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As oil tankers approach the small town of Cameron, Louisiana, shrimp fisherman Travis Dardar hears them before he sees them. He told me this earlier this year. They are there to receive natural gas that is specially cooled into liquid at a large export facility. It has been built on hundreds of acres of wetland in recent years. and to transport that gas to ports in Europe and Asia.
On the Gulf of Thailand coast The rapid expansion of U.S. gas export ambitions cannot be missed. Last year, the United States became the world’s largest exporter of natural gas. And it’s building many of these enormous new export terminals. Then in January The Biden administration has paused new export authorizations. and began to analyze the economic impacts national security and climate conditions from expanding natural gas exports. The decision was hailed by activists as a preliminary victory over the export terminal they dubbed the They are a “climate bomb” for the decades of future greenhouse gas emissions they will lock up. But no one I talked to earlier this year was in Louisiana. It is home to many built and proposed docks. Think the pause will last: Opponents of liquefied natural gas (known as LNG) hope that if Joe Biden wins re-election, he’ finally approves more terminals No one doubts that Donald Trump will be like that.
The Biden administration has now written a playbook for LNG opponents to use to block these projects. Yesterday the administration Released LNG Industry Analysis Orders When Permit Pause Begins Reports are reported. Hurry To summarize the final week of this administration. and shows that the economic arguments climate And national security for gas exports cannot be suppressed now, as the Trump administration moves to expand the nation’s gas export infrastructure. As the new president promised Opponents also have the evidence needed to turn the movement into a protracted legal battle. The present and future of the country as the world’s largest gas exporter and as a key player in climate change The results must be taken into account.
The report’s conclusions are also damningly measurable. The Department of Energy has not recommended an outright ban on new natural gas exports. But as Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm wrote in statementThe department found that “free export of American gas” would reduce domestic supply. and may affect the wholesale price of gas in the United States. Up more than 30 percent, the report also found that increased LNG exports could create 1.5 gigatons of direct greenhouse gas emissions per year by 2050, equivalent to about a quarter of today’s annual greenhouse gas emissions. of the United States And it would more than dwarf the emissions reductions the country has made since 2000. If the ministry’s predictions are correct, the United States will likely abandon any pretense. To try to limit climate change, the LNG industry has long argued that carbon capture technology can be used to combat greenhouse gas emissions. But the technology is far from being used on any meaningful scale. This is despite Department of Energy researchers considering the use of hypothetical “aggressive” carbon capture and storage. But greenhouse gas emissions are expected to increase.
In the report, the Biden administration also said that its original argument against LNG exports was that Europe needed the gas for energy security during Russia’s war with Ukraine. has collapsed European demand is holding steady and is expected to decline. But increased exports from the United States Most of them will benefit China. It is already the world’s largest LNG importer, Granholm writes. LNG opponents have long pointed out this. It is amazing to see the facts laid out by the federal government, the continued export of LNG. “It is neither sustainable nor appropriate,” Granholm wrote.
This is a major departure for the Democratic administration. As author and climate activist Bill McKibben NotesDemocrats going back to Barack Obama have touted America’s gas boom. Viewing it as a step towards a cleaner energy source than crude oil or coal, Kamala Harris also pointed to a reversal of her stance in 2020 on the topic during her most recent campaign. By promising that she Won’t ban fracking and touting America’s rapid growth in natural gas as an answer to the only climate question asked at the only presidential debate she attended. But the DOE report makes clear that liquefied natural gas is neither. A form of clean energy or a bridge to a cleaner future? In fact More exports, Granholm writes, would serve most to create “Wealth to owners of export facilities”
I’ve heard that sentiment before, from John Allaire, who worked for an oil company (Amoco, later part of BP) for 30 years, but who opposes a giant LNG plant near his land in Cameron and The designated moment It was built close to his property. The project he worked on as an environmental engineer sent oil to local refineries in the United States to fuel American industry. These new export terminals, he told me, were destroying the fragile coastal ecosystems in which he lived and helped. Add oil to China of it Economy. In his opinion Exporting more gas is only in the interests of methane sales or transportation businesses. “Selling our limited and vital natural resources to the highest foreign bidder would not serve the domestic public,” he said. Now that the Biden administration has discovered an official analysis of LNG exports, Closer to that view than ever before.
The reporter itself does nothing to block. plan by Trump to lift moratorium on LNG export terminals on “first day back” Proponents of these terminals say it is economically beneficial to the facilities where they are built. and create jobs in regions that need them. (Most of these jobs are related to terminal construction and are temporary.) American Gas Association condemn DOE report as a guideline for verification Biden’s LNG pause is a “mistake”, financial research firm S&P Global has announced. report This comes on the same day that LNG exports were found to contribute $400 billion to America’s GDP, and that the pause and other regulatory measures harmed an additional $250 billion in additional GDP.
regardless of management In the years before the moratorium, DOE had never turned away any company. That has granted LNG export licenses to LNG opponents like James Hiatt, a former oil industry worker turned environmental advocate in Louisiana. DOE analysis validates The “harsh reality” of living in conflict with a terminal And it could be a useful legal tool, he told me, as Republicans are about to control all three branches of government. He therefore does not speculate on what the upcoming battle with the new export infrastructure will be like. The Department of Energy must determine whether each new export operation is in the public interest. And now the Ministry of Energy has clarified why this is not the case.
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