‘Clean’ natural gas is actually the new coal, report says: Don Pittis
Global investment of more than $1 trillion in planned LNG plants at risk
There’s no question that when you burn it, methane, the main component of natural gas, is much cleaner than coal.
With that in mind, you might think a newly released report titled The New Gas Boom should be cause for celebration.
Instead, the fresh analysis from Global Energy Monitor, a group well known in energy circles for keeping track of coal plant construction in Asia, sounds a warning, not just for the climate but for investors in what it calculates as a risky $1.3 trillion US worth of global gas infrastructure.
Effectively, the report warns that rather than being an environment-friendly product that can help solve our climate problems, gas is the new coal.
The explosion in spending on planned new liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities — the vast majority in the U.S. and Canada — combined with new calculations for leakage from the LNG supply chain called fugitive gas — means the world may soon turn against gas in the same way it turned against its solid fuel relative.
“New studies have shown there is significantly more fugitive gas than studies showed five years ago, and the gas is also a bigger contributor to climate change than was understood,” said James Browning, one of the report’s authors.
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