The letter, dated February 25, just a day after Vladimir Putin’s forces launched their offensive in Ukraine, noted the “dangerous juncture” of the moment before launching into a list of demands: more drilling on US public lands. speeding up approval of proposed natural gas export terminals; and pressuring the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, an independent agency, to green-light pending natural gas pipelines. By the winter of 2022, there should be “virtual transatlantic natural gas pipelines” flowing from the US to Europe, the authors envisioned. Six months after the letter, Russia’s invasion has stalled and in some places retreated, but the American natural gas industry has achieved almost all of its original goals. Within weeks, Joe Biden’s administration adopted the main demands of the natural gas industry as policy. They paved the way for new pipelines and export facilities, created a new task force to boost gas exports to Europe and approved $300 million in funding to help build gas infrastructure on the continent. “I can’t even begin to tell you how much the dynamic has changed for companies in the United States who wanted to advance their projects and just couldn’t get long-term contracts,” said a jubilant Fred Hutchison. , president of LNG Allies, the industry group that sent the letter, just three weeks after both military pressure and lobbying began. The rhetoric of the Biden administration, which has been characterized as deeply committed to addressing the climate crisis, had “changed substantially” in just a week, Hutchison noted. Biden’s creation of the natural gas export task force was a “direct response to the proposal submitted by the LNG Allies,” the group boasted in March. But the embrace of liquefied natural gas – or LNG, gas that has been cooled to -260 F (-160 C), turning it into a liquid that can be shipped overseas – as an act of defiance towards Putin has frustrated climate activists who they warn will lock in decades of global warming emissions and push the world closer to climate catastrophe. “The fact that just weeks after making these demands, President Biden was turning industry’s wishes into policy is a damning indictment of a president who had promised to tackle the climate crisis,” said Zorka Milin, senior counsel at Global Witness. . new report on scaling up natural gas infrastructure with the Guardian. Milin said the US gas industry was “licking its lips” at the start of the war in Ukraine. “There is no doubt that Biden’s apparent capitulation to the natural gas industry has opened the door for these companies to continue to profit off the backs of those suffering in Ukraine, those living near new natural gas infrastructure in the US, and the millions affected by climate change. worldwide,” he added. LNG Allies, which is the operating name of the US LNG Association but does not publicly disclose its members or donors, has scored a number of notable victories since the war began. The group wanted six specific gas export applications expedited, and within three weeks the US Department of Energy granted two of them, Cheniere Energy’s Sabine Pass project in Louisiana and the Corpus Christi operation in Texas. The permits, which allow the two facilities to export 0.72 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day, will act as an “important element for global energy security” by helping US allies in Europe, the ministry said, noting that US LNG exports are set to increase an additional 20% by the end of this year. Hutchison marked the news by declaring “two (licenses) down and four to go!”. Area chart of US LNG exports by project, highlighting three under construction. By the end of April, two additional LNG export licenses had been issued. “Four down and two to go!” LNG Allies exclaimed in a press release. New gas terminals have lifetimes measured in decades, which is in line with agreed climate targets: the International Energy Agency has said no new fossil fuel infrastructure can be built if the world is to avoid dangerous global warming. Undaunted, the Biden administration has pledged to supply the European Union with at least 15 billion cubic meters of natural gas, equivalent to about half the amount of natural gas Spain burns each year, by the end of 2022. The Energy Department did not respond to questions about how the new gas ventures fit into Biden’s goal of cutting US emissions in half this decade. The US only started shipping LNG abroad in 2016, but has now become the world’s largest exporter, overtaking longtime export leaders Qatar and Australia. Most of the natural gas is fracked in the Permian Basin, an oil and gas-rich region in Texas and New Mexico, before being transported by pipeline and rail to the Gulf Coast, where it is cooled and loaded onto ships. Three offshore export facilities under construction are set to further cement American dominance in the sector when they become fully operational by 2025, in a landscape already dense with oil refineries and plastics companies that cause severe air pollution and noise that affects nearby residents. mostly people of color. Map of US LNG projects Much of the new natural gas infrastructure will not be operational for several years, which may be beyond the timeframe of the Russia-Ukraine conflict that has squeezed supplies and sent gas prices soaring. So many LNG exports are planned or under construction, totaling about half of total U.S. natural gas production, that it will likely drive up gas prices for domestic U.S. users, according to Clark Williams-Derry, an analyst at the Institute for Energy . Economic and Financial Analysis. “It’s starting to eat up the amount of natural gas that’s available to residential consumers,” Williams-Derry said. “We’re going to see very serious impacts on domestic gas prices in the US, we’re going to see impacts as far as the eye can see.” The crisis in Ukraine, however, has helped several LNG companies post profits this year. Exporter Cheniere earned $3.8 billion more in cash from operations in the first half of 2022 compared to the same period last year, while Sempra, a gas liquefaction company, has seen an eightfold increase in LNG sales in Europe. Natural gas has long been touted as a useful “bridge fuel” to tackle the climate crisis, as it emits less carbon dioxide than coal or oil and provides energy for processes such as steelmaking that renewables still can’t. to manage. “The choice is not gas or renewables at the moment – it’s gas or coal. Natural gas can help reverse the clean energy transition,” said David Dismukes, an energy expert at Louisiana State University. “The news right now will grease the wheels for more LNG growth as it’s going to be a tough winter for Europe.” However, the extraction, transportation and liquefaction required to create LNG for export creates nearly as many emissions as burning the natural gas itself, according to a 2020 analysis by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). The NRDC said these extra emissions mean LNG’s greenhouse gas impact is “at best, only slightly less than that of other fossil fuels.” A key problem is that gas drilling produces large amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas that is much more effective at trapping heat than carbon dioxide. Climate advocates argue that the US and Europe should invest heavily in renewable energy sources such as solar and wind to help absorb future price shocks as well as reduce emissions. “Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, rising energy prices and the devastating effects of climate change should be the biggest push to end the world’s dependence on fossil fuels,” Milin said. “Instead, an already wealthy industry is trying to seize the moment and force the world to double down on the very mistakes that got us into this situation.”
