This column is an opinion by academic researchers Sara Hastings-Simon, Arvind Ravikumar, and Shuting Yang. For more information on the CBC’s Opinion section, please see the Frequently Asked Questions.
A commonly heard claim from oil and gas boosters is that Canada should export more liquefied natural gas (LNG) as a climate solution to the replacement of coal as a source of power generation in other countries.
The Government of Alberta’s own Canadian Energy Center, the so-called war room, points to LNG as a tool for the reduction of emissions, even reaching Establish that, affirm that “Increasing Canadian LNG exports is necessary if the world is to meet its Paris commitments to keep global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius.”
These claims are misleading at best.
Under the right conditions, additional LNG can reduce power sector emissions, but only if there is enough coal-fired generation to substitute. Otherwise, the new supply of natural gas ends up displacing lower emission sources such as renewables or nuclear.
This makes LNG only a short-term opportunity. By the 2030s, additional LNG becomes a problem for a world that is cutting emissions to meet its climate goals. It would create stranded assets from expensive new LNG export terminals or block emissions growth that leads us in the wrong direction on climate change.
In other words, investing in new LNG infrastructure means either committing to carbon emissions or investing a lot of money only to abandon the infrastructure before its designed lifespan.
Impact of LNG emissions
In our recently published researchWe test these claims by asking: Under what conditions does the use of LNG help to switch from coal to gas in the electricity sector? reduce global greenhouse gas emissions?
The question is critical for Canada, where 24 LNG projects have been issued long-term export licensesa subset of which you may proceed. Export terminals require significant infrastructure development, including controversial gas pipelines and federal and provincial subsidies.
For LNG to reduce emissions, two conditions must be met: 1) methane leak along the natural gas supply chain is low, a challenge as recent measurements indicate methane emissions in Canada are higher than previously estimated, and 2) LNG displaces fuel-based electricity generation coal instead of other lower-emitting sources of electricity, such as renewable energy.
LNG they can short-term help. Today, there is significant coal-based generation left in the world that could be replaced by natural gas. However, in a world compatible with 1.5 or 2 degrees, as required by the Paris Agreement, all coal-based generation would be replaced by natural gas or renewables by 2030 or 2038, which makes the argument of the transition from coal to gas debatable.
To stay on the Paris compliance path, the world would need to replace these natural gas plants with lower emission generation. This effectively creates an expiration date for the use of LNG as a climate solution.
Even this best-case scenario ignores serious infrastructure challenges. For example, the places that would benefit most from a transition from coal to gas, such as India with its large fleet of young coal-fired power plants, are also the places that are unlikely to have the physical infrastructure, such as pipelines, to support a switch to gas. gas.
Whether a coal-to-gas transition is desirable or even feasible in such scenarios depends on the cost of building these new pipelines and the risk of locking in future emissions by doing so. In theory, LNG could replace other uses of coal in heating or industrial applications, but with the same kinds of restrictions around substitution.
What is clear is that the planned growth of LNG is not compatible with a Paris climate solution target for the power sector.
However, in a 3 degree “business as usual” scenario, where the world fails to deploy the additional renewable energy required, LNG may continue to help displace coal-fired generation.
In short, the expansion of LNG makes a rise below 3 C more likely and a rise of 2 C or less less likely. Warming above 2 C will have dramatically worse consequences for Alberta and the world.
Climate insurance, not climate solution
Increasing the world’s supply of LNG to displace coal-fired generation is at best a short-term solution to rapidly reducing coal use in the power sector. In reality, the expansion of LNG is best understood as insurance against a world that does not act on the climate, and any effort to develop LNG must take this into account.
That could mean, for example, building business cases that plan for shorter operating lives for LNG export terminals and issuing operating permits that impose strict retirement dates. Or governments could play a more active role and structure a project’s economics like an insurance policy, with short-term earnings retained to pay for early retirement.
Otherwise, there is a risk of turning LNG into another climate problem.
As for Canada’s priorities, while individual companies may have limited ability to influence the global deployment of renewable energy, the Canadian government’s efforts to support global climate action may be better focused on enabling technology deployment without carbon than directly support the expansion of LNG.
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Reference-www.cbc.ca