Canada’s LNG, The Cleanest in the World – Resource Works

From Resource Works – See More Stories from Resources Works Here

President Biden’s halt on new U.S. LNG projects offers Canada a chance to showcase its commitment to producing exceptionally clean LNG, highlighting innovative approaches to environmental sustainability and economic growth in the industry.

President Joe Biden’s freeze on approvals of new U.S. LNG-for-export projects has generated new hope for expansion of Canada’s LNG capacity and exports to follow.

From 2015 to 2022, the U.S. experienced an astronomical rise in LNG exports, soaring by an unprecedented 14,000%. Not a single Canadian LNG export project crossed the finish line to completion during this period, a stagnation that speaks volumes about the challenges faced by the industry north of the border. The explosive American growth showcased the country’s aggressive expansion into global energy markets, capitalizing on its abundant shale gas reserves and streamlined regulatory processes.

The Canadian sector’s slower progress, stymied by stringent environmental regulations and the complexities of developing export infrastructure in landlocked regions, starkly diverged from the American approach, which for years proceeded with minimal environmental considerations. If the U.S. LNG industry feels like it has handed lemons with Biden’s new climate test, for Canada it’s a chance to make lemonade.

Thanks to its careful approach, the Canadian LNG sector can now rightly show it is going to be exporting the cleanest LNG in the world when it finally does get the first shipment to market very soon.

Look at some numbers:

LNG Canada is projected to operate with an emissions intensity of 0.15 percent of carbon dioxide emissions per tonne of LNG produced, less than half the global industry average of 0.35 per cent per tonne.
The Cedar LNG project proposed by the Haisla Nation will have an emissions intensity of just 0.08 percent of CO2 per tonne of LNG. That’s less than a third of the global average.
And Woodfibre LNG will have an emissions intensity of just 0.04 percent of CO2 per tonne of LNG produced — and that’s less than one sixth of the global industry average.

Woodfibre LNG will also be a net-zero facility by 2027 – 23 years ahead of government net-zero regulation. Woodfibre will also be net zero during construction – a unique commitment for construction projects in Canada.

Ksi Lisims LNG, proposed by the Nisga’a Nation in B.C., promises to be operating with net-zero emissions within three years of the project’s first shipment. And Cedar LNG’s plans call for emissions to be near zero by 2030.

Woodfibre LNG points out: “We are the first e-drive LNG facility in Canada. This means our liquefaction process will be powered by renewable hydroelectricity, which is 14 times less emitting than a conventional liquefaction process powered by gas.”

Cedar LNG and Ksi Lisims LNG also plan to be all-electric, but that means B.C. Hydro will have to step up to provide the power and to transmit it to the two floating LNG production plants.

LNG Canada’s Phase One plant (which expects to go into production in 2025, but perhaps even late this year) will have to generate a portion of its cooling power by burning LNG. It would be happy to use 100% electricity, but there simply isn’t enough available. LNG Canada would certainly hope for all-electric drives for a Phase Two expansion, which is under consideration.

(Although the Site C dam will add to B.C. Hydro’s power supply in 2025, the province will still be short of electricity by 2030. So B.C. Hydro will soon put out a call for more “clean or renewable energy” from new resources. Hydro will also have to build new transmission lines or upgrade current ones, to get the power to where it is needed; and that includes LNG plants and mines.)

One reason why our emissions will be lower is our cooler climate. That means we use less energy in the process to chill natural gas to the required -161.5°C than do LNG plants on the warmer U.S. Gulf Coast or Mexican coast.

Canadian LNG companies and their natural-gas suppliers have also been working steadily to reduce emissions from wells, pipelines, and processing facilities.

Meanwhile, various studies have found that using LNG from B.C. to replace coal at Asian power-generating stations would reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by anywhere from 35 per cent to 55 percent.

And on top of all this, B.C. LNG has another advantage over U.S. LNG: The shipping distance from B.C. to prime Asian buyers is about 10 days compared to 20 days for shipments from U.S. Gulf Coast LNG plants. That can mean a reduction of 50-60% in emissions from the ships carrying the LNG.

“The distance between Canada and the key market is a huge advantage, where we are the same distance to Asia as Australia,” says Racim Gribaa of Global LNG Consulting Inc.

There is, too, another key reason why Canadian governments should look favourably on LNG exports: the benefits to Indigenous peoples who partner in, are involved in, or work for the projects.

As CEO Karen Ogen of the First Nations LNG Alliance puts it: “It’ll help boost our Canadian economy, it’ll help B.C.’s economy, and most specifically it will help the Indigenous people and our economy.

“If we’re the most disadvantaged population living in poverty, then this should help our people get out of poverty.”

And so, she adds: “Everyone wins if Canada can get into the game.”

Meanwhile, the forced pause south of the border might offer a moment of reflection for the industry, potentially providing Canada with an opportunity to reassess its own approach and perhaps find a middle ground that promotes both environmental sustainability and the economic viability of LNG exports.

About LNG Canada: https://ow.ly/LtIF50QxFV3
About Woodfibre LNG: https://ow.ly/uQaq50QxFV6
About Cedar LNG: https://ow.ly/eEHR50QxFV4
About Ksi Lisims LNG: https://ow.ly/KgAk50QxFV5

Related Topics:#CanadianLNG #EnergyNow.CA #FirstNationsLNGAlliance #KarenOgen #ResourceWorks

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Energy

Buckle Up for Summer Blackouts: Wind Is Already Failing Texas in Spring

Published on May 13, 2024

Todayville

From Heartland Daily News

By Jason Isaac

When the wind blows too much, natural gas plants are forced to shut down because they can’t underbid wind producers that can bid zero or negative. But when the wind doesn’t blow when it is needed, wind generators can afford the loss of revenue because they earn so much from tax subsidies.

It’s been all quiet on the electric grid front for a few months — but don’t get your hopes up. Over the last month, electricity prices came near the $5000/MWh regulatory cap three separate times because the wind wasn’t blowing enough when the sun went down.

If this sounds familiar, you’re not wrong.

You may hear from the drive-by media that the problem is unseasonably warm temperatures, or that there are a lot of power plants down for maintenance. But high 80s in April and low 90s in May are not unusual, and the Texas grid used to manage these weather changes with no problems. From 2014 to 2016, real-time prices only went over $1000/MWh twice, but it’s happened three times already this year.

If the grid is already on shaky ground, with many weeks to go before blistering triple-digit temperatures shoot electric demand through the roof, all signs are pointing to an unpleasant summer.

The problem with the Texas grid is so simple it’s infuriating: Relying too heavily on unpredictable wind and solar, without enough reliable reserve capacity, means higher volatility — leading to higher prices and increasing need for expensive interventions by ERCOT to avoid outages. This is why your electric bill is going up and up even though wind and solar are supposed to be cheap.

While Texas certainly has a lot of sun, peak solar output almost never aligns with peak electric usage. The Lone Star State also has plenty of wind, but wind generation is wildly unpredictable — by nature. It’s not unusual for a wind generator’s output to swing 60 percentage points or more in a single week.

Take last month, for example. On Tuesday, April 16, electricity prices reached their cap because ERCOT’s day-ahead wind forecast was off by 50%. Five gigawatts of wind we were counting on to power Texas as the sun went down didn’t show up. That was the equivalent of simultaneously shutting down 10 large natural gas units, or all of the state’s nuclear capacity. If the latter occurred, the news media would be up in arms (and rightfully so). But because the culprit was the political darling of both the left and the right, no one heard about it.

ERCOT hasn’t been the best at predicting wind output, and the problem isn’t entirely its fault. Wind veers so wildly between extremes it’s nearly impossible to plan a sustainable grid around its fickleness — yet wind makes up 26% of our generating capacity.

It’s all because lucrative tax breaks and subsidies at the state and federal level, combined with flaws in ERCOT’s market design, make it almost impossible for wind to lose money — and harder than ever for natural gas to compete, even though it’s far more reliable and affordable. When the wind blows too much, natural gas plants are forced to shut down because they can’t underbid wind producers that can bid zero or negative. But when the wind doesn’t blow when it is needed, wind generators can afford the loss of revenue because they earn so much from tax subsidies.

Imagine trying to open a restaurant when your competitor next door is paying its customers to eat there. It’s no wonder natural gas capacity in ERCOT has barely grown over the past decade, and not enough to make up for losses of coal plants, while demand has been steadily increasing.

All those subsidies are hurting our most reliable, affordable energy producers and putting our economy at risk — leaving you and me, the taxpayers on the hook.

While most political issues are far more complex and nuanced than brazen attack ads and headlines would lead you to believe, in this case, it really does boil down to one simple problem.

And it would be easy to solve — if lawmakers are willing to go against the grain of political correctness and set a clear reliability standard for the wind and solar generators that want to connect to our grid.

Unfortunately, that’s a gargantuan “if.”

As a former lawmaker, I understand the pressures our legislators are under to toe the line on alternative energy. Major utilities embracing World Economic Forum- and United Nations-aligned “energy transition” policies that seek to redefine what’s “clean” and what’s “pollution” are making matters worse. And the incessant misinformation from their well-funded lobby that promise rural “economic development” and “cheap energy” sound too good to be true, because they are.

Elected officials don’t serve the lobby. They serve Texans — or, at least, they should.

And Texans want a reliable, affordable grid. They want to not have to worry about losing power in the heat of the summer or the dead of winter. The Legislature must put a stop to these market-distorting subsidies and make reliability, not popularity, the priority for our electric grid.

Gov. Greg Abbott sent a letter on July 6, 2021 to members of the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUC) directing them to “take immediate action to improve electric reliability across the state.” The second directive was to “Allocate reliability costs to generation resources that cannot guarantee their own availability, such as wind or solar power.” Unfortunately, the PUC hasn’t acted on this directive or even studied it. The costs of scarcity on the grid are estimated to have exceeded $12B in 2023, which is equal to two-thirds of the property tax relief passed in the 88^th Legislature, all paid for by ratepayers.

“Unfortunately for Texans, the ERCOT grid is moving from a single grid with gas and coal power plants running efficiently all day to two grids: one for wind and solar and one for expensive backup power that fills in the gaps when there is not enough wind and sun,” says Dr. Brent Bennett, policy director for Life:Powered at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. “Every time these scarcity events occur, whether due to real scarcity or artificial scarcity created by ERCOT’s operating policies, ratepayers are shelling out tens to hundreds of millions of dollars for backup power. It is the most expensive way to operate a grid, and Texans will feel the bite as these costs are absorbed over time.”

The Californication of our grid is unfolding before our eyes. If the Legislature and the PUC don’t act fast, the Texas miracle won’t last.

The Honorable Jason Isaac is CEO of the American Energy Institute and a senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. He previously served four terms in the Texas House of Representatives

Energy

Federal government continues to reject golden opportunities to export LNG

Published on May 13, 2024

Todayville

From the Fraser Institute

By Julio Mejía and Elmira Aliakbari

A recent report released by the National Bank of Canada underscores the potential environmental impact of transitioning from coal to natural gas in countries such as India. According to the report, by 2030 the cumulative effect of this transition would result in up to four times fewer greenhouse gases emissions than what Canada emitted in 2021.

Once again, Canada has missed a crucial opportunity to supply clean and reliable energy to an ally. Polish President Andrzej Duda recently expressed interest in purchasing Canadian liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Canada but the Trudeau government did not offer any concrete commitment in response. We’ve seen this movie before.

During his recent visit to Ottawa, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis received the same noncommitment. In January 2023, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida came to Canada hoping to secure a reliable energy source. In response, Trudeau expressed the importance of Canada as a global energy supplier, only to add the disclaimer that the world is “aggressively” moving towards decarbonization. And in 2022, after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine led Germany to seek ways to reduce its reliance on Russian energy sources, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz asked to buy Canadian LNG but the prime minister gave him the cold shoulder. Apparently, Trudeau found no compelling “business case” to export LNG to Europe’s largest economy.

Of course, Canada’s vast natural resources could make a significant positive impact on global energy security, reliability and emissions reduction by reducing reliance on coal while also creating jobs and economic opportunity here at home. Energy supply shortages have already forced European countries to revert to coal-fired power plants—coal contributes more CO2 emissions per unit of energy than natural gas. In the developing world, India aims to double coal production by 2030 to meet the demands of its burgeoning economy and population. Similarly, China quadrupled the amount of new coal power in 2022 and has six times as many plants under construction as the rest of the world combined.

A recent report released by the National Bank of Canada underscores the potential environmental impact of transitioning from coal to natural gas in countries such as India. According to the report, by 2030 the cumulative effect of this transition would result in up to four times fewer greenhouse gases emissions than what Canada emitted in 2021. To put that in perspective, the impact would be even bigger than completely shutting down the Canadian economy.

Moreover, a recent McKinsey report anticipates an annual increase in global LNG demand of 1.5 per cent to 3 per cent by 2035. And according to the latest report by the International Energy Agency (IEA), limited new LNG production means supply will remain tight. The Biden administration recently halted LNG project approvals, increasing the need for Canada to establish its own infrastructure if we’re to seize the opportunity and become a global LNG supplier.

Unfortunately, Canada currently has no operational LNG export terminals, with the first LNG facility expected to commence exporting by 2025. The Trudeau government has frustrated the development of other LNG terminals, primarily through government regulatory barriers including long approval timelines. The government’s emissions caps on the oil and gas sector and federal Bill C-69 (which added more red tape and complexity to the assessment process for major energy projects) have also created uncertainty and deterred—if not outright prohibited—investment in the sector. Additionally, the British Columbia government’s “CleanBC” plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions has added more regulation. Not surprisingly, a recent survey revealed that investors identify regulatory uncertainty as a major deterrent to investment in Canada’s oil and gas sector.

With the proper polices in place, Canada could provide an energy alternative to our allies and other coal-consuming countries worldwide. The Trudeau government should acknowledge the environmental benefits of our natural gas resources, reform regulations for energy infrastructure projects so they’re more competitive, and allow our energy industry to be a leading source of clean and reliable energy, for the benefit of Canadians and the environment.