Study: Liquid natural gas, the great future hope of Robert Habeck's Green energy policy, causes up to THREE TIMES more emissions than coal

submitted by penelopepnortneyBecome ungovernable from eugyppius.com

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[–]sdl5 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

This.... is US propaganda.

Or do you NOT KNOW the Arctic LNG pipeline to EU is now the target?

Utter bullshit take.

Also- just because WE FRACK for some LNG does not mean Russia does, or in fact that most LNG is captured via that method.

It gets released as raw toxins, burned at processing of oil and released raw into the atmosphere, or...... processed more, sold, and burned in human usage.

Which one do you think is least damaging?

Which one creates the most value and use from a barrel of crude, and lowers the waste/toxins per usage?

Which one is not being promoted by WEF and Western govts?

🤔😒🤦

[–]penelopepnortneyBecome ungovernable[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Excerpt:

In 2021, Germany owed 27% of its total energy supply to natural gas. We imported over 40% of this natural gas from Russia. Then the Ukraine war happened, and by September the gas had slowed to a trickle. To compensate, we increased imports from the Netherlands and Belgium, but neither land supplies nearly enough to make up the shortfall. Our Green Minister of Economic Affairs, Robert Habeck, decided that Germany must turn to liquid natural gas (LNG) imports.

Except, as it turns out, LNG is not emissions-friendly. It is very much the opposite. In particular, LNG imported from the United States (which dominates the global supply) causes more emissions than oil and even more emissions than coal. These are the conclusions of the Cornell ecologist Robert W. Howarth in a new preprint (h/t Welt). The reasons are simple: Shale extraction is itself a CO2-intensive process. The gas this extraction produces is nothing but methane, and methane has a vastly stronger greenhouse effect than CO2. Substantial methane leaks occur at every stage of LNG production, storage and transport, and while more modern ships can use the evaporating methane to power their engines during the voyage, it is not enough to outweigh the costs.

Before you get to even use LNG, in other words, you have emitted more greenhouse gases than the burning of it will ever release. And even in the best case, with the best modern tankers and the shortest trips, total emissions from LNG exceed those of coal by 24%. In the worst case, LNG is almost three times as bad.

What is happening here is just very remarkable. The Greens profess to believe that unless we can achieve net-zero in the coming decades, we face civilisational catastrophe of apocalyptic proportions. Everything they have done, however, just makes electricity more expensive, reduces the reliability of the grid, and does nothing about CO2. It is like they want to be the world’s greatest energy transition retards.

We are ruled by total clowns.

[–]ageingrockstar 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Just looking at the excerpt here (and not the complete article), I'll agree with and object to several points.

  1. Yes, fracking is a fucking disaster (the source of LNG from the US). Moreover, it doesn't make economic sense either. It's been a Ponzi scheme that could only run while we had near zero interest rates

  2. But not all LNG is necessarily bad. In the normal extraction of crude oil, you will also bring about the release of hydro-carbon gasses. Often these are either just released into the atmosphere (bad) or 'flared' (burnt off at the source; better, because you're not releasing pure methane but also wasteful, in that you're not using the energy). Best practice is to capture and use the gas.

  3. Reacting to this :

Everything [The Greens] have done, however, just makes electricity more expensive, reduces the reliability of the grid, and does nothing about CO2

While I'm not a fan of Green politics and agree that things like the German Greens enthusiastic support for NATO's proxy war on Russia has had very bad environmental consequences, some of their environmental policies have helped make electricity less expensive and have helped increase the reliability of the grid. Wind and solar power are the cheapest source of energy today and the support of these technologies has helped bring the cost curves down to where this is now the truth. Secondly, large grid-attached batteries ('big batteries') grealy increase the reliability of the grid, both for smoothing power supply and for guarding against brown and blackouts. Because they can bring power online almost instantaneously, where gas peaker plants need at least half an hour to fire up.

I will agree that Germany had a very good set-up getting gas from Russia by pipeline and that the swap to LNG from the US has been disastrous, both economically and environmentally. But the quoted text is using this situation to make much too broad generalisations.

[–]penelopepnortneyBecome ungovernable[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I don't disagree, this is a subject I know very little about when it comes to the particulars that you and u/sdl5 bring up.

[–]ageingrockstar 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

One of the ways that I'm somewhat informed in this area is through following the successful adoption of clean energy in Australia. Australia has massive fossil fuel resources, particularly coal and natural gas (less so crude) and a very powerful coal lobby but, despite this, it has become a world leader in the energy transition, partly because Australia is also very well positioned for wind and solar.

And within Australia, the state of South Australia leads the way. From a recent story :

Wind and solar have met a stunning 86.9 per cent share of local demand in the South Australia grid over the month of October, smashing previous records and setting a new global benchmark for variable renewable energy in a major grid.

South Australia is already a world leader in the integration of wind and solar, and the new monthly record takes the average share of wind and solar to 71.5 per cent in the last 12 months – making a mockery of the claims that these technologies cannot power a modern grid.

https://reneweconomy.com.au/wind-and-solar-meet-stunning-87-pct-of-south-australias-demand-over-month-of-october/

We even have our big mining companies setting up their own renewable grids to power their remote mining sites. And they're doing it simply because it's the cheapest and most reliable way to power those remote sites (because solar & wind generation and battery storage can be on-site, or within the local area, meaning you don't have to continually bring in fuel).

https://reneweconomy.com.au/mining-giants-agree-to-end-feudal-energy-grids-and-create-massive-renewables-hub/

It's my belief and understanding that the world is undergoing a transition to clean energy (wind + solar + batteries), but that transition needs to be managed properly and existing fossil fuel energy sources & infrastructure need to be used wisely and judiciously to aid that transition. That obviously doesn't mean blowing up gas pipelines, nor does it mean cutting yourself off through sanctions from a cheap and reliable source of fossil fuels to keep your industry going and competitive during the transition, as Europe has disastrously done with Russia, and Germany, under the zealous war-mongering leadership of The Greens, has done perhaps most disastrously.

[–]penelopepnortneyBecome ungovernable[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

That's been insane to watch.