01:00 AM EDT on Friday, October 21, 2005

With two liquefied-natural-gas terminals to be supplied from ships proposed for our region (in Providence and Fall River), the debate hereabouts over LNG has been hot and heavy.

Terminal proponents argue that the only way to stabilize the supply and price of this crucial fuel is to bring it here from abroad by ship. LNG is currently brought to us -- inefficiently and expensively -- by many thousands of truckloads a year.

Against this, dozens of "worst-case scenarios" have been bruited about, including that of disastrous explosions and fires advanced by Richard Clarke, the former presidential adviser on terrorism who was hired by an LNG-terminal foe, Rhode Island Atty. Gen. Patrick Lynch, to produce a negative report on LNG shipments. This pleased local NIMBYs, especially summertime yachtsmen opposed to big tankers' plying our waters.

But too often one very scary scenario is left out of the discussion: an interruption in the flow of natural gas, which is by far the cleanest fossil fuel, and much depended upon in our region. Sometime -- say, this winter -- the natural-gas pipeline from the Gulf Coast, which supplies much of the Eastern Seaboard (supplemented by natural gas from Canada), could go empty, especially if the winter is colder than usual.

The possibility is not far-fetched. It almost happened in January 2004. Today, supplies are already stretched, because of hurricane damage to terminals and other energy facilities on the Gulf Coast.

And it's too late this season to set up new terminals! We could see a Katrina-sized disaster. Manufacturing and other industries might have to shut down, throwing thousands out of work. People might lose their home heating. Schools and offices might close. The lights might start going out -- 40 percent of New England's electricity is generated with natural gas. Prices of many things would skyrocket.

Ultimately, many people would have to seek shelters, because 46 percent of our region's population depends on natural gas for heat. Some people might freeze to death.

Already, utilities -- including Providence Gas and Narragansett Electric -- are seeking to raise prices by huge percentages. The concern in Congress and elsewhere is that we might be headed for a global natural-gas crisis. Less noticed than the price surge of gasoline is the price jump of natural gas: caused both by the Gulf storms and by such other strains on supply as drought-ridden Spain's replacement of hydropower with natural gas.

If southern New England ran out of natural gas, its residents would quickly realize that the last place they want to be is here -- at the end of the pipeline -- where prices are highest and supply spottiest.

In short, we need more, and more reliable, supplies of gas, and some of it will have to come in liquefied form by ship, from overseas. U.S. pipeline capacity is simply inadequate to ensure that New England gets what it needs.

Governor Carcieri, Attorney General Lynch, Mr. Clarke, and some other NIMBYs have concocted LNG-disaster scenarios that are highly irresponsible, given LNG tankers' long safety record in densely populated places around the world, as well as the Coast Guard's assessment of the tankers. Nothing in life is 100-percent safe, but LNG tankers are tough, and shipping LNG in Narragansett Bay is, as the Coast Guard carefully phrases it, an acceptable risk. The U.S. Energy Department concurs in this assessment.

Making such determinations is the Coast Guard's job, and its process has been widely praised. The analysis of proposed LNG-tanker traffic on the Bay has been open, orderly, and scrupulously attentive to public concerns. Indeed, the procedure established here, by Coast Guard Capt. Mary Landry (former captain of the Port of Providence), has become the model for the 40 or so other LNG proposals around the country.

Figuring out what might happen in a terrorist "incident" has been done with computer simulations by Sandia National Laboratories, of Albuquerque, which tests nuclear weapons and other systems for the military. (To actually fire a missile at an LNG tanker, to see what would happen, would cost some $200 million; even the Homeland Security Department would have trouble getting that into the budget.) Although the simulations are largely classified information, Sandia has issued a public report. Again, the risk is deemed acceptable.

Meanwhile, Attorney General Lynch seems unconcerned about shipping gasoline on barges. You would think that Mr. Clarke might have brought them up in his risk assessment -- but then he wasn't hired to oppose gasoline barges.

If New Englanders want heating, electricity and, well, an economy, they will have to accept LNG shipped into our ports as part of our energy package.