Opponents of liquefied natural gas (LNG) development lost no time in urging the new British Columbia government to squash the LNG industry.
The latest pitch avoided the old environmental eco-message: “If we want a liveable planet for ourselves, future generations and countless other species, we cannot build any more fossil fuel projects anywhere. Not one.”
Instead, the hype used a new angle: The LNG industry needs more electricity. But LNG is a risky business, and so BC should provide clean electricity not to LNG producers but to ‘net-zero-aligned industries that are showing much more promising growth over the long term.’
The pitch went on to say: “Projects in Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, the U.S. and Mozambique have the potential to supply an unprecedented volume of LNG over the next three decades at lower cost than B.C. Take Qatar: its unit cost of production is almost 80 per cent lower than B.C.’s.”
But Barry Penner, chair of the Energy Futures Institute and a former BC environment minister, told CBC Radio On the Coast: “BC has clear advantages, including a colder climate and shorter shipping routes to Asia, which make our LNG projects globally competitive.”
Strangely, the new anti-LNG hype made no mention of the tax revenues BC gets from LNG firms, or the royalties it hauls in from natural gas and LNG.
The BC government will get an estimated $684 million from natural gas for 2023-24, and expects royalties to BC to grow to $1.43 billion in 2027. For this, the province thanks “increased natural gas volumes related to production requirements of LNG.”
There was no mention, either, of the higher wages and benefits that BC LNG pays, compared to Qatar, or of what BC LNG development can do for First Nations people: reconciliation in action.
And, even more strangely, there was no mention of how BC’s LNG is greener and cleaner than that of those other producers.
As we have reported:
- LNG Canada will operate with emissions of less than half the global LNG facility average.
- The Haisla-Nation-led Cedar LNG will operate with emissions of less than one third of that global average.
- Woodfibre LNG will operate with emissions less than one sixth of the average, and pledges its plant will be net zero in 2027, 23 years ahead of the federal target of 2050, and three years ahead of BC’s net-zero requirement for new LNG plants.
- The Nisga’a Nations Ksi Lisims LNG project will operate with net zero emissions within three years of its first shipment overseas.
So far there has been no response from the BC government on this latest anti-LNG messaging.
At least the new push recognized that world demand for LNG is going up.
Australia’s Woodside Energy, for one, expects the global market for LNG to grow by 50% over the next decade. Some see more.
World LNG leader Shell says in its latest outlook: “Global demand for liquefied natural gas (LNG) is estimated to rise by more than 50% by 2040, as industrial coal-to-gas switching gathers pace in China and South Asian and South-east Asian countries use more LNG to support their economic growth.”
And so we have LNG Canada’s partners (Shell being the lead partner at 40%) looking at expansion of the project to double its output of LNG.
Shell also sees this: ‘Demand for natural gas has peaked in some regions and globally is set to peak after 2040 (but) the global LNG market will continue growing into the 2040s, mostly driven by China’s industrial decarbonisation and strengthening demand in other Asian countries.”
But the Gas Exporting Countries Forum paints this picture: Asia’s gas demand alone is forecast to rise 34% by 2050 — “with no peaking expected.”
And the forum says: “This abundant, flexible and the cleanest burning hydrocarbon is set to expand specifically across Asia Pacific, Middle Eastern, and African markets, with Asia Pacific alone contributing to 52% of the global net demand increase during the forecast period.”
With the rapidly booming Artificial Intelligence industry needing more and more power any and all forecasts may be low.
People now do 8.3 trillion searches a day via Google. And just one search using AI can eat up 10 times the electricity of a simple non-AI search.
Finally, Alberta’s Canadian Energy Centre offers this graphic outlook, by way of Rystad Energy, and with an important message about our low-emissions LNG.
(Posted here 27 Nov. 2024)
