‘Carbon mega bomb’: climate experts urge Biden to block gas export hub
Joe Biden’s administration is under mounting pressure to block construction of what would be one of the world’s largest gas export hubs, and which would be perched near the rapidly eroding Louisiana shoreline, due to concerns over its impact on the climate and communities living amid an unprecedented expansion of new gas infrastructure along the Gulf of Mexico.
The $10bn project, known as Calcasieu Pass 2 (or CP2), is being planned for Cameron parish, on Louisiana’s coast. It would involve bringing gas extracted via fracking through a new pipeline to a terminal where it would be condensed into liquid, chilled to -260F (-162C) and sent on ships for export to other markets, including in Europe.
CP2, which would ship up to 24m tons of liquified natural gas (LNG) each year once built, is at the vanguard of a huge surge in new gas pipelines and terminals that are increasingly dotting the Gulf coast. The Biden administration, which has so far mostly allowed this enormous build-out, has talked up gas exports to European allies in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Environmental groups have warned that Biden risks blowing apart his own efforts to combat the climate crisis in the US and endanger international climate goals by allowing terminals such as CP2, which is likely to be decided upon by federal regulators within the next month.
“That we would even consider doing anything like this in 2023, which scientists have told us is the hottest year we have experienced on this planet for 125,000 years, is obscene and dangerous,” said Bill McKibben, the climate activist and co-founder of 350.org, who said the magnitude of the new gas facilities is still largely unknown to most Americans.
“The world has never been hotter – why on Earth are we even talking about finding a way to spew even more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere?”
The growth of the gas-export industry in the US has been stunning. From barely sending any gas overseas at all a decade ago, the US is now the world’s largest gas exporter, with exports doubling in the last four years. Exports hit a new record level in the first half of this year, with extraction from the gas fields that span Texas and New Mexico also hitting new highs due to cheap and effective fracking technologies.
The burgeoning gas-export industry argues that sending tankers of LNG to other countries not only creates domestic jobs, it also displaces dirtier fossil fuels, such as coal, from being burned overseas.
“The well-funded environmental activists opposing CP2 and all US LNG projects are completely out of touch with reality,” said a spokesperson for Venture Global, the company behind CP2, which it hopes to start building by 2026.
“Ironically, Mr McKibben and other activists who claim to want to lower global emissions are actually advocating for restricting access to a cleaner form of energy and denying energy security to millions of people.
“This would only result in continued-and increased coal use and prevent the reduction of global emissions.”
Critics point out that the production of LNG, when drilling, production and burning are considered, is a major driver of the climate crisis. Studies have shown that while gas emits less carbon dioxide than coal, it often also involves the leaking of large quantities of methane, a potent greenhouse gas.
“This is a carbon mega bomb,” said Jeremy Symons, a former Environmental Protection Agency official, of CP2, which has requested a permit to operate until 2050, a point when Biden aims for the US to have zeroed out its emissions. “The scale of the project is almost unfathomable and it locks us into a fossil fuel dependency for the next 30 years. If all we do is shift from coal to gas, we are cooked.”
According to calculations by Symons, who runs his own consultancy, the CP2 project would cause 197m tons of planet-heating gases each year once fully operational, including emissions from the production of the gas and its eventual burning overseas, which isn’t counted in the US’s own emissions tally.
This scale of emissions is 20 times greater than the controversial Willow oil project in Alaska, which was approved by the Biden administration despite a huge outcry from Democrats, tribes and climate campaigners earlier this year.
Should several dozen other proposed gas-export facilities along the Gulf of Mexico also be built, then the overall emissions toll would be gargantuan, according to figures Symons shared with the Guardian. If all planned terminals go ahead, it would result in an extra 3.2bn tons of greenhouse gases