The LNG problem is even more troublesome, as it is more like sequential pipelines than one single pipe. Getting the LNG made in the first place and onto ships is tough enough. Getting it offloaded somewhere is another problem, and once offloaded, another pipeline is necessary to get it to market.

No one in the regions where natural gas is consumed (I'm talking about USA) seems to want the offloading facilities -- witness resistance in California, for example. And the obections of people in the low-population, low gas consumption areas which are being touted as "ideal" for LNG offloading might be overwhelmed by the larger population areas and forced to accept the facilities-- but then there is another pipeline to be built, which predictably uspsets a different set of folks.

Up here on the Columbia an offloading facility might be built (although it would be put on river silt, not bedrock) and the pipeline would have to travel along a seismically active path through the Coast Range.

The PR hype is at full throttle-- the promotional companies make it seem inevitable. But the organization and financial concerns listed above make it seem a distant prospect.

Indeed. LNG would be worth a separate post of its own, because it is even more difficult than pipelines. which is why Gazprom cannot do LNG even though they can do pipelines well.