PowerSwitch

I major new scientific study in the US has concluded that the the US LNG industry has higher total greenhouse emissions per unit end user power output than the coal industry'. Biden has suspended new licences for LNG export terminals on the strength of it, although Trump has viewed to reinstate them on day one.

In evitably such a report has hit massive kickback from the industry and global politics, and has still not been formally published after 5;rounds of peer review.

The key finding is that that carbon emissions from well drilling and fracking (powered by diesel powered pumps), piping the gas to the coast, liquifying, sailing thousands of miles and regassifying, combined with total methane leaks of 3.5% before combustion has a bigger greenhouse impact than local coal mining.

This is politically difficult because Europe and the UK is now heavily dependent on US LNG exports after the Russian pipelines we,re blown, and the cost of outbidding the rest of the world for the global supply of LNG exports has been crippling.

The US industry obviously is trying to maximise profits and is quite happy to install Trump in the whitehouse by any means necessary to get them. However, as the gas mostly comes from shale wells which deplete very rapidly, they have marginal economics even at the current high demand, and the domestic US Ng market is saturated with supply. Shale wells usually produce both oil and gas, and the oil is the primary product.

There is also the peak oil perspective. The rate of drilling in US shale fields is so high that some estimates put it reaching peak production in the next few years, followed by steep decline rates. This is mostly for their oil production, but the NG production would become even less economic.

https://phys.org/news/2024-10-liquefied ... print.html

We've known/suspected this for many years. I first wrote about it back in 2010: http://theoildrum.com/node/6638

Again in 2012: https://chrisvernon.co.uk/2012/02/clima ... tural-gas/

Although the UK imports large amounts of LNG, mostly from the US, about 300 TWh last year, we also exported about 175 TWh by pipeline, as we have excess LNG regassification capacity . LNG is only about 10% of our consumption and falling, but as we buy gas on the global market, so if we stopped importing LNG prices would increase. UK NG production fell 10% last year. We need to reduce our dependence on NG as fast as possible for all sorts of reasons.

LNG is particularly bad for the environment for two main reasons.

Firstly the process of liquefaction is complex and uses considerable energy, generally natural gas or electricity produced from natural gas. The complexity of the plant gives many opportunities for leakage of the methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.

Secondly, a small but real proportion of the LNG "boils off" during the voyage and is lost to the air, thereby adding to global warming. LNG tankers are not equipped to capture and re-liquify the boil-off gas for reasons of cost, space taken up, and weight.

Land based bulk LNG tanks also suffer from boil-off, but in the UK this gas is not lost to the air, but is captured and pumped into the transmission system. It represents a minimum withdrawal rate rather than a true loss.