Skip to content

Subscriber Only

Energy & Science

Gas Exports Have a Dirty Secret: A Carbon Footprint Rivaling Coal’s

New facilities to send LNG overseas would move U.S. ‘further away from climate goals.’

Donald Trump and others tour the Cameron LNG Export Facility in Hackberry, Louisiana, on May 14, 2019. — Donald Trump and others tour the Cameron LNG Export Facility in Hackberry, Louisiana, on May 14, 2019.
Photographer: Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images

By

Catherine Traywick,

Stephen Cunningham,

Naureen S Malik, and

January 23, 2020, 10:00 AM UTCUpdated onJanuary 23, 2020, 8:59 PM UTC

In May, while President Donald Trump toured a new $10 billion plant designed to prepare natural gas for export, he made a vow. Such facilities would be good for the environment, he said, or they won’t get approved.

The president has greenlit 11 projects so far, bringing the U.S. total to 18. Environmentalists once touted the fuel, nicknamed “freedom gas” by the Trump administration, as a better energy alternative, but an analysis shows the plants’ potential carbon dioxide emissions rival those of coal.