Southern LNG is having an open house from 6-8 p.m. Monday, 9/6 at the Hilton Garden Inn Savannah Midtown, 5711 Abercorn St., to provide information about the facility and the permitting process.

Although Tuesday, 9/7, was the deadline with the FERC, there is still time!
They are still accepting comments if you explain the shortened time frame we were forced into. If you have not filed a protest online please call the e-file help desk at 1(202) 502-8258 or the ferc online support # at 1(866)208-3676 so they can help you.

Make your opinion heard!

Almost 60 trucks similar to this one may soon be traversing DeRenne on a daily basis if Southern LNG gets its way.

Please read this article from The 8/22/10 Savannah Morning News:

Elba could add LNG traffic to DeRenne

Plan calls for 58 tanker trucks a day out of Savannah facility

Posted: August 22, 2010 - 12:18am | Updated: August 22, 2010 - 3:18am

By Mary Landers

A proposal to reactivate a truck-loading facility on Elba Island could put tanker trucks full of liquefied methane on DeRenne Avenue as early as 2012.

That's a traffic scenario that doesn't sit well with Judy Jennings, of the Georgia Chapter of the Sierra Club, Coastal Group.

"You're putting it in a mobile vehicle that could be taken over by anybody," she said. "Unlike with the ships, you can't even say the Coast Guard is watching. All you have to do is whack the truck driver on the head and you have a truckload of liquefied natural gas."

A similar proposal was roundly opposed by city officials in the mid 1990s, recalled Jennings, who has kept a close eye on the LNG industry for years.

"They opposed it because of more traffic on Bay Street," she said. "People are just as trapped on DeRenne. There's just no easy way to get LNG out of Elba."

On Aug. 4, Southern LNG, which operates the liquefied natural gas import terminal on the Savannah River off President Street Extension, applied to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for permission to re-start its truck loading facility.

The filing indicates plans to begin operating by Nov. 1, 2012, with eight to 10 tanker trucks per day, and to ramp up over the next decade to 58 trucks per day.

The trucking operation will be run by Southeast LNG Distribution Company, a joint venture between AGL Resources Inc. and El Paso Corp. The latter is the parent company of Southern LNG.

El Paso spokesman Bill Baerg declined to give details of the route the trucks would take.

"We'll go through that Monday," he said, referring to a public informational meeting the company is hosting that day. "That's the No. 1 question people will ask."

But in a report filed with FERC, three potential trucking routes are outlined. Thomas & Hutton Engineering Co., which produced the report, eliminated Bay Street as an option because it "would pass through the historic district of downtown." The preferred route sends trucks onto the Truman Parkway from President Street then across DeRenne Avenue and Interstate 516 to reach Interstate 16.

LNG is transported in double-walled trucks similar to those used for liquid oxygen, and requires similar certification for drivers, said Bruce Wilding, a researcher at the federal Department of Energy's Idaho National Laboratory.

"(LNG) is very similar to things already commonplace in our lives today," Wilding said.

LNG is methane gas cooled to minus 260 degrees, but it will not burn in its liquid state. If LNG spilled out of a truck it would vaporize and float upward because it's lighter than air. Like a natural gas leak, the resulting vapor cloud could ignite.

Truck tankers not new

Truck-loading was part of Elba's original distribution plan. About five or six trucks a day left the facility in its first two years of operation from 1978 to 1980, Baerg said. But the plant was mothballed in 1980 after U.S. natural gas prices fell and El Paso had a contract dispute with its supplier in Algeria. Elba reopened in 2001 without its truck-loading facility.

The new proposal calls for truck tankers to load up at Elba and then fan out over the Southeast to provide liquid fuel for LNG-powered vehicles, such as heavy-duty trucks, buses and waste haulers. The trucks could also serve peak-shaving power plants.

Pipelines that send natural gas out of Elba - including a controversial 190-mile pipeline that went into service in March - won't transport the product in this case, said Alan Chapple, spokesman for AGL Resources. The pipelines carry natural gas in its vapor form. Technology exists to re-liquefy the methane for use as LNG, but it's expensive and energy-intense.

"Because the current pipeline system is not equipped to handle LNG (which would require keeping it at very low temperatures for long distances), transportation in a specially built and well-insulated tanker truck is the most practical and feasible method for moving the LNG to customers throughout the Southeast," Chapple wrote in an e-mail.

Approximately 3,000 heavy duty trucks, transit buses, refuse haulers, and other vehicles now use LNG as a primary fuel, El Paso indicated in its FERC filing. The majority of these vehicles are located in the states of California, Arizona, and Texas. Industry analysts expect the market for this cleaner burning fuel to increase with increasingly stringent emissions requirements.

There aren't numerous LNG refueling stations to accept tanker truck shipments in the Southeast yet, Baerg said.

"This is a new venture. It's an opportunity to bring clean natural gas to the region," he said. "It would give the region access to LNG which we think is an environmentally friendly alternative to fuels out there. If it replaces diesel, the environment will benefit."

LNG meeting Monday
As part of its application process, Southern LNG is having an open house from 6-8 p.m. Monday at the Hilton Garden Inn Savannah Midtown, 5711 Abercorn St., to provide information about the facility and the permitting process.
"We encourage them to give as much information as possible," said Tamara Young-Allen, FERC spokeswoman.
Comments about the proposed facility, including concerns about increased traffic, should be sent to FERC by Sept. 7 to help shape the commission's environmental assessment.
The commission strongly encourages electronic filings of comments, protests and interventions in lieu of paper using the "eFiling" link at www.ferc.gov. Persons unable to file electronically should submit an original and 14 copies of the protest or intervention to the Federal Energy regulatory Commission, 888 First Street, N.E., Washington, D.C. 20426.
An official timeframe for the project has not yet been developed, Young-Allen said, but she estimated it would take 12-18 months from the Aug. 4 application date for FERC to decide on the matter.