EDITOR:
In early October, LNG Canada, an energy consortium, announced a 40-billion-dollar pipeline, terminals, storage and ship system to transport gas from British Columbia to Asia. LNG means liquefied natural gas. Natural gas is any gas which comes from the earth; the four lowest molecular weight commercial natural gases are methane, ethane, propane and butane - all carbon plus hydrogen molecules.
The 670-kilometre pipeline will cost $6 billion. The liquefaction and storage plant will cost $18 billion with completion date 2025. Some 14 million tonnes of LNG will be shipped per year with options to double capacity.
Burning natural gas with oxygen produces carbon dioxide (CO2), water and heat. For example, methane; one carbon atom (atomic weight 12) and 4 hydrogen atoms (total atomic weight 4), so three-quarters of methane's weight is carbon. The molecular weight of CO2 is 44. The 14 million tonnes of methane becomes 38.5 million tonnes of CO2 – per year.
If six degrees Celsius of climate change takes place then 95 percent of species on earth will die; a human induced extinction. You don't fix solar radiation depositing heat in the earth by exhausting CO2 into the atmosphere.
In 2000 AD, the Gulf of St. Lawrence didn't freeze over. How? Answer: Canada's albedo was changed by massive systematic deforestation. Moving the Boreal forest northward to warm Canada up is at the basis of unusual fire, flood and storm phenomena experienced today. Climate change begins with changing the earth's albedo; a human induced experimental disaster.
Tony Lloyd,
Mount Stewart