The Northern Light

Housing situation seems like an overbooked airline

Maybe this is the wrong flight ("High-demand dorms put students on waiting list," Aug. 29)! After calling student housing, I was told wait-listed students more than likely will not receive dorm rooms until spring semester, because too many "WXYZ" students are in rooms designed for fewer occupants. When student housing accepted my son's application, it said he had a very good chance of getting a room. Now it says that having so many "WXYZ" students have in effect invalidated all wait-listed students wanting housing for fall semester. Sounds like an airline that overbooks flights too often.

Dee Davis

Anchorage

Gas line won't happen because the gas isn't there

Your (Aug. 29) editorial raising questions of when or if the proposed gas line will be constructed was well-taken. However, further into the paper there was an article about all the gas line jobs and what schooling to take and where to apply, as if the gas line was a certainty and coming tomorrow ("Pipeline to draw on many fields"). Well, the latter was just Murkowski's hype, sucker-bait.  

There is NOT going to be a gas line because they have less than half enough gas for a gas line.  

Second, what gas they have they need for oil production.  

Third, to sell off their gas - actually, it is Alaska's gas until they pay for it - would be to trade $100 bills for $1 bills.

The Al-Can gas line is an ongoing scam and has been for the last 30 years.  But that is no reason not to seek positions in the petroleum industry. There is going to be more demand for personnel with a degree, especially advanced degrees, than UAA can possibly supply as the North Slope producers and those elsewhere move from "gut and run" to the maximization of oil recovery, including the production of heavy oil.  

So if you have the grey matter, go for it, but cover your ass with a second degree in a related field like civil or mechanical engineering.  

The producers have repeatedly stated they do not have enough gas for their 4.5 billion cubic feet Al-Can gas line; the Alaska Department of Revenue stated that the alleged 35 trillion cubic feet would only sustain the Al-Can for a little over a decade and that the oil companies need 60 trillion.   The Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission says it does not have 35 trillion, only 29 trillion, because only Prudhoe Bay and Point Thomson are available for gas withdrawal. The other reservoirs do not have enough entrained gas to sustain gas withdrawal without severely affecting oil recovery.

With the above you get first admission that gas and gas pressure are critical in oil production.  

Jerry McCutcheon  

Anchorage

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