On her drive to work each day, Annette Bryan passes what she considers an 8-million-gallon affront to the climate crisis. Bryan is a Puyallup Tribal Council member, and her foray into politics was instigated in no small part by the liquefied natural gas, or LNG, facility under construction in the Tacoma, Washington tideflats. When it begins operation in 2021, the facility will produce up to 500,000 gallons of LNG daily — the same stuff used to heat homes, but supercooled to a denser liquid state. An additional 8 million gallons will be stored in a tank onsite.
To proponents, LNG is a classic “bridge fuel” solution. Puget Sound Energy, the utility behind the facility, and Totem Ocean Trailer Express, the company whose ships will use much of the fuel, say natural gas is cleaner than the diesel that ships or city buses would otherwise run on. An environmental impact statement — the second one produced in this meandering, contentious process — released in March said the LNG-for-diesel swap would reduce annual greenhouse gas emissions about 3 percent. In a statement, PSE said the facility “will bring cleaner air to Tacoma, help reduce greenhouse gases, and ensure our customers’ homes stay warm on the coldest days of the year.”
But Bryan, the rest of the Puyallup elected leadership, and a growing number of activists around the West — many of them youth and people of color — think that, given the climate crisis at hand, the marginal gains of natural gas don’t do enough to offset the fact that it’s still contributing to global warming.
“Philosophically, human beings have some decisions that they need to make,” Bryan said. “This fracking around the globe is causing damage that we’re just now starting to see the impacts of. So why would we continue to add to something that we know is harmful to our environment? I don’t get it.”
Bryan’s camp is expanding barely a decade after natural gas was widely considered to be a pragmatic transition between coal and renewable energy. Cities are beginning to crack down on natural gas in new homes and offices, and activists are hounding politicians over the development of any new fossil-fuel infrastructure. While some believe gas is still a necessary player on our path to clean energy, others argue it’s time natural gas goes the way of coal.
“There is an increasing realization that we have to move away from fossil fuels because we have to solve the climate crisis, and we can’t move away from fossil fuels if we’re building new fossil fuel infrastructure,” said Eric de Place, an energy analyst with the Sightline Institute, a think tank in Seattle.
It’s an odd state of affairs for the fuel that almost single-handedly brought down the nation’s reliance on coal. Many carbon-minded powerbrokers, none more influential than former President Barack Obama, actively promoted natural gas as step one on the path to clean energy. Power plants can switch from coal to gas with relatively simple retrofits, and the advent of hydraulic fracturing and relatively loose federal regulations on drilling ushered in a gas boom. Ships and buses run by natural gas instead of petroleum-based fuel were touted as green breakthroughs. As natural gas prices plummeted, coal was undercut — by 2015, gas was the nation’s No. 1 energy source. Today, about 35 percent of U.S. electricity comes from natural gas.
But more knowledge about the fuel’s environmental toll and the severity of climate change has folks rethinking how long we ought to lean on the alternative fossil fuel. Methane, the primary compound in natural gas, has a warming effect at least 30 times greater than carbon dioxide, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and the drilling industry has been pretty sloppy with it. Methane leaks from oil and gas operations, according to the International Energy Agency, account for the equivalent warming of 2.4 billion tons of carbon dioxide.
“At that level, these emissions would be more than the energy-related CO2 emissions of any country except the U.S. and China,” Columbia University’s Jonathan Elkind and Akos Losz wrote recently. “Moreover, a number of recent high-profile academic studies indicate that the environmental impact of oil and gas-related methane emissions could be worse than previously thought.”
As with many clean energy developments, natural gas pushback is a tide rising from the West Coast. In July, Berkeley, California, became the first city to enact an outright ban, set to take effect next year, on natural gas in new buildings — no gas stoves, furnaces, or water heaters allowed. The measure was approved unanimously, and since then more than 20 other municipalities, including San Jose, have passed similar measures.
Opposition to utility-scale natural gas is growing, too. In Southern California, activists are pressing leaders to ditch a plan to replace a Utah coal plant, a major source of Los Angeles’ electricity, with an $865 million natural gas facility. With climate projections growing increasingly dire, activists and community groups wrote a letter urging Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti to prioritize renewable energy at all costs, especially given California’s and Los Angeles’ commitment to sourcing carbon-free power in the coming decades. “The low hanging fruit — literally the least we can do — is decline to build new fossil fuel infrastructure,” the letter reads.
Aura Vasquez demonstrates just how quickly attitudes about natural gas have shifted. A former Los Angeles Department of Water and Power commissioner, Vasquez voted in summer 2018 to authorize the new gas plant. In an interview, she described the choice as a lesser of two evils, one that was expected to reduce the plant’s emissions 83 percent and maintain Los Angeles’ connection with a huge transmission line that eventually might funnel renewable power to the metro area. It wasn’t perfect, Vasquez said, but it was a good option at the time.
Times have changed. “Now, we have other technologies that we didn’t consider then,” Vasquez said. Battery storage, hydrogen power — all of it is “making it easier for people that are fighting climate change and such to make that divestment, and invest in renewables.” That’s what she thinks LADWP should do now; Vasquez, who is running for a Los Angeles City Council position, signed the letter opposing the very plant she supported 17 months earlier.
But some experts caution against abandoning natural gas too quickly. In a report, the Energy Futures Initiative identified natural gas power plants as one of the “key technologies” that would enable California to go carbon-free by 2045. “Natural gas generation will continue to play a key role in providing California’s electric grid with operational flexibility and system reliability, while enabling the growth and integration of intermittent renewables,” the report said. It also cautioned against the gas-banning policies enacted by a growing number of cities in that state, arguing that such regulations could affect price volatility and overall energy availability.
De Place, the Sightline analyst, adds that while bans in some California cities are a first step, they should be followed by further policy change. “The second step is providing the right incentives for people to transition away from fossil fuels to using clean energy.” For example, subsidies on more efficient heat pumps in lieu of gas-powered furnaces could compel homeowners to go electric. Further, de Place argues cities can levy franchise fees on utilities that would make installing gas infrastructure more expensive.
University of California, Los Angeles professor Rajit Gadh thinks we’re nearing a point where the 24-7 reliability of natural gas won’t be needed. Small communities can utilize “microgrids” that combine solar energy and battery storage to essentially power themselves. Gadh and his colleagues at the Smart Grid Energy Research Center have demonstrated how electric vehicles can be hooked to the grid to power homes and buildings: The sun charges batteries in parked cars during the day, which then power lights and air conditioners in the afternoon and evenings.
“People always said, ‘Solar — what are you going to do at night?’ Well, guess what, guys — technically, I have a solution for you. It exists!” Gadh said. “The traditional grid was: generation is going to be constant, whether you like it or not. In the smart grid, we’re taking the demand side, and feeding it to the supply side.”
Vasquez sees the possibility of Gadh’s microgrids as an economic and health boon for her potential constituents in District 10, which is 91 percent people of color. The 194 oil and gas wells within district boundaries have delivered air pollution and groundwater contamination, but not good jobs — incomes here are among Los Angeles’ lowest. Before sitting on the LADWP commission, Vasquez was a community and environmental organizer with groups like the Sierra Club.
“Yes, we’re going to be fighting climate change. Yes, we have people dying from asthma and respiratory illness because our air is disgusting,” Vasquez said. “But we also can, as we look for solutions, bring economic prosperity to those who most need it, and are most disenfranchised.”
In Washington, the Puyallup Tribe of Indians and the Tacoma City Council both passed resolutions on Tuesday declaring a climate emergency and outlining options to further reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In an address to students at a local elementary school, Bryan struck simultaneous tones of concern and optimism. “We, as your lawmakers, take this seriously. We are excited, but also want you to know that this is a crisis. And we do want … each and every one of you to protect what was left to us by our ancestors.”
Just hours after the tribal council signed its resolution, the Tacoma LNG facility received its final permit.
“I feel like the public outcry is falling on deaf ears,” Bryan said Wednesday. “The regulations that we have — they’re not working. They’re not protective enough.”
