For some time the United States tried to capture the European natural gas market and get it to dump easy Russian imports via pipeline. The Ukraine war brought Europe to move to comply with future imports of liquefied natural gas from the United States and eschew Russian gas. President Biden can declare a ‘mission accomplished’ for U.S. fossil fuels. The ramifications of the sea change are interesting.
I will consider just a few obvious consequences or ideas concerning the change. Importing natural gas on vast l.n.g. super-tankers from the U.S. will make Europe’s energy far more vulnerable to disruption in any future war or sabotage incident. Myriad new kinds of small, fast hybrid drones carrying a few pounds of shape charges might land on super l.n.g. tankers and detonate themselves and the entire explosives-transporting vessel. Europe in the winter without imported U.S. gas would be in a difficult position, possibly moderated by imports of warm winter clothing from China.
Exporting vast quantities of gas to Europe may drive up the cost of propane in the United States that is already fairly high. Russia may develop pipelines to carry its gas to China providing that nation with a stable long-term source of inexpensive, somewhat clean energy useful for economic output. A good result likely to occur is that with the new source of cheap natural gas China may be able to wean itself off reliance on domestically extracted coal for power plants sooner, and that would help reduce a major source of planetary global warming gases.
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