'Although there is pressure to hurry up approvals of these LNG projects, government regulators should be careful and thoughtful in considering their significant environmental impacts,' warns EnviroIntegrity's Alexandra Shaykevich.
If pollution from extraction and the eventual burning of gas are accounted for, a new report notes,"the true climate footprint of LNG would be several times higher."A boom in U.S. liquefied natural gas exports driven by Russia's invasion of Ukraine could add a staggering 90 million tons or more of planet-heating greenhouse gases annually, a report published Thursday revealed.
The report notes that this gas export boom"will have a significant environmental impact," as 25 LNG construction or expansion projects in the U.S., including four new terminals being built in Texas and Louisiana,"could emit more than 90 million tons of greenhouse gases per year." These potential greenhouse gas impacts"would only come from operating the LNG terminals themselves," the report notes."They do not include emissions from drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or the eventual burning of gas in homes and businesses. If these upstream and downstream contributions are accounted for, the true climate footprint of LNG would be several times higher."