A Vision for a Better Future

November Light - French Azilum, PA
Brian Keeler Studio, www.briankeeler.com

Calls for end to U.S. LNG export expansion.  

100+ Global Lawmakers Urge Biden to Reject New LNG Exports.
In September 2024, with Climate Week underway in New York City, 106 lawmakers from the United States and around the world urged the Biden administration to reject new liquefied natural gas export permits, stressing that they "are not in the U.S. public interest or necessary for the national or energy security of our allies."   ….The United States is already the world’s largest exporter of LNG and is on track to exponentially increase export capacity – a full build-out that could yield hundreds of million metric tons of additional greenhouse gases at home and abroad. Pushing back on arguments that United States’ international allies need the country’s LNG, members of the U.S. Congress and Parliaments around the world are requesting that the administration reject these applications. September 2024
https://www.markey.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/international_lng_letter.pdf

Leaders Praise Biden-⁠Harris Administration Pause on Pending Decisions of Liquefied Natural Gas Exports. Jan. 27, 2024
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/01/27/what-they-are-saying-leaders-praise-biden-harris-administration-pause-on-pending-decisions-of-liquefied-natural-gas-exports/

Pause On Permits For New LNG Gas Exports Right Move For National.
Essay discusses the merits of the Biden pause on DOE export approvals from the national security perspective. March 2024.
https://paenvironmentdaily.blogspot.com/2024/03/stars-and-stripes-guest-essay-pause-on.html

Global trade in LNG is undermining efforts to contain global warming.
More than 250 environmental and community groups called on U.S. President Joe Biden's administration in an open letter to stop permitting LNG facilities to avoid  'climate chaos.' December 2023
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/green-groups-cop28-demand-us-halt-support-lng-2023-12-08/

Only 20 countries, led overwhelmingly by the United States, could be responsible for nearly 90 percent of the carbon-dioxide (CO2) pollution threatened by new oil and gas fields and fracking wells planned between 2023 and 2050.  September 2023
Planet Wreckers: How Countries’ Oil And Gas Extraction Plans Risk Locking In Climate Chaos
https://priceofoil.org/content/uploads/2023/09/OCI-Planet-Wreckers-Report.pdf

Senator Jeffrey Merkley letter to Secretary Kerry: Don’t greenwash liquefied methane gas exports.
Full text of the Nov. 29, 2023 letter:
https://www.merkley.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/23.11.29-LNG-and-COP-letter.pdf

United States’ Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) fails to reduce fossil fuel production. November 2023
https://priceofoil.org/2023/11/20/fossil-fuel-fail/

LNG exports contribute to rising domestic natural gas prices.

Despite the surge in domestic natural gas production, the price households pay for natural gas has increased over 50% since 2016, when the United States first started exporting LNG, tying United States’ natural gas prices to global market prices. May 2024
https://www.citizen.org/article/the-impact-of-lng-exports-on-u-s-energy-bills-and-inflation/
https://www.citizen.org/news/lng-exports-help-drive-52-increase-in-natural-gas-prices/

Manchin-Barrasso “permitting reform” bill goes against U.S. interests.

It would fast-track LNG projects. LNG export approvals would rely on a 2018 Trump administration report that exports at any level will always be consistent with the public interest, reasoning that income that Americans earn from their stock ownership in LNG companies will offset whatever increases they experience in their monthly energy bills. July 2024
https://www.citizen.org/news/manchins-permitting-fiasco-sides-with-project-2025-over-communities-and-the-climate/

Why is the U.S. exporting so much LNG to China?

 US Senators Introduce Ban on Gas Exports To China.
On February 28, 2024, Ohio US Senator Sherrod Brown and Oregon US Senator Jeff Merkley introduced the Protecting American Households from Rising Energy Costs Act, legislation that would ban the export of crude oil or liquefied natural gas (LNG) to our biggest adversaries: China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.
https://paenvironmentdaily.blogspot.com/2024/03/us-senators-introduce-bill-to-ban-us.html

US Department of Energy reported China is the biggest single destination for US LNG gas exports,
accounting for 10.3% of export volume in July 2024. Regionally, LNG gas exports go to-- Asia (50.6%), Europe (32.2%), Latin America/ Caribbean (9.7%). September 2024
https://www.energy.gov/fecm/articles/natural-gas-imports-and-exports-monthly-2024

China is set to cement its position as the global renewables leader, accounting for 60% of the expansion in global capacity to 2030.
The country is forecast to be home to every other megawatt of all renewable energy capacity installed worldwide in 2030, after surpassing its end-of-the-decade 1 200 GW target for solar PV and wind six years early. Since ending feed-in tariffs in 2020, China's cumulative solar PV capacity has almost quadrupled and wind capacity has doubled, driven by cost-competitiveness and supportive policies. China's success stems from comprehensive support for both large-scale and distributed renewables across all renewable technologies. October 2024
https://www.iea.org/reports/renewables-2024/executive-summary

China, the world’s largest LNG importer, has emerged as a major re-exporter,
within the region and globally, cashing in on lucrative price differentials that are facilitated by long-term agreements with the United States. September 2024
https://www.markey.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/international_lng_letter.pdf
https://paenvironmentdaily.blogspot.com/2024/09/usdoe-china-is-biggest-destination-for.html

International bodies call for a move away from fossil fuels.

The United Nations chief called for an end to new fossil fuel exploration.
In a March 2023 report, the IPCC stresses that humanity still has a chance, to prevent the worst of climate change ’s future harms. But doing so requires quickly slashing nearly two-thirds of carbon pollution by 2035.  
https://apnews.com/article/un-climate-change-report-ipcc-guterres-science-30d8451c0f3fb7b8a857e3ed4fd01172

The available carbon budget to avoid irreversible and runaway temperatures is very small.  September 2023
https://ourworldindata.org/how-much-co2-can-the-world-emit-while-keeping-warming-below-15c-and-2c

LNG export boom runs up against climate goals. 
The net-zero-by-2050 goal is intended to keep overall climate warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius, the threshold scientists say we need to stay below to avert catastrophic climate change. No new natural gas fields are needed in the NZE (net-zero emissions scenario) beyond those already under development. Also not needed are many of the liquefied natural gas (LNG) liquefaction facilities currently under construction or at the planning stage. Net zero by 2050, published May 2021.
https://www.iea.org/reports/net-zero-by-2050

COP28 agreement signals “beginning of the end” of the fossil fuel era.
While low on specifics, and with concessions to oil and gas industry, COP28, which concluded in December 2023, was historic in its acknowledgement of the science that indicates global greenhouse gas emissions need to be cut 43% by 2030, compared to 2019 levels, to limit global warming to 1.5°C. In the short-term, Parties are encouraged to come forward with ambitious, economy-wide emission reduction targets, covering all greenhouse gases, sectors and categories and aligned with the 1.5°C limit in their next round of climate action plans (known as nationally determined contributions) by 2025.  December 2023
https://unfccc.int/news/cop28-agreement-signals-beginning-of-the-end-of-the-fossil-fuel-era

Exported gas produces far worse emissions than coal, major study finds.

LNG is not a “transitional fuel” away from coal in the effort to reduce greenhouse gasses. 
A peer-reviewed research paper published in the Energy Science & Engineering journal in October 2024, authored by Robert Howarth, an environmental scientist at Cornell University, concluded that LNG is 33% worse in terms of planet-heating emissions over a 20-year period compared with coal as a power source. Drilling, moving, cooling and shipping gas from one country to another uses so much energy that the actual final burning of gas in people’s homes and businesses only accounts for about a third of the total emissions from this process, the research finds.  October 2024
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/04/exported-liquefied-natural-gas-coal-study

The lifecycle emissions of LNG production, transportation, and use have been underestimated. July 2023
https://ieefa.org/resources/gross-under-reporting-fugitive-methane-emissions-has-big-implications-industry

Oil and natural gas operations are the nation’s largest industrial source of methane, a climate “super pollutant” that is many times more potent than carbon dioxide and is responsible for approximately one third of the warming from greenhouse gases occurring today. December 2023.
https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/biden-harris-administration-finalizes-standards-slash-methane-pollution-combat-climate

When considering methane leakage, gas-fired power is on par with coal-fired power in terms of greenhouse gas impact on the environment.  July 2023
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/13/climate/natural-gas-leaks-coal-climate-change.html

Renewable energy is the future.

Green energy is cheaper than fossil fuels, a new study finds.
Making a fast switch to cleaner renewable power could save trillions of dollars by 2050. January 2023
https://www.snexplores.org/article/green-energy-cheaper-than-fossil-fuels-climate

Renewables 2024. Analysis and forecasts to 2030. October 2024
A few excerpts:

• At the COP28 UN Climate Change Conference in December, governments agreed to work together to triple the world’s installed renewable energy capacity by 2030.

• Global renewable capacity is expected to grow by 2.7 times by 2030, surpassing countries’ current ambitions by nearly 25%, but it still falls short of tripling.

• New solar capacity added between now and 2030 will account for 80% of the growth in renewable power globally by the end of this decade. 

• Despite recent supply chain and macroeconomic challenges, the wind sector is expected to recover.

• Hydrogen remains a negligible driver for new renewable capacity growth.

https://www.iea.org/reports/renewables-2024

November Light - French Azilum, PA
Brian Keeler Studio, www.briankeeler.com