[Federal Register Volume 79, Number 107 (Wednesday, June 4, 2014)]
[Notices]
[Pages 32260-32261]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2014-12927]



[[Page 32260]]

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DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY

[FE Docket No. 10-161-LNG; FE Docket No. 11-59-LNG; FE Docket No. 11-
128-LNG; et. al.]


Life Cycle Greenhouse Gas Perspective on Exporting Liquefied 
Natural Gas From the United States

AGENCY: Office of Fossil Energy, Department of Energy.

ACTION: Notice of Availability of Life Cycle Greenhouse Gas Perspective 
on Exporting Liquefied Natural Gas from the United States and request 
for comments.

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Freeport LNG Expansion, L.P. and FLNG Liquefaction, LLC  [FE Docket No. 10-161-LNG].
Lake Charles Exports, LLC..............................  [FE Docket No. 11-59-LNG].
Dominion Cove Point LNG, LP............................  [FE Docket No. 11-128-LNG].
Freeport LNG Expansion, L.P. and FLNG Liquefaction, LLC  [FE Docket No. 11-161-LNG].
Cameron LNG, LLC.......................................  [FE Docket No. 11-162-LNG].
Gulf Coast LNG Export, LLC.............................  [FE Docket No. 12-05-LNG].
Jordan Cove Energy Project, L.P........................  [FE Docket No. 12-32-LNG].
LNG Development Company, LLC (d/b/a Oregon LNG)........  [FE Docket No. 12-77-LNG].
Cheniere Marketing, LLC................................  [FE Docket No. 12-97-LNG].
Southern LNG Company, L.L.C............................  [FE Docket No. 12-100-LNG].
Gulf LNG Liquefaction Company, LLC.....................  [FE Docket No. 12-101-LNG].
CE FLNG, LLC...........................................  [FE Docket No. 12-123-LNG].
Excelerate Liquefaction Solutions I, LLC...............  [FE Docket No. 12-146-LNG].
Golden Pass Products LLC...............................  [FE Docket No. 12-156-LNG].
Pangea LNG (North America) Holdings, LLC...............  [FE Docket No. 12-184-LNG].
Trunkline LNG Export, LLC..............................  [FE Docket No. 13-04-LNG].
Freeport-McMoRan Energy LLC............................  [FE Docket No. 13-26-LNG].
Sabine Pass Liquefaction, LLC..........................  [FE Docket No. 13-30-LNG].
Sabine Pass Liquefaction, LLC..........................  [FE Docket No. 13-42-LNG].
Venture Global LNG, LLC................................  [FE Docket No. 13-69-LNG].
Eos LNG LLC............................................  [FE Docket No. 13-116-LNG].
Barca LNG LLC..........................................  [FE Docket No. 13-118-LNG].
Sabine Pass Liquefaction, LLC..........................  [FE Docket No. 13-121-LNG].
Magnolia LNG, LLC......................................  [FE Docket No. 13-132-LNG].
Delfin LNG LLC.........................................  [FE Docket No. 13-147-LNG].
 

SUMMARY: The Office of Fossil Energy (FE) of the Department of Energy 
(DOE) gives notice of the availability of the Report Life Cycle 
Greenhouse Gas Perspective on Exporting Liquefied Natural Gas from the 
United States (Life Cycle Analysis Greenhouse Gas Report, or LCA GHG 
Report) in the above-referenced proceedings and invites the submission 
of comments regarding the LCA GHG Report. The purpose of this LCA GHG 
Report is to provide additional information to the public and to DOE to 
inform its decisions regarding the life cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) 
emissions of U.S. LNG exports for use in electric power generation. The 
LCA GHG Report (http://energy.gov/fe/LCA-GHG-Report) compares life 
cycle GHG emissions from U.S. LNG exports to regional coal and other 
imported natural gas for electric power generation in Europe and Asia. 
Comments submitted in compliance with the instructions in this notice 
will be placed in the administrative record for all of the above-listed 
proceedings and need only be submitted once.

DATES: Initial comments are to be filed using procedures detailed in 
the Public Comment section no later than 4:30 p.m., Eastern Time, July 
21, 2014. All comments received need only be submitted once as they 
will be placed in the administrative record for each of the 25 
currently pending export application dockets.

ADDRESSES: 
    Electronic Filing Using Online Form: http://energy.gov/fe/LCA-GHG-Report.
    Regular Mail: U.S. Department of Energy (FE-34) Attn: LCA GHG 
Report Comments, Office of Oil & Gas Global Security & Supply, Office 
of Fossil Energy, P.O. Box 44375, Washington, DC 20026-4375.
    Hand Delivery or Private Delivery Services (e.g., FedEx, UPS, 
etc.): U.S. Department of Energy (FE-34), Attn: LCA GHG Report 
Comments, Office of Oil & Gas Global Security & Supply, Office of 
Fossil Energy, Forrestal Building, Room 3E-042, 1000 Independence 
Avenue SW., Washington, DC 20585.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

John Anderson, U.S. Department of Energy (FE-34), Office of Natural Gas 
Regulatory Activities, Office of Fossil Energy, Forrestal Building, 
Room 3E-042, 1000 Independence Avenue SW., Washington, DC 20585, (202) 
586-0521.
Edward LeDuc, U.S. Department of Energy (GC-51), Office of the 
Assistant General Counsel for Environment, Forrestal Building, 1000 
Independence Avenue SW., Washington, DC 20585, (202) 586-4007.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

Background

    Section 3(a) of the Natural Gas Act, 15 U.S.C. 717b(a), directs the 
U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to authorize proposed exports of 
natural gas to countries with which the United States does not have a 
Free Trade Agreement (FTA) requiring national treatment for trade in 
natural gas (non-FTA countries), unless DOE finds that the proposed 
exportation will not be consistent with the public interest.
    DOE presently has before it numerous applications to export 
liquefied natural gas (LNG) to non-FTA countries. The 25 proceedings 
identified above involve applications submitted by the named parties 
seeking authorization to export LNG by LNG tanker from large-scale 
liquefaction facilities in the lower-48 states to non-FTA nations. The 
purpose of this Notice is to post the LCA GHG Report in the 25 
proceedings, and to

[[Page 32261]]

invite comments on the LCA GHG Report, as applied to the pending 
matters.

The LCA GHG Report

    The LCA GHG Report was conducted by the National Energy Technology 
Laboratory (NETL), a DOE laboratory. The LCA GHG Report estimates the 
life cycle GHG emissions of U.S. LNG exports to Europe and Asia, 
compared with alternative supplies, to produce electric power. For 
additional information on the natural gas model, refer to the NETL 
report, ``Life Cycle Analysis of Natural Gas Extraction and Power 
Generation,'' which is available at http://energy.gov/fe/LCA-GHG-Report.
    The primary questions addressed by the LCA GHG Report are:
     How does exported liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the 
U.S. compare with regional coal (or other LNG sources) for electric 
power generation in Europe and Asia, from a life cycle greenhouse gas 
(GHG) perspective?
     How do those results compare with natural gas sourced from 
Russia and delivered to the same European and Asian markets via 
pipeline?
    To address these questions, NETL applied its life cycle analysis 
(LCA) model to represent unconventional natural gas production and 
transportation to a U.S. Gulf Coast liquefaction facility, liquefaction 
of the gas at the facility, and transportation of the LNG to an import 
terminal in Rotterdam, Netherlands, to represent a European market, and 
to an import terminal in Shanghai, China, to represent Asian Markets. 
LNG produced in Algeria was modeled to represent an alternative 
regional LNG European market supply source with a destination of 
Rotterdam and LNG from Darwin, Australia was modeled to represent an 
alternative regional LNG Asian market supply source with a destination 
of Osaka, Japan. Conventional natural gas extracted from the Yamal 
region of Siberia in Russia was modeled as the regional pipeline gas 
alternative for both the European and Asian markets. Regional coal 
production and consumption in Germany and China were also modeled. 
Scenario specific variability was modeled by adjusting methane leakage 
for natural gas production, coal type (bituminous and sub-bituminous), 
transport distance (ocean tanker for LNG and rail for coal), and power 
plant efficiency.
    DOE is not establishing a new proceeding or docket by today's 
issuance and the submission of comments in response to this Notice will 
not make commenters parties to any of the pending 25 cases. Persons 
with an interest in the outcome of one or more of the 25 pending 
matters have been given an opportunity to intervene in or protest those 
pending matters by complying with the procedures established in the 
respective notices of application issued in the pending 25 matters and 
published in the Federal Register. The record in the 25 pending 
proceedings will include all comments received in response to this 
Notice. Comments will be reviewed on a consolidated basis for purposes 
of hearing, and decisions will be issued on a case-by-case basis.

Public Comment

    In response to this Notice, any person may file comments. DOE 
prefers comments to be filed using the online form (method 1). However, 
for those lacking access to the Internet, comments may be filed using 
method 2 or 3. The three methods are: (1) Submission of comments using 
the online form at http://energy.gov/fe/LCA-GHG-Report; (2) mailing 
comments to the Office of Oil and Gas Global Security and Supply at the 
address listed in ADDRESSES; and (3) delivering comments (by hand or 
courier) to the Office of Oil and Gas Global Security and Supply at the 
address listed in ADDRESSES. All filings must include a reference to 
LCA GHG Report Comments. PLEASE NOTE: DOE/FE is not accepting any 
comments by email. Any hardcopy filing submitted that is greater in 
length than 50 pages must also include, at the time of the filing, a 
digital copy on disk of the entire submission in PDF format. Please do 
not include any active hyperlinks or password protection in any of the 
electronic documents related to the filing. All electronic filings 
submitted to DOE must follow these guidelines to ensure that all 
documents are filed in a timely manner.
    DOE will consider all comments received until the close of the 
comment period. Comments must be limited to the issues and potential 
impacts addressed in the LCA GHG Report, and DOE may disregard comments 
that are not germane.
    Commenters should be advised that filings with DOE shall be subject 
to public disclosure, so submissions should be free of any personally 
identifiable information (PII) or other information that the individual 
does not wish to be revealed in a public forum.
    Instructions for submitting comments are available at http://energy.gov/fe/LCA-GHG-Report. All comments filed in response to this 
Notice will be publicly available on the DOE/FE Web site (http://energy.gov/fe/LCA-GHG-Report).
    The LCA GHG Report and other relevant documents are available for 
download at http://energy.gov/fe/LCA-GHG-Report and for inspection and 
copying in the Division of Natural Gas Regulatory Activities docket 
room, Room 3E-042, 1000 Independence Avenue SW., Washington, DC 20585. 
The docket room is open between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 4:30 p.m., 
Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays.

    Issued in Washington, DC, on May 29, 2014.
Christopher A. Smith,
Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary, Office of Fossil Energy.
[FR Doc. 2014-12927 Filed 6-3-14; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6450-01-P