(Originally published by Canary Media on January 31, 2023) 

Special report: South Korea, a top importer of U.S. natural gas, wants to curb its carbon emissions and ultimately shift to cleaner energy. Will its bid work?

This is part two of an in-depth reporting project.

On the airborne approach to South Korea’s capital, in a plane cutting through the clouds over the Yellow Sea, one of the first things that comes into view out the right-side windows is a spit of land, one that’s perfectly rectangular and pocked with two dozen lime-green tanks. Shooting out from the artificial promontory, stretching southwest across the open water for a full two-thirds of a mile, is a thin, L-shaped line of pipes, at the far end of which sits a dock. Lashed to the dock on the day I flew into Incheon, the port city that hosts South Korea’s main airport and abuts the megalopolis of Seoul, was a ship three football fields long. Stamped on its navy-blue hull were three white-block letters: ​“LNG.”

(Continue reading the opinion essay on Canary Media’s page here.)