Nikiforuk Dismembers the LNG Myth

Veteran energy scribe, Andrew Nikiforuk, tackles the lies that our federal and some provincial politicians spin about liquefied natural gas. 

The Big Lie is that Canadian natural gas will wean Asia off thermal coal energy and thereby slash greenhouse gas emissions.

Representatives of the British Columbia, Alberta and federal governments are making the global rounds these days to sell the notion that liquefied natural gas exports can help the climate crisis.

The pitch goes like this: According to LNG Canada, the big Shell project now under construction in northern B.C., could replace 20 to 40 coal-fired plants in countries like China and India with Canadian methane, and reduce their emissions by 60 to 90 million tonnes.

And so, while the blockaders of northern B.C.’s LNG Canada pipeline await police eviction while claiming to stand up for Indigenous sovereignty and climate protection, backers of the project lay claim to their own moral high ground.
Such claims are problematic, if not false. The best evidence to date reveals two quite inconvenient truths. 

One, B.C.’s LNG is not cleaner than coal, due to leakage rates in our fracked shale fields of three per cent. 

Two, there is no guarantee that China will use Canadian gas to actually displace coal power production, given that coal-fired plants already operate as efficiently as methane-fueled ones.

The extraction (fracking) industry lies. The transmission (pipeline, storage, liquefaction, shipping) industry lies. The provincial authorities lie. Their federal counterparts also lie.

Adding insult to injury are the paltry revenues we're earning from this scam. As Norm Farrell pointed out recently on his excellent blog, In-Sights, LNG is not the windfall British Columbians were promised.

British Columbia’s January 2020 sale of Petroleum and Natural Gas Rights returned $61,195 to the provincial treasury.

That ranks seventh worst in the 278 months since 1996. The best monthly sale produced 728 million in today’s dollars.

Eight of the last ten monthly sales of rights rank among the worst in 23 years.

 Somebody is making money only it's not the province and people of British Columbia. As Norm puts it, "we're fracked."

Don't you think these endless lies are getting old?