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A proposed export terminal on the Louisiana coast highlights the tension between economic growth, geopolitics and the environment.
By David Gelles, Clifford Krauss and Coral Davenport
David Gelles reported from New York, Clifford Krauss from Cameron, Louisiana, and Coral Davenport from Washington.
In a swampy area off the Louisiana coast, a little-known company will build a $10 billion facility that would allow the United States to export vast reserves of liquefied natural gas.
Supporters of the project, known as CP2, say the export terminal would be a boon for the United States economy and help Europe decrease its reliance on gas imported from Russia. They also claim that because burning natural gas produces fewer planet-warming emissions than burning coal, the project is a good thing for the climate.
But a national motion seeks to save the structure of the export terminal.
Opponents, including major environmental groups, scientists and activists, say that CP2 would lock in decades of additional greenhouse gas emissions, the main driver of climate change. They add that the project would be harmful to the people who live in the area, as well as the fragile ecosystem that supports aquatic life in the Gulf of Mexico.
It will be up to the Biden administration to decide whether or not the project moves forward.
In the coming months, the Energy Ministry is expected to rule on whether the export terminal is in the “public interest,” a subjective ruling that may have far-reaching consequences for the country’s herbal fuel industry.
The resolution forces the Biden administration to confront a central contradiction in its energy policy: It needs nations to avoid burning fossil fuels that are dangerously warming the planet and announced a global agreement reached in Dubai earlier this month to move away from fossil fuels. At the same time, the U. S. is generating record amounts of crude oil, is the largest exporter of liquefied natural gas, and could approve 17 more export facilities, adding CP2.
As President Biden seeks re-election, the politics are complicated.
He has put climate action at the heart of his presidency and wants young voters to step up. But it is also trying to keep fuel costs from rising, wants to supply its European allies with a substitute for Russian fuel, and will have to fend off Republican accusations that it is hindering the development of American power.
In interviews, members of the Biden administration said they were seeking to thwart climate change, but also mentioned the many strategic complexities at play. Ali Zaidi, Mr. Zaidi’s national climate adviser, said: Biden refused to say the administration supported an expansion of smoothies. Exports of herbal fuels.
“As part of our comprehensive climate approach, we want to move away from fossil fuels globally,” he said when asked if approving new natural fuel export facilities undermines the administration’s climate goals. “And we continue to work diligently to find tactics to grow the climate. “economy, our energy security, breathing American manufacturing into life, creating jobs, and addressing this climate imperative. “
For environmental groups, the thing is clear.
“There is growing public popularity that this task and others are the world’s most vital new carbon resources, and this follows an iconic global agreement that it’s time to move away from fossil fuels,” said Manish Bapna, executive director of the task. the Natural Resources Defense Council. ” This disconnect captures the public’s attention and outrage. “
At the center of the debate is Calcasieu Pass 2, a proposed export terminal that would be situated along a shipping channel that connects the Gulf of Mexico to Lake Charles, La. The company behind the project, Venture Global LNG, is a Virginia-based start-up with two other new Louisiana facilities, one of which is completed but is not yet fully operational.
The export terminals represent the culmination of America’s decades-long boom in hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. Starting on a major scale 20 years ago, new methods unlocked huge reserves of natural gas, transforming the country’s energy landscape.
Starting in 2016, the United States began exporting liquefied natural gas, or L.N.G., and this year became the biggest exporter in the world. Several new terminals are under construction, and even without CP2, exports are poised to grow by more than 50 percent in the years ahead.
The exports have given Washington new leverage on the global stage, allowing the Biden administration to impose sanctions on a new allocation of Russian fuel in the Arctic without threatening to increase global energy costs and without Europe withdrawing from Russian fuel.
Proponents of CP2 are quick to point out its strategic benefits. In a letter to American regulators urging the approval of the project, a state-owned German gas company said the proposed facility was “vital for Germany’s energy security in the new environment, where gas pipeline supplies from Russia have stopped.”
They warn that an escalation of hostilities in the Middle East could threaten transit through the Strait of Hormuz, the sea passage connecting the Persian Gulf to the ocean, through which about a quarter of the world’s herbal fuel reserves transit, making such projects highly problematic.
“We will have in Washington all the ambassadors of the countries that defend U. S. LNG,” said Charif Souki, founder of Cheniere, the world’s first exporter of primary liquefied vegetable fuels.
Natural gas, which is made up of methane, is cleaner than coal when burned.
Michael Sabel, managing director of Venture Global LNG, said in an interview that herbal fuel is “the tool the world has now to combat climate change. “
But while natural gas burns cleaner than coal, methane emissions are 80 times more powerful than carbon dioxide over the first 20 years in the atmosphere. And although methane dissipates more rapidly than other greenhouse gases, it can leak anywhere along the supply chain, from the production wellhead to processing plants to the stovetop. The process of liquefying gas to make it suitable for transport is incredibly energy intensive as well, creating yet more emissions.
A new study by Robert Howarth, a professor of ecology and environmental biology at Cornell, concluded that emissions related to the export of plant fuels may be between 24 and 274 percent higher than those related to burning coal. Citing this study, which has not yet been published in a clinical journal, some activists say that passing CP2 would result in emissions 20 times higher than those related to Project Willow, a new oil drilling initiative in Alaska that Biden’s leadership approved this year despite an outcry from environmentalists.
Howarth’s studies are the latest in a developing framework that has shown that herbal fuel can be just as harmful as coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, in terms of climate impact.
Gas industry executives and other experts say Howarth’s claims are exaggerated. “Maybe I can locate a case where the use of LNG. it’s terrible with methane emissions or when an LNG. The facility can be worse than coal,” Souki said. “But that’s the exception, the rule. “
Since early September, activists have lit up TikTok and Instagram, delivered petitions to the Biden administration, and met with senior White House weather officials to urge Biden to reject CP2. Jane Fonda recorded a video for Greenpeace calling on the public to oppose the project.
“We currently have enough fuel and export terminals to supply the whole world,” said Naomi Yoder, a scientist with Healthy Gulf, one of several local teams working to prevent the construction of new herbal fuel infrastructure in the region. for more installations. “
The same activists were enraged at Mr. Biden this year after he approved the Willow project. But this time, they are hoping to bring another fossil fuel fight to the front steps of the White House and receive a different result.
“The scale of this, it’s the single biggest remaining fossil fuel expansion on planet Earth,” said Bill McKibben, an environmental activist who is leading a campaign to block CP2.
Some congressional Democrats are also calling on Biden’s leadership to avoid endorsing discussion of new fossil fuel projects.
“The United States is engaged in the production and export of oil and fuel,” Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass. , said this month after world leaders at the United Nations weather summit agreed to divest coal, oil and fuel, and called on the administration to “halt approvals of new fossil fuel infrastructure. “
And Democratic members of the House and Senate last month called on the leadership to reconsider how it approves plant-fuel projects, taking into account all industry-related emissions.
Momentum continued to grow this month, as an organization of more than 170 scientists in the effort to block CP2.
“Young people are right to speak out,” Mr. Zaidi said. “We listened to those considerations and the percentages. President Biden’s weather timeline is not only wildly ambitious, it’s accelerating: it’s moving faster and faster to respond to the supply moment and move us away from fossil fuels.
CP2 is still awaiting several approvals, adding air and water intakes from the state of Louisiana, a blessing from the Army Corps of Engineers, and two critical federal approvals. The most of those, and the one that activists say they have the most productive chance of blocking, is the Energy Department’s ruling on whether the allocation is in the public interest.
One factor in that determination is an evaluation of the fossil fuel emissions associated with building the terminal.
The Department of Energy has never rejected an herbal fuel allocation proposal because of its expected environmental impact. But activists are calling on Biden’s leadership to use a new method to calculate what they call the “full life cycle” of global warming emissions related to the terminal’s structure and operation, taking into account, for example, how much methane escapes when the power of herbs escapes. The fuel is extracted and transported to the terminal, along with the emissions related to transporting the fuel.
If the Ministry of Energy were to use that framework to conduct its assessment and fail to pass CP2, activists would see it as a much broader chance of victory than simply scrapping a single infrastructure project. Halt all new U. S. herbal fuel export projectsIt will be approved by the U. S. Department of Homeland Security and add 20 other similar terminals awaiting approval.
“An expansion of LNG. ” The exports are totally at odds with the climate targets that this country has set for itself and are totally incompatible with the signals sent through Dubai,” said Sanchez. Bapna, of the Council for the Defense of Natural Resources. The U. S. signed an agreement on the U. S. and now it wants to show its leadership. “
CNN’s Lisa Friedman and Brad Plumer contributed reporting.
David Gelles reports on the weather and directs the Times’ Climate Forward series of newsletters and events. Find out more about David Gellés
Clifford Krauss reports on the energy sector, focusing on the transition to renewable resources in a warming world. Learn more about Clifford Krauss
Coral Davenport covers energy and environment policy, with a focus on climate change, for The Times. More about Coral Davenport
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