Incredible to watch in real time as the carefully planned natural gas grift rolled out by Energy Secretary Chris Wright and his billionaire backers is being gutted by the impulsive war of distraction launched by their Champion, Donald Trump.
In Pakistan and India, once key customers for the Persian Gulf’s liquefied natural gas exports, energy-hungry industries have been rapidly shifting away from both gas and grid power to make use of cheap, abundant solar energy.
Bangladesh, for years South Asia’s economic success story, made the opposite bet. That was the wrong decision. With the world’s largest LNG terminal, Qatar’s Ras Laffan, shut down and suffering extensive damage from Iranian attacks this week, a fifth of global supplies are now offline.
Solar’s advantages are most apparent in the textile business. Since the Industrial Revolution spread through England’s cotton mills in the 18th century, garment factories have been many countries’ first step toward development. Clean energy is speeding the process.
India’s apparel plants now derive about 28% of their electricity from renewables, according to a recent study by Moody’s Corp. affiliate ICRA ESG Ratings. Large factory roofs make installation of solar arrays straightforward.
Plenty are already surging ahead of rich-world companies in their clean power ambitions. Pakistan’s Nishat Mills Ltd. and Interloop Ltd., which supply Gap Inc. and Hennes & Mauritz AB, respectively have 35 MW and 25 MW of photovoltaic panels, comfortably on a par with Tesla. Bengaluru-based Gokaldas Exports Ltd., whose customers include Adidas AG, derives 79% of its energy from solar, biomass and other clean sources.
Green motivations aren’t completely absent. Fashion companies have for many years been under pressure to clean up their supply chains. That trend is being accelerated by the European Union’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, which came into force this year and adds a sort of tariff onto imports equivalent to the carbon price they’d have paid if manufactured locally. Exporters who build out renewables will spare themselves those levies.
But the payoff in power bills is sufficient to justify the switch. Solar provided electricity equivalent to a fifth of Pakistan’s grid power in the year through March 2024, the most recent available data, according to Renewables First, a pro-energy transition group. This has left the country with less need for imported LNG.
About 35 gas shipments are now being diverted every year because they’re not needed, said a recent report by AKD Securities Ltd., equivalent to about a quarter of typical import volumes. This has already spared Pakistan about $12 billion of spending on imported LNG and oil and could save a further $7 billion this year, wrote Lauri Myllyvirta, co-founder of the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air.
Countries that threw in their lot with LNG are in a tighter spot. Bangladesh, whose 4,000-odd garment factories are key suppliers for the global fast-fashion industry, has been far slower to switch to renewables. Just 1.6 gigawatts of solar has been connected nationwide, compared to as much as 34 GW in Pakistan. Import tariffs for photovoltaic equipment of nearly 30% deter businesses from deploying rooftop power. While Pakistan’s LNG imports have shrunk since the Ukraine war, Bangladesh’s have almost doubled.