The Massive U.S. Pipeline Buildout Is Mostly for Gas Going Overseas

Editor s Note This article originally appeared at Inside Conditions News a nonprofit independent news organization that covers weather potential and the setting It is republished with permission Sign up for their newsletter here More than three-quarters of new gas pipeline ceiling in the present under enhancement in the U S would feed additional liquefied natural gas exports rather than supporting domestic capacity demands a new summary concludes Greenhouse gas emissions tied to that new maximum would be far larger than the current environment defilement from all coal-fired power plants nationwide according to the analysis published Monday by the Center for Vitality Environmental Analysis CEEA is a in recent days formed think tank based in Arlington Virginia that focuses on potential and environmental protocol The money flowing to gas pipeline infrastructure is not slowing and is intended to push US gas production even higher from its current record levels Jeremy Symons president of the CEEA and a former federal atmosphere agenda advisor explained in a written message This buildout will extend our dependency on natural gas for decades to come slowing the transition to cleaner more affordable alternatives Planned natural gas transmission pipelines would add billion cubic feet per day of additional ceiling a figure just below the total volume of U S natural gas production in according to the document The largest planned pipelines across the country and percent of total quota of progressing pipeline projects are intended to export gas overseas as LNG based on the authors assessment of federal information and other constituents records The additional gas shipments would have important implications for surroundings change If all of the pipelines are built and run at full limit carbon dioxide emissions from burning this additional gas would be two and half times greater than the CO at present issued from all U S coal-fired power plants the document identified This doesn t include emissions of methane a state super pollutant and the primary component of natural gas Methane emissions occur at every step of the natural gas supply chain from wellheads and pipelines to LNG vessels and end users as the gas leaks or is intentionally vented Methane emissions from the additional pipelines would pack a atmosphere punch nearly twice that of CO emissions from coal-fired power plants over a -year period according to the document The amount of gas leaks from the oil and gas sector will likely increase as the Trump administration rolls back the industry s methane regulations the overview noted We know from hundreds of thousands of aerial and satellite measurements that methane leaks from oil and gas production are far worse than we previously realized which makes the setting footprint of natural gas as bad as coal in several regions of the country revealed Danny Richter a senior fellow with CEEA and the account s lead author We had a clear path to clean up the methane difficulty including the methane emissions reduction scheme enacted by Congress in as well as EPA regulations for the oil and gas industry But that pathway has been shut down by the current administration A fee on excessive methane emissions from oil and gas producers implemented under the Biden administration was rescinded by the Trump administration on May It is clear from the beginning of this overview that it was created with the outcome already determined and no desire to provide facts an EPA spokesperson explained Inside Surroundings News U S methane emissions have been falling for decades thanks to American innovation not heavy-handed ruling body regulations while domestic production of oil and gas has exponentially increased According to EPA methane emissions in the United States decreased by between and Measurements in the field have repeatedly shown that communicated methane emissions far understate actual releases The American Petroleum Institute an oil and gas industry group did not respond to a request for comment The assessment is based on U S Department of Ability material on pipeline projects at this moment under improvement It is unclear whether all of the planned pipelines will be built Fifty-four of the projects slightly more than half of all pipelines under rise have either not yet been approved or are on hold This includes one of the largest proposed pipelines the billion Alaska Nikiski LNG project The pipe which proponents have sought for decades would journey gas miles from Alaska s North Slope to an LNG export terminal in southern Alaska Completing the proposed export terminal a retrofit of an existing import terminal is included in the project s projected cost The developer the Alaska Gasline Enhancement Corp has applied for permits for the pipeline several of which were approved during the last Trump administration but still requires more President Donald Trump has directed agencies to speed up permitting and roll back environmental protections He touted the Alaska Nikiski LNG project in an address to Congress earlier this year as truly spectacular and reported the permitting is gotten Arvind Ravikumar co-director of the Vigor Emissions Modeling and Evidence Lab at the University of Texas at Austin cautioned that the record included figures for carbon dioxide emissions of gas burned by end users in other countries that import the LNG The way international carbon accounting works in this space is that you count only those emissions that happen within your national demarcation Ravikumar commented However David Lyon a senior methane scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund announced including emissions from burning the gas wherever it occurs made sense Circumstances change is global Lyon explained If we are just exporting our emissions to other countries that s still going to cause environment change and have impact However Lyon noted that in selected cases building gas pipelines could definitely help reduce emissions For example in the Permian basin of West Texas and southeastern New Mexico the largest oil and gas producing region in the country gas is often flared or vented due to a lack of sufficient pipeline ceiling In such cases additional pipelines could help reduce flaring and its associated emissions But it would be better to avoid drilling new wells in areas that lack sufficient pipeline threshold in the first place Lyon added In comparing greenhouse gas emissions associated with the planned pipelines to those of coal-power plants the account only compares CO emissions between the two fuel sources Elsewhere the description discusses methane emissions from the gas supply chain but does not consider methane emissions from coal mines that feed coal-fired power plants A new peer-reviewed scrutiny comparing the greenhouse gas emissions of LNG and coal ascertained methane emissions from coal mines were relatively modest compared to coal s CO emissions In addition to permitting issues economic forces could also limit the number of pipeline projects that get built in the coming years or the extent to which completed pipelines operate at full limit China the world s largest importer of LNG stopped taking U S gas entirely in March in response to U S tariffs on Chinese goods Symons disclosed the ongoing pipeline buildout could commit the U S to significantly larger LNG exports for decades to come This locks in more fossil fuel dependency that future presidents won t be able to make go away he reported Policies like tax incentives come and go but pipelines are forever The post The Massive U S Pipeline Buildout Is Mostly for Gas Going Overseas appeared first on The Texas Observer