On 13 December 2024, liquefied natural gas (LNG) company Venture Global LNG (Arlington, VA, USA) commenced commercial production of the super-chilled fuel at its partially completed Plaquemines LNG export terminal in Louisiana (
Fig. 1) [
1]. In terms of dollars invested, the 21 billion USD plant is the fourth largest infrastructure project in the world [
2]. Venture Global initially expected the terminal to produce and ship 20 million tonnes of LNG annually [
3]. An 18 billion USD expansion of the terminal approved in February 2025 will bring its maximum annual produc-tion capacity to 45 million tonnes [
4]. When fully operational in 2027, the facility, located in Plaquemines Parish on the Mississippi River about 32 km south of New Orleans, will be among the largest in the world, further contributing to the US position as the world’s biggest LNG exporter [
1].
Its proponents tout natural gas as an effective and relatively clean bridge between coal and renewable energy sources [
5]. But recent studies [
6,
7] suggest that natural gas may be no better than coal for climate change, and perhaps even worse, due to its release of the potent heat-trapping gas methane via leaks throughout the oil and gas supply chain [
8], and the energy-intensive nature of LNG production. The largest energy expenditure in LNG production is turning natural gas into LNG by cooling the substance to −162 °C. This process typically requires about 10% to 15% of the energy content of the LNG produced [
9]. Shipping the LNG and turning it back into natural gas at its final destination also requires a significant amount of energy.
Though integral to the continued US dominance of the LNG market, Plaquemines and other existing LNG terminals, as well as the many still under construction and planned, are subjects of much controversy. The volume of LNG they produce and the facil-ities themselves come with an increased risk of potentially enor-mous negative impacts on global climate and more directly on local environments. Mostly located—for convenience of supply and transport—along the Gulf Coast of the United States, mainly in an industrial region straddling Louisiana and neighboring Texas that is already home to massive petrochemical plants, the LNG ter-minals reside in what are considered some of the most exposed areas in the world to climate change-influenced natural disasters [
10,
11]. Damage from increasingly severe storms could consider-ably foul the communities and fragile coastal ecosystems that sur-round the plants [
12].
“Not only are these facilities increasing the likelihood of more intense storms, but this infrastructure is being built in the most vulnerable places,” said Elizabeth Calderon, supervising senior attorney in the New Orleans, LA, USA, office of Earth Justice, a non-profit environmental law organization headquartered in San Fran-cisco, CA, USA. “And in doing so, they are taking away the storm protections for not just that infrastructure, but for the people and communities nearby.”
With almost no LNG exports in 2015, the United States moved from being the world’s largest importer of LNG to its top exporter in 2024 [
13], mostly due to the robust implementation of fracking [
14]. Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, involves injecting a mixture of water, chemicals, and sand into rocks at high pressure. The pro-cess fissures the rocks, releasing gas and oil that otherwise could not easily be collected; the innovation has revitalized the US oil and gas industry.
Fracking is, however, just one reason for the United States’ ascension to world leader in LNG exports, according to Alex Kolker, associate professor of climate science at the Louisiana University Marine Consortium (Chauvin, LA, USA) and chief executive officer of the Coastal Climates Institute (New Orleans, LA, USA). “Fracking was invented by American companies, so it has been widely adopted here,” Kolker said. “Also, there are a lot of shale rock for-mations brimming with oil and gas in the Gulf region. Finally, American companies have access to significant capital to get these projects off the ground quickly.”
According to an online list published by the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, updated on 11 March 2025 [
15], the US has eight existing LNG export terminals (five along the Gulf Coast), eight approved and under construction (all Gulf Coast), another 13 approved but not yet under construction (all Gulf Coast except one in Alaska), and three, all in Louisiana, pending or pre-filing. The LNG projects already approved and under construction are expected to nearly double the country’s current LNG exports from its current rate of 14 billion to 26 billion cubic feet per day by 2030 (1 feet = 0.3048 m) [
16]. In a bit of a disconnect, however, at the same time, exports have increased in the last several years, their total value has substantially decreased, from an estimated 47.58 billion USD in 2022 to 34.26 billion USD in 2023, and 28.88 billion USD in 2024 [
17].
The Louisiana and Texas Gulf Coast region where more than 90% of US LNG exports originate is routinely—and increasingly— pounded by ferocious hurricanes and storms, and it leads nearly everywhere on Earth in rising sea levels [
2]. In the span of 10 months from 2020 to 2021, for example, southwest Louisiana suf-fered five climate-related disasters, including two destructive hur-ricanes [
18]. In addition, according to satellite data, between 2012 and 2024, sea levels in the Gulf have risen at twice the global aver-age rate [
19]. A tide gauge near Plaquemines has registered nearly 18 cm of sea level rise since 2010 [
2]. The prospects of flooding in communities along the Gulf Coast are so dire that in 2016 the US Congress authorized 5.2 billion USD for the restoration of wetlands [
18], which serve as a natural defensive barrier against storms [
11], and 1.6 billion USD to retrofit nearly 3500 homes and 500 busi-nesses with stilts to elevate them by 1 to 2 m.
In addition to the sea rising, the land in the region is also rapidly sinking, a phenomenon called subsidence, driven to some degree by decades of oil and gas drilling [
2]. The changes in sea level have accelerated the destruction of wetlands, which, in turn, boosts the risk of flooding across the coast [
2]. “We are losing football fields worth of wetlands each day,” Calderon said. “And we are losing even more wetlands to the creation of these massive infrastructure facilities.” She said that Venture Global’s planned Calcasieu Pass 2 project, for example, is projected to destroy more than 14 km
2 of coastal zone wetlands—2.2 km
2 for the plant and the rest for the pipeline to supply it. The company’s Calcasieu Pass LNG plant (
Fig. 2), located adjacent to the site of the planned Calcasieu Pass 2 project, was projected to begin commercial operation in April 2025 [
20].
When Hurricane Ida struck the Gulf Coast in 2021, it brought rains that flooded the future site of the Plaquemines LNG plant and nearby communities. Ida also disrupted more than 94% of US oil refining and gas production and irreparably damaged a Phillips 66 oil refinery in Plaquemines Parish [
2]. Like other LNG exporters operating in the Gulf Coast, including, among others, Cheniere Energy (Houston, TX, USA; currently the largest US LNG producer and exporter), Chevron (Houston, TX, USA), ExxonMobil (Irving, TX, USA), and Shell (London, UK), Venture Global’s answer to pro-tecting its Plaquemines plant from future storms is an 8 m high steel sea wall that extends 18 m underground [
2]. The wall completely surrounds the 2.5 km
2 site, giving it the appearance of an immense fortress. Many of the plant’s structures are additionally stabilized by pilings driven 67 m into the marshy ground [
2]. On a broader scale, the US Army Corps of Engineers is developing its 783 million USD “New Orleans to Venice” project [
21], an ambi-tious plan for a 3 to 5 m tall, 100 km long expanse of concrete sea walls, dirt barriers, floating gates, and steel levees along the coast to combat sea level rise and the increasing risk of intense storms [
2].
However, some dispute whether sea walls and other planned engineering will suffice to prevent disasters. “Let us say that those flood walls are adequate, you might still end up with a situation where an entire installation basically becomes an island in the ocean,” said Torbjorn Törnqvist, professor of Earth and Environmen-tal Sciences Department at Tulane University (New Orleans, LA, USA). In addition, Kolker said the pipeline feeding the Plaquemines plant snakes over the surrounding levee, making it vulnerable in the event of a large storm. “It is a considerable risk,” he said. “Not to mention the roads leading to the plant and workers’ homes nearby.” Kolker also pointed out that many of the ports to which LNG is being shipped around the globe are also at or near sea level. “Similar climate risks are playing out in different parts of the world on the other side of this LNG funnel,” he said. Törnqvist said he is not aware of any actions LNG companies are taking that might actually protect the region or make it more resilient. “Quite frankly, I would not know what they could do, as it is really a lost cause,” he said. “These areas are going to be gone. The only question is when.”
US energy companies and their political backers have claimed a major justification for the new LNG plants is to assist European allies in breaking free of their reliance on Russian gas [
22]. In 2024, however, European LNG imports from Russia increased while American imports decreased [
23]. Even the European countries currently desperate for non-Russian energy seem wary of commit-ting to US LNG exports long-term [
14], in part because many have agreed to drastically phase out natural gas consumption by 2040 [
24]. This planned phasing out suggests that Europe has likely passed peak LNG consumption [
25], with the continent’s overall demand for natural gas falling 20% year over year in the first half of 2024 [
26]. Moreover, Europe currently appears not equipped to receive more US LNG than is already being delivered. To take much more, importers on the continent would have to build costly new infrastructure, including pipelines and import terminals, requiring investments that could take decades to reach financial break-even [
14]. Perhaps not surprisingly, ten US LNG projects greenlit before the Biden administration halted plant approvals are reported to be struggling to find buyers willing to lock into the long-term contracts needed to make the projects financially viable [
14]. Ultimately, analysts believe most US LNG exports will eventu-ally go to Asian countries, including China and India [
14].
In January 2024, responding to pressure from environmental activists and Gulf Coast community members, the Biden adminis-tration paused the approval of nearly a dozen new LNG facilities until the US Department of Energy (DOE) could assess the projects’ climate impacts and determine if their exports would serve the US public interest [
27]. This hold included Venture Global’s Calcasieu Pass 2 project, which will roughly match the completed Plaquem-ines plant in size [
2]. In its assessment released in December 2024, the DOE concluded that it had found “clear evidence” that the pro-posed LNG projects posed dangers with regard to climate, eco-nomics, national security, and public health [
16].
In January 2025, disregarding the recently released DOE find-ings, the new Trump administration began expediting approval of the plants [
4]. “It is startling how fast and recklessly these facil-ities are being proposed and approved,” Calderon said. “More importantly, these plants are effectively locking us into this fossil fuel infrastructure for decades, which will hurt our long-term capacity to deal with climate change.”
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