Europe’s Warm Embrace Of LNG Raises Methane Emissions Concerns

Emily Pickrell, UH Energy Scholar

Europe is desperately seeking more natural gas imports in the name of national security but is scrambling to explain how this production fits into the global need to reduce damaging methane and greenhouse gas emissions.

It’s a good example of a growing issue: how energy resources may meet immediate national economic and security needs, yet could disrupt long term climate change goals.

Europe’s interest in more LNG imports is logical. Its dependence on Russian gas has become unworkable, given the current Russia-Ukraine war. While Europe has worked hard to tout its interest in renewable energy, Putin’s threat to Europe has provided a security justification to explore alternative pathways to import gas.

Russia currently supplies (by pipeline) about 40% of Europe’s natural gas demand, with few readily available alternatives. The European Union has been vocal about its need to replace Russian fossil fuels and has introduced its RePowerEU plan, which will focus on increasing energy efficiency and clean energy use. In doing so, it hopes to cut Russian oil and gas imports by two-third this year and the remaining one-third by 2027.

But the bulk of the remainder will be made up for with gas from LNG. Though expansion of pipelines from Spain could also ultimately allow more natural gas inflow in to Europe, Europe must have immediate replacements that can come online now and in the near future. For this plan to work, Europe will need to make huge infrastructure investments in regasification facilities, and this may factor into a huge greenhouse gas emissions increase, including methane.

European officials have already started to acknowledge how damaging these methane emissions can be. The global warming potential of methane is estimated to be more than 80 times that of carbon dioxide in the first 20 years after it is released, according to the International Energy Agency’s Methane Tracker website.

Even after 100 years, it is still about 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide molecules. And while methane emissions come from many source – agriculture, for example – the emissions coming from the energy industry have technology solutions, such as leak detections or ending the practice of venting gas.

Looking at how LNG compares to Russian gas’ dismal environmental footprint does not provide much comfort that Europe will be able to reduce global methane emissions by this change.

It’s true that Russian gas from Gazprom is notoriously dirty: the Russian natural gas production involves high methane emissions. Russia’s oil and gas industry emitted 18.3 million tons of methane in 2021, exceeding the 17 million tons emitted by the U.S. or the 4 million tons of methane emitted by European oil and gas production.

Yet LNG is dirtier.

In a direct comparison, even the relatively clean LNG from Qatar or Australia emits between 60 to 175% more gashouse gas emissions than Russia’s natural gas. U.S. gas is even worse, because of the high fugitive methane emissions that occur in production and processing.

LNG does better in a head-to-head comparison with coal. Using LNG in power plants can reduce emissions 40% to 100% from coal power, depending on how the LNG was produced and shipped, as well as the quality of the coal and the methods for mining it.

Prior to the Ukraine invasion, Europe had already begun to try to address the need to reduce methane emissions. In 2020, the EU’s Methane Strategy was published. This strategy proposed more accurate measurements and reporting as a place to start.

“The existing systems we have for collecting and reconciling methane data do not allow us to identify with high precision where emissions happen, and in what volumes,” the European Commission wrote on its website, explaining its proposed reduction methodology. “Every chance to reinforce our capability to have good, independent, reliable numbers will translate into more focused, better-targeted actions.”

The strategy details plans to tally methane emissions from all sources, including natural gas imported into EU countries. Europe’s Green Deal, a set of policy initiatives designed to make the EU climate neutral by 2050, also has methane provisions.

It includes plans for requirements for better reporting, obligations to improve leak detection and repair and establishes rules to eliminate routine venting and flaring.

In the COP26 climate summit, European leaders were vocal about others following their lead: they pushed hard for a 30% reduction in methane emissions from 2020 levels by the end of the decade.

Now, in light of the war, the situation is looking more complicated, and there are now seven LNG facilities under construction and 26 more planned, as Europe gets more aggressive about moving away from Russian gas.

“I do think that security has trumped climate concerns in Europe, and there seems to be no role for Russian gas in the future without major geo-political changes,” said Victor Flatt, the co-director of the Environment, Energy, and Natural Resources Center at the University of Houston Law Center. “Being addicted to Russian oil and gas is a big, big problem. In that sense, security trumps climate, at least for now.”

Europe is attempting to balance this projected LNG growth with more offshore wind and other renewable projects.

Yet Europe’s decision to invest in LNG could undermine its own methane reduction commitments, especially since the significant investment made will tend to justify continuing these operations for decades to come.

Emily Pickrell is a veteran energy reporter, with more than 12 years of experience covering everything from oil fields to industrial water policy to the latest on Mexican climate change laws. Emily has reported on energy issues from around the U.S., Mexico and the United Kingdom. Prior to journalism, Emily worked as a policy analyst for the U.S. Government Accountability Office and as an auditor for the international aid organization, CARE.

UH Energy is the University of Houston’s hub for energy education, research and technology incubation, working to shape the energy future and forge new business approaches in the energy industry.