Europe's LNG investments

Idea: Michel Penke

Research, data analysis and data visualization: Michel Penke, Julia Merk

Writing: Michel Penke

Editing: Henrik Böhme

Read the full article on DW.com:

Since the start of the war in Ukraine in February 2022, Europe is trying to replace Russian gas. Especially Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Slovakia and France are big gas consumers. European countries are now investing billions in LNG infrastructure to replace Russian gas with LNG. However, the EU set itself the goal of being climate neutral by 2050 and that means no LNG. Hydrogen-ready is supposed to be the salvation from this as the LNG infrastructure is meant to be used for hydrogen. However, there are no clear strategies yet and a lot is unclear in regards to the usage of LNG infrastructure for hydrogen. Therefore, these current investments look like an expensive dead end for taxpayers and the climate. This analysis looks at the current investments in LNG infrastructure, the potential of hydrogen and the climate burden.

In the following, more information on the creation process of the story is shared: Which data sources were used, how the analysis was conducted and how the data was visualized.

Data

Data	Source	Link
Gas consumption in Europe by country	Eurostat	Data
Replacement of pipeline gas	Institut für Seeverkehrswirtschaft und Logistik	Article
	Global Energy Monitor	Data
LNG projects in Europe	Gas Infrastructure Europe	Data
Greenhouse gas emissions for gas of different origins	Greenpeace, Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, Umweltbundesamt	Report, Report, Report, Report, Case Study
Reports by Think tanks on independency from Russian gas	Agora Energiewende, E3G	Report, Report
EU Commission Plan "Fit for 55"	European Council	Website
IGU World Report 2022	International Gas Union	Report
LNG Situation Russia	Several	Western technology, Western partners leaving LNG projects, Russias LNG former plans, Older Map of Russian LNG plans, Information on the individual LNG projects can easily be found online

Analysis

Conventional vs LNG gas production

To show the difference between the conventional gas supply with Russian gas and the supply with LNG gas, an illustration was created based on the explanations of the Greenpeace report.

Overview LNG terminals in Europe

For the this graph an area chart with the annual capacity (billion cubic meters) and the year of operation start of existing LNG terminals and one for the incomplete terminals with forecasted year of operation was created. The second graph shows the location of the existing as well as upcoming LNG terminals. The size of the squares is based on the scale of the LNG terminal.

For this chart the LNG Database of the GIE was used. Gaps were filled by additional qualitative research and FOI-requests to several European governements.

Caveats: Future capacities could change in the future. So, the chart show a snapshot of the current plans, as far as known. Several governements did not respond to requests concerning detailed financial figures about costs or guarantees. The data is is an approximation to reality.

Hydrogen - the green alternative?

This illustration was created based on the written explanations of the Greenpeace report about the processes of using hydrogen.

Which gas is the worst for the climate?

Based on several reports, the CO2-Equivalents were calculated in three categories "Production", "Transport" and "Processing". The CO2-Equivalents were added and therefore allow the comparison of gas from different countries.

Caveats: Data concerning emissions of LNG is disputed among the scientific community. There are several reports differing from each other. For one reason there is not enough research done, for another, emissions depend highly on several factors such as the age of the infrastructure, climate and size of tankers. The data used in this chart should be understood as an average of several studies.

Overview Russia's LNG terminals

Based on a qualitative research of several sources, the state of different Russian LNG terminals was examined and presented.

Caveats: As a lot of the data was difficult to obtain, the result is based on a lot of different data sources and also several expert interviews.