Reform UK MP Lee Anderson (Image: Getty)
Lee Anderson has launched a scathing attack on the government after an eye-opening new study indicated that exported liquid natural gas (LNG) is actually more damaging for the environment than coal.
The Reform UK MP was reading to the publication of research by scientists including Robert Howarth, from Cornell University.
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This suggested LNG emits 33 percent more greenhouse gases than coal over a 20-year period, running counter to the widely held belief that gas is a cleaner, transitional fuel.
Mr Anderson is deeply critical of the Labour government’s environmental policy, being spearheaded by Energy Security minister Ed Miliband, and has recently lamented the decision to decommission Ratcliffe-Upon-Soar, a coal-fired power station in his native Nottinghamshire.
Posting on X, the former coal miner raged: "Who'd have thought it?
READ MORE: Cut foreign aid not winter fuel payments for pensioners, says Lee Anderson
Environment Secretary Ed Miliband (Image: Getty)
"We've just shut a coal-burning power station whilst we're still importing liquid gas on ships. The madness is staggering."
For years, LNG has been marketed by the fossil fuel industry as a "bridge" fuel that will enable lower emissions while renewable energy infrastructure is developed.
However, Prof Howarth’s study undermines this theory, revealing the significant emissions involved in the extraction, transportation, and processing of LNG, especially when they are exported from the United States to Europe and Asia.
He warned: "The idea that coal is worse for the climate is mistaken - LNG has a larger greenhouse gas footprint than any other fuel."
Lee Anderson's post (Image: X)
Furthermore he branded as "greenwashing" the continued expansion of LNG as a climate solution.
Prof Howard stressed that the fossil fuel industry has severely underestimated the environmental damage associated with LNG.
He added: “To think we should be shipping around this gas as a climate solution is just plain wrong."
The report, published in the journal Energy Science & Engineering, and which has not yet been peer-reviewed, details the vast energy needed to drill for gas, transport it to export facilities, cool it to -162C to turn it into a liquid, and ship it overseas in massive tankers.
Once LNG reaches its destination, it is regasified and finally burned -, but by then, the emissions from the process are already significant.
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Ratcliffe-Upon-Soar power station has now been decommissioned (Image: Getty)
According to Prof Howarth’s paper, just a third of the total emissions come from its actual burning in homes and businesses, with the other two-thirds generated during the extraction, transportation, and liquefaction process. Significant methane leaks contributing to the overall footprint.
Methane, the main component of natural gas, is an especially potent greenhouse gas, trapping roughly 80 times more heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide over a two-decade period.
Prof Howarth’s research indicates that about 3.5 percent of the gas leaks unburned into the atmosphere, a figure significantly higher than has been assumed.
These leaks, combined with the energy-intensive transportation process, mean that LNG’s emissions far exceed those of coal, regarded as the dirtiest fossil fuel.
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Reacting to the closure of Ratcliffe-Upon-Soar earlier this month, Mr Anderson said: "It’s a sad day indeed. My dad worked at a coal mine that supplied coal to this power station, I also worked at a coal mine.
"It’s a massive act of self-harm on our country once again. We’ve seen the steelworks go, the oil refineries go, the coal-fired power stations go, and guess what…we still need these things.
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"It’s absolute madness. The Net Zero lunatics will be partying tonight but there are a lot of people in this country scratching their heads and thinking: ‘Why do we let this madness continue?"
He added: "Just look at Drax Power Station - it was at one time burning coal from a local mine and now we import wood from North America. We’re chopping down trees and shipping them across the Atlantic, making it into wood pellets and burning it.
“We’re told this is renewable energy and guess what - it’s costing us ￡1million a day in subsidies to keep it open. It’s absolute madness. The lunatics have taken over the asylum.”