Boom in American Liquified Natural Gas Is Shaking Up the Energy World | Hacker News Reader

Boom in American Liquified Natural Gas Is Shaking Up the Energy World

nytimes.com

53 pointsfhood55 comments

The downside is that gas fields are depleted relatively rapidly. There's less of a long tail than with oil. Oil wells tend to degenerate into "stripper wells", producing a few barrels a day. The US has about a million of those. Gas drops in pressure and goes dead. See UK North Sea gas.[1] 10 years from peak to bottom.

[1] http://www.crystolenergy.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Norw...

Not as big of a downside as it might seem, what with the very rapid rise of solar/wind and storage technology of late. Simple economics are going to make those undeniable in the next 25 years, if not sooner. NG would be excellent as a transitional energy source, I think.

I'd like to think that's a feature not a bug. The solar electric revolution finally looks like it's right around the corner, but it's not here yet. LNG has shown up just in time to server as a bridge to solar, allowing the US to lower its carbon emissions while critical solar technologies are still being implemented. It's important though that we move past LNG as solar takes off. The depletion of wells will hopefully increase hydrocarbon costs just in time for them to be outcompeted by solar.

Does LNG have a lower carbon footprint that other fossil fuel energy sources?

Yes. About half the CO2 as well as an order of magnitude less NOx not sure on other levels. I'm pretty sure much less CO. IIRC lower levels of byproduct is because LNG is a more pure hydrocarbon than Coal.

Yes. Natural gas plants drop emissions by 50-60% compared to a comparable coal plant.

Yes. Median emissions intensity for electricity from combined-cycle natural gas plants, reported by the IPCC as of 2014, is 490 grams of CO2-equivalent per kilowatt hour. That compares with coal at 820 g/kWh and cofired coal/biomass at 740 g/kWh.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-cycle_greenhouse-gas_emis...

There was some reporting a few years ago on just how extremely the extant sites had been cherry-picked. And that overall / longer-term reserve estimates and production cost estimates might be quite off, based on false assumptions (and possibly deliberately misleading promotions) about the productivity and production costs associated with the remaining known and estimated reserves.

Haven't seen much about that, recently, in the news I've encountered.

It's one of the only ways the US can meaningfully trim its trade deficit. China will absorb almost as much as can be shipped to them. The US should be exporting $100-$200 billion in natural gas annually as soon as possible.

US oil exports are relatively booming now as well, recently hitting near a record two million barrels per day:

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/05/us-oil-exports-will-keep-boo...

https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=M...

Russia is also a huge natural gas producer, this could be an attempt to destabilize them by flooding the market with one of their big exports.

At a minimum there's definitely demand side diversification, in terms of Europe especially not wanting to not be wholly dependent on Russia.

The latest US natural gas boom only began in 2007 and more particularly in 2009-2010. Cheniere Energy's Sabine terminal is what made the new export boom possible (more will come online soon). Prior to them switching that from an import terminal to an export terminal, the US had no practical large-scale export capacity.

All this is, is market demand, combined with the US being flooded with natural gas that finally has an export release (with global natural gas prices typically quite higher than the US). I don't see any hints of a master plan to destabilize Russia with LNG exports (besides that it's very unlikely to dent them, if that were the plan the Sabine terminal wouldn't have taken so long). Qatar is the nation that is under most threat from US LNG entering the market and altering the pricing/bidding structure, they've made a vast national fortune off of that not existing (eg China can now use the US LNG supply threat to bludgeon Qatar and others on pricing).

Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of blackmailing thugs. Russia overplayed its and and became unreliable--to say the least so alternative were financed out of necessity. https://www.google.com/search?q=russia+gas+winter+cut+off

Let them eat gas.

That and the shale revolution is driving huge changes in the petrochemical world. Which in turn is helping drive the return of manufacturing to the states and increased exports. Cheap energy, cheap material and 3rd printing could bring a whole lot of manufacturing back to the states.

Just don't build those shiny new factories on the coast, or else they will be destroyed by the result of all this 'cheap energy' !

Right now they aren't going to the coasts, so we should be fine there.

This is just a wishful thinking. I live in a country that would benefit a lot from alternative sources of gas, but for now LNG from US is just not price competitive with the gas from Russian pipelines (as in: being 50-75% more expensive). Funny thing is, that during his visit, president Trump announced that he plans to increase LNG price further.

US LNG is about 20% more expensive than the typical European gas price. With US domestic prices closer to $3, versus $5 in Europe, the US will be able to further narrow that gap with scale and more terminals (on both sides of the transaction). Then you factor in the willingness of Europeans to pay a small mark-up to not be so dependent on Russian energy supply.

(from August)

"Currently, the US gas price is about $2.85 per MMBTU, a measure of energy content in fuel. This rises above $6 after factoring all the associated fees for shipping, liquefication and gasification, according to Gazprom estimates. This compares with about $5 per MMBTU in much of the European market, where Gazprom accounts for about a third of supply."

https://www.ft.com/content/352f4cac-6c7a-11e7-b9c7-15af748b6...

Transport via boat is just not going to beat direct pipe access from siberia

Unless those pipelines were cut off.

Energy and geopolitics are practically the same thing.

No doubt. Fortunately it doesn't have to. The US doesn't need to beat Russia's lowest pipeline price, it needs to get near the European average price.

Russia needs to yield a fat profit on their exports, which is one reason why Europe's gas prices are so much higher than the US domestic prices to begin with. The financing of their government and their economy in general are both heavily dependent on that. Russia isn't going to be willing to drop prices much, while the US exporters will look at every possible means to drive down their costs and pricing (they can afford a much slimmer margin than Russia can on its exports).

Russia has 1/3 the natural gas market in Europe. It's unlikely they're going to grow that market position (which is why they're looking east for growth), their customers do not want to be more reliant on them. As Europe shuts down coal, it's going to be replaced by natural gas and renewables; most of that natural gas will be from sources other than Russia (meaning: Qatar, Australia, US, etc).

You know, all these ships, terminals and people around it are not for free.

That "little markup" means than many European industries would be dead. They literally cannot afford it.

Any European industries that would be killed by gas imports running at $6/MBtu died years ago. As recently as 2013, imported gas prices peaked over $12 and spent the whole year above $11:

https://ycharts.com/indicators/europe_natural_gas_price

Of course no industry is going to voluntarily pay more for fuel than it must. If gas imports from the US to Europe stay around $6, there is little direct benefit at present, but it provides competition to ensure that import prices won't rise to such high levels again.

You miss the point, Russian gas will always be cheaper no matter what. The sole point of keeping gas price that low for Russia is to maintain its gas blackmailing power over Europeans

>to maintain its gas blackmailing power over Europeans

You throw around the word "blackmail" as if this is established fact. Please tell when Russia has ever blackmailed Europe using gas?

The only times when gas supply to Europe has been disrupted, were due to disputes with Ukraine (who has been found to divert EU gas to themselves). And in this case, only the gas intended for use by Ukraine was reduced.

Supplying gas directly from Russia to Germany is intended to create more reliable supply, by removing transit through dishonest and thieving country.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93Ukraine_gas_dis...

I know we're talking about European demand-allocation, but check out what our little-brother to the north is up to: https://www.neb-one.gc.ca/nrg/ntgrtd/ftr/archive/2011/index-...

IMO: Geopolitically/economically, Canada should be thought of as America...'cept there are less repercussions 'bout posturing & the Arctic.

Using even more fossil fuels is a nonstarter because CO2 levels aren’t leveling off, much less going down. Only consistent, severe international economic incentives and disincentives can motivate rapid deployment of renewables to hold-out / recalcitrant countries, of which there are many, at present. It’s absolutely vital for the species’ survival. To do otherwise is stupidity, insanity or both.

Fortunately the quickest way to get people to agree with you is to call them stupid and insane. You should become our spokesperson.

Wait I thought the quickest way to get people to agree with you was to blame immigrants?

I never thought about it before but wouldn't bringing more people into the first world increase global carbon output?

A shunned upon line of thought on HN, it seems.

It will and that has been my point. That the majority of the world population does not live in the western world and uses 1/100 if electricity per person once they start using more the world is

Yeah, we should explain things nicely instead, since that has worked really well so far.

One can definitely catch more flies with honey than vinegar, but one can also just speak honestly and frankly when one is not trying to catch flies.

What if moving baseline energy from coal to LNG is a greater net reduction in carbon intensity per unit of energy than moving LNG to wind and solar? If you look at the stats on CO2 tonne equivalents from the DoE, the US has been way out front in meeting what were supposed to be its Kyoto and Paris targets. The stats on CO2 equivalents per unit of GDP are even more impressive.

Germany has been heading backwards because their insistence on abandoning working nuclear baseload has increased their need to burn coal, despite their significant investments in solar and wind.

In fact it's a starter. Replacing Chinese or German coal use with natural gas imports, would be a massive improvement. If you could instantly swap all global coal use for natural gas, global CO2 emissions would drop considerably.

That's why US energy-related CO2 levels have been falling for a decade. It's due to natural gas. The decline began perfectly timed to the latest natural gas boom, which has played the lead role in wiping out 1/3 of US coal consumption.

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/images/2017.04.10/chart2.p...

I have been trying to explain this to people so many times, but they just don't want it. Germany is the worst, at the same time they shut down nuclear, they also refuse gas. Now they just use nuclear from France and dirty coal.

Overall this great energy plan is gone create fare more CO2 for the foreseeable future.

They definitely deserve immense credit for the renewables build-out the last decade. Having more than doubled their energy production from renewables from ~15% to over ~35% in that time. Accounting for 2-4% more per year, hopefully it's near a tipping point where it begins to hammer down coal consumption there. Throw in some natural gas on top, maybe Germany chops coal use down by 1/2 in the next 10 years.

Energy is often traded in long term contracts. Yes, this means that the establishment of shale gas networks are going to be with us for a while. But by the same token, that becomes a much stronger disincentive to continue using coal, the mining of which comes with its own set of environmental and health damages.

Coal is the greater problem. In the short term, undermining coal power with either non-combustion energy sources or NG is an improvement. Building new NG plants and transport facilities doesn't have a large carbon footprint. The life cycle footprint of electricity from gas is dominated by actual gas consumption. Even if electricity from NG has a life cycle GHG footprint that's as about as bad as coal, due to lax control over fugitive emissions, NG emits far less mercury, acid gases, and harmful particulates.

If renewable energy costs continue to decline as expected, RE will be able to deeply cannibalize NG demand too after coal is gone. If batteries continue to make cost progress, even an increasing portion of "windless night time" demand will be up for grabs from renewables. That will in turn decrease gas demand from power plants and all the associated emissions. Plant load factors for natural gas will fall when competing against renewables just as coal plant load factors did when competing against cheaper NG and renewables. If all goes well, NG will end up as a stranded asset in more and more locations, as is already happening to coal.

I hope to see stronger regulatory action to curtail emissions intensity of electricity generation, but the great thing about improving economics of lower-emissions alternatives is that the pressure against emissions stays there regardless of who has the political upper hand. The Clean Power Plan undermines coal only if the Clean Power Plan has the political support it needs. Falling prices for renewable electricity and natural gas undermine coal regardless of who's been elected:

http://www.utilitydive.com/news/luminant-to-close-2-more-tex...

Which will cause massive hunger and poverty, therefore death, to millions of people in poorer nations completely dependent on cheap plentiful reliable fossil fuels.

To achieve what exactly? What catastrophic predictions are you claiming are accurate that would be changed by the immoral policy you advocate?

Your sentiment is a good one, but your conclusion is mistaken IMO. For poor countries the old model of centralized fossil fuel infrastructure is not cheap, and its certainly isn't reliable.

The future of third-world energy security is distributed. Expect to see the same transformation as we've seen with telecom; third-world telecom largely skipped the copper and fiber in the last mile and even some of the backbone, and went straight to wireless. Likewise, these countries will benefit from skipping the expensive coal mines, coal trains, pipelines, power plants, and even some transmission infrastructure, and going straight to micro-grids. They may end up ahead of us in some ways.

IIRC this was a huge talking point during the 2008 election cycle via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pickens_Plan (the section on "Peak Gas" is particularly relevant).

I'm surprised that the article doesn't even mention this.

The reason for the diminishing gas production in the Netherlands (briefly mentioned in the article), is that the government every year shrinks the allowed production maximum, due to the damage done by an increasing number of earthquakes.

I’d be interested in the physics of turning it into a liquid and maintaining it.

Does anyone want to give us a lesson?

Take it to high-enough pressure while keeping it at room temperature, and it will liquify.

Pressure alone is sufficient only when the substance is below its critical temperature. The critical temperature for methane is 190.6 K, some 107 degrees below room temperature. Gases that are highly compressed above their critical point form a supercritical fluid, which can have liquid-like density but does not have a defined volume.

LNG is a true liquid, stored at cryogenic temperatures and low pressure.

No. It is not practical to liquify by compression. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgtSoEJD9HE

It seems it's hard to liquify by pressurisation.

The basics of it is squash a gas and it gets hot. Let cool then expand and it gets colder. Keep going till -160C and you have liquid gas.

More details here here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgtSoEJD9HE&feature=youtu.be...

I am not expert in oil and gas markets, but some things in this article doesn't make sense.

That Mexico benefited greatly, ecologically from US exports is great.

That US exports will diminish the demand for Russian gas and oil, in EU especially and in China/India is ridiculous. Size of how much they are supplying and infrastructure is just several times larger and it isn't likely that US can make a dent. What they are using this as PR push, to make it seem like EU can replace Russian imports with US.

I am not sure this is the future of energy, and I see this as a propaganda push more then anything else.

Two reasons the story makes sense

1) Russian prices are much higher than production costs because the Russian government gets half its income from petroleum sales.

2) European countries are willing to pay a premium for US gas because they hate how Russia uses European dependency on Russian gas as a political weapon.

By the way, you wouldn't happen to be a big Putin fan, would you?

I must be since I don't see EU countries paying 1.5-2x for gas due to ideological reasons.

Prices has nothing to do with capacity, amount that pipelines provide is vastly higher than what can be brought by tankers. By the time EU build ports and tankers, other energy sources will be mainstream and this will not be relevant.

Again, in my view, pure propaganda move.

>I must be since I don't see EU countries paying 1.5-2x for gas due to ideological reasons.

No, as the article says, the prices are only 20% higher.

And again I ask you, are you a big Putin fan?

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