When is Natural Gas expected to "peak"?

Lessons from Germany in Japan

Shell recently published its 2024 trends on Liquified Natural Gas (LNG), with the anticipated dates of when the various continents will reach peak LNG demand.

Europe and Australia have already experienced the peak in LNG effectiveness in the 2010s, and they are now on the path to decarbonization, notably with a higher penetration of renewables.

As many commentators in the energy sector have noted, a high renewable penetration, in the absence of a feasable battery storage solution, inevitably implies that dispatchable energy should be ready on standby.

In the case of the USA that mostly comes from natural gas as can be seen in “green” California.

Germany’s recent announcement that it would procure nearly 25GW of LNG, nearly one third of its total electricity demand, should be a start to rethink the assumptions that went into the Energie Wende. The reliability criteria is going to have to require natural gas. As opposed to importing natural gas, Germany does have other options, they could easily use cleaner technologies for “dirty coal” or perhaps they can restart their nuclear reactors for as low as $25/MWH.

Nuclear is afterall still the biggest source of electricity generation within the European Union, and even coal is still playing a significant, although diminished, role.

It's worth noting that another country, Japan, reached peak LNG imports in 2010, but it followed a distinctly different trajectory when compared to Germany.

Why would that be?

Could it be because Japan is not walking away from King Coal, but that they are rather cleaning up the process?

With the Isogo PC Power Plant in Yokahama being the world’s cleanest coal power plant?

Or is it possible that the Japanese have overcome the irrational fear of nuclear power and are now restarting their nuclear reactors?

The Japanese demonstrated that it is possible to decarbonize an economy while utilizing both coal and nuclear power.

What approach should developing nations such as South Africa adopt: the Asian or European model?