Natural gas has a significant role to play as an essential fuel to generate electricity and help us transition to a low emissions world.
Supplying 22% of the energy used word-wide, the use of natural gas is growing due to its versatility and impact on the environment. World-wide energy production and consumption accounts for two-thirds of total greenhouse gas emissions and 80% of CO2 (International Energy Agency), therefore, the energy sector has a vital role to play to reduce emissions and mitigate climate change.
Natural gas as a fuel is the most efficient solution for bringing about a structured transition to a low-carbon future. LNG regasification terminals, even when operating at maximum capacity, have much lower emissions than many other industrial facilities; an LNG terminal has the opportunity to mitigate GHGs by reducing methane emissions. The key to achieving this lies in reducing the methane emissions associated with production, as their global warming potential is 25 times greater than CO2 over a period of 100 years.
Natural gas is the cleanest fossil fuel available, with the lowest environmental potential. It will play an immediate, key role in reducing GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions, especially in generating electricity.
Natural Gas emits half as much CO2 as coal.
The Saint John LNG terminal regasifies liquefied natural gas (LNG) into natural gas. When comparing the lifecycle of GHG emissions between a power plant fired by natural gas (regasified from LNG) versus coal, existing domestic coal power plants produce two and a half times more emissions on a lifecycle basis than that of LNG. Even the cleanest coal technologies produce 70% more lifecycle emissions than LNG.
The majority of our Saint John LNG Terminal’s emissions come from the regasification process, while a much smaller portion comes from the use of our flare system. In addition, we have also considered the use of vehicles and equipment on site as part of our total emissions output.
Saint John LNG has worked hard to reduce its facility’s emissions as much as possible over the last several years in a variety of ways. As part of our commitment to improve operational efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Saint John LNG has completed numerous upgrades over the past few years, investing $50 million in upgrades in the process infrastructure and additional $5 million in Reliability and Efficiency programs. As a result, we have reduced our emissions to less than 10,000 tonnes in 2017, which accounts for less than 1% of the total emissions of New Brunswick.
In addition, we carry out a continuous leak detection and repair (LDAR) program to manage methane emissions at our facility and continue to seek new opportunities to further reduce emissions.