fuel in during winter.

A special waiver had to be granted to allow the Renda to head to the rescue, as under a 1920 law only US-owned and operated vessels are allowed to make such deliveries.

The two ships finally arrived near Nome late last week, although it took several days to move the tanker into position and start pumping fuel through some 460 yards (meters) of arctic-proof hoses to fuel storage tanks onshore.

Once out of the ice, the ships will separate. The Healy will go to Seattle for maintenance.

Mark Smith, head of Vitus Marine, the company that chartered the Renda for the fuel delivery, said ice and wind conditions could be favorable for the ship’s return to Vladivostock, its home port in Russia’s Far East.

Forecasts suggested 100-150 miles of open water were opening up, he said before the tanker and its US escort left.

“They are optimistic that if they can get away from shore fast ice they can make some rapid progress,” he said.

“It’s all about ice conditions, but once the Renda is free of the ice pack, they are probably 10 days away from homeport in Vladivostok.”

Shivering S. Koreans battle ‘Big Chill’ in offices

South Korean women wearing warm clothes walk in a street of Seoul on January 11 (AFP/File, Hong Jin-Hwan)

AFP | Jan 18, 2012

By Nam You-Sun

SEOUL — “It’s freezing!” complained chef Byun Sang-Won, jogging on the spot with arms folded and teeth clenched as he tried to keep warm inside the luxury Seoul hotel where he works.

“I can’t even imagine working without wearing extra underwear and hot packs because it’s too cold in the kitchen and hallways,” the 26-year-old said.

Tens of thousands of shivering South Koreans feel the same way.

Cold Januarys, with average lows of minus 6 to 7 Celsius (21-19 Fahrenheit) and occasionally minus 15 C, are the norm. But this winter there is no escape from the chill.

The government, worried about shrinking power reserves after a shock September blackout, has ordered staff in 19,000 government offices to keep the indoor temperature below 18 degrees C (64 F).

Private buildings including offices must not exceed 20 C (68 F) between December 5 and February 29. Offenders face fines of between 500,000 won ($433) and three million won.

“There have been complaints that working in such a chilly environment is uncomfortable,” acknowledged Kim Jeong-Dae, an official at the Knowledge Economy Ministry in charge of enforcing the measures.

“But we have no choice. Recent changes in energy usage patterns led to surging demand for electricity, while eco-friendly policies and awareness that Korea overuses energy made it difficult to build more power plants.”

Officials from the knowledge economy ministry regularly visit private and government offices and other premises to check room temperatures with thermometers.

During the big chill, employees pile on more layers of clothing starting with underwear. To stop shivering at their desks, they use hot packs — air-activated pads for pockets or under vests — and blankets.

“Everyone works wearing a jacket, scarf and gloves because it’s so cold even in the office,” said Lee Hae-Woo, 24, an assistant director at state broadcaster Korea Broadcasting System.

“With guards checking the temperature regularly, it’s impossible to heat up more than we are told to. Well, it’s government policy, so what can we do about it?”

Chef Byun said his co-workers, when out of the public eye, swathe themselves in blankets or stuff hot packs in their pockets.

“It’s good trying to cut energy usage but it shouldn’t be too cold, because people’s efficiency really does fall when they feel too frozen to do anything,” he told AFP.

“And it gets worse when our guests complain and talk about their ‘right to be warm’ in the lobby and restaurants. But we can’t do anything about it.”

Not everyone gives the rules a frosty reception. Online shopping malls have been doing a roaring trade.

From early December, major online malls GS shop and D&shop together sold more than 16,000 sets of underwear in less than a month, double the amount even in the unusually cold winter of 2010-2011.

Sales of hot packs and blankets sales increased by more than 20 percent to 3,000 and 2,000 respectively.

“Office workers are at the centre of this spree, as the office temperature is so low that it’s called ‘Big Chill training’ for employees,” GS shop said in a statement.

The electricity scare was paradoxically caused by unusually warm weather last September, when several power stations were down for maintenance.

As reserves fell dangerously low, authorities briefly imposed rolling blackouts lasting several hours which hit up to 2.1 million households and other premises.

In November, as winter loomed, the government announced its winter power-saving measures. President Lee Myung-Bak urged fellow Koreans to follow his example and don thicker underwear.

Restrictions on neon signs were also announced, although the giant TV screens which dot Seoul’s cityscape are still switched on.

The power-saving drive follows measures imposed in neighbouring Japan to help lower blackout risks last summer, which limited the use of air conditioning following the March tsunami and Fukushima nuclear disaster.

With the majority of its nuclear reactors halted for routine inspections, Japan has also urged businesses and households to reduce consumption this winter.

Unlike Japan, analysts say South Korea’s power problems arise because successive governments have shirked charging consumers a realistic price for electricity.

Britain’s electricity price is about twice that of South Korea.

Critics say the office restrictions are counter-productive because workers smuggle in small fan heaters to hide under their desks.

But despite the complaints, the government is expected to maintain this winter’s policy for the foreseeable future.

“So far, people have followed the policy without much trouble and thanks to that, we are not going through severe electricity shortage issues for now,” Kim of the knowledge economy ministry told AFP.

“It takes 10 years to build a nuclear power plant and at least five years to build a liquefied natural gas plant. So we will have to try our best to reduce consumption rather than increase supply.”

Icebreaker and fuel delivery reach Nome after going through 500 miles of Alaskan ice

The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Healy and the Russian-flag bearing tanker Renda sit off the coast of Nome, Alaska after reaching the frozen Alaskan port with emergency fuel supplies in this Jan. 14 photo. The mission is the first mid-winter marine delivery to western Alaska and comes as oil and gas development and climate change increase commercial traffic along trade routes in the Arctic. Charly Hengen / U.S. Coast Guard via Reuters

Without the delivery, Nome would run out of fuel by March or April

msnbc.com | Jan 16, 2012

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Crews have laid a hose along a half mile stretch of Bering Sea ice and were hoping Monday to soon begin transferring 1.3 million gallons of fuel from a Russian fuel tanker to the iced-in western Alaska city of Nome.

The offloading could begin before sundown Monday, said Stacey Smith of Vitus Marine, the fuel supplier that arranged to have the Russian tanker Renda and its crew deliver the gasoline and diesel fuel.

Crews on Monday hooked the arctic-rated hose to a shore-side pipeline leading to storage tanks in town and were safety-testing the hose with pressurized air, Smith said.

State officials said the transfer must start during daylight, but can continue in darkness. Nome has just five hours of daylight this time of year.

The transfer could be finished within 36 hours if everything goes smoothly, but it could take as long as five days.

Related

Russian tanker struggles to reach ice-bound Alaska port

The Renda is moored roughly a half-mile from Nome’s harbor after a Coast Guard icebreaker cleared a path for it through hundreds of miles of a slow journey stalled by thick ice and strong ocean currents.

Smith said the effort is a third of the way into completion with the arrival of the Renda to Nome. Pumping the fuel from the tanker will be the second part. The third part will be the exiting through ice by the two ships.

“It’s just been an absolutely grand collaboration by all parties involved,” she said of the work accomplished so far.

STORY: Ultra-harsh winter prompts fuel shortages in Alaska

The city of 3,500 didn’t get its last pre-winter barge fuel delivery because of a massive November storm.

Without the Renda’s delivery, Nome would run out of fuel by March or April, long before the next barge delivery is possible after one of the most severe Alaska winters in decades.

The 370-foot tanker began its journey from Russia in mid-December, picking up diesel fuel in South Korea before heading to Dutch Harbor, Alaska, where it took on unleaded gasoline. It arrived late last week off Nome on Alaska’s west coast more than 500 miles from Anchorage.

In total, the tanker traveled an estimated 5,000 miles, said Rear Adm. Thomas Ostebo, commander of District Seventeen with the Coast Guard.

Once the hose was laid, personnel would walk its entire length every 30 minutes to check for leaks, said Jason Evans, board chairman of the Sitnasuak Native Corp., which owns the local fuel company, Bonanza Fuel and has been working closely with Vitus Marine.

“We hope to be pumping fuel this afternoon,” he said Monday.

Each segment of hose has its own spill containment area, and extra absorbent boom will be on hand in case of a spill.

The Coast Guard is monitoring the effort, working with state, federal, local and tribal representatives, said Chief Petty Officer Kip Wadlow. The fuel participants had to submit a plan to state environmental regulators on how they intended to get the fuel off the Renda, he said.

“We want to make sure the fuel transfer from the Renda to the onshore storage facility is conducted in as safe a manner as possible,” he said.

The tanker got into position Saturday night, and ice disturbed by its journey had to freeze again so workers could create some sort of roadway to lay the hose.

Ultra-harsh Alaska winter prompts fuel shortages

U.S. Coast Guard cutter Healy cuts through ice for Russian-flagged tanker Renda (not pictured) on their way to the Alaskan port of Nome in this aerial picture taken January 13, 2012 and acquired by Reuters January 14, 2012. The Russian tanker escorted by the U.S. Coast Guard reached the frozen Alaskan port of Nome with emergency fuel supplies on Friday after a 10-day voyage through ice-choked seas, the Russian company that owns the vessel said. Picture taken January 13, 2012.

USA Today | Jan 16, 2012

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) – Living in Alaska’s outer reaches is challenging enough, given the isolation and weather extremes, but at least three remote communities also have experienced weather-related late deliveries of fuel so crucial to their survival during an especially bitter winter.

The iced-in town of Nome and the northwest Inupiat Eskimo villages of Noatak and Kobuk faced fuel shortages that illustrate the vulnerability of relying solely on deliveries by sea or air, potentially subjecting communities to the mercy of the elements. The villages, which just received their fuel, are especially vulnerable, unable to afford more additional storage tanks for gasoline and heating oil, which can run as high as $10 a gallon.

Compounding a problem with no easy answers, temperatures dipping as low as minus 60 over the past few weeks means air deliveries are delayed at the same time people are consuming more fuel more quickly. Some people in both villages also use wood-burning stoves for supplemental heat, but diesel is the critical commodity.

“It’s been pretty tough,” Noatak resident Robbie Kirk said of life in the community of 500, which finally received a fuel delivery on Tuesday, three days after the village store ran out of heating oil. “We usually have a nice reserve of fuel. Now we’re just playing catch-up.”

Nome missed its pre-winter delivery of fuel by barge when a huge storm swept western Alaska. In a high-profile journey, a Coast Guard icebreaker has cut a path in thick sea ice for a Russian tanker delivering 1.3 million gallons of fuel to the community of 3,500.

Without a fuel delivery, Nome would likely run out of certain petroleum products before the end of winter and a barge delivery becomes possible in late spring.

Until recently, the situation was much more dire for the smaller communities of Noatak and Kobuk, located farther north above the Arctic Circle, where relentless extreme cold prevented fuel deliveries by plane until this week, residents say.

Before the new supply of fuel arrived in Noatak, the village store borrowed some heating oil from the village water and sewer plant, said store manager Connie Walton. But filling the store’s two 23,000-gallon tanks has diverted any potential crisis.

“We’re good for another month and a half,” Walton said.

Residents in Kobuk also were highly relieved by an air shipment of heating oil that arrived Wednesday in the village of 150 people about 175 miles to the east. It’s been too cold for people to use their snowmobiles much, so gasoline isn’t as much of a concern, said City Clerk Sophia Ward. Running low on the diesel used to warm homes was another matter.

“I’m glad that it came in today,” Ward said Wednesday. “It’ll keep our elders warm.”

In Noatak, residents once had fuel shipped by barge on the Noatak River, but that has long been impossible since the river shifted and became shallow there.

Two years ago, residents began tapping into another source of fuel, thanks to the Red Dog zinc mine 40 miles to the northeast. The mine in 2009 began a program to sell gasoline and diesel to Noatak and another close neighbor, the village of Kivalina. The fuel is sold at cost, said mine spokesman Wayne Hall.

“This is strictly for what we can do to help out our closest community members,” he said. “Energy and heating costs are one of the biggest costs to families in this region.”

The program lets individuals buy fuel on Saturdays every three weeks at a staging area about 23 miles from the village. This winter, they can buy gas in 55-gallon drums calculated at $4.89 a gallon. Villagers also bring their own drums to fill with diesel fuel at $4.35 a gallon.

The latest Red Dog fuel day for Noatak took place on the day the village store ran out of diesel. So villagers formed a convoy of about 30 snowmobiles and freight sleds, and headed out in weather marked by temperatures of 47 below and, for the first 10 miles, dense fog, said Kirk, who regularly takes advantage of the sales.

“It basically cuts my heating fuel in half,” he said. “It’s pretty critical for me.”

The state also helps lower the soaring cost of electricity in Alaska’s rural areas, spending almost $32 million in fiscal year 2011 through its Power Cost Equalization program, which subsidizes residential electric rates and the power bills of community buildings. Power in most villages is diesel-generated.

Running low on fuel is an occasional challenge faced by rural communities in Alaska, and sometimes the weather plays a significant role in air deliveries, said Rob Everts, owner of Everts Air Cargo, whose planes deliver fuel to both Noatak and Kobuk. But there can be other factors as well, such as waiting until the last minute to place orders, he said, stressing that he was speaking generally and not pointing fingers at any particular community.

“Weather is not always bad,” he said. “It’s about planning in some cases, anticipating what’s coming in the dead of winter.”

NY Times, Big Fix: BP, Gov’t carpet-bombing Gulf people coverup

(Left to right) ‘The Big Fix’ co-director Rebecca Tickell, Gulf Coast local Margaret Curole, Director Josh Tickell Credit: Green Planet Productions/Margaret Curole/Facebook

Examiner | Dec 4, 2011

by Deborah Dupre

The New York Times and ‘The Big Fix’ break deafening silence on Gulf of Mexico catastrophe cover-up through documentary evidence: World now knows Gulf Truth

The New York Times, in its front page review of “The Big Fix” that opened in New York Friday, honed into the film’s documented and damning evidence that Gulf people and their waters, air and food are still being carpet-bombed with Corexit, although government reported discontinuing the poisonous gassing of the area following the April 2010 ‘BP oil spill. ‘ To date, aside from “The Big Fix” and a handful of of related major human rights defenders, most of whom are in the film, there is no “Gulf Truth” movement, despite the Gulf ecocide being the nation’s biggest media and government cover-up to date in terms of direct injuries, death and dying plus environmental destruction.

In its front page Friday review of this year’s most controversial film, “The Big Fix,” that rocked Los Angeles last month just as new waves of oil washed ashore Gulf beaches,  the New York Times highlighted that the dispersant Corexit is still being applied, oil is still leaking (from the uncapped well), and local Gulf Coast people are still suffering in silence from ill health according to interviews in the movie and undercover filming by the movie director, Josh Tickell and co-director, Rebecca Tickell.

“The most serious of the film’s assertions is that BP used tremendous amounts of Corexit, an oil dispersant whose toxic effects on the environment and on human health are as bad, or worse, than exposure to oil,” stated the New York Times.

As Dupré reported in her Examiner article over a year ago, and in her interview last week by New Zealand’s show host Vinny Eastwood’s Guerilla News Republic Broadcast Radio interview, adding the pesticide Corexit (banned in many countries) to the already lethal crude oil made the oil eleven times more deadly. (See: “Scientists find Corexit made BP Gulf catastrophe worse is not news”)

Even tiny amounts of the oil-Corexit witches brew are poisonous.

Read More

Bleak winter in store for vulnerable as energy prices sore

sundaysun.co.uk | Nov 27, 2011

by Sarah Scott

A BLEAK winter is in store for the most vulnerable in our society as energy prices soar.

Energy experts have issued warnings as rocketing fuel prices could equal miserable winter months for millions, in particular pensioners and single-parent families.

Rising wholesale costs could mean electricity prices shoot up by 60% with gas increases of up to 54%.

But these increasing bills come at a time when it has been revealed bosses at the big six energy suppliers took home collective earnings of more than £10m just as they were implementing price rises for millions of consumers last winter.

EDF Energy, led by chief executive Vincent de Rivaz, gave its highest-paid employee a 30% rise to £1.3m.

Campaigners branded the wages paid as “outrageous.”

Going hand-in-hand with rising energy prices are predictions that this winter is due to be the harshest one in years.

Weather experts have warned to expect well below average temperatures and widespread snowfall.

According to uSwitch.com, the comparison website, since November last year energy suppliers have increased their prices by £224 or 21% on average. As a result, the average household energy bill has risen from £1,069 to £1,293 a year.

With these changes, fuel poverty numbers have spiraled with 6.9 million people, or 27% of households, now affected.

Pensioners are one of the worst-hit groups with an increasing number of deaths from the cold each year.

Along with rising energy costs pensioners have also been hit by a cut in their winter fuel allowance this year since the Conservative Government came into power.

Susan Neill, affordable warmth advisor for Age UK Darlington, said she had noticed a marked increase in the number of concerned pensioners and families coming to use her service, seeking advice on rising energy bills and how to deal with the cuts in winter fuel allowance.

“I think it is really unfair because a lot of people do depend on that and people have been coming in saying they are cutting that and asking if it will eventually go. And people are worried winter fuel allowance will stop altogether,” she said.

Susan also branded the pay packets of energy company bosses as “outrageous”.

“They are making money out of people who are the most vulnerable.

“They make more and more money while the poorest in society are struggling more and more each year,” she said.

Susan said her office in Beaumont Street in Darlington had seen an increase in the number of worried pensioners coming in with questions about how they would pay their energy bills and complaining about cuts in winter fuel allowance.

“Since the fuel increases we have had a lot more people than the last year so we offer this free service in Darlington which is open to anyone, that offers all households free advice on fuel and energy related issues.

“The people coming into us at the moment tend to be worried about putting the heating on because they feel at the end of the winter they will be left with a huge heating bill.

“We try and look at ways they can get on to a tariff were it will be cheaper for them.

“I think pensioners are struggling, even those who have a little bit above the ordinary pension. Even those people are coming in saying they do not know what to do.”

She added that from August 2010 to the end of November 2010 they dealt with 95 individuals seeking help with energy bills, but from August 2011 until so far this month they have already seen 137 people come through their doors.

“It has just come as a shock to people. It does make me angry and you feel sorry for them because, for a lot of people, it is not only fuel, but other general living expenses.

“There is just not enough support there for them.”

One pensioner who is beginning to feel the pinch is 73-year-old Mavis Smith, pictured right. Over the past decade Mavis has seen her energy bills rocket.

But with the projected increases ahead, the retired civil servant, who lives with her 82-year-old cousin Joan Wood, could struggle to pay the bills to heat and light her home.

“If fuel costs keep rising we will just move into one room and take equity out because that is the situation we will be in,” Mavis said.

Mavis said she used to pay just £500 a year for gas and electricity when she was in her 60s.

“There was a system called Stay Warm set out on the size of your house. It was only for people who were retired at that time.

“We paid £500 every year and that gave you unlimited access to gas and electricity.

“In other words you could heat your house 24 hours a day and you did not pay any more,” said Mavis.

“Steadily that has increased. I am now 73 and over the last 10 to 11 years that has gone up from £500 and we now pay £45 a week which equals £2,340 a year, that’s how much it is.

“To be honest there is nothing I can do about it, we have to heat the house,” she added.

Mavis, of Kibblesworth, Gateshead, admitted that she and her cousin now ration their heating, and despite getting a state pension and a private pension they still envision struggling with any future energy hikes.

“We have our thermal underwear and socks and cardigans, and we are just careful. What happens when the day comes when we cannot pay it, I do not know,” she said.

Mavis does receive £300 from the Government towards her fuel bills, but she pointed out that both she and her cousin pay tax yet do not have an income.

In a landmark report, Professor John Hills, from the London School of Economics, said there are 27,000 extra deaths in England every winter.

And according to uSwitch.com almost nine in 10 households will be rationing their energy use this winter to save on bills.

As a result, potentially 23 million households will be switching off or turning down this winter.

Sean Fahey, regional secretary of the North East Pensioners’ Association, said: “If we have a cold winter and people turn their heating off, or do not put it on as much, the death rate rises.

“The most vulnerable in the community are the ones that will struggle the most.”