Consideration for new LNG terminals delayed with climate risk in mind

decisions TBD

Texas has a few LNG projects in the works, but it's unclear how the delay will affect them. Photo via Getty Images

The Biden administration is delaying consideration of new natural gas export terminals in the United States, even as gas shipments to Europe and Asia have soared since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The election year decision by President Joe Biden aligns with environmentalists who fear the huge increase in exports, in the form of liquefied natural gas, or LNG, is locking in potentially catastrophic planet-warming emissions when the Democratic president has pledged to cut climate pollution in half by 2030.

“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,'' Biden said in a statement Friday. “We will not cede to special interests. We will heed the calls of young people and frontline communities who are using their voices to demand action from those with the power to act.''

Texas has a few LNG projects in the works, but it's unclear how the delay will affect them.

The current economic and environmental analyses the Energy Department uses to evaluate LNG projects don't adequately account for potential cost hikes for American consumers and manufacturers or the impact of greenhouse gas emissions, the White House said.

Industry groups condemned the pause as a “win for Russia," while environmentalists cheered an action they have long been seeking as a way to counter Biden’s approval of the huge Willow oil project in Alaska last year.

“This decision is brave, because Donald Trump (the man who pulled us out of the Paris climate accords on the grounds that climate change is a hoax) will attack it mercilessly,'' environmental activist Bill McKibben wrote in an online post.

“But it’s also very, very savvy: Biden wants young people, who care about climate above all, in his corner. They were angry about his dumb approval of the Willow oil project,'' McKibben added.

A proposed LNG export terminal in Louisiana would produce about 20 times the greenhouse gas emissions of Willow, McKibben noted.

“And of course everyone understands that if Biden is not reelected this win means nothing. It will disappear on Day One when (Trump) begins his relentless campaign to ‘drill drill drill,'" he said.

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said the pause will not affect already authorized export projects and noted that U.S. gas exports reached record highs last year. The pause will not immediately affect U.S. supplies to Europe or Asia, Granholm said, since seven LNG terminals are currently in operation, with several more expected to come online in the next few years.

"We remain committed to ensuring our partners' medium-term energy needs are met,'' she told reporters at a White House briefing late Thursday. If necessary, the Energy Department can allow exceptions for national security needs, Granholm said.

She and other officials declined to say how long the permitting pause will last, but said a study of how proposed LNG projects will affect the environment, the economy and national security will take "some months.'' A public comment period after that will likely delay any decisions on pending LNG projects until after the 2024 presidential election.

U.S. exports of liquefied natural gas began less than a decade ago, but have grown rapidly in recent years to the point that the U.S. has become the world’s largest gas exporter. Exports rose sharply after Russia's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, and Biden and Granholm have celebrated the delivery of U.S. gas to Europe and Asia as a key geopolitical weapon against Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The American Petroleum Institute, the largest lobbying group for the oil and gas industry, turned those comments against the Democratic administration as it condemned Biden's action.

“This is a win for Russia and a loss for American allies, U.S. jobs and global climate progress," said Mike Sommers, API's president and CEO.

"There is no review needed to understand the clear benefits of U.S. LNG (exports) for stabilizing global energy markets, supporting thousands of American jobs and reducing emissions around the world by transitioning countries toward cleaner fuels'' and away from coal, Sommers said in a statement.

Biden's action "is nothing more than a broken promise to U.S. allies, and it’s time for the administration to stop playing politics with global energy security,” he said.

Granholm, who has made it a point to work with oil and gas executives even as Biden has exchanged sometimes pointed barbs with them, said “a lot has happened” since LNG exports began about eight years ago.

“We need to have an even greater understanding of the (global energy) market need, the long-term supply and demand of energy resources and the environmental factors,'' she said. “So by updating the analysis process now, we will be better informed to avoid export authorizations that diminish our domestic energy availability, that weaken our security or that undermine our economy. ‘’

Granholm emphasized the delay “is not a retroactive review of already authorized exports,'' nor is it intended to punish the oil and gas industry.

“We are committed to strengthening energy security here in the U.S. and with our allies, and we’re committed to protecting Americans against climate change as we lead the world into a clean energy future,'' she said.

Jeremy Symons, an environmental consultant and former climate policy adviser at the Environmental Protection Agency, called Biden's decision a “game-changer” in the fight against climate change.

“The president is drawing a line in the sand to put the nation's interests first and listen to climate science,'' Symons said in an interview. ”The days of massive fossil fuel projects like the CP2 project escaping scrutiny from the federal government are over. We now have a president who cares about climate change.''

Symons and other activists have targeted the $10 billion Calcasieu Pass 2 project, or CP2, along Louisiana's Gulf Coast, noting it would be the nation's largest export terminal if built. The project in Cameron Parish would export up to 20 million tons (18.1 million metric tons) of chilled natural gas per year, creating more greenhouse gas emissions than even the Willow project, which environmentalists have decried as a "carbon bomb.''

Symons called the gas project "bad for our nation, bad for our health and bad for our economy.''

Shaylyn Hynes, spokeswoman for the project’s owner, Virginia-based Venture Global, said the Biden administration "continues to create uncertainty about whether our allies can rely on U.S. LNG for their energy security.''

A prolonged pause on LNG exports "would shock the global energy market ... and send a devastating signal to our allies that they can no longer rely on the United States,'' said Hynes, who served as an Energy Department spokeswoman in the Trump administration.

"The true irony is this policy would hurt the climate and lead to increased (greenhouse gas) emissions, as it would force the world to pivot to coal'' instead of natural gas, Hynes said.

Climate activists dispute that, calling LNG a leading contributor to climate change due to methane leaks and an energy-intensive process to liquefy gas.

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Houston researcher dives into accessibility of public EV charging stations

EV equity

A Rice University professor wants to redraw the map for the placement of electric vehicle charging stations to level the playing field for access to EV power sources.

Xinwu Qian, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at Rice, is leading research to rethink where EV charging stations should be installed so that they’re convenient for all motorists going about their day-to-day activities.

“Charging an electric vehicle isn’t just about plugging it in and waiting — it takes 30 minutes to an hour even with the fastest charger — therefore, it’s an activity layered with social, economic, and practical implications,” Qian says on Rice’s website. “While we’ve made great strides in EV adoption, the invisible barriers to public charging access remain a significant challenge.”

According to Qian’s research, public charging stations are more commonly located near low-income households, as these residents are less likely to afford or enjoy access to at-home charging. However, these stations are often far from where they conduct everyday activities.

The Rice report explains that, in contrast, public charging stations are geographically farther from affluent suburban areas. However, they often fit more seamlessly into these residents' daily schedules. As a result, low-income communities face an opportunity gap, where public charging may exist in theory but is less practical in reality.

A 2024 study led by Qian analyzed data from over 28,000 public EV charging stations and 5.5 million points across 20 U.S. cities.

“The findings were stark: Income, rather than proximity, was the dominant factor in determining who benefits most from public EV infrastructure,” Qian says.

“Wealthier individuals were more likely to find a charging station at places they frequent, and they also had the flexibility to spend time at those places while charging their vehicles,” he adds. “Meanwhile, lower-income communities struggled to integrate public charging into their routines due to a compounded issue of shorter dwell times and less alignment with daily activities.”

To make matters worse, businesses often target high-income people when they install charging stations, Qian’s research revealed.

“It’s a sad reality,” Qian said. “If we don’t address these systemic issues now, we risk deepening the divide between those who can afford EVs and those who can’t.”

A grant from the National Science Foundation backs Qian’s further research into this subject. He says the public and private sectors must collaborate to address the inequity in access to public charging stations for EVs.

Energy expert: Unlocking the potential of the Texas grid with AI & DLR

guest column

From bitter cold and flash flooding to wildfire threats, Texas is no stranger to extreme weather, bringing up concerns about the reliability of its grid. Since the winter freeze of 2021, the state’s leaders and lawmakers have more urgently wrestled with how to strengthen the resilience of the grid while also supporting immense load growth.

As Maeve Allsup at Latitude Media pointed out, many of today’s most pressing energy trends are converging in Texas. In fact, a recent ERCOT report estimates that power demand will nearly double by 2030. This spike is a result of lots of large industries, including AI data centers, looking for power. To meet this growing demand, Texas has abundant natural gas, solar and wind resources, making it a focal point for the future of energy.

Several new initiatives are underway to modernize the grid, but the problem is that they take a long time to complete. While building new power generation facilities and transmission lines is necessary, these processes can take 10-plus years to finish. None of these approaches enables both significantly expanded power and the transmission capacity needed to deliver it in the near future.

Beyond “curtailment-enabled headroom”

A study released by Duke University highlighted the “extensive untapped potential” in U.S. power plants for powering up to 100 gigawatts of large loads “while mitigating the need for costly system upgrades.” In a nutshell: There’s enough generating capacity to meet peak demand, so it’s possible to add new loads as long as they’re not adding to the peak. New data centers must connect flexibly with limited on-site generation or storage to cover those few peak hours. This is what the authors mean by “load flexibility” and “curtailment-enabled headroom.”

As I shared with POWER Magazine, while power plants do have significant untapped capacity, the transmission grid might not. The study doesn’t address transmission constraints that can limit power delivery where it’s needed. Congestion is a real problem already without the extra load and could easily wipe out a majority of that additional capacity.

To illustrate this point, think about where you would build a large data center. Next to a nuclear plant? A nuclear plant will already operate flat out and will not have any extra capacity. The “headroom” is available on average in the whole system, not at any single power plant. A peaking gas plant might indeed be idle most of the time, but not 99.5% of the time as highlighted by the Duke authors as the threshold. Your data center would need to take the extra capacity from a number of plants, which may be hundreds of miles apart. The transmission grid might not be able to cope with it.

However, there is also additional headroom or untapped potential in the transmission grid itself that has not been used so far. Grid operators have not been able to maximize their grids because the technology has not existed to do so.

The problem with existing grid management and static line ratings

Traditionally, power lines are given a static rating throughout the year, which is calculated by assuming the worst possible cooling conditions of a hot summer day with no wind. This method leads to conservative capacity estimates and does not account for environmental factors that can impact how much power can actually flow through a line.

Take the wind-cooling effect, for example. Wind cools down power lines and can significantly increase the capacity of the grid. Even a slight wind blowing around four miles per hour can increase transmission line capacity by 30 percent through cooling.

That’s why dynamic line ratings (DLR) are such a useful tool for grid operators. DLR enables the assessment of individual spans of transmission lines to determine how much capacity they can carry under current conditions. On average, DLR increases capacity by a third, helping utilities sell more power while bringing down energy prices for consumers.

However, DLR is not yet widely used. The core problem is that weather models are not accurate enough for grid operators. Wind is very dependent on the detailed landscape, such as forests or hills, surrounding the power line. A typical weather forecast will tell you the average conditions in the 10 square miles around you, not the wind speed in the forest where the power line is. Without accurate wind data at every section, even a small portion of the line risks overheating unless the line is managed conservatively.

DLR solutions have been forced to rely on sensors installed on transmission lines to collect real-time weather measurements, which are then used to estimate line ratings. However, installing and maintaining hundreds of thousands of sensors is extremely time-consuming, if not practically infeasible.

The Elering case study

Last year, my company, Gridraven, tested our machine learning-powered DLR system, which uses a AI-enabled weather model, on 3,100 miles of 110-kilovolt and 330-kilovolt lines operated by Elering, Estonia’s transmission system operator, predicting ratings in 15,000 individual locations. The power lines run through forests and hills, where conventional forecasting systems cannot predict conditions with precision.

From September to November 2024, our average wind forecast accuracy saw a 60 percent improvement over existing technology, resulting in a 40 percent capacity increase compared to the traditional seasonal rating. These results were further validated against actual measurements on transmission towers.

This pilot not only demonstrated the power of AI solutions against traditional DLR systems but also their reliability in challenging conditions and terrain.

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Georg Rute is the CEO of Gridraven, a software provider for Dynamic Line Ratings based on precision weather forecasting available globally. Prior to Gridraven, Rute founded Sympower, a virtual power plant, and was the head of smart grid development at Elering, Estonia's Transmission System Operator. Rute will be onsite at CERAWeek in Houston, March 10-14.

The views expressed herein are Rute's own. A version of this article originally appeared on LinkedIn.

Energy co. to build 30 micro-nuclear reactors in Texas to meet rising demand

going nuclear

A Washington, D.C.-based developer of micro-nuclear technology plans to build 30 micro-nuclear reactors near Abilene to address the rising demand for electricity to operate data centers across Texas.

The company, Last Energy, is seeking permission from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build the microreactors on a more than 200-acre site in Haskell County, about 60 miles north of Abilene.

The privately financed microreactors are expected to go online within roughly two years. They would be connected to ERCOT’s power grid, which serves the bulk of Texas.

“Texas is America’s undisputed energy leader, but skyrocketing population growth and data center development is forcing policymakers, customers, and energy providers to embrace new technologies,” says Bret Kugelmass, founder and CEO of Last Energy.

“Nuclear power is the most effective way to meet Texas’ demand, but our solution—plug-and-play microreactors, designed for scalability and siting flexibility—is the best way to meet it quickly,” Kugelmass adds. “Texas is a state that recognizes energy is a precondition for prosperity, and Last Energy is excited to contribute to that mission.”

Texas is home to more than 340 data centers, according to Perceptive Power Infrastructure. These centers consume nearly 8 gigawatts of power and make up 9 percent of the state’s power demand.

Data centers are one of the most energy-intensive building types, says to the U.S. Department of Energy, and account for approximately 2 percent of the total U.S. electricity use.

Microreactors are 100 to 1,000 times smaller than conventional nuclear reactors, according to the Idaho National Laboratory. Yet each Last Energy microreactor can produce 20 megawatts of thermal energy.

Before announcing the 30 proposed microreactors to be located near Abilene, Last Energy built two full-scale prototypes in Texas in tandem with manufacturing partners. The company has also held demonstration events in Texas, including at CERAWeek 2024 in Houston. Last Energy, founded in 2019, is a founding member of the Texas Nuclear Alliance.

“Texas is the energy capital of America, and we are working to be No. 1 in advanced nuclear power,” Governor Greg Abbott said in a statement. “Last Energy’s microreactor project in Haskell County will help fulfill the state’s growing data center demand. Texas must become a national leader in advanced nuclear energy. By working together with industry leaders like Last Energy, we will usher in a nuclear power renaissance in the United States.”

Nuclear energy is not a major source of power in Texas. In 2023, the state’s two nuclear power plants generated about 7% of the state’s electricity, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Texas gains most of its electricity from natural gas, coal, wind, and solar.

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