War in Ukraine again brings into question our reliance on fossil fuels to power our economies. Especially oil and gas that fill the coffers of imperialistic regimes, ultimately funding tragedies such as the one in Ukraine.
The supply of natural gas is an important issue in this debate. Europe depends on Russia for more than 40% of its gas. It has traditionally been used for heating our homes and producing electricity. But more recently, it is being sold as a solution to “clean up” shipping.
In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Europe is considering how to reduce its reliance on Russian gas. An increasingly loud — but not new — narrative is that we can switch to more LNG.
As it is in liquid form, it is easier to transport by ships and therefore provides more flexibility than gas that passes through pipes.
But ships carrying LNG as cargo to help Europe reduce dependence on Russian pipeline gas are one thing; ships starting to use LNG as a marine fuel are another. LNG lobbyists are eagerly pushing for the latter. This would be a mistake.
For a sector that uses the world’s dirtiest fuels — residual fuel oil — LNG is being promoted as the fuel of the future.
While natural gas supplies about 20% of electricity and 37% of heat production in the European Union, it makes up only 6% of fuel used by ships. But that is about to change. The EU’s proposal for a low greenhouse gas (GHG) fuel standard is designed to increase the share of LNG in shipping.
By 2030, EU shipping could be using about 9.3 million tonnes of LNG per year, which is larger than the total annual gas consumption of Romania. That leads us to a paradoxical situation in which the EU is pushing shipping towards gas while at the same time desperately trying to wean itself off Russian gas.
Natural gas is a fossil fuel. Although in some cases it can deliver marginal benefits, in most cases it does the opposite because of slippages and leaks of methane — a potent GHG.
Faced with this argument, promoters of LNG point out the possibility of switching to biomethane — a gaseous biofuel largely derived from waste raw materials. But biomethane production is not scalable. There is only so much cow manure and municipal waste to go around.
Analysis shows that biomethane would not be enough to meet the needs of the European households that already rely on natural gas for heating and cooking. In that case, why burn limited resources in shipping, which traditionally hasn’t relied on natural gas, while European electricity and heating systems are heavily dependent on Russian gas?
And that barely scratches the surface. Russia is not the biggest player in the LNG market, but it is slowly gaining market share. One of its main production facilities is on the Yamal Peninsula in the Russian Arctic, a project jointly developed by French energy giant TotalEnergies.
Surprise, surprise. TotalEnergies is also one of the most prominent promoters of LNG in shipping and has signed agreements with French container giant CMA CGM to supply LNG and has launched LNG bunkering facilities in the ports of Marseilles and Rotterdam.
Given the geopolitical context, it is clear that switching to LNG in shipping is also feeding the war-waging resources of the Kremlin. Let us not forget, unlike some other majors, TotalEnergies decided not to pull out of the Russian oil and gas business.
Some would argue that dependence on Russian LNG can be solved via diversification. But this argument misses the point. Once LNG is in the market, it gets sold and resold, making it difficult to trace the origin.
Secondly, some of the world’s largest LNG importers have not joined Western sanctions on Russia. This means the volumes they were traditionally importing from other sources can be displaced with Russian gas, and we are back to square one and Russian gas will keep on flowing.
Europe is bound to replace some of the Russian gas with increased LNG imports for the next couple of months. If this is necessary to ensure that homes are heated and lights stay on, it should serve as a wake-up call for European politicians not to repeat the mistakes with gas elsewhere.
Whether of Russian origin or from elsewhere, natural gas is a fossil fuel. Relying on it puts Europe at the mercy of despots.
Faig Abbasov is shipping director at clean transport
campaign group Transport & Environment
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