Joe Biden will go down in history as the worst President ever because he was never in charge. Given his previous track record, the results might have been even worse had he been in charge, but it’s hard to get below zero.
His administration just released the LNG study for which approvals of new facilities were ‘paused.’ It shows us just how bad the Biden gang has been. The report, titled “Energy, Economic, and Environmental Assessment of U.S. LNG Exports” is, as one might have expected, a pile of pseudo-science or, as I like to say, bseudo-science a/k/a BS.
Chesterton wrote that “Almost all our pseudo-science proceeds on the principle of saying that one thing follows on another thing, and then dogmatizing about the third thing that is to follow.” That is precisely what this LNG does. It acknowledges natural gas development produces economic activity, then dogmatizes about the global warming that it speculates will follow.
The proof is in the first paragraph (emphasis added):
This multi-volume study of U.S. LNG exports serves to provide an updated understanding of the potential effects of U.S. LNG exports on the domestic economy, U.S. households and consumers; communities that live near locations where natural gas is produced or exported; domestic and international energy security, including effects on U.S. trading partners; and the environment and climate. Prior to this study, Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) most recent economic and environmental analyses of U.S. LNG exports were published in 2018 and 2019, respectively. At that time, U.S. LNG exports were just getting underway and our export capacity was 4 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d), less than one-third of what it is today. Since then, our world and the global natural gas sector have changed significantly: the U.S. has become the top global exporter of LNG; Russia has invaded Ukraine and used energy as a weapon to undermine European and global security; the impacts and costs of extreme weather and natural disasters fueled by climate change have increased dramatically; and the pace of the energy transition and technological innovation has itself accelerated.
We immediately know from this, without reading further, that we’re going to hear how natural gas development is somehow harmful to the communities it revitalizes and that it is also somehow responsible for extreme weather events, which is pure pseudo-science.
The premises of the study are faulty from the outset. Moreover, the above nonsense is then followed by truthful equivocations intended to create plausible deniability as others as critics dispense with the conclusions:
Given the global scope and timeframe examined in this study, there should be recognition of the inherent uncertainty in conclusions, especially given their size relative to the overall global economy and energy system.
This study is not intended to serve as a forecast of U.S. LNG exports and impacts. Rather, it is an exercise exploring alternative conditional scenarios of future U.S. LNG exports and examining their implications for global and U.S. energy systems, economic systems, and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This type of scenario analysis is a well-established analytical approach for exploring complex relationships across a range of variables.
The scenarios explored in this study span a range of U.S. LNG export outcomes. Each scenario relies on input assumptions regarding many domestic, international, economic, and non-economic factors, such as future socioeconomic development, technology and resource availability, technological advancement, and institutional change. A full uncertainty analysis encompassing all underlying factors is beyond the scope of this study.
For the portions of this study that have modeled results, the study does not attach probabilities to any of the scenarios examined.
Why would one bother doing a study with no conclusions of reasonable professional certainty? The answer, of course, is that is a political document, not a scientific one. The Biden gang, whoever they are, as we’ve never been told who really runs things, simply wanted something that could be held up as evidence by sycophant propaganda outlets such as Bloomberg News that we shouldn’t be developing our natural gas.
The report is authored by a D.C. swamp firm feeding at the government trough. It’s called OnLocation, Inc. and the first page of its website prominently displays this:
And, a little further down, we find this:
So, let me understand this. The consultant to the Feds on understanding LNG exports was simultaneously conducting a study for the anti-fossil fuel, Rockefeller-funded NRDC about how to incorporate climate impacts into energy models? Yes, and that’s the beginning and the end of the intellectual honesty in the LNG report. It is intended to deliver sound bites for use by NRDC types, but there’s always that plausible deniability, too, in the event some Congress member down the road challenges the sound bite.
Take, for example, this little tidbit on page S-4:
Higher U.S. LNG export levels in 2050 are associated with higher U.S. residential natural gas prices.
That’s a dandy one to throw out on behalf of the fractivists. But, two bullets above we find this, which will never make it into the news narrative, of course:
This study does not include forward-looking modeling on the impacts of increasing LNG exports on natural gas price volatility. Given the unique role of the U.S. as the largest global producer, consumer, and, more recently, exporter of natural gas, there is uncertainty in how rising export levels will affect the domestic market. While there has not been a consistent relationship between domestic prices and export levels to date, that could change as a larger percentage of U.S. natural gas is exported.
Could there be any better illustration of Chesterton’s pseudo-science definition? No. And, there is a whole lot more that’s wrong with this report of similar junky nature. A read of the “Key Findings: Environmental and Community Effects” section is like a rerun of NRDC frack-attack articles from 15 years ago; all claim and no substance. Curiously, there is no mention of committed fractivist Bob Howarth’s supposed contribution to the study, but what is put down on paper is similarly themed.
I asked both Grok and Perplexity how much OnLocation, inc. got paid for the "Energy, Economic, and Environmental Assessment of U.S. LNG Exports" study and got no specific answers, but I did find OnLocation, Inc. has been pulling down one heck of a amount of money from the Feds over the last few years. This is how our government works today, using well-connected firms with inherent biases inclined to the favored government narratives to produce stories that advance those narratives.
Frankly, everything about this study stinks to high heaven.
#OnLocationInc #NaturalGas #LNG #Exports #NRDC #Biden #PseudoScience
The irony, same week that Biden releases the report discouraging use of LNG then we get the report of increased global coal consumption. Any possible connection?
Report Written by pilot political hacks with no comprehension of energy and no capability to become educated into comprehension. Simply stated a report from buffoons,