Going nowhere, and he knows it

proposed passamaquoddy bay LNG terminal, never to be built

Biden vows to bring US LNG to Europe, but he’s lying

RHETORIC VS REALITY: Biden’s Commitment For US LNG To Supply Europe Faces Strong Headwinds.

While committing the US to help Germany and other European nations wean themselves off of Russian natural gas seems to be a noble goal, there is just one problem: The President apparently didn’t talk the US LNG industry about it before he made the agreement. Reading the quotes from executives at Tellurian in the New York Times article linked here, it is apparent that they were caught off-guard by the President’s announcement. “I have no idea how they are going to do this, but I don’t want to criticize them, because for the first time they are trying to do the right thing,” said Charif Souki, the Times quotes executive chairman of Tellurian as saying.

Like every other industry in the United States, U.S. LNG is a private enterprise made up of an array of competing companies that operate in a capitalist, free market system. Given that reality, we are left to wonder how the President and his senior advisors plan to go about ensuring that the US meets the promises the President made in the agreement with the European Union? Does he plan to order his regulators to streamline permitting processes? Does he plan to somehow order banks and ESG investor groups to stop denying capital to companies in the industry, capital needed to fund their $10 billion LNG export facilities?

No, Biden planned to say something that would play well on TV.

Here’s a screed from an environmentalist group celebrating the killing of an LNG project in Maine back in 2016. Multiply this zealotry 1,000 times across the country and include the politicians and judges who are similarly inclined, and you’ll see why our energy infrastructure is dying. And as I keep noting, these same zealots are out there now, blocking electrical transmission corridors, battery plants and rare earth mining. It’s back to the caves.

Lessons for Big Gas from Maine’s Last Proposed LNG Terminal

With very little fanfare, the last proposal for a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal in Maine was just dismissed by federal regulators. At least half a dozen LNG terminal projects have been proposed in Downeast Maine over the last 15 years, with this last one in play, or better yet, suspended animation, for the last 10. Several of the projects involved massive investments of time by federal and state regulators; all of them promised economic prosperity and low-cost energy.

Sound familiar? Of course it does. It’s the same propaganda that we’re currently being fed about natural gas pipelines: if we spend public money (yours and mine) to entice the private sector (Big Gas) to build massive new energy infrastructure, then economic prosperity and cheap energy will follow.

It’s a story that rang hollow for all of those proposed LNG projects – and it rings just as hollow for Big Gas.

We Didn’t Need New Gas Terminals Then…

The proposed $2 billion project first proposed by Downeast LNG a decade ago would have included an 80-acre terminal site for both importing and exporting liquefied natural gas – all perched along the shores of Passamaquoddy Bay. Many of the terminals proposed over the years threatened the pristine Downeast coastline. Lucky for Maine, a hardy and indefatigable band of local residents, led by the Save Passamaquoddy Bay folks in Eastport and their counterparts in New Brunswick, always kept a spotlight on the environmental and safety risks of the many proposals.

At CLF, we focused on the need, or lack thereof, for the projects, given the existing LNG facilities in New Brunswick and in Boston. These existing (and underutilized) facilities weren’t only key to debunking the argument for new LNG terminals, however; they’re also central to deflating the current clamor for massive new gas pipelines. A white paper released by CLF last year showed that maximizing the use of this existing LNG infrastructure is a key component to the most efficient and cost-effective way of relieving constraints on the region’s existing gas pipeline system during the winter months.

…And We Don’t Need New Gas Pipelines Now

The last thing Maine needs are white elephant projects like Downeast LNG – or Spectra’s proposed Access Northeast natural gas pipeline. CLF has argued for months that the scheme approved by Maine’s Public Utilities Commission to force electricity consumers to bankroll a massive new pipeline is too risky, because a pipeline just isn’t needed (three private studiescontracted by the PUC agreed). Such a scheme has also been proposed by utilities commissions in other states across the region. When the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court waded into the fray this month, it sided with CLF – and its decision is reverberating throughout New England, including here in Maine.

Proposals for LNG terminals withered on the vine because the markets recognized that there was no need for them. Now the markets are sending a clear signal about proposals for large-scale natural gas infrastructure. Let’s make sure it doesn’t take another 15 years for Big Gas to get the message: Maine doesn’t need any more white elephant sales.