Newspaper Page Text
10A Friday, December 28, 2018
The Times, Gainesville, Georgia | gainesvilletimes.com
WORLD
US fossil fuel exports spur growth, climate worries
AHN Y0UNG-J00N I Associated Press
Song Ha-dong, a senior official from Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine
Engineering, speaks during an interview on the building of a large
sized liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier, Friday, Dec. 7, at the Daewoo
Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering facility in Geoje Island, South Korea.
BY MICHAEL BIESECKER
AND KIM TONG-HYUNG
Associated Press
GEOJEDO, South Korea —
In South Korea’s largest ship
yard, thousands of workers in
yellow hard hats move ceaselessly
between towering cranes lifting
hulks of steel. They look like a hive
of bees scurrying over a massive
circuit board as they weld together
the latest additions to the rapidly
growing fleet of tankers carrying
super-chilled liquefied natural gas
across the world’s oceans.
The boom in fossil-fuel produc
tion in the United States has been
matched by a rush on the other
side of the Pacific to build the
infrastructure needed to respond
to the seemingly unquenchable
thirst for energy among Asia’s top
economies. When Congress lifted
restrictions on shipping crude oil
overseas in 2015, soon after the
Obama administration opened
the doors for international sales of
natural gas, even the most booster-
ish of Texas oil men wouldn’t have
predicted the U.S. could become
one of the world’s biggest fossil-
fuel exporters so quickly.
Climate experts say there is little
doubt increased American produc
tion and exports are contributing to
the recent rise in planet-warming
carbon emissions by helping keep
crude prices low, increasing con
sumption in developing economies.
Backers of U.S. exports of liq
uefied natural gas, or LNG, argue
that the boom will produce envi
ronmental benefits because it will
help China and other industrial
nations wean themselves from coal
and other dirtier fossil fuels.
Environmentalists counter
that the massive new supplies
unleashed by American advances
in extracting natural gas from
shale doesn’t just make coal-fired
power plants less competitive.
LNG also competes with such zero-
carbon sources of electricity as
nuclear, solar and wind — poten
tially delaying the full adoption
of greener sources. That’s time
climate scientists and research
ers say the world doesn’t have if
humans hope to mitigate the worst-
case consequences of our carbon
emissions, including catastrophic
sea-level rise, stronger storms and
more wildfires.
“Typically, infrastructure has
multi-decadal lifespans,” said
Katharine Hayhoe, a climate sci
entist and director of the Climate
Science Center at Texas Tech Uni
versity. “So, if we build a natural-
gas plant today, that will impact
carbon emissions over decades
to come. So those are the criti
cal and crucial decisions that are
being made today. Do we increase
access to and use of fossil fuels, or
do we make decisions that limit
and eventually reduce access to
fossil fuels?”
While it is difficult to estimate
how much America’s rise as major
exporter of fossil fuels is contribut
ing to a hotter climate, some of the
economic benefits are plain to see
in South Korea’s shipyards.
At the sprawling Daewoo Ship
building and Marine Engineer
ing facility on the island of Geoje,
more than half of the 35 vessels
scheduled for delivery in 2018
were LNG carriers. A similar num
ber of vessels are lined up for com
pletion next year.
It’s the same story at the two
other major Korean yards. The
construction of the big gas tankers
has been credited with lifting the
nation’s shipbuilding sector out of
the doldrums from a decade ago,
when the Great Recession caused
a downturn in transoceanic trade.
South Korea’s big three ship
builders — Daewoo, Hyundai
Heavy Industries and Samsung
Heavy Industries — won orders
for 53 new LNG carriers in 2018
at about $200 million each, soak
ing up the lion’s share of the 62
vessels ordered globally, accord
ing to numbers compiled by the
London-based shipping group
Clarkson Research. South Korea
is expected to finish 2018 at the
top spot in overall orders for new
commercial ships, surpassing
China for the first time in seven
years.
“We are getting out of a long
tunnel,” Song Ha-dong, a senior
Daewoo executive, said as he sur
veyed the company’s 1,200-acre
yard from above the British Con
tributor, a gargantuan LNG car
rier with a freshly painted deck
covered in a maze of pipes. “The
U.S.-led shale gas boom is getting
fully under way and China, Japan
and South Korea are increasing
their consumption of natural gas.”
During a recent visit by The
Associated Press, three of the
LNG carriers were being assem
bled inside a massive dry dock.
Another 13, including the British
Contributor, had been floated out
to nearby berths where workers
were putting on finishing touches.
Saudi king orders Cabinet shakeup after Khashoggi’s killing
Photo courtesy SAUDI PRESS AGENCY I Associated Press
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, left, speaks to
his father, King Salman, at a meeting of the Gulf Cooperation
Council Dec. 9, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
BY AYA BATRAWY
Associated Press
DUBAI, United Arab
Emirates — Saudi Arabia’s
King Salman issued a wide-
ranging overhaul of top gov
ernment posts on Thursday,
including naming a new
foreign minister, following
international fallout from the
killing of Saudi writer Jamal
Khashoggi three months ago.
He also ordered a shakeup
of the kingdom’s supreme
council that oversees matters
related to security. The coun
cil is headed by the king’s
son, Crown Prince Moham
med bin Salman, whose pow
ers including roles as deputy
prime minister and defense
minister, were untouched in
the overhaul.
The changes appear to
further consolidate the
crown prince’s grip on
power by appointing to key
posts advisers and members
of the royal family seen as
close to him.
It also may signal efforts
to show changes are being
made after the U.S. Senate
passed a resolution saying
it believes the crown prince
is to blame for Khashoggi’s
grisly murder inside the
Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
As the crown prince strug
gles to convince many in
Washington and other West
ern capitals that he had noth
ing to do with Khashoggi’s
killing, the soft-spoken Adel
al-Jubeir was replaced as
foreign minister by Ibrahim
al-Assaf, a longtime former
finance minister. Al-Jubeir
was appointed to minister
of state for foreign affairs at
the Foreign Ministry.
Al-Assaf is well known
to international investors,
having led several Saudi del
egations to the World Eco
nomic Forum in Davos. He
served as finance minister
under King Fahd and King
Abdullah.
Al-Assaf sits on the boards
of oil-giant Saudi Aramco
and the kingdom’s sover
eign wealth fund. The crown
prince oversees both entities.
Al-Assaf had been serv
ing as a minister of state last
year when he was reportedly
detained at the Ritz-Carlton
hotel in Riyadh along with
dozens of high-ranking offi
cials and princes in an anti
corruption sweep led by the
crown prince. Shortly after,
al-Assaf appeared back at a
Cabinet meeting to the sur
prise of many.
The government did not
name those detained nor
disclose what crimes they
were suspected of commit
ting. The Associated Press
could not independently
confirm reports of al-Assaf’s
arrest. The opaque anti-cor
ruption sweep helped Prince
Mohammed consolidate
power and net the govern
ment more than $13 billion
in settlements.
The changes announced
Thursday include aides to
the crown prince, including
Musaed al-Aiban as national
security adviser — in addi
tion to other positions he
holds — and former media
minister Awwad al-Awwad
as adviser to the royal court.
Khalid al-Harbi was named
as head of general security.
Turki al-Sheikh, a confi
dant of the crown prince,
was removed as head of
the Sports Authority and
replaced by Prince Abdu-
laziz bin Turki al-Faisal. This
means al-Sheikh no longer
oversees a cybersecurity
and programming body that
was led by Saud al-Qahtani,
a close aide to the crown
prince who was fired from
his post and sanctioned by
the U.S. Treasury Depart
ment for helping to mas
termind the plot that led to
Khashoggi’s killing.
Khashoggi wrote criti
cally of the crown prince in
columns for The Washington
Post before he was killed.
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