A win of sorts on something really important

A federal commission slows down the LNG rush--and Biden can drive the point home

This is what the CP1 facility—right next to the proposed new export terminal—looks like at night to its neighbors (Photo: John Allaire)

When the environmental history of the Biden administration is written, the Inflation Reduction Act will have pride of place—for all its compromises and flaws, it finally set serious federal money flowing toward the task of an energy transition, and defending it from Trumpian attack will be job one for green lobbyists for the next for years. (And not an impossible job in every case—the new factories built with IRA money have turned a lot of legislators, including in red states, into reluctant supporters).

But the second most useful thing the Biden administration did came less than a year ago—its January decision to pause new permits for LNG export terminals. This doesn’t sound to the untrained ear like such a big deal, but as readers of this newsletter know, it was: had the industry continued to build at the pace it wanted, the climate damage from American LNG exports would soon have topped every single thing that happens in Europe. This is the biggest greenhouse gas bomb on planet earth.

You could tell what a big deal it was by the way it angered Big Oil (and big banking and big shipping)—every story about the industry’s unprecedented support for Trump’s election made it clear that this was the number one casus belli. That’s because—as American demand for natural gas begins to sag in the face of the renewables buildout—their main hope was to emulate the cigarette industry and seek new markets in Asia. But a combination of on-the-ground groups in the Gulf of Mexico and climate activists across the country stuck a potato in the tailpipe. The Biden administration promised a full report before the year was out about whether or not the exports were still in the public interest.

And yesterday, somewhat surprisingly, even before that report was released, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, FERC, slowed down the process some more. They issued a finding that the next terminal up for consideration, a mammoth facility called CP 2 destined for the Louisiana coast, needed to go through a new round of environmental review because of its potential effect on local air quality. As the experts at the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) explained this morning,

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued an order setting aside its approval for Venture Global’s massive CP2 export facility in Cameron Parish, Louisiana. The order modifies and, in part, sets aside the Commission’s previous authorization order to conduct a supplemental environmental impact analysis on the project’s cumulative air quality and emissions impacts. The order states that FERC will not authorize construction until the Commission completes this process.

The vote for the new review as 4-0, and bipartisan. It could slow down approvals for the project till, perhaps, the third quarter of next year. And that’s good news, because the rationale for new LNG exports shrinks with each passing month, as the gap between the price of clean solar, wind and battery power, and the price of fossil fuel, continues to grow.

The Biden administration should and could deny the permits outright, and here’s a petition urging them to do just that, and plans from Climate Defiance for demonstrations at the DOE next week. Most observers seem to think the denial is unlikely, especially after the FERC ruling gave them a plausible out on the most controversial of the projects. (And if they do deny them, the Trump administration might well be able to un-deny them, though at some point this all enters a valley of legal complication too thick for me to hack my way through.) Still—finish what you started. A year of investigation should have made clear that more LNG exports are not in the public interest, which means saying no.

At the very least what the Biden administration can and must do is tell the truth. The detailed report on the economics and science of LNG exports is apparently all written and just waiting for the DOE to release, but in some ways almost as important as the report itself will be the cover letter that comes with it. The report will be dense; the language that introduces it should be clear. Though it won’t necessarily stop the new guys from doing what they want, it’s time for President Biden and Energy Secretary Granholm to declare forthrightly that

1. There are too many of these projects in too small a space along the Gulf, and it is intolerable for the people who live there. As James Hiatt, director of For a Better Bayou, said this morning: “through the lenses of optical gas imaging, we’ve seen massive plumes of toxic emissions, undeniable proof that these projects poison the air we breathe. Modeling must use the latest data from the most local sources to fully capture the harm these facilities inflict on Cameron Parish. Anything less is a betrayal of our community. FERC must choose justice over profit and stop sacrificing people for polluters.” People like Hiatt—and especially the indefatigable Roishetta Ozane—have fought as if their lives were on the line, because they are. What heroes!

2. The US—the leading LNG exporter in the world—is producing far more gas already than the world needs. The industry’s rhetorical defense has focused on the need to bolster European supplies after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine—but Europe is now awash in gas, and has used the war to dramatically convert to renewable energy. Every longterm indication is that the continent needs more, not less. Which is why new contracts for LNG exports are designed for Asia—where they will undercut a similar conversion to sun and wind.

3. In climate terms, exporting natural gas is at least as bad as exporting coal. Robert Howarth’s ground-breaking paper laying out the numerical proof was one of the keys in the battle to get the Biden pause; it’s since been published in a peer-reviewed journal. It documents the amount of heat-trapping methane that pours into the air at every point in this process. There is no possible way to square the expansion of LNG with reducing climate pollution. That won’t matter to Trump, of course, since he doesn’t believe in climate change, but it is a robust truth that needs to be stated clearly and publicly.

4. In economic terms, this harms the American consumers who haven’t yet managed to install a heat pump and who are still dependent on natural gas. If shipload after shipload is sent overseas, every analysis has found, the price will go up for those Americans.

It took me far too long to figure out the danger these exports posed. I started writing about it for the New Yorker and on this newsletter in late summer of 2023, and once I understood the situation I stopped writing and started organizing, helping people like Jamie Henn and Jeremy Symons and Maura Cowley build an ad hoc climate wing of the coalition that won the pause. I’m very proud of the role Third Act played in mobilizing public opinion and I’m very proud of the role this small newsletter played too. The New York Times didn’t write a single story until the day before Biden’s decision when it was already a fait accompli; it took independent journalist and independent activism to make it happen.

One reason Harris’s defeat broke my heart is because I think she would have quashed this expansion for good. But I’m hopeful that we delayed them long enough (especially given this new FERC ruling) to seriously screw up the prospects for endless expansion. Every month counts (and every month adds to financing costs); the great movement that arose to defeat these projects has taken more than a dozen months out of the calendar for their promoters, and that may well spell the difference for many projects.

The always-rational gas industry has treated its opponents with the usual respect—as one official of the Canadian producers explained recently, we are all part of a “cult-like” movement seeking “a kind of promised land where everything will operate in perfect balance.” Actually, we’re just a bunch of folks hoping for a planet that doesn’t burn right up—but to Big Oil that must look like pretty much the same thing. At any rate, if it’s a cult led by folks like Roishetta Ozane and James Hiatt, then this Methodist is happy to play his part.

In other energy and climate news:

+Here’s a contestant for the dumbest headline of all time (and no shade on the writer, because They Do Not Write The Headlines). The normally insightful team at Bloomberg produced an article about the remarkable fact that as the Chinese market breaks decisively for EVs, this is driving down demand for gasoline. Instead of heralding this as a potentially mammoth breakthrough in the climate fight, here’s how they titled it: “China’s EV Boom Threatens to Push Gasoline Demand Off a Cliff.”

The more rapid-than-expected uptake of EVs has shifted views among oil forecasters at energy majors, banks and academics in recent months. Unlike in the US and Europe - where peaks in consumption were followed by long plateaus — the drop in demand in the world’s top crude importer is expected to be more pronounced. Brokerage CITIC Futures Co. sees Chinese gasoline consumption dropping by 4% to 5% a year through 2030.

“The future is coming faster in China,” said Ciaran Healy, an oil analyst at the International Energy Agency in Paris. “What we’re seeing now is the medium-term expectations coming ahead of schedule, and that has implications for the shape of Chinese and global demand growth through the rest of the decade.”

For a global oil market, which has come to rely on China as its main growth driver for most of this century, that will erode a major pillar of consumption. The country accounts for almost a fifth of worldwide oil demand, and gasoline makes up about a quarter of that. The prospect of a sharp drop from transport is also coming on top of tepid industrial consumption due to slowing economic growth.

The growing popularity of electric trucks, as well as those that run on liquefied natural gas, is also weighing on demand for diesel. Chinese consumption of the fuel peaked in 2019 and will drop by 3% to 5% a year through 2030, UBS Securities Co. said in a note this month.

Those of you who aren’t journalists may wonder how this kind of story gets written. The answer is two-fold. One, a place like Bloomberg has reporters who cover oil markets full-time, and for them the importance of this kind of information is not that it might help avert the end of the world, but instead that it might roil those markets. And second, journalism has an endless imperative towards controversy—towards bad news, really. (That’s why there were 100 times more stories about the rise of inflation than its fall).

But this miss is worse than most, because the underlying story—that Chinese demand for oil is dropping—is so remarkable. It’s gone straight up for three decades, and now it’s falling, and, Wow. If you were really trying to figure out a ‘challenge’ that this represents, it’s to the American car industry. If Trump sticks to his plans, we’re about to end EV tax credits, which means Detroit will have no support as it attempts to catch up with the Chinese in what is clearly the future of the auto market. In order to get across what a bad idea that is, the head of Kia US decided to speak bluntly, in a way that couldn’t be spun. “It would just be dumb,” he said, and happily that became the headline in the accounts I’ve read. Here’s Tim Levin’s article.

“[The government has] steered the industry in a direction, and I think you need to allow the industry to recover its investments and then let it float.”

The South Korean automaker has invested heavily to bring manufacturing of its EV6 and EV9 electric models to Georgia, in part to comply with the $7,500 purchase incentive’s North American assembly requirement. It’s adjusted supply chains to meet restrictions around battery and component sourcing for qualifying vehicles. While current Kias aren’t eligible, some upcoming 2025 models built in the U.S. should be. The same is true at Kia's corporate cousin Hyundai, which is aiming to entice American buyers to go electric with U.S.-made cars like the Ioniq 5 and new Ioniq 9.

Now Hyundai Motor Group and other carmakers are staring down a future where massive investments in EV models and domestic EV manufacturing are worth less. Various analyses have found that U.S. demand for electric cars would drop without the incentive; the same has happened in places like Europe as well. That would be disruptive to an industry that's invested a lot of money and long-term plans into electrification, Center said.

“You’re pulling the rug out from under the whole industry. And quite frankly, it isn’t just Kia and the import brands,” he said. “A lot of other companies have spent a lot of money trying to comply with the regulations.”

+Any story from the Amazon is of ecological importance, simply because of its role in the planet’s hydrology—and so many of those stories are both sad and fascinating. Alex Cuadros’ new book, When We Sold God’s Eye, is remarkable; you can read a Guardian excerpt here.

Speaking of books, pre-order Auden Schendler’s new volume. After decades as a true activist within the corporate climate community (he’s been head of sustainability at Aspen Skiing Company), he has the cred to really talk about the ways that so much of what passes for industry sustainability is greenwashing. Here’s the great Naomi Oreskes’ blurb on the back cover

"In this uniquely compelling and weirdly fun book--half memoir, half productive polemic--Auden Schendler draws on decades of private-sector experience to argue that corporate sustainability can't just be about changing light bulbs. It must be about corporations fighting--alongside activists, NGOs, and citizens--for the kind of policies that will actually lead to a stable climate."

+Here’s a fascinating look at how a consortium of Boston-area hospitals is building large-scale solar farms in Texas, with all kinds of benefits for the local community.

+A decade ago, someone tried to hack a bunch of environmental activists who were critical of Exxon. They arrested the hacker, and indeed he’s serving time in federal prison (since I was one of the intended targets, the DOJ sends me emails updating me on his status). Though Exxon was, um, a likely instigator of the project, no one has ever proved it; now, according to a Reuters exclusive, the FBI is investigating a top lobbyist for the company.

+The drought in the Northeast and a rising Atlantic are pushing saltwater further up the Delaware River, which is sub-optimal news since Philadelphians prefer drinking fresh water.

“There are alternative sources, but we don’t want to be trucking in bottled water for people,” said Amy Shallcross, the water resource operations manager at the Delaware River basin commission. “We get nervous when it starts to get up near Philadelphia. It’s only 18 miles right now from the drinking water intakes. And sometimes it can shoot upstream really quickly.”

Officials control the salt line by releasing water from two reservoirs, which pushes the front downriver. The commission monitors the flow at Trenton, which is the furthest upstream point affected by the tide. The flow officials target is roughly equivalent to the amount of water in two Olympic-sized swimming pools flowing by per minute. If the rate dips below that, then more water is released.

+As the global climate talks in Baku ground to their desultory conclusion, a couple of interesting commentaries. One, from The Conversation, highlights what the authors call the “thousand ton rule:” for every thousand tons of co2 emitted, on average one death is caused. Which means we could be looking at a billion climate fatalities by century’s end.

Meanwhile, Forest Berman-Hatch, a Canadian freelancer who was following some of the small island delegations at the talks, wrote a piece that captures why many of them walked out of the proceedings:

“That’s where they’re moving the graves. The sea rose too high and started washing away the bones of our ancestors.” Joe Moeono-Kolio tells me this with one hand on the wheel as he guides us around the northeast coast of the Samoan island of Upolu.

He gestures again at a smaller island offshore. “That used to be a peninsula, my father’s elementary school was out there. It’s now underwater.” From the road, I can see a bright blue patch of water that indicates a shallow reef.

“That was the rugby field,” he tells me further down the road…

Prime Minister Feleti Teo of Tuvalu said current policies among the world’s wealthiest nations amount to nothing less than “a death sentence.”

Despite Canada’s claims to being a climate leader, the report points out that Canada is continuing to develop fossil fuel infrastructure, expanding projects in the Alberta oil sands and approving offshore drilling projects, such as Bay du Nord in the Atlantic.

+Just in case some neighbor tells you that heat pumps don’t work in the cold, here’s the article you need to set them straight.

Last month, DOE announced that eight manufacturers had completed field testing of products as part of the department’s Residential Cold Climate Heat Pump Challenge. In homes, the units “reliably provided heat with little assistance from auxiliary elements, even during the coldest winter periods,” according to a department press release.

And just in time for winter, heat pumps tested under the challenge are already being stocked in stores.

DOE launched the Challenge in 2021 with the goal of bringing centrally ducted air-source heat pumps to market that "would be capable of operating at 5˚F (-15˚C) or lower with energy performance well beyond current best-in-class products.”

Electric heat pumps are at least two to three times more energy efficient than either electric resistance heaters or fossil fuel-fired furnaces or boilers. But the performance of conventional air-source heat pumps declines as temperatures plunge, which explains both the stubborn conviction that heat pumps won’t work in extreme cold and DOE’s determination to supply the market with products that will put those concerns to rest.

+Finally, a fascinating study finds that depending on a car to make most of your trips makes you…unhappy. Here’s the abstract:

In the United States (U.S.), cars play a key role in facilitating mobility. Americans heavily rely on their cars for daily travel due to the benefits of access, convenience, comfort, and autonomy that private vehicle travel offers. However, the potential negative implications of high rates of car ownership and use for wellbeing, sustainability, and social equity have sparked the interest of many scholars. We contribute to these lines of inquiry by examining whether and if so, how car dependence relates to people’s satisfaction with life. Our data come from a national survey with a representative sample (n = 2,155) of U.S. adults living in urban and suburban areas. Using descriptive statistics and multivariate regression models, we find that there is a threshold effect of car dependence on life satisfaction. Our results show that beyond a certain point, increases in car dependence yield a decrease in people’s satisfaction with life. For instance, we find that, in a typical week, relying on a car for more than 50 percent of the time for out-of-home activities is associated with a decrease in life satisfaction. These findings suggest that planners and decision-makers should promote multimodality and land use patterns that may help to reduce car dependence and its potential negative effect on subjective wellbeing.

Along the same lines: Fast Company points out that e-bikes are 2024’s ascendant technology, and not the self-driving cars that so many have predicted

With new models flying off the shelves, e-bikes are outselling electric cars in the United States (and also offsetting more gasoline use worldwide). Although 2023 sales numbers aren’t yet available, Ash Lovell, the electric bicycle policy director at industry group People for Bikes, told me that “e-bikes have remained the fastest growing category across the bike industry this year,” with sales of e-cargo bikes—designed to transport children or cargo—showing particular strength.

Many government officials have been praising e-bikes’ societal benefits for a while. This year, their encouraging words were increasingly backed by supportive policies.

Following Denver’s wildly popular offer of e-bike vouchers worth hundreds of dollars, a parade of cities created their own e-bike programs in 2023, including Boulder, the District of Columbia, and Pasadena. States have done so as well, including Colorado, Connecticut, and Hawaii. “The state and local incentives have been an incredibly important driver for e-bikes becoming more popular,” said Lovell. As an added bonus, the new e-bikers could add their voices to those of local residents calling for safer biking infrastructure that can further expand the ranks of e-bikers.

Meanwhile, not my aesthetic, but here’s a look at Jaguar’s new EV, only available in blue and pink. If you really always wanted the batmobile….