ELI5 - The Canadian Government is going all in on LNG. LNG is about 50% cleaner than Coal. That's only at the consumption location, it's output goes up by 50% when taking into consideration transport, leaks, etc.. making it 75% of coal. How is this strategy better than solar/wind + batteries? I just don't get how a different type of fossil fuel is better than just changing to renewable.
#eli5 #lng #solar
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@bradfeicht At least LNG is a exportable energy that makes a little sense, unlike the push of the last decade for shipping hydrogen in the form of liquid or fixed in ammonia. I spent a couple months last year trying to make that make sense, and I couldn't from a science, engineering or business angle. It doesn't make sense for export, and only barely makes sense for long term storage, something that becomes uneconomically for BESS when the timeline is over a few weeks.
@Jeff I also don't get Hydrogen. Not a scientist but seems like a hype thing, from my limited knowledge.
@bradfeicht It is exportable, where Renewable energy is not. That it is why it is attractive from a policy perspective.
The promotion of LNG is NOT for domestic consumption, it is for export to other nations so that our dollar continues to have buying power to import products.
I'm not for/against this policy (I lean against, but understand it).
@Jeff The renewables themselves no, but the solar panels are exportable. Is the market or margins not there? As long as someone burns it, it impacts our climate. Seems deeply short sighted, which I guess is the part that confuses me. I thought I might be missing something.
@bradfeicht IMO it is only shortsighted if you are looking at a 50y horizon, but in the next 10-20y it can make sense. If we can find other markets like Asia and the EU for our gas it will lessen our reliance on exports to the USA.
The more options we have, the more leverage we have with dealing with bad neighbours.
@Jeff The diversification angle definitely helps me wrap my brain around it it. The fact that we're ramping up, is still weird to me. I guess it's the new hot fossil fuel and we need to export something..
@bradfeicht Love it or hate it, I'm the latter, since the OG NAFTA (and even before but to a much lesser extent) the Canadian economy is geared as a natural resource extractive one. We take things out of the ground (oil, gas, minerals, etc) and then ship them around the world to be processed. Our dollar is heavily tied to it, which is why you see it strengthen with oil prices. It will take a while to shift it to something else, and we need to survive that transition.
@Jeff Well, here's to surviving this.. 🍻