Liquified Natural Gas Serious Threat to Climate

The notion that somehow natural gas or Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) is a clean transitional fuel is a complete fiction. To be clear natural gas is a fossil fuel and when combusted releases carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere, its only advantage is it releases about 24% less carbon compared to carbon  46% less than coal. However, this statistic is very misleading as natural gas is primarily made of methane (CH4) methane is a greenhouse gas that is 86 times worse than CO2. In order to produce natural gas it has to be extracted, processed, transported and in some cases liquefied. In British Columbia alone in 2016 the production emissions are around 11.6 megatonnes of carbon dioxide or 18% of the provinces total emissions. This does not include all the climate damage that comes from natural gas and the actual emission of green house gas reported in 2014 is 63 Mt CO2e/year.

Courtesy of DSF

Where do the Emissions Come From

Using British Columbia as an example where do the mega tonnes of emissions come from in the natural gas industry. The largest amount of emissions actually come from using the fuel for power processes 56%, formation CO2 venting, methane venting 9%, flaring 5% and electrical generation 3%. 

What was not Include is Worse

What is not included in these figures is the emissions from using consumer use such as gas hot water tanks and gas furnaces that are used extensively in the province. In addition to this one of the most dangerous is leakages from the wells themselves something called fugitive emissions. These are emissions that come from poorly regulated well heads either during transportation or after the wells are abandoned. North American has some of the laxest regulations in terms of fugitive emissions and if these are factored in then natural gas is a just as dirty as coal and more damaging to the climate because it is methane that is leaking, 86% worse than CO2.

Damage to Aquifers

There are a number of hidden dangers to the LNG natural gas industry one of which is the threat to our fresh water supply. The Scientific American has suggested that this is particularly dangerous when fracking shallow wells. In this process, the fracking introduces a mixture of toxic chemicals such as benzene, toluene, and other hydrocarbons into the water table. And of course, the gas and oil that is released by this process also flow into the water table. Even if the wells are deeper improperly sealed wells can cause the same problem. Regulations around protecting these water tables are few and far between especially in North America.

To get a sense of just how many wells are threatening aquifers you can refer to the Chemical and Engineering New magazines article Shallow Fracking Wells May Threaten Aquifers. 

 Courtesy: Environ. Sci. Technol.

Things Might Get Worse

What will make things worse is seeing natural gas as some sort of transition fuel with this fiction firmly in the minds of the public the industry is gearing up to expand the industry world wide using a Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) transportation process. In BC in order to profit from this trend, even with attempting to use hydro power to convert the fuel thus reducing emissions in new plants by 56%, it is estimated that the emissions would still rise by 10 Mt CO2e/year. BC, in order to meet its climate change targets, must be reducing emissions to 12.6 Mt CO2e, instead, they are planning to go in the opposite direction from 63 Mt CO2e/year to 73 Mt CO2e/year.

In addition to this if this fuel is subsidized as fossil fuels in Canada are it could potentially undermine the development of renewal energy sources that are not subsidized. Causing the adopting of renewable energy to be slower and thus increasing the damage to our climate.

World Wide Ramping Up of Industry

Australian is poised to become the largest exporter of LNG possibly reaching 50 million tonnes per year of subsidized exports, and now they are moving to expand their domestic market. The increasing use of LNG imports around the world has gone from 100 mega tonnes per annum (MTPA) to 300 and it is anticipated by 2030 it will be close to 500 MTPA. So there is no indication that this industry is on the decline.

Courtesy CSC

The Dangers of Transporting LNG

Sandia Laboratories was commission by the US government to determine what might happen if an LNG transportation ship explosion, so they could build in some hazard zones around the ships. The report concluded the following: 

Anything within a 500-meter radius of the tanker could be killed by freezing or suffocation from the cold gas cloud.  If ignited, a large shockwave would be produced as well as a fireball that could burn anything within a 1.6 km radius, causing structural damage and starting forest fires and grass fires.  The remaining LNG pool would continue to burn and spread until all of the fuel is gone. Anything within a 3.5  km radius of the blast could also be affected, but less severely.

Links:
Would exporting BC LNG reduce global greenhouse gas emissions?
Shale gas expert drills 50,000 holes in BC LNG plans
Size of the expanding LNG fleet
Increasing number of regasification terminals in Europe