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In many European countries, liquefied petroleum gas is banned. But now the EU wants to replace Russian gas with liquefied gas from the US. But that can call the climate into question.
We remember that we are solving the problem, but in fact, we are heading towards the abyss, comments activist Andy Gheorghiu when he talks about the agreement that is expected to be signed between the US and the EU for liquefied gas.
US President Joe Biden and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced this to reduce the European Union’s dependence on Russian energy. This year, off the coast of Europe, an additional 15 billion cubic meters of liquefied natural gas will arrive, extracted mainly from hydraulic fracturing platforms that in the United States have been added as mushrooms after rain. That’s only about a third of the gas that Germany alone will receive from Russia in 2022. But activists worry that replacing Russian gas with American liquefied natural gas will endanger climate targets rather than guarantee security. energy of Europe.
Europe will buy American gas: US President Joe Biden and Commission President Ursula von der Leyen during a press conference in Brussels on 25.03.2022
“This agreement puts the EU and the US on a wrong and dangerous path, because it spurs the construction of a new infrastructure for the import of fossil gas to Europe,” warns Murray Worthy, the organization’s gas campaign director. Environmental, Global Witness. “The construction of new terminals would mean regulating fossil gas imports for years to come – beyond the moment when the EU must finally remove this climate-damaging fuel.”
There is also growing concern about the immediate climatic impact of liquefied natural gas, which is extracted from the hydraulic fracture of clay deposits deep underground. Although fracking is banned in most of Europe because the chemicals used to extract it pollute groundwater, the EU is happy to receive fracking gas from the US.
Methane leaks that damage the climate
Activists say the push to pump shredded gas has serious climatic implications, largely due to high methane emissions. Gheorghiu says that, seen over a 20-year period, the impact of methane on global warming is about 85 times higher than the impact of CO2. Despite this, very little has been done on both sides of the Atlantic to combat methane leaks.
Hydraulic fracturing gas extraction platforms in North Dakota
The new gas deal between the EU and the US links the goal of diversifying supplies to “climate goals”. The agreement aims to “reduce the intensity of greenhouse gases throughout the new liquefied gas infrastructure and associated pipelines, including the use of clean field energy, the reduction of methane leaks and the construction of clean and renewable infrastructure suitable for hydrogen “, it is said in the announcement.
But if Russian gas is simply to be replaced in the short and medium term, natural gas is likely to remain the EU’s second largest source of CO2 emissions after coal.
Polluted gas from Texas
On the other side of the Atlantic, according to Gheorghi, inconsistent regulations have turned some US states into a “wild west” for the liquefied gas industry. In Texas, for example, where there are tens of thousands of wells from Permian to New Mexico, methane ignition, which produces high CO2 emissions, is not regulated at all. Therefore, gas from Texas is among the “most polluted gases” in the world.
A 2019 study attributes the increase in global methane emissions to the fracking platform boom in the United States. He concludes that shale gas exploitation in North America may be responsible for “more than half of all fossil fuel emissions in the world” over the past decade.
LNG imported from the European Union is also used as a raw material for plastics and fertilizers, Gheorghi adds. Since import contracts are often linked to deadlines of up to 20 years, the availability of fossil fuels also poses a major obstacle to decarbonizing this industry with intense emissions, the activist said.
1.5 degree target threatened by LNG exports
According to researchers Amanda Levin and Christina Swanson of the U.S. Council on the Protection of Natural Resources, U.S. efforts to increase LNG production and exports could ruin any chance of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (in compared to the pre-industrial era).
The “rapidly growing” export of LNG as a “bridge” to the clean energy transition – gas emissions are about 50 percent lower than coal – strengthens the dependence on fossil fuels, making it even more “difficult to switch to low-carbon energy,” explain Levin and Swanson in a study.
The impact of LNG on climate would be doubled if extraction, transport, liquefaction and regasification were added to greenhouse gas emissions from gas combustion, scientists say.
The 130 to 213 million tons of additional greenhouse gases in the US, caused as a result of tripling exports between 2020 and 2030, would coincide with the addition of up to 45 million fossil fuel cars a year. That would undo the 1% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions achieved in the last decade, the authors say.
Fracking Natural Gas Production Infographic
Climate activists see fossil fuel energy as one of the main causes of the war and demand its replacement by renewable energy as soon as possible. “Increasing investment and dependence on fossil fuels is music to the ears of despots and warlords around the world, who have realized that this is an energy system from which they can benefit,” warns Murray Worthy of Global Witness.
“If Europe really wants to get rid of Russian gas, the only real possibility is to get rid of gas completely.” “We have a unique historical opportunity and an obligation to radically change the way we generate and consume energy,” says climate activist Andy Gheorghiu. “But the solution presented by our transatlantic governments is nothing more than ordinary business.” / DW
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