HuffPost: Will the shale gas revolution make North America's LNG ambitions obsolete?

In the lifespan of multi-billion dollar projects, five years is a relative blink. It's why committing to big infrastructure projects is so nerve-wracking--the world can change in a hurry. Consider that only five years ago, plans were in place to build a terminal outside Quebec City to receive liquefied natural gas from Russia. At the time, natural gas prices were close to double digits and the skies ahead looked clear and profitable. The shale gas revolution, of course, changed that essentially overnight. Prices have tumbled and North America, far from being an importer of natural gas, is now positioning itself as an exporter.

Today's plans would see natural gas from British Columbia's massive shale deposits shipped from the northeastern part of the province to the coast at Kitimat. From there it would be frozen into liquefied natural gas (LNG) and shipped through one of seven proposed export terminals to Asia, where natural gas costs three times as much as it does in North America.

The proposals to ship natural gas are getting a much friendlier treatment by the public, First Nations, and environmentalists, than Enbridge's hopes to move oil to the coast through its proposed Northern Gateway pipeline. That's due, in part, to a perception that natural gas is not only a cleaner energy source, but also one that won't contaminate the land or sea to the same degree as oil in the event of a spill. Indeed, natural gas, at least in theory, is the cleanest burning hydrocarbon, emitting only half of the carbon that comes from burning coal, the black sheep of the fossil fuel family. It's a privileged status that combined with B.C.'s abundant shale gas reserves has made natural gas--at least in the eyes of Premier Christy Clark--a bridge to a carbon-free future. But that's only the sunny side of the natural gas equation. Once you account for fugitive methane leaks that can accompany shale gas production that bridge can start looking more like a gangplank.  MORE