What do you make of the LNG hype?

It's really cringe looking at countries like Germany spend billions on LNG and other natural gas infrastructure, but not nuclear.

The problem I have with German ‘environmentalists’ are that the same people bemoaning the problems of lng have shut down their nuclear power plants. In their own arrogance, they shot themselves in the foot.

Bit harsh/incorrect on LNG. You still have to mine coal, load it, transport to the ships, load ships, ship to country of destination, unload and road/rail transport it to end usage. Something you neglected to say. Even renewables/uranium you have mining/transport and manufacturing costs. Every power source has it's add on greenhouse costs.

Not "a lot of people". A few people. The vast majority of people in Australia, anyway, are not seeing that money.

It's short term, it's optics, it doesn't address causes only symptoms

And Germany ditched nuclear just for this lol😂. What a clown.

I am a cryo engineer on an LNG ship and I can tell you the actual methane losses from the ship are close to zero. The company is paranoid about even the smallest leak.

Don't make perfection the enemy of the possible. Always going to need reserves. In Sweden we burn oil for electricity on cold winter days (probably happened i other seasons aswell) if the wind doesn't blow. Sweden have 98% fossil-free elecricity but still depends on oil on harsch days. Storage is not an option now or any time soon why not burn natural gas instead of oil. Security landscape changed last few years. Each country need to be more self--relient. Storage of gas seem better then storage of oil to me. There are more variables then just climate to consider for nations when it comes to energy. Saying no to gas simply base on climate arguments I see as unserious. BUT if it turns out LNG emits more over the "lifecycle" then coal then there's no reason for LNG.

Here in the Philippines, we have the Malampaya, which has been a media frenzy in the early 2000s. The adverts for this project, say, "How can you call energy cheap, if it costs an entire nation's treasure?"

not as good as renewables but way better than coal or diesel. I've seen how much worse the air quality is around a power plant using coal vs one using gas. I guess this has its place in the energy transition.

Russia shut down gas to Europe or Europe stopped imports from Russia?

you talked about LNG supply chain causing lot of emmissions. Coal supply chain is also very dirty, Mining it, then transporting it, often on ships, and then at ports, put on trucks for transport to power plants

My country, Argentina 🇦🇷 started to import LNG when internal production went down more than a decade ago, but now that shale gas production is rising there are plans to build liquefaction plants to export the surplus. We need to exploit our fossil fuel resources before the energy transition becomes a reality. In any case, we also have favorable conditions for the installation of wind and solar parks.

Excellent content - I’ve been working in energy policy for two decades and this is one of the best short videos I’ve seen on LNG. Thank you!

If you do the fossil fuel comparison, if methane leakage from production to end use is greater than ~4%, it produces more greenhouse gas equivalent than ANY other fossil fuel including coal and oil. Researchers have measured leakage rates in the U.S. of 6-9% of the methane produced (Stanford News March 24, 2022 and other news sources). As currently produced with all the leakage, methane is definitely not the clean energy transition fuel the fossil fuel industry is claiming.

Fantastik article. Who is incentivized to verify the emissions. The LNG industry wants to turn a blind eye. Like your reference, I have not verified Tony Seba's assertion in his book "Clean Disruption" that the pipelines have on average 3 to 4 leaks per mile. My Grandfather worked in the fossil fuel industry finding leaks in the pipelines. I like your supportive commentators. My plan is to replace all Gas in my house with renewable electric.

“Dirty” coal is what made Germany rich. Good video. About time LNG was scrutinised, it’s not economic for many developing countries struggling with high unemployment. LNG is not as flexible as coal, liquefaction plants are not cheap.

One point missed in the material is the potential of adopting this infrastructure to green hydrogen. I know this might be just justification that has nothing to do with companies intentions but I think that point should have been risen.

Fun fact - natural gas infrastructure can be retrofitted to hydrogen. Hydrogen is the next step. Power plants that were once coal have been refurbished to run on natural gas and many Turbines that make the power can be mixed fuel. Hydrogen and Natural gas. There are already turbines made by siemens that can run on 100% hydrogen but are now duel fuel turbines. So it very well is a great transition fuel.

Gas burned in a combined cycle plant can have 60% efficiency (or even 90% if the cooling water gets used in district heating) and can be turned on and off relatively quickly meaning it can load follow whatever renewables are on the grid. Windy day, no gas needed, calm day with clouds, turn on the gas plant. It's a good transition until other storage exists.

US is biggest LNG exporter and all those years behind media never talk bad about LNG and in the near future theres a lot of new gas field that Will fullfil asia demand of LNG and they Will not need US energi anymore thats why media began to talk about it

In my country (Portugal) the tendency of consumption is in decline, as we consume more than 60% with sometimes peak of 80% on renewals, Wind, Solar and Hydro... We are small country anyway, but we try to make a difference and it seems we are going in the right direction according to the EU requirements... New big solar farms are also coming online and I hope we get each time more to the O% for domestic consumption... Transportation is the only elephant in the room that needs to be addressed along with the tourism factor that complicate the numbers on pollution...

Yes, Thailand is hooked on LNG for over half of our energy needs

This is a hit piece... the most common word used in this video is "IF" and then it is assumed to be true...

Using electricity at night when solar power isn't producing electricity is like strangling your children and grandchildren. Carbon dioxide and methane are extremely stable at the molecular level, so it is necessary to reduce them as much as possible. Also, if the LNG is leaking during transportation as shown in this video, I think it has something to do with the fact that the West ordered shipbuilding companies from South Korea and China because they were cheaper. Japan was the first to realize LNG maritime transport, and it has a history of being manufactured by Japanese shipbuilding companies with cutting-edge technology at the time. I read in an article that Japanese technology was passed on to Korea and China due to the difference in labor costs and kindness, and now almost no Japanese companies are able to receive orders. I recently learned that the water temperature in the North Atlantic has been rising over the past year to an extent that researchers cannot understand. It's possible that the suddenly increased number of LNG transport vessels is involved.

For me, LNG is a short term solution, the cost alone will end up pushing that aside for cheaper alternatives, likely renewable energy sources being created much closer to where it's used. In the case of Europe, there's a bit of a spike in buying up LNG since the war in Ukraine, but when looking closely, it looks like they are shifting their economy to an all electric system, which opens up more options on what energy sources you can buy and favours renewable energy sources, because of that and because LNG is so expensive, unless the ones that produce the LNG gas find ways of reducing the cost a lot, I can't see them being competitive with other energy sources, especially renewable energy that's getting better and cheaper all the time. There's also the security issue, since the war in Ukraine, more countries want to produce more of the energy they use internally, the only real issue with renewables is the inconsistency, but that can be solved with batteries acting as a buffer. Basically, there's a short wind fall for LNG because of the war in Ukraine, especially in Europe, but it seems short-lived just to fill the void that Russia is missing out on, so unless LNG becomes a lot cheaper to buy, I can't see it being that competitive for long and cheaper alternatives, likely renewable will replace it, at least in Europe, because Asia is a bit different, in many areas, they need as much energy as they can get from any source as they are a growing economy, whereas Europe is more developed and settled on its energy needs, so even thought it's going up, it's much more manageable with cleaner energy sources like renewables, especially as battery tech continues to get better and cheaper.

Of course as more solar/wind/etc energy is brought online, the need to move LNG will decrease and its cost will increase. Economics will have its way.

My country, Australia, as mentioned is a big exporter. I see a role for it, of supplying power when renewables are low. Low solar and wind. But hopefully diminishing to zero. The industry tries to push CCS, but it seems like green-washing

Theoretically speaking an LNG tanker would be far less polluting if it spilled its cargo at sea as opposed to a crude oil tanker doing the same?

As always: if there’s a profit in it for western (US) investors, it will happen. No matter what the cost for everything and everyone else.

To resolve the problem we should follow he right sequence: 1) To define the main contributors (materials/substances) to the global warming. 2) To define the main sectors/industries and countries with the highest emissions of these substances. 3) To find the way to minimize the greatest sources of pollution. These steps could reveal very interesting insights. For example, livestock is a huge contributor to global warming. The way when we work with main contributors will probably be the most effective. And, of course, if it happen that China is the main contributor in the world, the US and Europe shouldn't suffer and jeopardize their economic, social, geopolitical and energy stability. But DW goes another way: "we don't know how harmful is LNG, we don't even know whether it is more harmful than other fossil fuels, but we know that it is fossil fuel, thus it is bad and we must fight with that at any price".

Thanks for posting the video. The answer to the question at the very end is simple - stop burning stuff. Every fossil investment is too much

I missed an analysis to whether the LNG infrastructure can be repurposed for hydrogen. I don't know regarding the transport and storing (H2 is usually very tricky to deal with) but I heard that the natural gas power plants that are being built in Germany will be convertible to hydrogen. Nonetheless, great content as usual from the Planet A team!

It's too cold here in Alberta. After record low temperatures which killed my car battery in January, -40 Celsius, today it's 9 Celsius. Cloudy almost every day. We've had so far one day of 25 Celsius, 3 days 17 Celsius and 1 day 18 Celsius. The rest between -40 Celsius and 10 Celsius. Hunga Tonga volcano caused water vapor to create these atmospheric rivers everywhere, and clouds. Global Cooling is on.

How hard is it to go to a sewage treatment plant and change it. Like make it produce lots of methan to collect ad a dome or something and not have it open to the air for all smells to leave like they do now.

If interruptables are really practical, it would be possible to run the liquefaction and regasification plants off of them. If that were the case, then maybe all of this infrastructure wouldn't be stranded, it would reflect the required capital investment to make interruptables work. Better hope that the engineers will design this equipment to be supply following, although that might not be necessary for handling long duration wind droughts.

Methane can be converted to hydrogen. The carbon left behind is in powder form. Hydrogen can then be chilled and transported just like LNG. It’s definitely more challenging to transport due to its lower boiling point compared to methane but it is possible.

why no drive down the road with old school and fire stove on the car. some how the heat makes movement.

Awesome channel you got here. Thanks.

In regards to methane escaping. The Operators are all over it. Otherwise youll have an explosion. Shipping co2 can be reduced using Air lubrication systems and or converting existing LNG ships to nuclear powered (SMR) ships. Mike Wirth Chevron CEO spoke in current CFR meeting about using SMR's to reduce CO2 from the business. That would be another reduction. All for green energy and Other alternatives.

Thanks for making this video. It's important to point out that there are many steps before we even burn fossil fuels that are forgotten. Those steps are probably the most polluting part of the whole enterprise. When we say that a fossil fuel is cheap we're not taking the cost of the effects of future pollution into account, and we should be!

Great video, very detailed and extremely helpful!

LNG in home heating is far more expensive than Heat Pumps and are a form of renewable energy. With the developments in Compressor design, refrigerant gas and insulation, heat pumps would be the logical choice for home heating but there seems to be a mindset against them. Another positive benefit of central Heat Pumps is that as they cool a building the "waste" heat can be used for heating water.

LNG was also said to be used as a miracle for the transport of goods, but it turned out not to be as good and clean as expected. LNG is a dangerous development in my opinion because it remains a gas, it is just not as green as some people promise because of the production and transport of everything. There is still an easy solution to the energy problem, at least, if they just ignore cold fusion, which was already known in the 60s but nothing was done with it, it is now starting to take shape, but we are still far from there.

We should be exploiting all energy sources. If you want to go "green" with solar and wind(not reliable or that "green") then go for it, but don't force expensive energy on the rest of us. Id reather not freeze to death the go "green".

Thanks for sparing Malaysia,

I am glad that the US suspended the issuance of permits for new LNG export infrastructure. I think that this is a wise first step to perhaps causing countries to rethink their reliance on LNG.

Well here in Canada the by product is used to dilute bitumin so it can be pumped into pipe lines and rail cars. Bitumin is a viscous form of coal dug up or pumped with the use of steam injection or with huge excavators burning diesel. The diesel comes from highly refined bitumin. Diesel refined from bitumin therefore emits 1.3 times more carbon than does coal. Coal mines emit more methane than any another point source. The by product of natural gas is condensate which consists primarily of naptha.

You you never mentioned that if the methane is not used, it's flared so the result it is just as much CO2 flaring.

LNG is very very critical for Sustainable Development in a era of Climate Change. Before the industrial dynamics set forth, a comprehensive assesment on methane leakage should be carried out to make better policies.

Expanding solar, wind and storage is our best bet! LNG sucks...

The global warming potential of methane is around 25 not 80. 80 relates to a short term 20 year figure not allowing methane life time. Also methane is not deliberately released as part of LNG production but no process is 100% immune to leaks. All figures given on Wiki so you can check for yourself.

One alternative for oil producers is to flare the natural gas as the oil in more valuable and stranded gas generally has no net market. A greater LNG market could make less of this gas simply flared into the atmosphere. The gas is flared to prevent methane from going into the atmosphere. Suppressing the consumption could easily lead to much more atmospheric methane by marginal producers in third world countries just vent the gas.

We use fuels for production. If our TV, Phone, Printer, Car and all in between are long lasting and reparable not made for one time use. Then we don't need so much fuel of any kind.

If you would mention about lng infrastructure, which can be used for hydrogen in future, it will start to make sense.

Good content very informative❤❤

You know what’s REALLY REALLY dirty? Making solar panels & windmills.

Its making sense but if ships run on cleaner fuels then it makes sense

We're only liquifying it because we're shipping it so far. Japan is attempting to synthesise net zero methane for domestic capture. The North Sea countries of Europe should do it using offshore wind to pipe (unliquified) to the rest of Europe. The thing about gas is that it stores vast amounts of energy in compressible volumes, so continuing to run our fallback electricity generation and economies off e-gas makes sense. The risk in e-LNG is that it makes renewable resources more globally tradable, which allows global markets too much leverage over intrinsically local renewables opportunities.

As long as common doesn't get direct benefits of switching over to renewable energy that too at low cost..its going to be har to convince him.

Methane is only a viable transition fuel if an electricity plant is built as close as possible to the well and then its energy distributed along the high-voltage transmission lines.

In Portugal we might put H2 in the equation, in pipes. How much gas will be lost in 800km of pipe lines? I agree it is bad

Excellent video!!

It’s a good well balanced video - many thanks. I think the major issue is that the quoted “climate goals”, presumably 1.5 deg C over pre industrial levels are unrealistic. You would need to engineer a global economic depression over the short term to achieve that - and you should not. Far more realistic is to seek to achieve 2-2.5 deg C by 2100, which means Net “Not Much” in about 40 years. That is realistic and we should be able to adapt to that - and (of course) then the stranded assets argument goes away.

The infrastructure is being built out in the USA and there are long-term environmental consequences. Really, putting in renewable energy infrastructure is about the same cost, and it does not pollute. I do not know the answer, but I would like to see studies look at methods to transition the LNG world to liquid hydrogen, liquid air or something similar to move energy around the world. If the source does not pollute the atmosphere, water or land, we will all benefit.

Biggest thing that needs to happen is for solar+storage to become cheaper than LNG.

Coal also typically has methane emissions, which are mostly just vented to avoid mine explosions. Chinese and West Virginian coal are especially "gassy" and mines can continue leaking methane for decades after they've closed.

Always is the focus on fossil fuels which is undeniably a big issue and environmentalist already agree on this, but almost never do we talk about animal agriculture which is the leading cause of biodiversity loss and many other issues while it's importance still is heavily denied amongst environmentalist.

This shouldn't even be a debate. building any new long term fossil infrastructure is a really bad idea. The only reason some people think otherwise is because fossil companies make them.

Hopefully it will soon be confirmed how LNG compares to local coal WRT GHG emissions. To me the process is so intensive and wasteful I expect it to be as bad if not worse than coal especially when they measure all typical fugitive methane emissions. Also I think/hope that countries looking to move off coal are more and more likely to bypass LNG as a bridge and go straight to renewables (with whatever you currently have as a backup until grid storage is fully sorted): as noted they are cheap and getting more so, quick to stand up, free of geopolitical strings, and the fuel is free. China and the US made a recent agreement to triple renewable energy generating capacity by 2030 which should create huge momentum.

My country, Canada is looking at exporting LNG to Europe. I rather see the gas being used rather than flared off at oil wells. It is more difficult to transport than oil or liquid fuels but the clean burning part is good. Since Natural Gas is a natural product of decomposition, I wonder how much is being released by our oceans naturally? Obviously leaking gas is bad for profit margins so companies will be on that but I wonder how big of an issue leaks actually are. Also I always say domestic fuel is the best fuel

There is a lot more use for natural gas than most people think. The shipping industry needs to find cleaner fuels to use. LNG so far is a good candidate for a future shipping fuel. Unless the industry can manage to get an engine design to use ammonia commercially. Which is made using natural gas. If the climate will make farming more difficult in certain areas it will have to be done using less land. This will require us to use more fertilizer, and nitrogen based fertilizer is made from natural gas. With the amount of mining required for the energy transition's need for more powerlines to bring electricity from renewables to populations, it is doubtful that can be done in time. During that transition time baseload plants such as natural gas plants can provide power during low renewable output times. Until we can get the proper high voltage direct current lines to take advantage of longer distances to spread the risk of an outage, we will need them. And considering the third world isn't expected to go carbon neutral until 2100, they will need inexpensive energy in the mean time. Are these forecasts expecting the third world to continue to be poor? If their economies improve their energy usage will increase.

Adding all the additional co2 to LNG but not coal seems a little dishonest. These guys are right, let stop fossil fuels and go back to the dark ages. Seems like a good idea to me.

wow DW ... you are sooooo clever to figure that out

You do not mention "flaring" , when off shore oil rigs simply burn gas @ 100% waste to get oil out.

There’s a common category error offered here. Renewables are not equivalent to dispatchable firm (load following )energy. Renewables are a boon to the natural gas market because gas plants offer firm dispatchable power. Renewables consume large land areas which can be inconsistent with ecological sustainability and preservation of biodiversity. Hydro is an excellent source of clean firm dispatchable power if we ignore the ecological footprint. Storage can help but the capacity has to be expressed in days, not hours to smooth out weather variability. Seasonal variations are 2:1 or so depending on latitude. The energy giant Total has two poster that both say the same-approximately “Total is committed to Xx”. One poster showed solar farm where Xx=solar. The other shows an LNG tanker where Xx=LNG. It’s not helpful to claim renewables will be our salvation. Helpful - yes. Sufficient -no. To quote Oliver Stone: “It’s time to reconsider nuclear…”

Notice how no one talks about breaking patents on energy saving technology. All about profit.

It's only as expensive as its demand. If renewables can be made cheaper/keep up with demand then that will replace it. Let's see where we get to by 2030.

Please also consider that GWP 100year of hydrogen is ~10, therefore the same should be said for H2

I think Australia dumps its LNG outside the country and uses very little

DW: Germany should stop importing LNG! German electricity should be left up or down to the wind!

This was good until that guy in the end touts renewables as the solution/replacement of LNG. Intermittent renewables are a huge part of why LNG was needed in the first place, because of their intermittency. Any "solution" for this, be it storage or back-up, will add to the cost. Not only monetary but also resources, both in terms of land and materials used. In the end this drains their EROI which was already poor to begin with.

I love LNG. LNG becomes CNG in pipelines, & Now were "Cooking with Gas"

Nuclear is still far cleaner than LNG or Coal, and is not being developed due to high construction costs.

Missing is the absence of a discussion that it will take 40 -60 years to build out 'Reliable" 'Green Energy" alternatives at Scale. Also, most current 'Green Energy Solutions' are only 30% reliable. It took between 50 and 70 years to build out our current global energy system. It could easily take the same for its alternatives.

One argument that is often times broad forward when it comes to gas and LNG investments (that is not found in this particular video) is that it is "H2-ready" or at least that it is easy to convert the infrastructure to one that can handle hydrogen instead. Theoretically it does seem to make sense, but how credible is it that this switch will take place and be globally complete before 2045-2070 (the timeframe in which many countries pledge to become carbon neutral). It seems like this makes only sense if at the same time there is MASSIVE investments in getting the H2 production up and running. Of course there are such investments (see e.g. Hyphen Hydrogen Energy) however what will I see if I look at the planned expansion of export capacity of LNG for the next 20-30 years and the planned construction of green hydrogen export capacity? How difficult will it actually be to convert the infrastructure?

Interesting report 👍

Therefore, the blowing up Nord Stream could be labelled as the worst ecological disaster, crime, to be precise, ever. Germany, who did it? Why the silence?

I think this hits a very important issue with many investments in the energy sector: by making the investment it might be significantly better than what we currently do. But it also means we are locked into this for a long time, and then significantly better is far from great. Fair enough, but this sounds also like another reason to just do nothing right now.

The world is switching steadily to alternative fuels like hydrogen, ethanol, etc. Having infrastructure in place like that of LNG, PETROLEUM STATIONS will ensure smooth transitioning to these cleaner fuel, with minor modifications in existing facilities. So building up new setup isn't that bad of an idea, if done with the right intentions. Kindly correct me if I am wrong.

7:23 Incorrect. Natural gas infrastructure, with the exception of wells themselves, CAN be converted into fossil free fueling infrastructure via the sabatier process. You need only change the source of the methane from geologic deposits to the ocean and the atmosphere to fix the mass accumulation equation that governs climate change.

As of today, 84% of all electricity generated worldwide come from either coal, gas or oil. Nuclear and Hydro count for 6% each. Only 4% come from wind or solar, and they have serious limitations and high cost. So, hydrocarbon are there to stay, as a major source of power for electricity for the next 100 years, before we found some replacement, if we ever find.

Near the end it says renewables will replace gas... but this just isn't true yet. Wind and Solar are just not reliable enough, and storage batteries are too high of a climate impact currently to install. There is an alternative however - Biogas. If we can create more natural gas using non fossil fuel sources then why can we not continue to use natural gas in the future? Yes it has challenges such as leaks but that can be fixed and monitored whereas wind&Solar need new technologies to exist to be reliable enough to fully replace gas. Up here in Alberta where we produce 2/3rds of Canada's wind and solar, we just about had a major grid outage during a -40 cold snap because it was cloudy and the wind wasn't blowing. The on grid battery storage facilities we had also failed in the cold. So until there is a reliable solution to store wind & solar power on a large scale - natural gas will continue to be the baseload power here.

As an Indian I am proud of that we have less than global average of per capita GHGs emissions.And if we compare total GHGs emmitated by all countries we are far behind than US and other European countries.

biogas plants - we get tid of manure and have a biogas we can use for heating homes and electricity and for fueling cars

LNG import terminals can be used also to import liquid biogas or liquid e-methane which are renewable gases so thinking that LNG import terminals serve only LNG is wrong

In my opinion, there are many flaws in this piece: 1. the only advocate for LNG seemed to be insecure, so I guess that the editing department did a nice job of choosing more “interesting” frame for the narrative. 2. None of those specialist are living in emerging countries where the renewable sources are not implement or the technology is not there. Nobody wants to live without electricity and it is very nice to say that others need to adjust sitting in your apartment with no interruptions in your utilities. A bigger emphasis on technology transfer to emerging countries should be made, so they skip the LNG stage, to facilitate solar and wind power generation. Those companies also want profit and do not reduce their prices to help fighting climate change. 3. in science or engineering there is no 100% certainty of anything. Coal has other effects related to public health, in particular solid particles, so it is just naive to say we need all certainty before we change to LNG. 4. This expansion of LNG terminals also is meant to replace existing ones. It seems unnecessary to say that the lifespan of these terminals is 20 years; which industrial equipment is designed for less? so, this is just stating a normal fact as a cumbersome plot to keep dominance.

That GIIGNL rep looks very nervous

doesn't building renewables create co2 emissions?