Alaska gas project hailed by Palin still embryonic.

Alaska officials have worked for decades to encourage construction of a line to tap the North Slope's 35 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves and move it to markets.

Up to now, high costs and poor economics have thwarted that ambition and kept the gas stranded in the region's oil fields. Estimates for the opening of the line are now as far away as the end of the next decade.

Palin's state legislation entitles TransCanada to up to $500 million in subsidies for planning work, and it bars the state from striking a different deal with any other party.

TransCanada has just embarked on field surveys -- as has a competing project sponsored by BP Plc and ConocoPhillips -- but neither one has secured construction or operating permits, customers or financing.

No construction can start on any pipeline until the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission grants a permit, said former Gov. Tony Knowles, a Democrat who served from 1994 to 2002 and then lost to Palin in 2006. He opposed granting TransCanada a state license.

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