Energy Department Bombshell: LNG Has No Climate Benefit for Decades, IF EVER¹

An explosive new report from the U.S. Department of Energy makes clear that Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) is likely a climate-destroying misallocation of resources.

That is, if one uses estimates for methane leakage based on actual observations.

This is the same conclusion I reached back in 2012, based on:

• Emerging analyses of how even a relatively low leakage rate in the natural gas production and delivery system negate its climate benefit, and
• A 2009 EU report on how the energy-intensive liquefaction process and transportation further increase LNG emissions.

Again, natural gas is mostly methane, and some 86 times (to as much as 105 times) better at trapping heat than carbon dioxide.

One of the country’s leading experts on natural gas leaks told me, “a close reading of the DOE report in the context of the recent literature indicates that exporting natural gas from the U.S. as LNG is a very poor idea.”

To make LNG a climate winner, you’d have to assume levels of methane leakage that are a factor of 2 to 3 lower than what recent observations reveal.  That is exactly what DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) does in its analysis.
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¹ If one uses estimates for methane leakage based on actual observations.

Energy Department Bombshell: LNG Has No Climate Benefit for Decades, IF EVER¹