Dear Crusty. LNG is Volatile. It Could Even Blow Up in Your Face.

BC premier Christy Clark is in love - with British Columbia's natural gas reserves.  She sees it as a magical solution to pay off all of the province's debts and fund wonderful new projects and services.  She even imagines herself riding across northern BC on a unicorn sprinkling fairy dust wherever natural gas is to be found.

Uhh-uhh.  Crash. Thud.  Sorry, madam premier, to be the carrier of more bad LNG news (there's been a lot lately) but a new report says our own natural gas reserves may be a stranded asset if international action reaches an accord to limit global warming to 2C.

LNG projects allow gas to be compressed into tankers and sold around the world, making it key to hopes in the US, Canada and Australia of fully exploiting their gas reserves.

But the new analysis shows that if emissions are cut to keep global temperature rise below the internationally agreed target many LNG projects being considered will not be needed.

The report concludes that over the next 10 years $82bn of LNG plants in Canada would be surplus to requirements, $71bn in the US and $68bn in Australia, with the rest of the world, led by Russia and Indonesia, accounting for the remaining $59bn.

...The report is the latest to raise concerns that increasing action to cut carbon emissions, combined with falling renewable energy prices, will put some fossil fuel investments at risk. Carbon Tracker has pioneered this analysis, which has been backed by the Bank of England and the World Bank.