newsminer.com

•Samson Hardware plans to open by mid-October on Phillips Field Road in the old InterDecor store.

The contractors are still working on the building and setting up the new store, which is designed to be similar to the old location on the banks of the Chena.

The old light bulb and the picture of Johnny Albright have made the move along with a wide variety of hard-to-find items.

The sign went up on the new store this week. For the reader who asked about the hobby shop, Models Enterprises has moved to Geraghty Street.

•The creator of the comic strip Piled Higher and Deeper (PhD) is to speak Wednesday at 7 p.m. in Schaible Auditorium at UAF. Admission is free.

Jorge Cham's strip about graduate school receives more than 7 million page views a month.

Four books featuring his collected comics have been published, with more than 48,000 copies sold.

Cham will also be doing a presentation Thursday at noon at the Fairbanks Arts Association Bear Gallery in Pioneer Park.

For more, go to http://www.phdcomics.com/

•Eliza Orr, who is originally from Tununak on the coast of Southwest Alaska, was pleasantly surprised to see her son's picture from Afghanistan on the front page today.

Eliza and her husband Ben moved here in 1996. She works in the Center for Alaska Native Health Research at UAF. Ben is a teacher. Eliza, who grew up speaking Yup'ik, began learning English in school. She is fluent in both languages and works as a translator.

This is Bobby's second tour in Afghanistan. He is 24 years old and joined the Marines five years ago after graduating from the boarding school in Galena.

He is stationed at Camp Pendleton in California and has been in Afghanistan this time since May.

•The UAF Nanooks are hosting the a "Hockey 101" for women Friday from 5:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. at the Carlson Center.

The cost is $50. The students will get a Hockey 101 T-Shirt, a ticket to the UAF game Saturday and dinner with the hockey team.

"Several breakout sessions on and off the ice are designed to help educate female fans about the game of hockey," UAF says.

The Nanooks play the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology Saturday night.

If you are interested in enrolling in Hockey 101, contact Shawn Head at 907-474-6405 or fnsdh@uaf.edu.

•The plan by the Alaska Gas Line Port Authority to buy Fairbanks Natural Gas could be the quickest and most efficient way to diversify the energy supply in Fairbanks.

The plan is for the port authority to buy FNG for $64 million and develop the infrastructure needed to ship gas from the North Slope to Fairbanks. About 40 tanker trucks would be used. Storage facilities and a treatment plant on the North Slope, which would cost about $120 million, would be needed.

All told, it would be a $250 million deal, financed with revenue bonds, not with tax dollars, said Borough Mayor Jim Whitaker. The revenue bonds would be paid for by the consumers, with GVEA as the main consumer.

The Golden Valley Electric Association would convert one of its plants at North Pole to run on gas for about $2 million.

This could have several potential benefits to GVEA, which is why the utility board approved a memorandum of understanding Monday to see if a deal can be worked out.

Natural gas would lower particulate pollution from the North Pole operation and reduce carbon dioxide emissions. The former issue is important because of the PM 2.5 controversy.

Given the sudden spike in oil prices a year ago, the utility and its members are extra sensitive to the risks of relying almost entirely on oil.

Natural gas, purchased under a 10-year deal with Exxon, stands to be cheaper than oil. Not just because the commodity is less expensive, but because it would not be provided by an entity that sets prices based on whatever the market will bear.

GVEA would use about three times as much gas as FNG now imports to Fairbanks from Cook Inlet. But supplies in that part of the state are dwindling and a new source is needed.

FNG, under port authority ownership, would not have to make a profit or pay federal taxes and its bonds could be priced at a good rate, which means a reduced cost of energy.

The FNG management would stay the same, but the port authority would be the board of directors for the company.

In addition to home heating, FNG would pursue plans to use natural gas for transportation, an idea that could also lower costs for consumers and reduce air pollution. A significant amount of propane would also be produced that could create new options for consumers in Fairbanks and rural areas.

Whitaker said the port authority hopes to complete the negotiations and have the bonds sold by the end of the year. If so, it would take about two years to get gas flowing from the North Slope.

Whitaker said this appears to be the best option for Fairbanks to get access to natural gas at a reasonable rate.

He said the plan will not go forward until the project can be financed, meaning that it has to pass muster with investors who would buy the bonds, and that it also will not go forward unless natural gas prices to consumers can be lowered from current levels.

A bullet line from the North Slope to Anchorage is a multi-billion-dollar undertaking. Given the low prices on world markets for natural gas, it seems that importing gas in Southcentral is going to be a cheaper alternative than a bullet line, especially if the state expects a large-diameter line to be built in a decade.

Developing gas in the Nenana basin is another project under discussion and I expect that Doyon will object to this venture. But Nenana is a long-term prospect filled with uncertainty.

Companies in various aspects of the oil business may also object to this plan, as it would change the economics of energy in ways that could drive down prices for consumers.

Whitaker said this FNG project is to fill the 10-year gap before a large pipeline is built. During that period, GVEA and other consumers of gas would have the benefit of a more stable energy supply, he said.

But they would not be precluded with getting the benefits of a large pipeline, if one is eventually built.