Joe Biden Just Stopped A Huge Methane Gas Export Plant. It's A Big Not-Fracking Deal!

If built, it would have increased exported gas by 20 percent.

Happy cat with natural heat. Photo by Kate Stone Matheson on Unsplash

Climate and energy nerds are all excited and slapping each other on the back and flashing LED lights instead of setting off fireworks after the New York Times reported Wednesday (gift link) that the Biden administration is hitting the pause button on a giant Liquefied “Natural” Gas export terminal planned for Louisiana. The administration wants the Energy Department to look more closely at the project’s effect on climate impact, as well as its implications for the economy and national security. Sources told the Times the expanded review of the "Calcasieu Pass 2 (CP2)” project is likely to last through this year’s election, and would also mean holds on approvals for 16 other LNG terminals.

Climate guy Bill McKibben’s headline shortly after the Times story went up pretty much encapsulated the stunned/happy reaction of climate activists: ”Um, I think we all just won.” McKibben, still hedging a little, wrote, “if it’s true, and I think it is, this is the biggest thing a U.S. president has ever done to stand up to the fossil fuel industry.”

Yup, it’s true. No need to hedge, because the White House confirmed this morning that it’s pausing pending approvals of new LNG export facilities. In an accompanying fact sheet, the White House ‘splained that a new, more thorough analysis is needed:

The current economic and environmental analyses DOE uses to underpin its LNG export authorizations are roughly five years old and no longer adequately account for considerations like potential energy cost increases for American consumers and manufacturers beyond current authorizations or the latest assessment of the impact of greenhouse gas emissions.

The pause in permitting will not affect the seven LNG export terminals already operating in the US or the five that are currently under construction. And Crom knows, as the fact sheet notes, the USA is already the world’s biggest LNG exporter, and is on track to double its exports by the end of the decade, even as we’re trying to lead the world to reduce methane emissions.

As the Times explains,

The Energy Department is required to weigh whether the export terminal is in “the public interest,” a subjective determination. But now, the White House has requested an additional analysis of the climate impacts of CP2.

Natural gas, which is primarily composed of methane, is cleaner than coal when it is burned. But methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas in the short term, compared with carbon dioxide, and it can leak anywhere along the supply chain, from the production wellhead to processing plants to the stovetop. The process of liquefying gas to make it suitable for transport is incredibly energy intensive as well, creating yet more emissions.

Whatever new criteria is used to evaluate CP2 would be expected to be applied to the other 16 proposed natural gas terminals that are awaiting approval.

Keep that in mind when you hear rightwingers whining that gas is clean and wonderful because it burns more cleanly than coal. On top of the problem with methane leaks, which are inevitable, liquefying the stuff substantially reduces its “cleanliness,” and when it’s burned, it still emits CO2.

The Times also points out that the “pause” could effectively become permanent if it leads to the financing for CP2 and the other LNG terminals drying up. Good.

One common cry from the fossilheads is that we must vastly expand fossil gas exports, or the developing world will use more coal, which is far higher in CO2. That ignores the fact that countries can just as well adopt renewables, which are already cheaper than coal, and leapfrog right past fossil fuels, with the added benefits of cleaner air and dramatically reduced rates of lung and heart disease.

And while yes, China Is A Problem with its many coal plants, it’s also deploying more renewable energy, and faster, than the rest of the world combined. A report released by Finnish energy researchers this week found that China is “investing nearly as much in decarbonisation infrastructure as total global investment in fossil fuels,” with some 40 percent of China’s GDP growth in 2023 coming from clean energy investments.

The pause (and let’s hope it’s permanent) will mean a significant reduction in greenhouse emissions, for both methane and CO2. The Guardian reports that the annual emissions from the CP2 project, once completed, would total 197 million metric tons,

including emissions from the production of the gas and its eventual burning overseas, which isn’t counted in the US’s own emissions tally.

This scale of emissions is 20 times greater than the controversial Willow oil project in Alaska, which was approved by the Biden administration despite a huge outcry from Democrats, tribes and climate campaigners earlier this year.

And that’s just the one enormous plant, which the Times also noted would, all by itself, increase US gas exports by 20 percent annually.

Republicans and other fossils are already howling that this will be terrible for the economy and for US energy prices, even though the move won’t reduce domestic fossil gas supplies one whit since the plants are all for export. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) griped, deep in his wrongness,

“This move would amount to a functional ban on new LNG export permits. […] The administration’s war on affordable domestic energy has been bad news for American workers and consumers alike.”

To which McKibben offers this healthy and well-documented NUH_UH:

As usual, he’s wrong. Exporting natural gas of course drives the price up for American consumers. That’s how economics work—so Biden’s stand is an actual live inflation reduction act.

And the only other argument that the fossil fuel industry has mustered—that Europe needs more gas in the wake of Putin’s invasion—is simply wrong. We’re already sending them plenty—the world is awash in cheap gas. As Ben Jealous (head of the Sierra Club and former head of the NAACP) said in the Washington Post [Wednesday] morning (WaPo gift link):

the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis makes clear that European demand for natural gas will steadily drop in the years ahead, because the continent, in the wake of Vladimir Putin’s invasion, dramatically stepped up its conversion to renewable energy.

The reaction from the activist community is pretty enthusiastic, what with climate activists putting on their Ewok outfits and singing the Yub Yub song to celebrate this blow against the Evil Fossil Fuels Empire. The international effort to stop the construction of CP2 has been a top goal of many activists, which they’ve compared in significance to the campaign that successfully persuaded Barack Obama to cancel the Keystone XL pipeline. Remember how the economy collapsed after that? Oh, right. Didn’t happen.

And now that Biden has come through, let’s make sure that all the youngs know about it. If they were angry about Willow in Alaska (which was, frankly, legally locked in, even if Biden had racked up millions in legal costs trying to cancel it), then this marks a real win for activism. You can also bet that if Donald Trump regains the White House, he’ll try to force immediate approval of all 17 paused plants, even if the investors have moved on.

If anything, this is a huge favor to fossil investors: As the transition to clean energy accelerates, Joe Biden has prevented a whole bunch of unnecessary LNG terminals from becoming stranded assets in the next decade or two.

You’re welcome.

[NYT (gift link) / The Crucial Years / White House / WaPo (gift link) / Channel News Asia / Guardian]

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