The truth about LNG: new England grapples with its energy future.

• Author: Stein, Melanie
• Position: Liquefied Natural Gas

It was the hi hest voter turnout in the history of Harpswell, Maine. On March 9, 2004, despite a bomb threat, more Harpswell residents cast their ballots than in the 2000 presidential election: 72 percent of registered voters.

Emotions have been running high since last September when two companies proposed constructing a liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal in the town. "It got ugly," says Gordon Well, Harpswell Selectman. "The climate in town was divisive, sometimes bitter. There were threats, verbal assaults and vandalism. Those wounds will take some time to heal, if they ever do."

Ultimately, Harpswell voted against the LNG terminal. Other proposals have popped up throughout New England, from Fall River, Massachusetts to Providence, Rhode Island and Sears Island, Maine. with every new proposal comes heated debate on both sides of the issue. But New England's thirst for natural gas grows.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) reports that existing import terminal capacity can meet peak monthly natural gas needs only through 2005. To provide adequate capacity through 2010, FERC says that New England needs at least one other new major LNG terminal or two to three smaller terminals with roughly the same capacity as a single large facility. New England needs LNG. But communities such as Harpswell have valid concerns about the environmental, public safety and economic impacts of such an industrial facility in their midst.

In the late-1990s, deregulation of the electricity industry in New England, coupled with the enforcement of tighter restrictions on air pollution, led to the construction of a new generation of natural gas-fired power plants. These new plants are more efficient and produce less dangerous air pollution than the region's aging oil- and coal-fired plants. Natural gas power plants emit almost 30 percent less carbon dioxide (the leading contributor to climate change) than oil fired plants and 45 percent less than coal-fired plants. Natural gas plants also produce fewer emissions that cause acid rain and contribute to asthma and other diseases.

"LNG is an important transitional fuel," says CLF President Philip Warburg. "Hopefully, one day we will meet our energy needs from non-polluting, renewable sources. Until then, New England needs the air quality benefits of natural gas."

Today natural gas represents 18 percent of New England's energy consumption, including 33 percent of the home heating market. Natural gas...