British Columbians awaiting a final vote count that will determine who governs their province are understandably anxious. After all, in many ways, the agendas of the NDP and Conservatives are starkly different.<\/p>\n
But one group hasn\u2019t felt much concern during the campaign. For the liquefied natural gas industry, the winner made little difference.<\/p>\n
Both parties are supportive of the construction of nearly $100 billion worth of LNG terminals, though the BC NDP has\u00a0set more conditions<\/a>.<\/p>\n Only the BC Green Party has opposed the economic gamble. As Green Leader Sonia Furstenau\u00a0stated<\/a>\u00a0before she was\u00a0defeated<\/a>\u00a0in her attempt to win the riding of Victoria-Beacon Hill, \u201cneither David Eby nor John Rustad have an economic plan that is rooted in reality.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey both want to prop up a sunset industry using billions in taxpayer subsidies. Not only is this industry quickly reaching its peak, the more scientists look into LNG, the more harmful we discover it is to our climate and to people\u2019s health and safety.\u201d<\/p>\n Citing a recent\u00a0World Energy Outlook report<\/a>\u00a0by the International Energy Agency, Furstenau said, \u201cDeclining global LNG prices are also hitting our provincial budget and driving up our deficit, underscoring the riskiness of an economic strategy based on harvesting raw commodities.\u201d<\/p>\n The LNG crowd may have dismissed the risk posed by a Green Party polling low during the election. But while Furstenau lost, two Greens did win seats, and it looks like they\u2019ll\u00a0hold the balance of power<\/a>\u00a0in a near evenly split B.C. legislature. Might they pressure a Premier Eby or Premier Rustad for a change of course regarding LNG?<\/p>\n Meanwhile, regulators have granted 40-year export licences to four projects and 25-year licences to two more projects. In addition, another two projects are seeking licences for export approval. All are dependent on the drilling and fracking of thousands of methane wells in the Montney basin that stretches between northeastern B.C. and northwestern Alberta in the heart of Treaty 8 territory.<\/p>\n Proponents in government, industry and some First Nations vow that the LNG industry will deliver a steady stream of economic and ecological miracles. The projects, they argue, will provide a lower-carbon fuel for Asian markets and fight climate change. They say LNG will build a bridge to the so-called \u201cglobal energy transition.\u201d Revenues will enrich First Nations and advance the prospect of reconciliation.<\/p>\n Moreover, drilling and fracking in the Montney basin for methane will foster jobs and prosperity throughout the north. Without resources like LNG, adds the advocacy group\u00a0Resource Works<\/a>, \u201cwe\u2019d all be naked.\u201d<\/p>\n But when the Greens and other critics of LNG call all this just so much propaganda, they have well-researched facts on their side.<\/p>\n Yes, there will be revenue \u2014 but it will be volatile and delivered unequally if the experience of other jurisdictions is any proper measure.<\/p>\n And no, it is not clean or green. Due to chronic methane leaks, the product is\u00a0dirtier than coal<\/a>\u00a0and accelerates climate change. Nor does it offer an\u00a0extended job fiesta<\/a>\u00a0because the industry remains capital and energy intensive and highly automated. (Prefabricated terminal modules for LNG Canada arrived not from Canada but from Korea and China.)<\/p>\n Nor are LNG terminals anything other than complex industrial behemoths. Because of their noisy and polluting character, such projects routinely get located in economically disadvantaged communities where First Nations or people of colour live. No terminals, for example, have been proposed for Vancouver\u2019s Point Grey.<\/p>\n At the same time, LNG projects now on the books will cannibalize existing electrical supplies and increase energy prices for all British Columbians. The industry will industrialize the northeast of the province with a network of wells, roads, pipelines and compressors. Fracking will not only impoverish water resources but diminish public health. It has already\u00a0changed<\/a>\u00a0earthquake patterns in the northeast.<\/p>\n As for reconciliation, from one vantage LNG can look a lot like colonialism with a modern twist. First Nations receive financial benefits but from industrialization that causes the destruction of Treaty 8 lands.<\/p>\n LNG will make money for the big five fracking companies (Ovintiv, ARC, Tourmaline, Canadian Natural Resources and Petronas) and the largely foreign owners of the LNG terminals, but will create more economic and environmental problems for British Columbians than it promises to solve.<\/p>\n That\u2019s not the message BC NDP or BC Conservative politicians have delivered. So here\u2019s a breakdown of nine negative consequences of LNG development.<\/p>\n 1. LNG is not cleaner than coal and will accelerate the climate crisis.<\/strong><\/p>\n A recent\u00a0study<\/a>\u00a0by North America\u2019s premier methane expert, Robert Howarth, concluded that \u201cthe greenhouse gas footprint for LNG as a fuel source is 33 per cent greater than that for coal.\u201d The fracking of shale gas, as well as liquefaction to make LNG and the transport of chilled gas by tanker, requires high volumes of energy, which then \u201ccontributes significantly to the LNG greenhouse gas footprint.\u201d The fracking of shale and the transport of methane also result in significant methane leaks \u2014 a greenhouse gas much more powerful than carbon dioxide in the short term.<\/p>\n Howarth also found that the most modern tankers propelled have higher total greenhouse gas emissions than steam-powered tankers \u201cdue to methane slippage in their exhaust.\u201d<\/p>\n David Hughes, an energy analyst who spent many years with the federal government studying Canada\u2019s energy resources, has\u00a0done similar calculations<\/a>\u00a0on emissions from Canada\u2019s LNG industry. He says Howarth\u2019s paper is applicable to B.C. LNG, particularly for downstream emissions.<\/p>\n \u201cSo the B.C. government claims of saving the world from coal are bogus,\u201d said Hughes. \u201cBuilding new infrastructure allowing an increase of oil and gas production is exactly the wrong way to achieve emissions reduction commitments.\u201d<\/p>\n 2. LNG will raise energy prices for domestic consumers. That\u2019s you, British Columbians.<\/strong><\/p>\n Both the NDP and the Conservatives avoid this topic. Yet the whole point of LNG is to end a supply glut for a relatively cheap resource (methane) and win higher prices in global markets.<\/p>\n The United States tells the story. In 2016 it ended its export ban and began exporting LNG as a way to raise low prices due to the overproduction of shale gas. In short order it became the world\u2019s No. 1 LNG exporter. But by 2023 domestic methane prices for U.S. consumers\u00a0rose<\/a>\u00a0by nine per cent.<\/p>\n By approving one project after another, the federal government\u00a0failed to warn<\/a>\u00a0consumers about the inflationary impact of LNG development. Yet the U.S. Department of Energy under the Trump administration, no less, clearly warned this would be a major downside of LNG in 2018.<\/p>\n \u201cOn the negative side, producing incremental natural gas volumes to support natural gas exports will increase the marginal cost of supplying natural gas and therefore raise domestic natural gas prices and increase the value of natural gas in general.\u201d<\/p>\n The same scenario\u00a0unfolded<\/a>\u00a0in Australia, the world\u2019s No. 3 LNG exporter. Australians call it the \u201cgas paradox.\u201d As exports increased, so did domestic prices and shortages. The inflationary increases led to a\u00a0major inquiry in 2017<\/a>\u00a0and eventually a capping of prices at Australian $12 per gigajoule in 2023.<\/p>\n 3. LNG industrialization will further strain water supplies in northern B.C.<\/strong><\/p>\n Earlier this year Hughes detailed the environmental costs of fracking the Montney formation in northern B.C. in order to supply all six LNG projects now on the books. To fill those terminals with methane would require drilling more than 32,000 wells over the 2024-50 period. It would increase water consumption by 62 per cent to 35 billion litres annually.<\/p>\n Hydraulic fracturing blasts high volumes of water and imported sand deep in the earth to open up small fractures in shale formations to release trapped methane.<\/p>\n On average a fracked Montney well now consumes about 23.1 million litres, a 10-fold increase since the industry first started applying hydraulic fracturing nearly 20 years ago.<\/p>\n Based on detailed industry\u00a0drilling data<\/a>, Hughes recently calculated that the Montney now consumes 21.7 billion litres of water a year in a region already hit by drought and wildfires accelerated by climate change.<\/p>\n That amount of water is enough to quench the thirst of seven billion humans for one day at three litres per person.<\/p>\n 4. Like any megaproject, LNG versions promise more than they deliver.<\/strong><\/p>\n In 2008 ExxonMobil, a corporate entity with more power than most countries, promised the people of Papua New Guinea, a Pacific nation at high risk to the ravages of climate change, that LNG exports would solve all their economic woes. With gaudy PowerPoints the developers argued that the industry would double GDP, increase exports, create lasting employment and generate huge cash flows to the government.<\/p>\n In 2014 the project came on stream and the methane flowed. But the projected benefits were slow to materialize. In a sobering analysis of what went wrong, a 2018 study tabulated all the broken promises and why prosperity did not prevail. It found that Exxon\u2019s economic models were \u201coverly optimistic\u201d and that the promise of easy revenues led to bad public policies that weakened government.<\/p>\n As a result, Papua New Guinea\u2019s economy did not double in size as forecast. Household income\u00a0fell<\/a>\u00a0instead of rising, as did employment. A surge in government revenues to support education and health did not happen. In fact, government revenues fell by 32 per cent. Concluded the report: \u201cCurrently on almost every measure of economic welfare in 2016, PNG would have been better off without the PNG LNG project.\u201d<\/p>\n Since 2018 revenue streams from LNG have improved, but most of the hype remains unrealized. About 40 per cent of the country\u2019s nine million people live in poverty. A sovereign wealth fund, promised in 2014, has never materialized. Meanwhile the local media still\u00a0ask<\/a>\u00a0a fair question: How has the country benefited from LNG?<\/p>\n 5. LNG imposes a substantial public health burden.<\/strong><\/p>\n Pollution from oil and gas facilities takes a significant toll on local communities over time. Most of these LNG communities, such as those in southern Louisiana, are poor, Black or Indigenous.<\/p>\n A recent U.S. study found air pollution from the oil and gas sector in the United States resulted in 410,000 \u201casthma exacerbations,\u201d 2,200 new cases of childhood asthma, 7,500 excess deaths and a total health bill of $77 billion. The health stealers include methane, nitrogen oxides, hydrogen sulphide, ozone, particulate matter, sulphur dioxide and ammonia. States with shale gas and LNG terminals, including Texas, Louisiana and western Pennsylvania,\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0the highest impacts.<\/p>\n More than 300 physicians and nurses\u00a0signed an open letter<\/a>\u00a0asking Premier Eby why the government continues to approve more gas wells and LNG terminals given the public health burden generated by shale gas fracking and climate dysfunction on health-care delivery.<\/p>\n 6. LNG depends on government subsidies.<\/strong><\/p>\n Thanks to intense lobbying by former politicians, heavy subsidies have greased the province\u2019s LNG gravy train from the beginning. LNG Canada, a joint venture between Shell, Petronas, PetroChina, Mitsubishi Corp. and Korea Gas Corp., for example, has received nearly $6 billion in tax deferrals, tax exemptions, power lines and reduced electricity rates.<\/p>\n If all the hype about LNG were true, why aren\u2019t foreign investors footing these bills instead of Canadian taxpayers?<\/p>\n 7. LNG development could imperil Canada\u2019s energy security.<\/strong><\/p>\n If all of B.C.\u2019s six LNG projects currently on the books are built, they would require a gas supply of 6.7 billion cubic feet per day to make their shipments. That is equivalent to all of B.C.\u2019s current production or one-third of Canada\u2019s.<\/p>\n The Montney would supply most of this methane because of proximity to the coast. Hughes calls the Montney \u201ca strategic non-renewable resource\u201d that should be treated as an essential bank for the country\u2019s energy security. According to the Canada Energy Regulator, the basin will provide between 58 per cent and 63 per cent of all Canadian gas production over the 2024-50 period and will be the primary source for LNG exports.<\/p>\n \u201cSelling it off as fast as possible to foreign markets for short-term gain compromises Canada\u2019s ability to meet climate targets and future energy security and is therefore extremely unwise,\u201d Hughes said.<\/p>\n 8. LNG is a tale of diminishing energy returns.<\/strong><\/p>\n The LNG industry represents an intensification in the amount of energy deployed to extract more fossil fuels. Modern civilization requires energy sources with high energy returns, but the returns from methane are steadily declining. One recent paper estimated that the amount of energy needed to extract and pipe methane corresponds to nearly seven per cent of gross energy produced at the moment.<\/p>\n Due to the unconventional nature of shale gas formations, the energy intensity of fracking and the complexity of LNG, methane extraction will\u00a0gobble up<\/a>\u00a0nearly 24 per cent of the energy produced by 2050. These energy demands mean there will be less energy available for other societal needs such as home heating or industrial production of glass.<\/p>\n 9. LNG could cannibalize the province\u2019s electrical supplies.<\/strong><\/p>\n The Site C dam was built not to light up and heat 450,000 homes but to serve the global LNG industry by lowering its emissions \u2014 by electrifying operations normally powered by methane. But LNG operations are so energy hungry they could quickly monopolize demand for much of the electricity generated by the $16-billion dam.<\/p>\n A 2023 report by the Pembina Institute\u00a0looked at<\/a>\u00a0two possible electrical demand scenarios. In one scenario the terminals run off electricity, and in the second scenario electricity is used to reduce emissions both at the liquefaction terminals and for upstream production in the fracking fields. In Scenario 1, if only LNG Canada and Woodfibre LNG terminals proceed, they will consume the equivalent of 37 per cent of the dam\u2019s capacity. In Scenario 2, full upstream electrification for just LNG Canada Phase 1 and Woodfibre would need power from the equivalent of 2.5 Site C dams.<\/p>\n In other words, more LNG development could make the province vulnerable to power shortages by 2030.<\/p>\n If that comes to pass, the words of Sonia Furstenau on the 2024 campaign trail may come back to haunt:<\/p>\n \u201cB.C. has so many exciting industries that aren\u2019t massive contributors to climate change. From tech to film to agriculture to small business, B.C. has no shortage of opportunities to invest in a stable, clean economy,\u201d she\u00a0said<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s a tragedy that we have two major parties who fail to recognize this.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" LNG will make money for the big five fracking companies (Ovintiv, ARC, Tourmaline, Canadian Natural Resources and Petronas) and the largely foreign owners of the LNG terminals, but will create more economic and environmental problems for British Columbians than it promises to solve.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":128238,"featured_media":3504260,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[79716,213529,79718],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3504256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy","category-energy-featured","category-environment"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3504256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/128238"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3504256"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3504256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3504261,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3504256\/revisions\/3504261"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3504260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3504256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3504256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3504256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}