The actual takeaway from this research is that the upstream methane emissions for natural gas extraction are the big factor in whether it is better or worse than coal for GHG impacts.<p>Their numbers demonstrate that even transporting it large distances with engines that leak methane, it's those upstream leaks that dominate.<p>Luckily we're getting better and better at monitoring those leaks, hopefully this will shift gas production away from areas with high methane leakage (e.g. Russia) towards countries that pay attention to this stuff (e.g Norway) and generally incentivize industry to do better.
LNG is currently important for the <i>politics</i> of decarbonization, not so much for its engineering or economics. The war in Ukraine happened, and Putin's natural gas threat to the EU was (partially) countered via LNG deliveries from the US.<p>The only thing worse than a fossil fuel is a fossil fuel from Russia. An article about LNG that doesn't consider this aspect might be disingenuous.