The Wrong Green Plan Can Mean Climate Disaster
There is wisdom in the words of legendary boxer Mike Tyson, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”
The ultra-green activists have been punched in the mouth, so to speak. Their plan to keep all fossil fuels in the ground has been bested by a tough opponent: reality.
As a result, their efforts to limit U.S. liquified natural gas (LNG) production and exports in the name of abolishing all fossil fuel use are bringing us closer to a climate disaster.
There is no question that we are in a climate emergency that must be addressed with a determined push for a clean energy transition. That push should be pursued with speed and resolve — but without losing sight of the goal, which is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This is vital to the health and prosperity of current and future generations.
However, as we see evidenced in a recent Washington Post article, the fossil fuel abolitionists are launching a new campaign targeting U.S. LNG exports. These efforts aim to curtail investments in LNG infrastructure and abolish the use of natural gas without regard to the climate and geopolitical benefits of LNG. This short-sighted plan has, unfortunately, actually resulted in more greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through the accelerated use of coal around the world. This is a major problem, given that “when generating electricity, coal emits significantly more CO2 than natural gas,” according to the U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA).
When crisis strikes and energy resources are affected, the troubling reality is that coal is the default fuel. When Germany shut down nuclear reactors, more coal was burned. As energy demand in Asia continues to grow, countries burn more coal. When wind and solar projects are overly delayed for environmental review, more coal is burned. When power lines connecting clean power to regions like New England are stalled, more coal is burned.
In New England’s case, refusal to allow infrastructure for natural gas into the area has resulted in one of the most environmentally conscious localities relying on coal — and even fuel oil — for heat in the winter.
Unfortunately, the plan to stop using fossil fuels has had the opposite effect in many cases, leading to more coal being burned. The most depressing manifestation of this problem is that a wind farm is being dismantled in Germany to increase the size of a lignite coal mining operation.
When your plan to stop using natural gas results in more coal being burned, something is wrong with your plan. Many environmentalists seem to have lost the plot. The goals of energy policy should be to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and supply cheap and reliable power to the world. The goal cannot be to eliminate whichever fossil fuels you can, even if that means more are burnt somewhere else. We must stay focused on workable solutions to reduce GHG emissions. If that means building out robust infrastructure for natural gas for domestic use and export, we must do it.
The U.S. has shown through the so-called “shale revolution” that switching from coal to natural gas reduces significant amounts of GHG emissions while generating ample energy to power our economy. According to an International Energy Agency report, coal-to-gas switching reduces emissions by 50% when producing electricity, even when taking methane emissions into account.
The switch from coal to gas has allowed the U.S. economy to grow while emissions are reduced. Additionally, energy exports from the U.S. are an increasingly important part of the economy. In fact, in 2022, energy made up nearly one-fifth of U.S. exports.
Pressure on natural gas companies to reduce emissions further has and will continue to keep GHGs out of our atmosphere. This is a vital part of the transition equation that cannot be overlooked.
Notably, increased LNG exports have not resulted in sky-high prices — despite some claims to the contrary that seem to confuse LNG rates with gasoline prices.
According to the U.S. EIA, natural gas prices remain under $3 per million Btu. These historically low prices have been well under $5 per million Btu for most of the 2010s, with a brief spike from the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Building infrastructure for the use of low-methane emitting U.S. natural gas is, so far, the best way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the short term. It allows the world to have a resilient alternative to coal when other sources of fuel are in short supply. It complements intermittent renewable energy resources and keeps our electricity grids powered properly. We must, at the same time, continue to invest in research, development and deployment of cleaner fuel sources. In keeping with the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, we must clear the regulatory hurdles that unnecessarily impede the deployment of nuclear power, transmission lines, solar farms and wind farms.
We must reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere as fast as practically possible. This does not mean spending down Democrats’ political capital on fighting individual fossil fuel projects that lack immediate substitutes and serve real worldwide consumer demand. Instead, it requires cleaning up all the energy sources we use now while working hard to develop and scale the next generation of technologies that meet those needs.
Neel Brown is the managing director at the Progressive Policy Institute.
