New BC Political Discussion - POST BC Election 2017

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https://biv.com/article/2019/03/claim-lng-no-greener-coal-gets-new-scrutiny

Claim that LNG is no greener than coal gets new scrutiny

One of the biggest bites ever taken out of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in any developed country is one that environmentalists and renewable energy advocates never seem to mention.

Since 2005, energy-related GHG emissions in the U.S. have fallen by 14%.

While some of those lower emissions can be attributed to renewable energy investments, the emissions decrease was “mainly” due to natural gas displacing coal power, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

When burned for power, natural gas produces 50% to 60% fewer carbon dioxide emissions than coal does.



Proponents of B.C.’s nascent liquefied natural gas (LNG) sector, including the BC NDP government, have therefore promoted the environmental advantage of LNG, since the biggest market is Asia, where LNG would presumably replace coal power and backstop intermittent renewable energy.

But environmentalists opposed to fossil fuels claim that “fracked gas” is as bad as coal or even worse, in terms of its global warming potential, due to fugitive methane emissions.

David Suzuki recently made the claim, accusing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of hypocrisy in committing to climate change targets while supporting the $40 billion LNG Canada project.

“He proudly announced approval of a $40 billion facility to liquefy fracked gas, calling it a transition fuel to help China reduce coal dependence, even though fracked gas has a carbon footprint at least as bad as coal (because of fugitive methane release),” Suzuki recently wrote.

So are natural gas and LNG really worse than coal?

“I don’t know,” said John Werring, senior science and policy adviser for the David Suzuki Foundation, who was co-author of a study that estimated fugitive methane emissions in the Montney play of B.C. to be 2.5 times higher than those reported by industry and government.

“There’s not enough information to make that determination,” Werring said.

Measuring and monitoring of methane from the oil and gas sector in B.C., and elsewhere, is still inadequate, according to a recent report for the C.D. Howe Institute.

And until there is better baseline data, the LNG industry will remain vulnerable to the claim that it’s no better than coal. It will also be impossible to apply carbon taxes to upstream methane emissions, or properly report on whether it is meeting a 45% reduction target.

“The magnitude of these emissions is unresolved,” says the C.D. Howe Institute report, written by Sarah Jordaan at Johns Hopkins University and Kate Konschnik at the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University. “Policy-makers are thus left without defensible evidence describing the trends in methane emissions from the oil and gas value chain over time.”

The claim that natural gas may be as bad as, if not worse than, coal, from a global warming perspective, appears to be based largely on a 2011 study by Cornell University ecologist Robert Howarth, who concluded that, due to methane emissions, the GHG footprint of natural gas from shale production could be 20% to 50% higher than that of coal.