Nick Pope
Contributor
A questionable study by a Cornell University climate scientist gave climate activists and the media ammunition to wage a pressure campaign against the Biden administration to take action against liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports.
Cornell’s Robert Howarth authored the October 2023 study, which purported to find that lifecycle emissions associated with LNG exports are far greater than those attributable to domestically-mined coal. Numerous media outlets, including The New York Times, amplified the study, and climate activists lobbying the Biden administration to kill LNG exports cited it as evidence to substantiate their position before the White House announced the moratorium on LNG export terminal approvals on Jan. 26.
The study, titled “The Greenhouse Gas Footprint of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) Exported from the United States,” found that “greenhouse gas emissions from LNG are also larger than those from domestically produced coal, ranging from 44% to more than 2-fold greater for the average cruise distance of an LNG tanker.” Howarth, who openly opposes the use of fossil fuels, admitted to releasing his study before it was peer-reviewed in order to influence the LNG export debate.
“According to the ethical guidelines from several of the professional societies to which I belong, scientists have a duty to provide information to the public and to decision-makers on important public issues when they have access to such information,” Howarth told the DCNF.
Howarth said environmental activist Bill McKibben was the one who convinced him to release the study before it underwent the months-long peer review process. McKibben himself wrote about the study in The New Yorker in October 2023, touting it as evidence that the Biden administration should not expand LNG export capacity.
After McKibben published his piece for The New Yorker and Howarth released the study to the public, the duo joined a November 2023 press call alongside several climate activists and Democratic lawmakers — including Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley — to talk about the issue of LNG exports, according to E&E News.
“From what I am told by reporters and what I read in the press, yes, my paper has had some impact,” Howarth said.
Indeed, The Wall Street Journal reported Howarth’s work influenced the Biden administration’s decision to pause approvals for new LNG export hubs.
Howarth’s study “clearly was a factor in the Biden administration’s decision to pause making the required determinations required for approval of new LNG export projects and launching a U.S. Department of Energy study of the climate impact of LNG exports,” Steven Hamburg, the Environmental Defense Fund’s chief scientist, told Bloomberg News.
The White House invariably felt pressure from left-wing lawmakers and environmental activists who regularly cited the study in their push to choke off U.S. natural gas exports.
Merkley cited the Howarth study as “the latest climate science” in a November 2023 letter to Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm. Sixty-four other lawmakers signed that letter, which called on Granholm to update her agency’s review process for LNG export facilities to include climate impacts.
Likewise, the Sierra Club promoted a story that cited the study and referred to one of the affected LNG export hubs as a “carbon bomb.” A disruptive outfit called Climate Defiance promoted the study on social media before meeting in December 2023 with Senior Advisor to the President John Podesta to lobby against the planned expansion of LNG export capacity. (RELATED: Biden Admin Leaned On Questionable And Misleading Science To Justify Halting Natural Gas Hub Approvals)
Scores of environmental groups cited Howarth’s study in a letter sent to President Joe Biden applauding his Jan. 26 decision to pause new LNG export terminals. In their letter, eco-activists also demanded Biden “[stop] all LNG and related fossil fuel infrastructure permits across all U.S. federal agencies.”
‘Widely Panned And Largely Dismissed’
Howarth‘s findings contradict plenty of existing research on the subject, including two Department of Energy (DOE) studies from 2014 and 2019, which concluded that American LNG exports to Asia and Europe do not create more lifecycle emissions than regionally-mined coal when used to generate power. The Cornell professor’s study has drawn the ire of the oil and gas industry, which has pointed out that Howarth‘s most recent findings are detached from a robust body of research on the subject.
“Dr. Robert Howarth openly admitted he prematurely released his not-yet-peer-reviewed study in order to influence politics and advance activist agendas against responsible oil and gas development,” Jeff Eshelman, the president and CEO of the Independent Petroleum Association of America, told the DCNF. “His research – which has been widely panned and largely dismissed by the scientific community – ignores the environmental benefits of U.S. natural gas and LNG, including data by the Department of Energy.”
Howarth — described by Politico as a “longtime sparring partner with the gas industry” — has come under fire for peddling shaky science about natural gas in the past. Back in 2012, he told a columnist for the New York Post that he was trying to make the anti-fracking movement more mainstream and trendy.
Howarth himself is closely tied to environmental activism. He is a board member for Food and Water Watch (FWW), a green nonprofit that has campaigned against natural gas development and exploration in New York state, though he denies this unpaid position influences his work.
His new paper was funded in part by the Park Foundation, a left-wing nonprofit with a stated goal of “[challenging] continued shale gas extraction and infrastructure expansion” and a strong presence in New York state, where Howarth’s university is located. Howarth told the DCNF the Park Foundation’s “modest” financial support of the study did not constitute a conflict of interest, and that the organization has no influence over his work.
The Park Foundation’s environment committee “recognizes that a firm stance against further oil and gas development is a necessary component to future funding decisions” and is resolved to support initiatives that “commit to the ‘keep it in the ground’ philosophy” or otherwise resist oil and gas drilling and infrastructure expansion, according to the organization’s website.
The Park Foundation gave Cornell University more than $530,000 to support natural gas-related academic work between 2010 and 2021, according to a DCNF review of tax filings.
Howarth’s study cites seven of his own previous papers, of which at least five were funded in part by the Park Foundation, a DCNF review of those studies found.
Howarth routinely slams Republicans on social media, castigating the “party of disinformation and misinformation” as a “cult” whose members “simply do not care about truth.” He’s also vocal in his opposition to the continued use of fossil fuels.
“I definitely consider myself to be an objective scientist,” Howarth said. “I also am a citizen, and as such have an ethical obligation to participate in our society. So no, I am not apolitical. But I am confident that my political views do not affect my scientific research.”
‘Not A Guarantee Of Quality Or Accuracy’
Howarth arrived at his topline finding by calculating the emissions caused by natural gas exports at every stage — from initial extraction to processing to final destination and end use — and comparing those emissions to the amount generated by every step of domestic coal extraction and use.
But Howarth has revised his study several times since releasing his study to the public. The initial version asserted that the lifecycle emissions of LNG exports are greater than those of domestically-produced coal, with the difference ranging between 24% and 274%. The study was updated on Jan. 13 to reflect that “total greenhouse gas emissions from LNG are larger than those from domestically produced coal, ranging from 27% to 2‐fold greater for the average cruise distance of an LNG tanker.”
Howarth announced on March 13 that he had again revised his study “using this new estimate, 4.6% emissions (not including urban/surburban (sic) distribution systems) for the best studied major U.S. shale gas fields.”
After the March update, the study now asserts that LNG exports can have lifecycle emissions that are greater than those of domestic coal by between 44% and 200% or more.
These updates have come under considerable criticism from the oil and gas industry and scholars.
William Jordan — general counsel for EQT, a natural gas company based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania — suggested to the WSJ that Howarth cherry-picked data and leaned on flawed assumptions to pursue influence rather than understanding.
“I received two anonymous reviews from the journal just before Christmas, as well as input from people who had read the original version online. I revised the manuscript based on these comments, and submitted it back to the journal on January 13,” Howarth told the DCNF in defense of his updates.
“The version posted online now is the latest version,” Howarth told the DCNF. “It is very much standard to revise in response to peer review comments. That is precisely what peer review is about!” (RELATED: Could Joe Biden’s Natural Gas Pause Cost Dems The Senate In November?)
Roger Pielke Jr., a former academic who has written extensively about politicized science, told the DCNF that while such practices are common, they’re less than ideal.
“The posting of pre-prints is now standard practice in many fields, and they are exactly that — pre-prints,” Pielke said. “That said, passive peer-review is not a guarantee of quality or accuracy, but in many cases a minimal check for quality. No one paper offers the last word, and these days, studies are often conducted with an outcome in mind.”
“That imposes a challenge on all of us, journalists especially, to be careful and critical consumers of the latest and greatest science,” Pielke said. “Too often published research is used to support favored and previously-held positions rather than considered on its merits.”
Howarth’s study also heavily relies on a 20-year timeframe to assess the impacts of emissions from LNG exports. Typically, researchers adopt a 100-year outlook, a number which Howarth describes as “arbitrary” in his work.
“Using [the twenty-year timeframe], LNG always has a larger greenhouse gas footprint than coal,” Howarth writes in the study.
“What we see here is the standard climate activist and Biden administration formula at play,” David Blackmon, a 40-year veteran of the oil and gas industry who now writes and consults on the energy sector, told the DCNF. “First, you allege a problem exists without any scientific basis. Then, you identify a ‘study’ with findings you like that can be used to form a basis for policy advocacy, which you pass onto your former fellow activists who are now in the administration, and let them run with it.”
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HT/mr-ed
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“But I am confident that my political views do not affect my scientific research”.
Umm, I’m not quite so confident that’s the case.
I’m confident that this idiot is entirely incapable of being a scientist. He is an activist, nothing more.
Where is Peta to point out that Howarth is obviously suffering from over consumption of carbohydrates?
His hypocrisy is a psychological projection of hatred towards others (and natural gas) because of his own inadequacy to reach a healthy weight and his subconscious’ confusion of carbon vs carbohydrate.
Yeah, where is Peta? I have noticed no Peta for a couple weeks at least. Peta, are you out there? Let us know.
Like alcohol? :-o)
Reiterating my comment at the original WSJ article.
I also point out the hilarity of his comparing himself to Einstein in that same article.
Right, a politician.
I daresay that Robert Howarth is engaging in liquid natural gaslighting.
He starts off by using 4.6% of upstream natural gas production as upstream methane losses, using a study of airplane sensors flown over select oilfields. Why people insist on doing this when facilities have metering accessible on the ground, accurate within .25%, is beyond understanding.
Thats because he trained as an oceanographer and is actaully an expert on coastal marine ecology.
As far as natural gas production and transport goes , he may as well be an undergraduate.
Is there such a thing as a mis-graduate?
Every human being sees their position as unbiased. Disagreements result because the other person is biased.
I imagine that a scientist has to have a reasonable amount of intellect and be capable of rational thinking. Mr Howarth destroys that view.
Exactly what does he assume can be used instead of fossil fuels, or does he advocate a return to medieval times?
Reality does not seem to be in his vocabulary.
That’s because you mistakenly accept a false premise – the notion that he is a “scientist.” He is an activist who pretends to be a scientist.
Putin is celebrating an end to US LNG exports. Another nail in the coffin for the EU. Russian oil and gas exports are key to the Russian war machine. Overwhelming Ukraine by outproducing western armnaments. What happens when western stockpiles are exhausted and the Russian economy is producing vast numbers of arms and munitions using its vast oil wealth.
Nail in the coffin for the EU? You make it sound like a bad thing.
Plenty of LNG being exported from the US, more than any other country.
Isn’t the gummint’s scheme to not approve any more export terminals?
The need is for import terminals? Some were built in a hurry after Putin attacked Ukraine (initially floating ones).
Of course it would help if Germany got off its green pandering and kept its nuclear power plants going. I read it is keeping coal-fired plants going. !
Methane hype is BS. Earth’s early atmosphere was methane. Then bacteria changed this to CO2. Then plants changed this to O2.
Then along came animals which changed O2 into methane and CO2, completing the cycle.
Methane eating bacteria still exist CO2 eating plants still exist. Methane and CO2 producing animals still exist.
Methane does not persist. It is an energy source. Life eats methane and turns it into energy for growth and reproduction while releasing CO2 as waste.
LNG tankers are insignifican in comparison to the methane released naturally from the earth due to plate tectonics.
More to the point, methane infrared absorption bands are completely overlapped by water vapor. Which means it essentially has no POSSIBLE effect on temperature, since any and all infrared radiation in its absorption bands will be absorbed by massively more abundant water vapor.
The IPCC bullshit about “global warming potential” is calculated in a DRY atmosphere. Maybe from another planet, lol – certainly not from this one.
Howarth assumes the LNG tankers are powered by ‘heavy oil’ – in diesel cycle engine- that is like most cargo ships including oil tankers.
LNG tankers on the whole ARENT powered by heavy oil, they use the LNG itself in steam turbines for propulsion. During the ocean voyage a small quantity of LNG is gassed off from the liquid and this is taken from the tanks to use as energy to drive the ship
Methane is converted to CO2 and water vapour by sunlight. That is why in spite of the enormous emissions of methane by forests, especially large, wet ones, there is a measly 2 ppm in the air. The quantity emitted by the Amazon basin is astronomical but, here we are.
If we killed 10% of all the termites in the world, it would completely offset all CO2 from human activities. The natural emissions dwarf anything from humans. Yet, 2 ppm.
Policy based on a green rascal’s pamphlet.
Robert Howarth will probably draw satisfaction from the attention he is getting. The reality is that his contribution to human misery is just puny beside Rachel Carson’s. If he truly wants hero status among the left, he needs to find something several orders of magnitude more destructive of honest citizens.
Seems to me Howarth is advocating strongly for use of local coal energy over imported LNG for electricity production. That does actually make sense at least economically. Since CO2 emissions is not a real problem, comparing CO2 emissions production of various fuels is a meaningless exercise. The best use of coal is, in fact, electricity generation. The best use of natural gas is building and industrial heating and use in electricity for peaker plants.
Using the New Yorker to pimp his “study” tells you all you need to know.
Only The Conversation could be worse, slightly.
This hanky political science nonsense coming out of Ivy League schools leads me to think of re-naming them Poison Ivy Schools. The premise of Howarth is that coal is bad and LNG is extra bad. The reality is that coal needs scrubbers to control some by-products while LNG burns fairly clean. Both coal and LNG allow humans to extend their life expectancy and even go on vacations (something of the order of 80% of vacations are to where it is warmer).
What he, like every deluded idiot like him, advocates for is the return to the Stone Age.
I think it needs to become a requirement for all students of “science” before they begin their “core” studies to learn about where everything they take for granted in modern civilization comes from, so that their “science” education is grounded in the real world.
Vaclac Smil’s “How the World Really Works” should be mandatory reading in every science class beginning in HS through grad school.
I don’t understand why academics don’t comprehend these simple truths. Then I go to a seminar and half of them are still wearing face masks. Fear makes them deluded.
I’m encouraged by the overwhelming majority of mask free grad students.
Mr Howarth has a screen to hide behind.
Consensus has a dictionary meaning but nowhere is it given a motive. An agreement of some kind conjures up something to work behind whether a group are winning or losing which in turn sounds like policy making. Nothing is said about the truth, honesty, wisdom, integrity, goodness, justice of the group making the consensus, what its record of success or failure is, and what opponents say about them, since, especially if they are a majority, assumptions and presumptions are sought and made up and allowed to flourish within and without the group.
In other words consensus is more likely to be a bunch of cowards than an out in the open leader with a message which has such a ring of truth for some or even many that they are followed by an ever growing following. Just how can any consensus exist in science which is surely about being open to constant challenge, renewal or change no matter what?
And so the political origins of the net zero consensus – the UN and all it tentacle groupings – says it is about constructing a barrier which cannot be penetrated except from within the consensus itself. In simple terms alarmists are a bunch of cowards following the mantra of CAGW without risking their necks in doing so and probably getting a PhD or a bob or two for their efforts. No wonder the world is in such a mess and so unable to cope with criticism or pressure to think again. No wonder it resorts to insult, discrimination, isolation, cancellation, monetary penalty and judicial insanity.
Mr Howarth shows us just what he is and not what he thinks he is.
And silencing opposing voices.
It’s the same deal everywhere with lawfare and why nuclear would be so expensive-
Qld coal mine under threat due to ‘relentless nature’ of climate lawfare (msn.com)
Ultimately you want these major decisions resting with elected representatives but with so much well intentioned legislation prior it’s a lawyers picnic and delay costs are the name of the game.
Per Howarth, who also has a thing about gas pipelines:
‘The best solution is to simply stop using fossil natural gas ASAP, as laid out in the Climate Action Council scoping plan (Dec 2022).’
Maybe Cornell should just shut the valves feeding their facilities and see how that works out.
Another profoundly stupid person with lots of letters after his name.
Not stupid but outside his field of expertise , his PhD was awarded in 1979
‘My training was in oceanography, and much of my research still focuses on coastal marine ecosystems. However, I also work on freshwater systems (both rivers and lakes) and on large river basins. “
has no understanding of economic systems or even natural gas production- transport.
And the minor little problem is that the GHG effects of methane is measured for dry air. Water vapor overlaps the absorption spectrum of methane, so it is mostly irrelevant in the real world.
This is yet another demonstration of the Democrat trek to the limitless extremes.
A big departure from even the Obama years when Democrats approved an LNG terminal and new pipeline to go with it.
After nearly a full year of greenfield pipeline construction, the Atlantic Sunrise pipeline project – a nearly $3 billion expansion of the existing Transco natural gas pipeline to connect abundant Marcellus gas supplies with markets in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern U.S. – was placed into full service on Oct. 6, 2018.
Subject: Re: Cove Point Maryland
And Calvert County will get more than $50 million in taxes and other payments from the company this year — a massive influx for a jurisdiction with a general fund of less than $300 million.
MUST READ — http://www.frackcheckwv.net/2019/03/21/cove-point-lng-terminal-of-dominion-energy-has-many-challenging-aspects/
Natural gas exports will drive up domestic prices by subjecting them to global market demand. Let’s keep it home, keep it cheap!
“new sonar technology have counted 1,000 methane seeps off the Pacific Northwest coast.”
Until the natural seeps are accounted for studies like this one are useless.
When will someone ask that the eternal flame on Kenned’s grave be turned off?
If I tell you what the truth is, believe it, it is the truth. If someone disagrees, they must, by my definition, be lying.
Point of view of the climate politician alarmist.
Just a clarification.
Another prime example for us to not believe what university professors claim. I had so much more respect for professors before I attended university. I had good professors and bad. The vast majority were mediocre at best. Amazingly one of the professors I respected most claimed to be a card carrying communist, maybe he was but he didn’t let his personal views influence his lesson plan. Believe me I was watching him, he was a damn good teacher.
He uses the methane myth of climate warming?
The bottom line is the doomsters are losing the fight against consumers everywhere despite all the exorbitant prescriptive measures-
National Electricity Market’s first coal power increase in seven years raises pressure to extend Eraring (afr.com)
The majority of fossil fuel companies produce more emissions after Paris Agreement than before: report (msn.com)
If you eliminated all shaky studies, there would be no more predictions of CAGW
CAGW is shaky study science
So what another Ivy league climate charlatan. Activist and/or Scientist; does it really matter? Everyone knows there is a full court press on LNG in the US by political activists wearing lab coats and printing bogus studies. In the end, what really matters is dough. And this is what taxpayers, voters and consumers should be focused on.
Even even leftist green lord, Trudeau approved exporting his precious oil sand oil as a “green” oil alternative a top dollar during the early energy crisis triggered by the Russian-Ukrainian oil.
Think revenue…. and who needs it more than our massively over leveraged Federal government.
Frack On!
Cornell shopping again