By Tom Bradley

The B.C. government is pinning the province’s economic future on the development of a liquefied natural gas industry (LNG). There’s a long list of potential facilities, although realistically, the LNG push would be successful if we had 2 or 3 up and running a decade from now.

The chart below was published recently in the Report on Business and was sourced from a report by the Reserve Bank of Australia. It shows the rapid buildup of LNG capacity in Australia, one of the world leaders, over the next few years.

This report and chart begs the question: Is Canada late to the LNG game?

It feels like it, but I’m by no means an expert. I do know that liquefying gas, shipping it around the world and then de-liquefying it, is hugely capital intensive and not very efficient. So whether we’re ahead or behind in the LNG game, wouldn’t we be better to redirect the brainpower, capital, government subsidies and tax breaks towards finding ways to use the natural gas in Canada?

There are alternative energies that are cleaner, but natural gas is pretty darn good ... and we have lots of it. A progressive, environmentally-friendly Canadian economy will have solar and wind, but it could also have a trucking industry running primarily on natgas, extensive gas-powered power generation and importantly, no coal-burning facilities.

Perhaps LNG could stand for ‘Let’s Not Give it away, let’s use it’.