What is Liquefied Natural Gas?
The signing of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 acted as a great game-changer in the world’s energy sector. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change adopted the Kyoto Protocol to ensure that its state parties remain committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. As such, the wide acceptance of liquefied natural gas emerged as one of the greatest gains of the Kyoto Protocol.
The Advent of Liquefied Natural Gas
Liquefied natural gas (LNG) has emerged as the energy of the future for its nature as one of the cleanest fossil fuels. This is important to note, the current story that is shoved in your face by the general media is that all fossil fuels are bad and contribute to destroying the planet. The story is that if you invest in or talk positively about fossil fuels, you are evil in some sense. You don’t care about the environment, you don’t care about future generations, you don’t care about this beautiful earth of ours and that you are contributing to our collective suffering.
But the problem is that automatically deferring to solar energy and wind energy as the energy of the future, is not practical at all, at least at the present moment. Wes Edens, the owner the Milwaukee Bucks and the owner of New Fortress Energy, an LNG company, noted that the sun doesn’t shine all the time and the wind doesn’t always blow.
That is a folksy way of saying that these sources provide intermittent power, as they obtain the power, they distribute it. Solar and wind still have a long way to go in becoming fully reliable. They require more storage and general investments to keep the costs down. Indeed, power firms rely on natural gas, generally, to act as a reliable backup to when solar and wind go down.
Natural gas and LNG help to accelerate the change from “dirty fuel sources” to more clean ones. It is fantastic because it is inexpensive and efficient. In essence, LNG represents an excellent alternative to the energy sources that the world relied on to combat global warming and minimize greenhouse gas emissions. But LNG also provides value because of how it can work with hydrogen, another abundant and efficient source of energy.
What is Liquefied Natural Gas?
LNG refers to natural gas that has undergone cooling at temperatures below -260 degrees Fahrenheit for storage and shipping. In essence, extreme cooling aims at reducing the volume of natural gas by about 600 times compared to its occurrence in the gaseous state. The liquefaction process used makes it easy to transport LNG to areas that lack natural gas pipelines.
In essence, LNG has emerged as a solution for countries that have the desire to provide more energy among their citizens while reducing its impacts on the environment for its ability to reduce emissions and improve the quality of air. To date, LNG is ranked as the most effective replacement for diesel and coal. Similarly, LNG is highly essential in the areas of the economy like freight transport and industrial operations that are extremely challenging to electrify.
LNG and transition to clean energy
LNG is ranked as the cleanest fossil fuel available in nature. An important fact is that natural gas use will account for over 25% of the global energy portfolio by 2035. The combustion of LNG doesn’t emit fumes, soot, or dust. Similarly, LNG combustion reduces the emission of carbon dioxide by 30% compared to conventional non-clean sources of energy like coal.
Interestingly, LNG leads to a 60% reduction in nitrogen gas emission and about a 100% reduction in the emission of environmentally hazardous sulfur dioxide. In this respect, LNG has become a great solution in the dimension of the global energy mix with other renewable energies like biomass, solar, and wind power in fuel or electricity production.
The competitiveness of liquefied natural gas and its minimal environmental impacts have made it a fuel of choice for the current and future generations. To date, industrial sectors, and global economies alike have adopted LNGs for their sustainable properties.
