Environmental groups and clean-energy advocates are lining up in opposition to the proposed expansion of natural gas exports from a Savannah facility that also is one of the area’s largest producers of climate-impacting pollution.
Southern LNG, situated on Elba Island in a bend of the Savannah River, is one of just two East Coast exporters of liquified natural gas. The facility is authorized by the U.S. Department of Energy to send more than 300 billion cubic feet of LNG annually on ships to foreign markets.
Some 182.5 billion cubic feet of that total can go to 20 countries with which the U.S. has official free trade agreements. Another 130 billion cubic feet is permitted for non-FTA nations.
Last year, Southern LNG asked federal regulators for approval to significantly increase exports to non-FTA countries.
But on Jan. 26, President Joe Biden announced that the Department of Energy would suspend reviews of such requests while it reassessed the environmental and economic impacts of natural gas, effectively putting Southern LNG’s request on hold indefinitely
“This pause on new LNG approvals sees the climate crisis for what it is: the existential threat of our time,” Biden said in announcing the review. “While MAGA Republicans willfully deny the urgency of the climate crisis, condemning the American people to a dangerous future, my administration will not be complacent. We will not cede to special interests.”
The political tone of Biden’s comment underscores the reality that natural gas has become flashpoint for debate over the future of fossil fuels in Georgia and beyond.
Republican U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter, whose coastal Georgia district includes the Southern LNG facility, argued that the pause “threatens our nation’s global leadership” and plays into the hands of Russian President Vladimir Putin by potentially increasing demand for that country’s natural gas, which he then can use to “weaponize access for political gain.”
The United States has clean, affordable and reliable LNG,” Carter added. “If President Biden is concerned about global emissions, he should increase domestic production, as we have some of the cleanest LNG in the world right here at home.”
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A bridge too far?
Domestically, utilities including Georgia Power look at gas and see a reliable bridge as they shutter coal-fired power plants and look to a future when most energy will be generated without the burning of fossil fuels.
That’s because compared to coal, gas generates about half the heat-trapping pollution that causes climate change. And unlike solar panels and wind turbines, gas-fueled facilities can run uninterrupted when the sun’s not shining and there’s no breeze.
However, critics counter that while a shift to natural gas is largely responsible for U.S. carbon emissions falling by more than one-third since 2005, adding fossil fuel generation – even as coal plants are retired – will continue to drive temperatures to a point where the impacts of climate change become catastrophic.
For Georgia, that includes sea-level rise, dangerous heat and extreme rainfall in areas already prone to inland and coastal flooding.
“Rapid expansion of LNG exports like we’ve seen at the Elba terminal accelerate climate risk, make prices for U.S. customers more volatile and strain resources needed to make the clean energy transition,” said Alys Campaigne, climate initiative director for the Southern Environmental Law Center. “We strongly support the Department of Energy taking a close look at the serious climate and economic consequences of LNG.”
Exporter, consumer, polluter
As it pursues a hike in exports, Southern LNG finds itself at the center of energy-related debate – as a mover and user of natural gas, and as one of Chatham County’s largest emitters of climate-impacting pollution.
LNG takes up about 600 times less volume than natural gas in its vapor state, making it ideal for shipping. But liquification is energy intensive because it requires chilling the gas to roughly minus 260 degrees.
For Southern LNG, that process involves hundreds of compressors actually fueled by natural gas.
In 2022 – the latest full year of data available from the EPA – operations at the Elba Island plant led to almost 140 million metric tons of greenhouse gas pollution. Nearly all of that was carbon dioxide, the leading contributor to climate change.
That level of emissions is the equivalent of what would be produced by more than 31,000 U.S. passenger vehicles over the period of a year, according to the EPA.
In Chatham County, only the International Paper Savannah Plant, U.S. Sugar Savannah Refinery and City of Savannah Dean Forest…
Read More: Biden pauses divisive expansion of Savannah natural gas facility