A new report from the U.S. Department of Energy shows that liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports may never deliver a net climate benefit—not if the analysis accurately accounts for methane releases from natural gas production. The DoE report assumes an “absurdly low leakage rate,” Romm reports—no more than 1.6%, compared to a range of 3.6% to 7.1% in a recent Stanford study. “To make LNG a climate winner, you’d have to assume levels of methane leakage that are a factor of two to three lower than what recent observations reveal,” he warns.
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