SUGAR LAND--December 10, 2012--Written by John Egan for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--The viability of U.S. exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) may come down to whether Japan and Korea decide to close their nuclear power plants. So says a report on U.S. LNG exports prepared for the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) (Washington, D.C.) by NERA Economic Consulting (New York, New York). The report, "Macroeconomic Impacts of LNG Exports from the United States," follows a DoE analysis of how potential exports of LNG could affect domestic prices for natural gas, released this past January 2012. The NERA report assesses how potential LNG exports would affect different sectors of the U.S. economy. The two studies were prepared to help DoE make decisions on applications to terminals to export LNG from the Lower 48 states to non-free trade agreement (FTA) countries.