Written by rjs, MarketWatch 666
This is a collection of interesting news articles about the environment and related topics over the last week. This is a Tuesday evening regular post at GEI.
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New York Confronts Its Worst Measles Outbreak in Decades – Through the fall, traveler after traveler arrived in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities of New York from areas of Israel and Europe where measles was spreading. They then spent time in homes, schools and shops in communities where too many people were unvaccinated. Within months, New York State was facing its most severe outbreak of the disease in decades, with 182 cases confirmed by Thursday, almost exclusively among ultra-Orthodox Jews. Health officials in New Jersey have reported 33 measles cases, mostly in Ocean County, driven by similar conditions. In 2018, New York and New Jersey accounted for more than half the measles cases in the country. Alarmed, health officials began a systematic effort to bring up vaccination rates and halt the disease’s spread. But while there has been progress, the outbreak is not yet over. Health officials said part of the problem has been resistance among some people in ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods to fully cooperate with health workers, get vaccinations and promptly report infections.“Sometimes they hang up and they don’t want to open the door,” said Dr. Patricia Schnabel Ruppert, the health commissioner of Rockland County, northwest of New York City, where the worst of the outbreak has been, with 116 confirmed cases. “It’s hard to break an outbreak if you are not getting cooperation.” Measles is one of the most contagious infections and can live for up to two hours in the airspace where an infected person breathed, coughed or sneezed. Some 90 percent of unvaccinated people exposed in proximity to an infected person will get it.
Officials in anti-vaccination ‘hotspot’ near Portland declare an emergency over measles outbreak – A quickly escalating measles outbreak around Portland, Ore., has led health officials in nearby Clark County, Wash., to declare a public health emergency as they warn that people infected with the highly contagious virus have visited schools and churches, a dentist’s office, a Costco, an Ikea and an Amazon locker pickup station.Someone with measles was at Concourse D of the Portland International Airport on Jan. 7, the county’s public health department advised. An infected person attended a Portland Trail Blazers home game Jan. 11. At the beginning of last week, there were only a handful of confirmed cases. On Friday, the day the emergency was declared, there were 19. By Sunday, that number had grown to 21. The latest update came Tuesday, when county officials said they had confirmed 23 cases and were investigating two more suspected cases. The vast majority of those who have fallen ill had not been immunized. The outbreak makes concrete the fear of pediatric epidemiologists that a citadel of the movement against compulsory vaccination could be susceptible to the rapid spread of a potentially deadly disease. State data shows that 7.9 percent of children in Clark County were exempt in the 2017-2018 school year from vaccines required for kindergarten entry, which includes the two-dose course for measles that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says is 97 percent effective. Only 1.2 percent of the children had a medical dispensation, meaning that nearly 7 percent were not immunized for personal or religious reasons. Nationally, about 2 percent of children went without required immunizations for nonmedical reasons. The high rate of nonmedical exemption for vaccines is what makes the Portland area, which sits across the Columbia River from Clark County, a “hotspot” for outbreaks, according to Peter J. Hotez, a professor of pediatrics and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. “This is something I’ve predicted for a while now,” he said of the public health emergency in Clark County. “It’s really awful and really tragic and totally preventable.”
Kindergartens to close early for Lunar New Year amid deadly flu outbreak — All kindergartens and childcare centres in Hong Kong will shut for the Lunar New Year holiday about a week earlier than planned in an attempt to curb the spread of flu, the government said on Thursday. About 1,000 facilities will begin their holidays on Saturday after flu outbreaks hit more than 35 per cent of them. Some 384 kindergartens and childcare centres have already been told to suspend classes for seven days owing to the rampant spread of influenza. Secretary for Food and Health Professor Sophia Chan Siu-chee made the announcement at around noon on Thursday after chairing an interdepartmental government meeting in the morning. “We believe this decision will be a preventive measure for the current flu situation, in particular in kindergartens and childcare centres,” Chan said. The minister said a basket of factors had influenced the decision, including the number of kindergartens and childcare centres hit by flu and admissions to paediatric wards at public hospitals. The first day of Lunar New Year is on February 5, but some schools break up for the holiday earlier.
Mainstream Media Is Literally Making People Sick – Caitlin Johnstone – A new, updated data set is now available on a psychological phenomenon that has been labeled “Trump Anxiety Disorder” or “Trump Hypersensitive Unexplained Disorder,” and it says that the phenomenon only got worse in 2018. The disorder is described as a specific type of anxiety in which symptoms “were specific to the election of Trump and the resultant unpredictable sociopolitical climate,” and according to the 2018 surveys Americans are feeling significantly more stressed by the future of their country and the current political environment than they were last year. Pacific Standard reports as follows: “As the possibility of a Donald Trump presidency became more and more certain – the contours of the new age of American anxiety began to take shape. In a 2017 column, Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank described this phenomenon as “Trump Hypertensive Unexplained Disorder”: Overeating. Headaches. Fainting. Irregular heartbeat. Chronic neck pain. Depression. Irritable bowel syndrome. Tightness in the chest. Shortness of breath. Teeth grinding. Stomach ulcer. Indigestion. Shingles. Eye twitching. Nausea. Irritability. High blood sugar. Tinnitus. Reduced immunity. Racing pulse. Shaking limbs. Hair loss. Acid reflux. Deteriorating vision. Stroke. Heart attack. It was a veritable organ recital. Two years later, the physiological effects of the Trump administration aren’t going away. A growing body of research has tracked the detrimental impacts of Trump-related stress on broad segments of the American population, from young adults to women, to racial and LGBT communities. The results aren’t good.” I do not for one second doubt that Americans are feeling more stressed and suffering more health-degrading symptoms as a result than they were prior to Trump’s election. But Pacific Standard and its “growing body of research” ignore the most obvious and significant culprit behind this phenomenon which is tearing people’s health to shreds: the mass media which has been deliberately fanning the flames of Trump panic.
New technology uses lasers to transmit audible messages to specific people – Researchers have demonstrated that a laser can transmit an audible message to a person without any type of receiver equipment. The ability to send highly targeted audio signals over the air could be used to communicate across noisy rooms or warn individuals of a dangerous situation such as an active shooter. In The Optical Society (OSA) journal Optics Letters, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Lincoln Laboratory report using two different laser-based methods to transmit various tones, music and recorded speech at a conversational volume. “Our system can be used from some distance away to beam information directly to someone’s ear,” said research team leader Charles M. Wynn. “It is the first system that uses lasers that are fully safe for the eyes and skin to localize an audible signal to a particular person in any setting.” Creating sound from air The new approaches are based on the photoacoustic effect, which occurs when a material forms sound waves after absorbing light. In this case, the researchers used water vapor in the air to absorb light and create sound.
Do As I Say, Not As I Do: Vegetarian Environmental Activist Criticized For Traveling Via Private Jet – Today in liberal hypocrisy news, Norwegian billionaire Gunhild Stordalen, who is behind a campaign to save the planet by reducing meat consumption, is being criticized for recently buying a £20 million private jet and regularly using it to fly to exotic destinations around the world. As many of Elon Musk’s critics have also pointed out, pollution created by air travel is a major contributor to global warming. Christopher Snowdon, head of lifestyle economics at the Institute of Economic Affairs told the Mirror: “The hypocrisy of this is breathtaking. This is a campaign telling ordinary people they should be eating less than half a rasher of bacon per day for the sake of the environment, while the patron is flying people around the world in private jets creating one enormous carbon footprint. This is a classic case of do as I say not as I do. Militant environmentalists can’t resist the chance to tell people how to live their lives and demonise everyday items of food.” Stordalen is a former model who is now a doctor. She recently provided the bankroll for the EAT-Lancet study, which concluded this week that people should, on a daily basis, eat no more than two thirds of a fish finger, a quarter of a chicken breast or a penny-sized beef burger. Stordalen has been an active campaigner for the green agenda and a outspoken vegetarian, who founded the EAT foundation in 2013. The study itself had quite a carbon footprint, too. It involved 37 experts from 16 countries who were flown around the world to dozens of different locations to try and unveil the plan this week. She is also active on Instagram, recently posting photos of herself vacationing in Greece, Mexico, Costa Rica and Cuba. Recently, Stordalen had also been photographed in a post where she was lecturing people to cut meat from their diets.
This Common Preservative in Processed Food May Be Making You Tired — Is it hard to motivate yourself to get off the couch and go exercise? Well, a common food additive you’re unknowingly consuming in large quantities might be to blame. New research sheds light on inorganic phosphate – an additive and preservative found in up to 70 percent of the foods in the common diet in the U.S. – and the impact it could be having on your health. The study, published in the journal Circulation, aimed to look at the adverse impacts of consuming too much phosphate in one’s diet by examining lab mice that were given a high-phosphate diet. The researchers measured the rodents’ oxygen uptake during exercise, showing not just less capacity for movement but also the inability to produce enough fatty acids needed to feed their muscles. While the mice were being observed for a 12-week period, the researchers wanted to draw a comparison to humans, so they looked at the data of people who were enrolled in the Dallas Heart Study. These individuals ranged from 18 to 65 years old, were not on any medications, and had no history of kidney or heart issues. They wore physical activity monitors for seven days, which tied higher phosphate levels in their diets to less time spent carrying out moderate to vigorous exercise. As with the mice, inactivity increased when phosphate levels were higher.
Toxic substances found in diapers in France- government agency (Reuters) – A variety of potentially toxic substances, including the widely-used weed-killer glyphosate, has been found in babies’ diapers in France, according to a study on Wednesday by the French environment agency ANSES. The study said research had found substances including butylphenyl methylpropional used in beauty products and certain aromatic hydrocarbons as well as glyphosate. All of them pose potential risks. The French government said manufacturers and retailers should ensure that the substances are removed from diapers. The agency said health risks could not be excluded, although French Health Minister Agnes Buzyn said the current situation regarding how diapers were made did not pose dangers to the health of babies. Buzyn, Environment Minister Francois de Rugy and Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire issued a joint statement calling on manufacturers and retailers to take measures within the next 15 days to eliminate those substances from babies’ diapers. “Along with Bruno Le Maire and Francois de Rugy, we are calling on the companies to take all necessary measures to make sure nappies are as safe as possible,” wrote Buzyn on Twitter. “There is no immediate, serious risk to the health of children, but it is paramount to take precautions,” she added. Glyphosate, which is off-patent and marketed worldwide by dozens of chemical groups, is due to be phased out in France within three years, although farmers are exempt from the ban where there is no credible alternative to the pesticide.
Glyphosate and Other Toxic Chemicals Detected in French Diapers — In a study said to be the first of its kind worldwide, French health agency Anses has found potentially dangerous chemicals in disposable diapers. The substances they discovered include glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto‘s Roundup weedkiller, BBC News reported.Anses said it “detected a number of hazardous chemicals in disposable diapers that could migrate through urine, for example, and enter into prolonged contact with babies’ skin.” Some of the chemicals were found at levels above safety limits while others, like glyphosate, were found at lower levels.The report, published Wednesday, was based on tests of 23 samples of diapers on sale in France between 2016 and 2018, including brands billed as “ecological,” The Guardian reported. The agency did not name specific brands, but said the tests were representative of the market as a whole. Some French diaper brands are also sold in other countries, BBC News pointed out. French Health Minister Agnes Buzyn, Environment Minister Francois de Rugy and Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire have called on French diaper makers and sellers to develop a plan to remove these substances within 15 days. Companies will be allowed a delay of six months in changing procedures to eliminate the chemicals, BBC News reported. The study found 60 chemicals in all, some of which have been banned in the EU for more than 15 years, The Guardian reported. Anses also said that some exceeded limits for safe exposure based on a “realistic” use estimate of 4,000 diapers for a child during their first three years of life.
China confirms birth of gene-edited babies, blames scientist Jiankui for breaking rules – The Chinese authorities are holding scientist He Jiankui wholly responsible for creating the world’s first gene-edited babies.He had announced their birth in November, after which the authorities announced an investigation into the matter.A team of investigators told the official Xinhua news agency on Monday that a preliminary investigation had concluded that He had “organised a project team that included foreign staff, which intentionally avoided surveillance and used technology of uncertain safety and effectiveness to perform human embryo gene-editing activity with the purpose of reproduction, which is officially banned in the country”. Between March 2017 and November 2018, He forged ethical review papers and recruited eight couples to participate in his experiment, resulting in two pregnancies.One of the mothers gave birth to twins nicknamed “Lulu” and “Nana”, the investigators said. Another woman is still carrying a gene-edited fetus. They also said that He, his staff and organisations related to his project would be punished according to laws and regulations.The Guangdong government will keep the twins under medical observation.
Death Penalty Likely for Chinese Scientist Who Created World’s First Gene-Edited Babies – The rogue scientist who created the world’s first genetically modified babies was forcefully denounced by Chinese authorities on Monday for defying numerous laws and committing fraud for the sake of “personal fame and gain” and will face severe repercussions, with many of his colleagues believing he is likely to face capital punishment. On Monday, investigators in Guangdong province announced that they had completed their preliminary investigation of He Jiankui, an associate professor at the Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen. According to Xinhua news agency, the officials found that the researcher had knowingly skirted supervision, faked laboratory work, forged papers, raised funds and organized scientists to assist in the illegal genetic editing of human embryos.Xinhua reports: “In June 2016, He started the project and organized a team that included some overseas members. He conducted the gene-editing activities using technologies without safety and effectiveness guarantee.With a fake ethical review certificate, He recruited eight volunteer couples (the males tested positive for the HIV antibody, females tested negative for the HIV antibody) and carried out experiments from March 2017 to November 2018.As HIV carriers are not allowed to have assisted reproduction, He asked others to replace the volunteers to take blood tests and asked researchers to edit genes on human embryos and implant them into the females’ body.… The activities seriously violated ethical principles and scientific integrity and breached relevant regulations of China, according to the investigation.” The lead investigators told Xinhua that He and “other relevant personnel and organizations” would be “seriously dealt with according to the law,” according to the Wall Street Journal. In November, He shocked the world and earned the reputation of a “mad scientist” and “China’s Frankenstein” after formally announcing to the International Summit on Human Genome Editing in Hong Kong that he had successfully used the CRISPR/Cas9 targeted genome editing tool to modify two twins’ embryos and switch off an HIV-related gene to prevent them from contracting the virus, which their father has.
Climate change will affect the ratio of male-to-female newborns, scientists say – Global warming will have a variety of effects on our planet, yet it may also directly impact our human biology, research suggests.Specifically, climate change could alter the proportion of male and female newborns, with more boys born in places where temperatures rise and fewer boys born in places with other environmental changes, such as drought or wildfire caused by global warming. A recent study in Japan found a link between temperature fluctuations and a lower male-to-female sex ratio at birth, with conceptions of boys especially vulnerable to external stress factors, wrote Dr. Misao Fukuda, lead study author and founder of the M&K Health Institute in Hyogo. Last summer, Fukuda and his colleagues published a separate study looking at births in areas hit by environmental events that caused extreme stress. They included Hyogo Prefecture after the Kobe earthquake of 1995; Tohoku after the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011 (and subsequent nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daichii power plant); and Kumamoto Prefecture after the 2016 earthquakes.Nine months after these disasters, the proportion of male babies born in these prefectures declined by between 6% and 14% from the previous year. This data supports the idea that major stress affects gestation, which in turn alters the newborn sex ratio, Fukuda and his co-authors wrote. Stress stemming directly from “climate events caused by global warming” might also affect the sex ratio, Fukuda wrote in an email. Though scientists do not know how stress affects gestation, Fukuda theorizes that the vulnerability of Y-bearing sperm cells, male embryos and/or male fetuses to stress is why “subtle significant changes in sex ratios” occur.
Supreme Court declines to hear case about toxic burn pits on military bases overseas – PBS Newshour – audio & transcript -The Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from veterans who had sued defense contractors over claims that toxic smoke from open burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan caused them serious health problems. One of the contractors, KBR, countered that waste elimination procedures were directed by the military itself. As Hari Sreenivasan reports, the afflicted soldiers have no remaining legal recourse.
Whitmer- Flint needs bottled water until pipes replaced – – Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said Monday she is committed to ensuring Flint residents continue getting free bottled water until the city finishes replacing its lead service lines. But she declined to say whether she’ll push to resume state funding when donated supplies run out. “I think at this juncture, it’s too early to answer that question with any specificity,” Whitmer told reporters at an unrelated event in Lansing. “What I will say is that until all the pipes are replaced, we’ve got to make sure that people have clean water to drink.” Nestle Waters North America is expected to provide free bottled water to Flint residents through April as officials work to replace underground lead pipes in the wake of the city’s water contamination crisis. As a candidate, Whitmer criticized a 2018 permit renewal that allows Nestle to pump up to 400 gallons of Michigan groundwater per minute for its Ice Mountain bottled water brand. She also vowed to help cities across the state replace lead water pipes, a process that Flint is currently undertaking, and restore bottled water service to Flint. As of December, the city had replaced nearly 7,000 out of 18,300 lead or galvanized steel water pipes it had identified, and Mayor Karen Weaver said Flint hopes to complete the work by the end of 2019.
More Salt in Our Water Is Creating Scary New ‘Chemical Cocktails’ – Gene Likens has been studying forest and aquatic ecosystems for more than half a century. In that time he’s seen a change in the chemistry of our surface waters – including an increase in the alkalinity and salinity of waterways – something he and his colleagues have dubbed “freshwater salinization syndrome.”Likens coauthored a report published last month that found that not only is salinity increasing in many surface waters, but when you add salt to the environment it can mobilize heavy metals, nutrient pollution and other contaminants that are combining to create new “chemical cocktails” in rivers, streams and reservoirs.These cocktails can be a danger to our drinking water, wildlife and riverine ecology. And they’ve already contributed to a public health crisis in at least one U.S. city.”I didn’t expect the massive scale of change across the lower 48 that we found – or the magnitude of change,” said Likens, who is president emeritus of the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies and a distinguished research professor at the University of Connecticut. Lead poisoning was the top headline from the recent water crisis in Flint, Michigan, but salt played a key role in the tragedy. When the city switched sources of water to the highly polluted Flint River, the water had a much higher salinity because of runoff from road salts, which, without proper treatment, increased the corrosivity of the water. “That change in the chemistry of the water flowing through the pipes liberated lead from the pipes or lead-soldered connections,” explained Likens. Lead was the villain, but salt was its enabler.
Cost of Polluter Penalties at 20-Year-Low Under Trump’s EPA — Civil fines charged to polluters by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Trump administration fell 85 percent during the last fiscal year when compared to the average annual amount charged over the past two decades, The Washington Post reported Thursday. That makes last year the lowest average year for penalties since 1994. The numbers come from an analysis of agency data conducted by former EPA Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance head Cynthia Giles, who served the agency during the Obama administration and is now a guest fellow at the Harvard Environmental and Energy Law Program. Giles and other former officials warned that a decline in fines put America’s environment and health at risk, since high fines help ensure it is costlier for industry to break the law than follow it. “The public expects EPA to protect them from the worst polluters,” Giles told The Washington Post. “The Trump EPA is not doing that. What worries me is how industry will respond to EPA’s abandonment of tough enforcement.” Over the past two decades, the EPA charged an average of more than $500 million a year in fines, adjusted for inflation. During the last fiscal year, that number fell to $72 million. The cost of complying with EPA regulations also fell last fiscal year, from an average of $7.8 billion over the past two decades to $5.6 billion.The analysis was reviewed by the Environmental Integrity Project, whose executive director, Eric Schaeffer, said it was a good snapshot of the Trump EPA’s approach, since it covered the first fiscal year when only Trump had been in charge and fewer cases would have carried over from the Obama administration.
A New Way to Curb Nitrogen Pollution: Regulate Fertilizer Producers, Not Just Farmers – Nitrogen pollution is produced by a number of interlinked compounds, from ammonia to nitrous oxide. While they have both natural and human sources, the latter increased dramatically over the past century as farmers scaled up food production in response to population growth. Once these chemicals are released into the air and water, they contribute to problems that include climate change and “dead zones” in rivers, lakes and coastal areas.Reducing nitrogen pollution around the globe is an urgent environmental goal, but extremely challenging – in part because the main human source is agriculture. Environmental policies are especially hard to enforce onfarmsbecause there are many of them over broad areas, which makes it difficult to confirm that farmers are complying. And powerful agricultural interest groups often push back against them. Even for farmers who want to do a better job, managing nitrogen use is challenging. Nitrogen is a key nutrient that helps plants and livestock grow, but it escapes readily into the environment. My research focuses on nitrogen and its many environmental impacts. In a recent study, Princeton University research scholar Tim Searchinger and I lay out a new strategy that targets fertilizer companies as well as farmers. Five companies currently control over 80 percent of North American production capacity for urea, an inexpensive form of nitrogen fertilizer, and ammonia, the main ingredient for all types of nitrogen fertilizers. Four of these companies either produce a more environmentally friendly fertilizer or provide a service to help farmers use nitrogen more efficiently. But these greener offerings occupy a very small niche in the fertilizer market. For example, Nutrien, which makes the most popular environmentally friendly fertilizer, Environmentally Smart Nitrogen, devotes less than 5 percent of its nitrogen production capacity to this product. Nor are these options widely used by farmers. First, suppliers could be required to increase sales of more environmentally friendly fertilizers as a percentage of total sales. Second, their products could be required to achieve a specific performance level where more nitrogen is available to crops rather than lost to the environment.
“Below 1%”: The Monarch Butterfly Is Approaching Total and Irreversible Extinction – The monarch butterfly, the majestic black-and-orange pollinator that once covered winter trees like leaves from the Baja California Peninsula up to California’s Central Coast, is facing a sharp population decline that could spell its irreversible doom.According to a new survey conducted by the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, the iconic North American butterfly, which migrates thousands of miles across the continent on an annual basis, is now hovering inches away from extinction. In 1980, the monarch butterfly population reached about 4.5 million. By the mid-2000s, the count dropped tobarely 100,000 and last year, the number of western monarchs fell to a staggering 28,429 – a 99.4 percent decline that Xerces Society conservation biologist Emma Pelton described to the San Francisco Chronicle as “this other order of magnitude drop.” “It’s mind-boggling. We’re now down below 1 percent of the historic population,” Pelton explained to the Chronicle. Continuing, the biologist explained that the death of the monarch species could have a knock-on effect on other insects such as bees and insectivorous bird species: “There’s a tight link in a loss of insects and our songbirds, which rely on insects. We have declines in songbirds, and I think that links directly to declines in insects.” By now, the process of extinction could prove inexorable, plunging the monarch into an “extinction vortex” wherein the species will be unable to replenish its numbers through its natural reproductive process. The cause of the monarch’s steep and rapid decline has forced biologists to look for answers as to why the die-off has occurred. A variety of factors could be involved, all of which are tied to human economic activities ranging from logging and sprawling urbanization to pesticide and herbicide use on industrial corn and soybean crops as well as the plowing of the monarch’s milkweed habitat along the route by which it migrates.
‘George’ the Snail Marks First Documented Species Extinction of 2019 — On January 2, a snail named George shriveled up and died in his tank at the University of Hawaii. He was 14 years old, which for a land snail is pretty long in the tooth (or in George’s case, radula). But in all of his years, George never sired any offspring. There were simply no mating partners to be found. In fact, George was the last known member of his species, Achatinella apexfulva. And the moment he slimed off this mortal coil, 2019 experienced its first documented extinction. While George’s death came as a bit of a surprise (it’s tough to tell when a snail is ill), the extinction of his species has been a long time coming. “Researchers and conservationists have been looking for this species [in the wild] for over 20 years and haven’t had any luck with finding them,” says wildlife biologist David Sischo, the coordinator of Hawaii’s Snail Extinction Prevention Program. Scientists actually thought A. apexfulva had already gone extinct back in the 1990s, until 10 of them were found in 1997 and brought under the university’s care. The idea was to set up a captive population whose progeny researchers could one day release into the wild. Unfortunately, none of the baby snails hatched in the lab lasted very long – except George, who was named after the late “Lonesome George,” the Pinta Island tortoise who was also the last of his kind. While A. apexfulva has the distinction of being the first to die out this year, it is one of several hundred land snails to disappear from the Hawaiian Islands over recent decades. The archipelago was once home to about 750 land snail species – as many as you’d find in all of continental North America, says Sischo. Unfortunately, only around 10 percent remain, all of which are federally protected.
Many coffee species threatened with extinction (Reuters) – Climate change and deforestation are putting more than half the world’s wild coffee species at risk of extinction, including the popular commercial coffees Arabica and Robusta, scientists warned on Wednesday. Research published by experts at Britain’s Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew found that current conservation measures for wild coffee species are not enough to protect their long-term future. Aaron Davis, head of coffee research at Kew, who co-led the work, said that among coffee species threatened with extinction are some that could be used to breed and develop the coffees of the future, including some that have resistance to disease and that can withstand worsening climatic conditions. He said targeted action is urgently needed in specific tropical countries, particularly in Africa and particular in forested areas which are being hit hard by climate change. “As temperatures increase and rainfall decreases – the suitable area for growing … diminishes,” The researchers, whose work was published on Wednesday in the journals Science Advances and Global Change Biology, said their findings are a concern for Ethiopia in particular. Using computer modelling, the researchers projected how a changing climate would affect wild Arabica in Ethiopia. They found what they described as “a bleak picture” for the species, with the number of locations where it grows decreasing by as much as 85 percent by 2080.
The contiguous United States just lost its last wild caribou – The last caribou known to inhabit the contiguous United States has been removed from the wild. This week, a team of biologists working for the Canadian province of British Columbia captured the caribou – a female – in the Selkirk Mountains just north of the U.S.-Canada border. They then moved it to a captive rearing pen near Revelstoke as part of a controversial, last-ditch effort to preserve highly endangered herds. The female caribou is believed to be the last member of the last herd to regularly cross into the lower 48 states from Canada. The 14 January capture of the caribou was “like losing a piece of the tribe in some way,” says Bart George, a wildlife biologist for the Kalispel tribe in Usk, Washington. It is one of two indigenous nations in the United States that have been pushing governments to maintain the cross-border caribou herd and protect its habitat. In about a month, the British Columbia biologists plan to release the caribou – along with two other animals from another endangered herd – back into the wild, into a larger and more stable Canadian herd. The ultimate fate of these animals, however, is unclear. They are mountain caribou, a distinct ecotype of caribou found only in a forested swath of northwestern North America, which have become endangered because of habitat loss and other factors. Conservation efforts have failed to reverse population declines or prevent the complete extirpation of some herds at the southern end of the mountain caribou’s range, where they inhabit inland temperate rainforests. And biologists can’t say whether any caribou will again inhabit the contiguous United States.
Alaska Poachers Sentenced for Killing Mother Bear and ‘Shrieking’ Cubs – Two Alaska hunters will face jail time and other penalties after fatally shooting a denning black bear sow in front of her two “shrieking” cubs, and then shooting the newborns dead. Wasilla resident Andrew Renner was sentenced to five months in jail with two months suspended, a fine of $20,000 with $11,000 suspended and the forfeiture of his 22′ Sea Sport ocean boat and trailer, 2012 GMC Sierra pickup truck, two rifles, two handguns, two iPhones, and two sets of backcountry skis that were used in the offenses, according to a press release from Alaska’s Department of Law. His hunting license was revoked for 10 years.Owen Renner, Andrew’s son, was sentenced to suspended jail time, community service and will be required to take a hunters safety course. His hunting license was suspended for two years.The men will also have to pay $1,800 in restitution, the amount set by statute for killing black bears.The defendants were sentenced Tuesday at the Anchorage District Court. The prosecutor, Assistant Attorney General Aaron Peterson, told the court that this was “the most egregious bear cub poaching case his office has ever seen” and urged the court to impose a sentence to dissuade others from committing similar offenses in the future.The Renners made headlines in August after they were charged with several felony and misdemeanor crimes for shooting and killing the mother bear and the two newborns in April on an island in Prince William Sound.They tried to cover up their actions but did not realize the bears were part of an observation program by the U.S. Forest Service and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. The den was monitored by motion-activated camera, meaning the slayings were caught on video and audio. The younger Renner can even be heard saying, “they’ll never be able to link it to us,” according to court documents obtained by KTVA. According to Alaska’s Department of Law, the recordings show the Renners skiing to a remote den. Owen Renner fires at least two shots at the denning sow. Not long after the fatal shots, the newborn cubs start “shrieking” and the elder Renner fires several shots, killing the young bears. The men then butchered the mother’s body, placed it in game bags and skied away.
[http://:%20https//www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/cocaine-london-river-thames-water-research-kings-college-study-fish-high-drugs-a8738146.html]Record cocaine levels in Thames probably not making fish high, experts say – Londoners’ cocaine habit may show no signs of lessening, but the high levels of the drug detected in the Thames is not harming its wildlife, an expert has said. New research by a team from King’s College London (KCL) examined the water overflowing into the river from sewers during storms.They found the class A drug, which was present in users’ urine and then flushed into the sewage system, could be easily detected in the Thames in the 24 hours after a sewer overflow. The levels in London were noticeably higher than other cities which have been tested and a marine wildlife expert said cocaine would have a similar effect on fish as humans. “Drugs which affect us will almost always affect all animal life, and invertebrates a little bit more because their biochemistry is much more sensitive,” said James Robson, a senior curator at the SEA LIFE London aquarium. “Essentially everything in the water will be affected by drugs like these. A lot of the triggers and the ways that cocaine affects the system is really primal.” A study published last summer found critically endangered eels could be made “hyperactive” by the traces of drugs flushed into Britain’s waters. Eels deliberately exposed to cocaine-infused water by biologists at the University of Naples Federico II not only appeared hyperactive but also saw the drug accumulate in their brains, muscles, gills and skin. But Mr Robson said this did not mean animals living the Thames were getting high: The doses used in the Italian study were significantly higher than those detected in London’s waters, he explained.Mega water crisis ahead, says expert – India is staring at a dangerous drought situation ahead unless there is provision of water by March, warns senior journalist Mr P. Sainath The national average rain deficit India registered in 2018 was around 10 per cent. In the post-monsoon period (from October to December 21) the deficit stood at -44 per cent. There could be many livestock deaths unless there is provision of water by March, warned Mr Sainath. He was speaking at a talk organised by Manthan Samvaad, a city-based forum that promotes intelligent conversation and public disclosure. “In Maharashtra, sowing of Rabi crop has decreased by 42 per cent, which means fodder availability in the market will drop this year, leading to less food for livestock,” Mr Sainath said on the possible drought scenario ahead. “The situation ahead is nothing less than a nightmare, following the drastic climatic conditions witnessed over the years. The IMD is in complete denial on climate change. It instead calls it extreme weather condition. But the reality is, India is in trouble. There will be a serious drought situation ahead. Rainfed farmers will land in deep trouble. Even a good monsoon in 2019 might not be helpful, except for providing initial relief. The situation ahead can worsen and these are all man-made crises.” According to experts, India is likely to face a mega water crisis and the primarily reason is transfer of water from rural to urban, agriculture to industry, livelihood to lifestyle. “We see that 69 per cent of Indians who live in rural India face water scarcity and in the urban areas we have builders promoting their ventures, which have swimming pools on each floor. Is it not time when each individual measures personal use of water to save wastage,” Mr Sainath asked.
Desalinated water affects the energy equation in the Middle East – IEA – Perhaps more than in other parts of the world, in the Middle East energy and water are closely intertwined. Any discussion about the outlook for electricity in the region also becomes a discussion about water. As we examined in detail in the latest WEO special report, Outlook for Producer Economies, this is largely because of the way that the Middle East has turned to desalination to help narrow the gap between freshwater withdrawals and sustainable supply. But this reliance on water desalination comes at a significant cost. In 2016, desalination accounted for just 3% of the Middle East’s water supply but 5% of its total energy consumption. Countries in the Middle East already have some of the lowest water availability levels on a per-capita basis in the world. And economic and population growth in the region are set to increase demand for water over the coming decades, a period during which rising temperatures in the region could impose further constraints on water supply. Moreover, the consistent under-pricing of both water and energy has encouraged the inefficient use of water and contributed to unsustainable levels of withdrawals from non-renewable groundwater resources. While roughly 85% of the region’s water withdrawals are for agriculture, the value added to the region’s GDP from the sector is less than 5%. The growing reliance on desalination in the Middle East underlines the importance of effective management of the water-energy nexus, with knock-on implications for energy and water security. How things play out in the next decade will depend a lot on the policies and technologies that are put in place. Membrane technologies that use electricity, such as reverse osmosis, are the most common desalination technology installed worldwide. But the Middle East is an exception. The low cost of oil and gas and the prevalence of co-generation facilities for power and water means the region relies heavily on fossil fuel-based thermal desalination (such as multi-stage flash or multiple-effect desalination).
‘It’s like hell here’: Australia bakes as record temperatures nudge 50C – It was 48.9C last Tuesday in Port Augusta, South Australia, an old harbour city that now harvests solar power. Michelle Coles, the owner of the local cinema, took off her shoes at night to test the concrete before letting the dogs out. “People tend to stay at home,” she said. “They don’t walk around when it’s like this.” It’s easy to see why: in the middle of the day it takes seconds to blister a dog’s paw or child’s foot. In Mildura, in northern Victoria, last week gardeners burned their hands when they picked up their tools, which had been left in the sun at 46C. Fish were dying in the rivers. Almost every day last week a new heat record was broken in Australia. They spread out, unrelenting, across the country, with records broken for all kinds of reasons – as if the statistics were finding an infinite series of ways to say that it was hot. The community of Noona – population 14 – reached the highest minimum ever recorded overnight in Australia – 35.9C was the coldest it got, at 7am on Friday. It was 45C by noon. A record fell on Tuesday in Meekatharra in Western Australia – the highest minimum there ever recorded (33C). Another fell on Wednesday, 2,000 miles away, in Albury, New South Wales – their hottest day (45.6C). It was 45C or higher for four consecutive days in Broken Hill – another record – and more than 40C for the same time period in Canberra, the nation’s capital. Nine records fell across NSW on Wednesday alone. Back in Port Augusta, Tuesday was the highest temperature since records began in 1962. In South Australia, they declared a “code red” across Adelaide, the state capital. Homelessness services were working overtime and the Red Cross started calling round a list of 750 people who were deemed especially vulnerable.
‘Horrific Mass Grave’ of Wild Horses Found in Australia Amid Extreme Heat – About two dozen wild horses were found dead in central Australia last week, Australia’s national broadcasterABC News reported.The decomposing horses were strewn along a 100-meter stretch by a dried-up waterhole called the “Deep Hole” near the remote community of Santa Teresa in Australia’s Northern Territory.It’s not yet clear why the animals died, but locals have tied the grisly incident to the region’s sweltering heat wave. “The family of wild horses, including Orreea (Stallions), Marla (Mares), and Ambaa-Agooga (Foals) are likely to have perished from dehydration accompanied by the overwhelming heat,” according to a Facebook postfrom the neighboring town of Alice Springs. The area has baked from nearly two weeks of temperatures above 42 degrees Celsius (107.6 degrees Fahrenheit), ABC noted. “The prospect of any living creatures perishing in this way has left many locals devastated. All feral animals need to be managed with effective strategies to minimize their impact on the environment and to alleviate any suffering,” the post continued. “I just couldn’t believe something like that happened out here, first time it happened like that,” he added. Australia is currently melting in a record-breaking heat wave. In South Australia, large colonies of heat-stressed bats and pups are literally falling out of trees. In New South Wales, more than a a million fish have died this month alone. The cause of the fish deaths is not yet known, but experts have pointed fingers at drought, climate change and mismanagement.
When the river runs dry: the Australian towns facing heatwave and drought – As all of Australia suffered through a brutal heatwave last week, locals in the outback New South Wales towns of Walgett and Lightning Ridge were better prepared than most. Almost every day in summer is 40C or above here. Usually, the rivers provide relief: swimming in cool water, fishing for golden perch or Murray cod or seeking the solace of a big sleepy red gum that lines the banks. But this year there are no rivers. With the mercury in the mid-40s, the Narran, the Namoi and the Barwon – all tributaries of the vast Murray-Darling river system – are dry, or reduced to a series of green, stagnant weir pools. The mighty red gums, roots exposed, are hanging on for dear life. Heritage-protected lakes and wetlands are empty, and with them have gone the breeding grounds of native birds and fish. Australia has endured a searing summer of drought and extreme heat. Hundreds of feral animals have died of thirst or faced culling as they encroached on properties in search of water. All-time temperature records have been broken in South Australia, with Adelaide reaching 46.6C, while Melbourne had its hottest day since the catastrophic 2009 bushfires, and more fires swept through Tasmania.The Murray-Darling basin, which stretches from Queensland, through New South Wales and Victoria before emptying into the Southern Ocean near Adelaide, should be the lifeblood of the continent in such times. But things have gone very wrong on the rivers. At Menindee, near Broken Hill, thousands of fish were found dead on 6 January, including giant Murray cod up to 40 years old. Government ministers blamed the drought that set in across eastern Australia from April 2017. The deputy prime minister, Michael McCormack, said the environmental disaster was down to the fact it “just hasn’t rained”. “We are experiencing a very, very dry period of unprecedented proportions,” he said. “And when it rains, it will come down in such torrents people will probably be saying ‘what are we going to do with all the water?’ That’s Australia.”
Record-breaking heatwave triggers power cuts on Australia’s stressed grid (Reuters) – Blistering heat triggered power outages on Australia’s strained grid on Friday as demand for air-conditioning soared and coal-fired generators struggled to meet the surge in consumption. To shore up the grid, the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) cut power to Alcoa Corp’s Portland aluminum smelter, the biggest consumer in the state of Victoria, for nearly two hours on Thursday evening and on Friday. The record-breaking heatwave over the past week sent power prices soaring across southeastern Australia. Wholesale power prices in Victoria hit the market cap of A$14,500 ($10,298) per megawatt hour (MWh) before midday on Friday, earlier than expected, then dropped to A$300, National Electricity Market data showed. (bit.ly/2W9A7A2) Supply was tight, with a total of 1,800 megawatts (MW) of generation offline in the country’s east, AEMO Chief Executive Audrey Zibelman said on Australian Broadcasting Corp TV. AGL Energy’s Loy Yang power plant and EnergyAustralia’s Yallourn, both in Victoria, were among those with units down. Transmission links from the states of Tasmania, New South Wales and South Australia were transferring power to Victoria at full capacity, Zibelman said. “With all of that, however, we found ourselves short…for up to the next two hours,” she said. “We may have to do more over the course of the afternoon, as the demand continues to increase.” The AEMO has ordered cuts of 200 MW, which would affect about 60,000 Victorian customers. Temperatures in the South Australian capital of Adelaide rose to just shy of 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) on Thursday, a record high. Melbourne, the capital of Victoria, was set to hit 44C on Friday, before a drop of about 15 degrees expected mid-afternoon.
2018 was the fourth warmest year on record — and more evidence of a ‘new normal,’ scientist group reports — The year 2018 is likely to have been the fourth warmest year on record, a scientific group pronounced Thursday — and joins three other extra-hot years since 2015 that suggest a leap upward in warmth that the Earth may never return from in our lifetimes. The warmest year on record for the Earth’s land and oceans was 2016 — by a long shot, thanks to a very strong El Nino event. That’s followed by 2017, 2015, and now 2018, said Zeke Hausfather, a research scientist with Berkeley Earth, which released the findings. “2018 is consistent with the long term warming trend,” Hausfather said. “It’s significantly warmer than any of the years before 2015. There’s still this big bump up after 2014, and 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018 are all in a class of their own.” While expert groups have sometimes divided on such annual temperature rankings — and not all assessments are yet in — Berkeley Earth’s findings appear unlikely to be disputed. The Copernicus Climate Change Service, a European Union body, has also proclaimed 2018 the fourth warmest year on record earlier this month. And Kevin Cowtan, a researcher at the University of York who also keeps an influential temperature dataset, agreed with the ranking, though he noted by email that he is only able to track data through November of last year due to the U.S. government shutdown, leaving his assessment one month short at present. “Our results to November clearly put 2018 in 4th place, significantly warmer than 2010 in 5th,” said Cowtan. “The 11 hottest years on record have all occurred since 2005.”
Earth’s 39 Billion-Dollar Weather Disasters of 2018: 4th-Most on Record -Earth was besieged by 39 billion-dollar weather disasters in 2018, the fourth-highest inflation-adjusted number of billion-dollar weather events on record, said insurance broker Aon (formerly called Aon Benfield) in their annual report issued January 22. Only 2011, with 44 billion-dollar weather disasters, and 2010 and 2013, with 41 each, had more. The annual average of billion-dollar weather disasters is 25 since 1990 (see Figure 1 below). The U.S. had the most billion-dollar weather disasters in 2018 of any country, with 16. That’s their second highest total on record, behind the 20 billion-dollar weather disasters of 2017. NOAA has not yet released their final list of billion-dollar disasters for the U.S. in 2018, due to the government shutdown. China had seven billion-dollar weather disasters in 2018. The combined economic losses (insured and uninsured) from all 394 weather and earthquake disasters catalogued by Aon in 2018 was $225 billion (2018 USD), which is 33% above the 1980 – 2017 inflation-adjusted average of $169 billion. The great bulk of the 2018 total came from weather-related disasters ($215 billion of the $225 billion). Seven billion-dollar droughts hit Earth in 2018, the highest number on record. The previous record was six, in 1999 and 2015. Total damages from drought in 2018 were in excess of $27 billion, the highest total since 2013. The most expensive wildfire in world history occurred in 2018: the Camp Fire, which devastated Paradise, California, killing 86 and causing $15 billion in damage. The previous costliest fire in world history was 2017’s Wine Country fire in California, which killed 43 and did $13 billion in damage. The world’s third costliest fire in history also occurred in 2018–the Woolsey fire in Malibu/Thousand Oaks, California, which did $5.8 billion in damage.
Shortage of sand may affect global construction industry – Report – A new report says the shortage of sand may likely affect the pace of activities in the global construction industry this year. The report noted that urbanisation and infrastructure development were resulting in a global shortage of sand, the second most extracted natural resource after water. It also stated that increasing sand prices due to scarcity would continue to cause construction strains in many African countries. According to the report by the A.T. Kearney Global Business Policy Council’s Year-Ahead Predictions 2019 report, two-thirds of construction material is concrete, which itself is composed of two-thirds sand. It added that “The global construction boom is therefore having a significant impact on global sand prices. To get a sense of scale, China used more sand between 2011 and 2013 than the United States did during the entire 20th century. In India, the construction boom is fueling not only a price spike – with reports of price increases between 100 and 150 per cent in the past two years – but also a sand mafia that has become notorious for violence. “There are similar criminal groups operating in Indonesia and elsewhere in Asia. US prices for cement and concrete rose nearly 70 per cent between 2004 and mid-2018, driven in part by sand-intensive hydraulic fracturing (fracking) in the oil and gas sector. Even desert-based construction hotspots such as Dubai must import construction-grade sand, often taken from beaches, riverbeds, and lakebeds across the world. “This rising sand demand is having devastating environmental effects, including rapidly intensifying the erosion and degradation of water-based ecosystems around the world.”
Shares of Brazilian mining giant Vale plunge after a company-owned dam breaks – Shares of mining giant Vale plunged after the company reported a dam breach at an iron ore mine in southeastern Brazil that sent mud flowing into a neighboring community.The stock came under renewed pressure after the local fire brigade said it was still searching for 200 people. The brigade said scores of people are trapped in the area due to sludge flows, Reuters reported.Vale CEO Fabio Schvartsman later said most of the missing are Vale employees. Schvartsman said bout 300 people were working at the site when the dam burst, and about 100 of those workers have been located, Dow Jones reported.The number of people still unaccounted for raises the prospect of casualties in the region, which was devastated by a fatal 2015 dam break at a mine owned by Vale and BHP Billiton.AFP reported there are “several” deaths in an area outside of the city of Belo Horizonte, citing a local fire service official. CNBC could not immediately confirm the report of fatalities. A statement by Vale – which has not been updated since the company issued it several hours ago – said there is no confirmation of any injuries.
Hundreds missing after Brazil dam collapse – An earth-filled dam has burst in southeastern Brazil, releasing a river of sludge that destroyed and damaged homes in Minas Gerais state. Some 300 people are missing and nine victims have been found, authorities said.Brazilian authorities were evacuating the area near the Corrego de Feijao mine in the country’s southeast after the mine’s dam that holds residual waste burst on Friday. The cause of the rupture was not immediately clear. Brazilian paper Folha de S.Paulo tweeted a video showing a river of mud.Some 300 people were missing, firefighters said in a statement. Previously, officials warned that scores were trapped by the river of sludge. Fire brigade spokesman Pedro Aihara said that among the missing were 100 employees of the Vale SA mining company, who were having lunch in the dam’s administrative area when the dam burst.Television footage shared by news outlet Universo Online showed firefighters pulling survivors from the mud.Authorities did not immediately release a death toll, but later said nine bodies had been pulled from the mud by firefighters. Officials urged the residents in the low-lying areas of the town of Brumadinho to evacuate. Aerial images from the affected area showed homes damaged and destroyed by the sludge.Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro said that he had deployed three of his cabinet ministers to the site. Our biggest concern at this moment is attending to any victims of this grave tragedy,” he added.
Jump-Starting the Dam Removal Movement in the U.S. — New eras often start with a bang. That was the case in September when explosives blasted a hole in a concrete dam that had barricaded Maryland’s Patapsco River for more than 110 years.Like so many defunct and outdated dams in the United States,Bloede Dam’s impact on the Patapsco far outweighed its usefulness. Bloede produced electricity for less than 20 years. By then, so much sand and rock clogged its turbines that the dam became impossibly expensive to maintain. Instead, the power companyshut it down. But for more than 100 years, Bloede stood as a monolith, blocking migrating fish, costing taxpayers millions in upkeep and drowning at least 10 people who couldn’t escape the underwater whirlpool at its foot. Excavators are currently removing Bloede’s last vestiges. Soon, native shad, alewives and herring will migrate from the Chesapeake Bay to the shoals where their ancestors have spawned for millennia. Boaters and swimmers will reconnect with their local river. The Patapsco River will come alive and boost the entire Chesapeake Bay ecosystem. Removing unused dams, like Bloede, is one of the most important things we can do for rivers and the ecosystems they support.”Think of rivers as the veins and arteries of our country,” said Bob Irvin, president and CEO of American Rivers, a national river conservation organization, which also employs this writer. “Just like in our bodies, our veins and arteries work best when they are free and clear of obstructions.” A free-flowing river supports abundant fish and wildlife and provides intangible benefits, such as a place to rest and reflect. Rivers also supply two-thirds of Americans’ drinking water. While dams can provide benefits in the form of hydroelectricity and water storage, they can also be ecologically disastrous. In addition to blocking fish migrations, human-made structures can destroy seasonal pulses of water that keep ecosystems working properly. Some dams – especially those used for power – can withdraw all the water from streams, leaving entire stretches of river bone dry.
Shutdown leaves communities near toxic Superfund sites on edge – About a week after the start of the partial government shutdown last month, Dawn Chapman and Karen Nickel were told they would no longer be able to reach officials they normally spoke with at the EPA’s regional office near Kansas City. They worried about what would happen if there were an accident at the nearby landfill contaminated with radioactive waste dating back to the World War II-era Manhattan Project. Just as recently as November, a surface fire broke out near the nuclear dump. Steven Cook, a top-level Trump official at the EPA’s Office of Land and Emergency Response, assured them that the agency’s emergency spill line would still be manned throughout the shutdown. But, he added in an email Chapman provided to The Post, “Please be mindful that we may be limited in our ability to provide a substantive response depending on the issue involved.” Communities living near toxic Superfund sites like West Lake in Missouri feel on edge and in the dark during the shutdown that has paralyzed normal functions at agencies like the EPA. The shutdown is cramping efforts by Trump officials to revitalize the nearly 40-year-old Superfund program — designed to clean up more than 1,300 hazardous sites around the country — and put many residents waiting years for a federal response at ease. “It’s so crazy that a site can be listed like ours, and then overnight we lose contact with the federal agency responsible for overseeing it,” Chapman said in an interview. “It’s like they have officially just gone away.”
A teen scientist helped me discover tons of golf balls polluting the ocean – Plastic pollution in the world’s oceans has become a global environmental crisis. Many people have seen images that seem to capture it, such as beaches carpeted with plastic trash or a seahorse gripping a cotton swab with its tail. As a scientist researching marine plastic pollution, I thought I had seen a lot. Then, early in 2017, I heard from Alex Weber, a junior at Carmel High School in California. Alex emailed me after reading my scientific work, which caught my eye, since very few high schoolers spend their time reading scientific articles. She was looking for guidance on an unusual environmental problem. While snorkeling in the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary near the town of Carmel-by-the-Sea, Alex and her friend Jack Johnston had repeatedly come across large numbers of golf balls on the ocean floor. As environmentally conscious teens, they started removing golf balls from the water, one by one. By the time Alex contacted me, they had retrieved over 10,000 golf balls – more than half a ton.Many popular golf courses dot the central California coast and use the ocean as a hazard or an out-of-bounds. The most famous course, Pebble Beach Golf Links, is site of the 2019 U.S. Open Championship. Alex wanted to create a lasting solution to this problem. I told her that the way to do it was to meticulously plan and systematically record all future golf ball collections. Our goal was to produce a peer-reviewed scientific paper documenting the scope of the problem, and to propose a plan of action for golf courses to address it. In total, we collected 50,681 golf balls from the shoreline and shallow waters. This represented roughly 2.5 tons of debris – approximately the weight of a pickup truck. By multiplying the average number of balls lost per round played (1-3) and the average number of rounds played annually at Pebble Beach, we estimated that patrons at these popular courses may lose over 100,000 balls per year to the surrounding environment. Modern golf balls are made of a polyurethane elastomer shell and a synthetic rubber core. Manufacturers add zinc oxide, zinc acrylate and benzoyl peroxide to the solid core for flexibility and durability. These substances are also acutely toxic to marine life.
Oceans Are Getting Louder, Posing Potential Threats to Marine Life – Slow-moving, hulking ships crisscross miles of ocean in a lawn mower pattern, wielding an array of 12 to 48 air guns blasting pressurized air repeatedly into the depths of the ocean. The sound waves hit the sea floor, penetrating miles into it, and bounce back to the surface, where they are picked up by hydrophones. The acoustic patterns form a three-dimensional map of where oil and gas most likely lie. The seismic air guns probably produce the loudest noise that humans use regularly underwater, and it is about to become far louder in the Atlantic. As part of the Trump administration’s plans to allow offshore drilling for gas and oil exploration, five companies have been given permits to carry out seismic mapping with the air guns all along the Eastern Seaboard, from Central Florida to the Northeast, for the first time in three decades. The surveys haven’t started yet in the Atlantic, but now that the ban on offshore drilling has been lifted, companies can be granted access to explore regions along the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific. And air guns are now the most common method companies use to map the ocean floor. “They fire approximately every 10 seconds around the clock for months at a time,” said Douglas Nowacek, a professor of marine conservation technology at Duke University. “They have been detected 4,000 kilometers away. These are huge, huge impacts.” The prospect of incessant underwater sonic tests is the latest example cited by environmentalists and others of the growing problem of ocean noise, spawning lawsuits against some industries and governments as well as spurring more research into the potential dangers for marine life. Some scientists say the noises from air guns, ship sonar and general tanker traffic can cause the gradual or even outright death of sea creatures, from the giants to the tiniest – whales, dolphins, fish, squid, octopuses and even plankton. Other effects include impairing animals’ hearing, brain hemorrhaging and the drowning out of communication sounds important for survival, experts say.
Antarctica’s krill shift south as icy waters warm (Reuters) – Krill are shifting south towards Antarctica as the oceans warm, disrupting stocks that are eaten by penguins and whales and caught by industrial trawlers, scientists said on Monday. Main populations of the shrimp-like crustaceans, which grow to 6.5 cm (2.5 inches) long and form vast swarms, have moved about 440 km (275 miles) south in the past 90 years, they wrote in the journal Nature Climate Change. “It’s often predicted that species will move towards the poles as the climate warms. It’s already happening with krill,” co-lead author Angus Atkinson, at the Plymouth Marine Laboratory in England, told Reuters. “The climate is becoming increasingly unhealthy for krill to reproduce,” he said. Almost 200 nations promised in 2015 under the Paris climate agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Waters in the southwest Atlantic, home to most krill, have warmed 1 degree Celsius (1.8 Fahrenheit) over the past 90 years, and krill are concentrating into a narrowing band towards the coast of Antarctica, the scientists said. The British Antarctic Survey (BAS) reckons krill are among the most abundant creatures on Earth with an estimated total of 780 trillion, excluding larvae and eggs. Krill are food for whales, seals, penguins and other predators. Monday’s study, based on catch data from 1926-2016, also said the average krill was getting bigger, apparently because young krill were less likely to survive. Krill can live for about 6 years in waters around the frozen continent. “Our analysis reveals a species facing increasing difficulty in replenishing itself and maintaining high numbers at the northern edge of the Southern Ocean,”
World’s permafrost gets warmer; Siberia rises the most – Scientists say the world’s permafrost is getting warmer, with temperatures increasing by an average of 0.3 degrees Celsius (0.54 Fahrenheit) over a decade. A study published Wednesday found the biggest rise in Siberia, where frozen soil temperatures rose by 0.9 degrees Celsius (1.62 Fahrenheit) between 2007 and 2016. Researchers working on the Global Terrestrial Network for Permafrost collected usable data for the entire period from 123 boreholes in the Arctic, Antarctic and high mountain ranges of Europe and Central Asia. The temperature rose at 71 sites, sank at 12 and remained unchanged at 40. Scientists say the increases track global warming generally. They noted that thawing permafrost – already recorded at five of the sites – contains organic matter that can release greenhouse gases, further stoking climate change.
Greenland Melting 4x Faster Than in 2013, and From an Unexpected Source – Greenland is melting about four times faster than it was in 2003, a new study published Monday in theProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found, a discovery with frightening implications for the pace and extent of futuresea level rise.”We’re going to see faster and faster sea level rise for the foreseeable future,” study lead author and Ohio State University geodynamics professor Dr. Michael Bevis said in a press release. “Once you hit that tipping point, the only question is: How severe does it get?”The study comes a week after another study found that ice melt in Antarctica had increased sixfold in the past 40 years and included consistent loss from East Antarctica, a region previously believed to be more stable.The Greenland study also found that ice melt was coming from an unexpected place: Greenland’s southwest region, which is not home to iceberg-calving glaciers like the more studied southeast and northwest. But the most consistent ice loss between 2003 and 2012 came from ice melting directly from this understudied region into the ocean.”We knew we had one big problem with increasing rates of ice discharge by some large outlet glaciers,” Bevis said. “But now we recognize a second serious problem: Increasingly, large amounts of ice mass are going to leave as meltwater, as rivers that flow into the sea.” The paper found that the region “will become a major contributor to sea level rise” within two decades, The New York Times reported.
Greenland’s Melting Ice Nears a ‘Tipping Point,’ Scientists Say – Greenland’s enormous ice sheet is melting at such an accelerated rate that it may have reached a “tipping point,” and could become a major factor in sea-level rise around the world within two decades, scientists said in a study published on Monday. The Arctic is warming at twice the average rate of the rest of the planet, and the new research adds to the evidence that the ice loss in Greenland, which lies mainly above the Arctic Circle, is speeding up as the warming increases. The authors found that ice loss in 2012, more than 400 billion tons per year, was nearly four times the rate in 2003. After a lull in 2013-14, losses have resumed. The study is the latest in a series of papers published this month suggesting that scientific estimates of the effects of a warming planet have been, if anything, too conservative. Just a week ago, a separate study of ice loss in Antarctica found that the continent is contributing more to rising sea levels than previously thought. Another new analysis suggested that the oceans are warming far faster than earlier estimates. Warming oceans are currently the leading cause of sea-level rise, since water expands as it warms. Current projections say that if the planet warms by two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) over preindustrial times, average sea levels will rise by more than two feet,and 32 million to 80 million people will be exposed to coastal flooding. Much of the previous research on Greenland’s ice has dealt with the southeast and northeast parts of the island, where large chunks of glacial ice calve into the sea. The new paper focuses on the ice-covered stretches of southwest Greenland, which has few large glaciers and was not generally considered as important a source of ice loss. But as the earth warms, the paper concludes, the vast plains of southwestern ice will increasingly melt, with the meltwater flowing to the ocean. Within two decades, it says, the region “will become a major contributor to sea level rise.”
Greenland is approaching the threshold of an irreversible melt, and the consequences for coastal cities could be dire Greenland’s ice is melting four times faster now than it was 16 years ago.In 2012, Greenland lost more than 400 billion tons of ice – almost quadruple the loss in 2003. Except for a one-year lull between 2013 and 2014, those losses continue to accelerate.A recent study used data from satellites and a GPS network on the ground to determine that Greenland’s ice is melting faster than we thought. The authors wrote that within the next 20 years, that melt “will become a major future contributor to sea-level rise.” What’s more, the study highlighted risks in Greenland’s southwestern region, which isn’t typically known to be a source of ice loss. Most melt comes from other areas, where icebergs slough off glaciers and float out to sea. Greenland’s southwestern region doesn’t have many such glaciers, but it’s responsible for more meltwater in the ocean than other parts of the island, Quartz reported.”This is going to cause additional sea-level rise,” Michael Bevis, lead author of the paper and a professor at Ohio State University, told National Geographic. “We are watching the ice sheet hit a tipping point.” This news comes in the wake of another ominous study published earlier this month, which found that Antarctica’s ice melt is also speeding up. In the 1980s, Antarctica lost 40 billion tons of ice annually. In the last decade, that number jumped to an average of 252 billion tons per year. Recent research has also revealed that oceans are heating up 40% faster than experts thought, and that 2018 was the warmest year on record for ocean temperatures. Roughly 1.7 million square kilometers (656,000 square miles) in size, the Greenland ice sheet covers an area almost three times the size of Texas. Together with Antarctica’s ice sheet, it contains more than 99% of the world’s fresh water, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. If the entire Greenland ice sheet were to melt – granted, this would take place over centuries – it would mean a 23-foot rise in sea level, on average. That’s enough to submerge the southern tip of Florida.
Scientists Melt a Mile-Deep Hole in Antarctica to Study Climate Change – A group of scientists and engineers led by the British Antarctic Survey dug a 1.3-mile deep hole through the ice sheet in West Antarctica – the deepest hole ever made in the region using hot water, according to BBC News.By reaching the base of the Rutford Ice Stream, the researchers hope to understand how the area responds to a warming climate, according to a press release.The project, called Bed Access, Monitoring and Ice Sheet History (BEAMISH), comes after 20 years of planning. Another hole was attempted in 2004 but failed.But on Jan. 8, after 63 hours of non-stop drilling in temperatures as low as low as -22°F, the team broke through to the sediment 7,060-feet below the surface. A series of instruments were then threaded through the borehole to record water pressure, ice temperature and deformation of the surrounding ice. “I have waited for this moment for a long time and am delighted that we’ve finally achieved our goal,” lead scientist Andy Smith said in the press release. “There are gaps in our knowledge of what’s happening in West Antarctica and by studying the area where the ice sits on soft sediment we can understand better how this region may change in the future and contribute to global sea-level rise.”
For 20 Years, US Carbon Emissions Have Been Dropping. Last Year, They Spiked. –The signals are blaring: Dramatic changes to our climate are well upon us. These changes – we know thanks to a steady drumbeat of alarming official reports over the past 12 months – could cripple the U.S. economy, threaten to make vast stretches of our coastlines uninhabitable, make basic food supplies scarce and push millions of the planet’s poorest people into cities and across borders as they flee environmental perils. And so it stings particularly badly to learn from a new report released this week by the Rhodium Group, a private research company, that U.S. emissions – which amount to one-sixth of the planet’s – didn’t drop in 2018 but instead skyrocketed. The 3.4 percent jump in CO2 for 2018, projected by the Rhodium Group, would be second-largest surge in greenhouse gas emissions from the United States since 1996, when Bill Clinton was president. The report notes that Americans consumed significantly more electricity in 2018 than in years past, and that demand for trucking (think shipping) and jet fuel (lots more people flew) also grew substantially. More alarming are the large jumps in U.S. emissions from industry and from buildings – which the report’s authors note are largely “ignored in clean energy and climate policymaking.” Heating and cooking-related emissions from old, often-inefficient buildings jumped 10 percent, in part due to a growing population and despite a warmer-than-average winter. As manufacturing was buoyed by the strong economy, the emissions the sector produced jumped by nearly 6 percent. The Rhodium Group forecasts those emissions will continue to grow. Until now, it had seemed we were making modest, if insufficient, progress, largely, many experts declared, as coal-fired power plants were phased out and replaced with natural gas, which burns cleaner out of the smokestack. For two decades, U.S. emissions had been steadily dropping, chipping off more than 1 percent annually in most years since peaking in 2007. This week’s emissions forecast is a reminder that, as John McArthur, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution recently wrote, “Every new unit of economic gain is still cranking out a corresponding unit of environmental pain.”
2019 Atmospheric CO2 Increase ‘Will Be One of the Biggest on Record’ — In 2019, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels will make one of their highest leaps in the past 62 years of measurement, the UK’s Met Office predicted Friday.This is because the tropical Pacific ocean is expected to be warmer this year, which leads to hotter and drier conditions that make it more difficult for plants to grow and absorb the excess carbon dioxide released from the burning of fossil fuels, which is fueling climate change.Professor Richard Betts of the Met Office Hadley Center explained in depth:“Since 1958, monitoring at the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii has registered around a 30 per cent increase in the concentration of carbon-dioxide in the atmosphere. This is caused by emissions from fossil fuels, deforestation and cement production, and the increase would have been even larger if it were not for natural carbon sinks which soak up some of the excess CO2. This year we expect these carbon sinks to be relatively weak, so the impact of record high human-caused emissions will be larger than last year.”The Met Office predicted that average atmospheric carbon dioxide levels recorded at Mauna Loa in 2019 will be around 2.75 parts per million more than those recorded in 2018. This would make 2019’s rise one of the highest on record, lower only than those observed during the El Niño years of 1997-1998 and 2015-2016. “The year-on-year increase of CO2 is getting steadily bigger as it has done throughout the whole of the 20th century,” the Met Office’s Dr. Chris Jones told BBC News. “What we are seeing for next year will be one of the biggest on record and it will certainly lead to the highest concentration of CO2.”
Record Number of Americans See Climate Change As a Current Threat – More Americans are very worried about global warming and say the issue is personally important to them than ever before, according to a new poll released Tuesday. The polling may indicate that extreme weather events – coupled with a series of grim scientific findings – over the past year are starting to change peoples’ minds about climate change, which could have significant implications for any significant climate legislation passing Congress. The key finding from the new survey from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication is that Americans increasingly view global warming as a present-day threat to them, rather than an issue that will affect future generations. Nearly half of Americans (46%) said they personally experienced the effects of global warming – a 15-point spike since March 2015.
- In addition, 48% of Americans think people in the U.S. are being harmed by global warming “right now,” an increase of 16 points since March 2015, and by nine points since the previous survey in March 2018.
- This message also comes through in a separate poll released Tuesday by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago, which found that Americans’ experience with extreme weather events in their backyard helps determine their views on climate change.
- About 7 in 10 Americans (72%) say the issue of global warming is either “extremely,” “very,” or “somewhat” important to them personally, which is a record high in the Yale-George Mason poll.
- The proportion of Americans who view global warming as personally important has increased by 16 points since March 2015, and by nine points since the groups’ previous survey in March 2018.
- More than half of Americans (57%) understand that most scientists agree that global warming is happening, the highest level since 2008.
- About seven in 10 Americans say they are at least “somewhat worried” about global warming. About three in 10 are “very worried” about it, the highest level since 2008.
- About 65% of Americans think global warming is affecting weather in the U.S., including 58% who either think global warming is affecting U.S. weather “a lot” or “some.”
Pentagon report says bases face climate risks, but critics say it’s short on details – Dozens of military installations around the country already are experiencing the impacts of climate change, and rising seas, wildfires and other climate-fueled disasters are likely to cause increasing problems for the armed forces, the Defense Department said Thursday in a report to lawmakers on Capitol Hill.The 22-page document comes in response to a request from Congress in an annual funding bill, which required defense officials to provide a list of the 10 most vulnerable sites that each military branch faces over the next two decades, and an analysis of what could be done to protect them.The document affirms a longstanding sense that the U.S. military, with massive energy needs and bases flung around the globe – including some on low-lying islands — is well attuned to how the planet is changing due to the burning of fossil fuels.But while the report calls climate change “a national security issue” and highlights individual bases that face potential impacts, it did not include such a list of the most at-risk installations — an omission that drew quick criticism on Friday.“It seems like they have not made it past anecdote to analysis,” said John Conger, director of the C enter for Climate and Security and former acting assistant secretary of defense for energy, installations and the environment. “It’s concerning to me because Congress was looking for the department’s best judgment on how to prioritize the risks.”
Ocasio-Cortez calls climate change ‘our World War II,’ warns the world will end in 12 years – Speaking at an event commemorating Martin Luther King Day, Ocasio-Cortez expressed how the issue of climate change is a “generational” issue that younger people are more focused on. “Millennials and people, you know, Gen Z and all these folks that will come after us are looking up and we’re like: ‘The world is gonna end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change and your biggest issue is how are we gonna pay for it?’ Ocasio-Cortez said. The Democratic Socialist said the fight against climate change is war and that it’s “our World War II.” While a steady stream of international reports have raised alarm about climate change, they stop markedly short of predicting the end of the world. A widely publicized study last fall by a United Nations panel said the world should take “unprecedented” actions to cut carbon emissions in the next decade – this, to avoid rising past 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit above preindustrial levels.
Climate scientists refute 12-year deadline to curb global warming – Prominent climate scientists are pushing back against the view, promoted by media coverage of recent science reports as well as climate advocates, that we have only 12 years to act on global warming or face an existential threat to humanity. This do-or-die framing has found a powerful advocate in Democratic freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who said on Monday that millennials understand that we only have 12 years or “the world is going to end.” She is pushing a broad policy proposal to address climate change, known as the Green New Deal.: During the past year, several scientific reports have been released that underscore the urgency of slashing emissions of greenhouse gases to avoid facing severe consequences from global warming.A particularly influential report was published by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in October 2018. It found that global warming could still be held to 1.5°C, or 2.7°F, of warming relative to preindustrial levels, especially if: Net human-caused carbon dioxide emissions decline by 45% by 2030 compared to 2010 levels, and reach “net zero” by roughly mid-century. While there were only 12 years left till 2030 when the IPCC report came out, the reality is that we have a diverse array of choices before us in terms of how soon to make emissions cuts and how significant and costly they are, top climate scientists told Axios. Their comments were about the framing of a rigid 12-year timetable in general, not specifically in reaction to Ocasio-Cortez’s remarks. “12 years isn’t a deadline, and climate change isn’t a cliff we fall off – it’s a slope we slide down,” said Kate Marvel, a climate scientist at NASA. “We don’t have 12 years to prevent climate change – we have no time. It’s already here. And even under a business-as-usual scenario, the world isn’t going to end in exactly twelve years.”
Google and Facebook Backed an Event Denying Climate Change Google, Facebook, and Microsoft have publicly acknowledged the dangers of global warming, but last week they all sponsored a conference that promoted climate change denial to young libertarians.All three tech companies were sponsors of LibertyCon, the annual convention of the libertarian group Students for Liberty, which took place in Washington, DC. Google was a platinum sponsor, ponying up $25,000, and Facebook and Microsoft each contributed $10,000 as gold sponsors. The donations put the tech companies in the top tier of the event’s backers. But the donations also put the firms in company with some of the event’s other sponsors, which included three groups known for their work attacking climate change science and trying to undermine efforts to reduce carbon emissions. Among the most notable was the CO2 Coalition, a group founded in 2015 to spread the “good news” about a greenhouse gas whose increase in the atmosphere is linked to potentially catastrophic climate change. The coalition is funded by conservative foundations that have backed other climate change denial efforts. These include the Mercer Family Foundation, which in recent years has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to right-wing think tanks engaged in climate change denialism, and the Charles Koch Institute, the charitable arm of one of the brothers behind Koch Industries, the oil and gas behemoth. In the LibertyCon exhibit hall, the CO2 Coalition handed out brochures that said its goal is to “explain how our lives and our planet Earth will be improved by additional atmospheric carbon dioxide.” One brochure claimed that “more carbon dioxide will help everyone, including future generations of our families” and that the “recent increase in CO2 levels has had a measurable, positive effect on plant life,” apparently because the greenhouse gas will make plants grow faster.
Record private jet flights into Davos as leaders arrive for climate talk – David Attenborough might have urged world leaders at Davos to take urgent action on climate change, but it appears no one was listening. As he spoke, experts predicted up to 1,500 individual private jets will fly to and from airfields serving the Swiss ski resort this week. Political and business leaders and lobbyists are opting for bigger, more expensive aircrafts, according to analysis by the Air Charter Service, which found the number of private jet flights grew by 11% last year. “There appears to be a trend towards larger aircraft, with expensive heavy jets the aircraft of choice, with Gulfstream GVs and Global Expresses both being used more than 100 times each last year,” said Andy Christie, private jets director at the ACS. This is partly due to the long distances travelled, he said, “but also possibly due to business rivals not wanting to be seen to be outdone by one another”. Last year, more than 1,300 aircraft flights were recorded at the conference, the highest number since ACS began recording private jet activity in 2013. Countries with the highest number of arrivals and departures out of the local airports over the past five years included Germany, France, UK, US, Russia and the United Arab Emirates, according to ACS. The World Economic Forum’s global risk report, released ahead of this week’s meeting, identified environmental challenges, including the failure to mitigate climate change, as top of the list of dangers facing the world economy.
The new elite’s phoney crusade to save the world – without changing anything – Today’s titans of tech and finance want to solve the world’s problems, as long as the solutions never, ever threaten their own wealth and power. Conferences and ideas festivals sponsored by plutocrats and big business – such as the World Economic Forum, which is under way in Davos, Switzerland, this week – host panels on injustice and promote “thought leaders” who are willing to confine their thinking to improving lives within the faulty system rather than tackling the faults. Profitable companies built in questionable ways and employing reckless means engage in corporate social responsibility, and some rich people make a splash by “giving back” – regardless of the fact that they may have caused serious societal problems as they built their fortunes. Elite networking forums such as the Aspen Institute and the Clinton Global Initiative groom the rich to be self-appointed leaders of social change, taking on the problems people like them have been instrumental in creating or sustaining. A new breed of community-minded so-called B Corporations has been born, reflecting a faith that more enlightened corporate self-interest – rather than, say, public regulation – is the surest guarantor of the public welfare. A pair of Silicon Valley billionaires fund an initiative to rethink the Democratic party, and one of them can claim, without a hint of irony, that their goals are to amplify the voices of the powerless and reduce the political influence of rich people like them.
Erin Brockovich to lead protest against PG&E bankruptcy at Capitol in Sacramento. – Erin Brockovich, the activist whose crusade against PG&E spawned a hit movie, will appear with wildfire survivors at the Capitol in Sacramento to protest the utility’s plans to file for bankruptcy. The rally is set for noon Tuesday on the south steps of the Capitol, according to an announcement Friday by a consortium of law firms suing PG&E on behalf of wildfire survivors. PG&E announced it plans to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection at the end of January because it doesn’t have the money to pay an estimated $30 billion in potential liabilities from the 2017 wine country fires and last November’s Camp Fire. The blaze destroyed the town of Paradise and killed 86 people, making it the deadliest fire in California history. Bankruptcy would turn wildfire claimants into unsecured creditors, along with bondholders holding billions in PG&E debt. It’s unlikely that the fire survivors would get paid in full, legal experts say. Noreen Evans, a Santa Rosa lawyer working with Brockovich, noted that the Legislature approved a partial bailout plan last year that could force ratepayers to absorb at least some of the costs of the 2017 fires. But the law, SB 901, says nothing about the 2018 fires, leaving Camp Fire victims potentially holding the bag as the utility’s finances deteriorate.
PG&E Is Cleared in Deadly Tubbs Fire of 2017 – NYT – Pacific Gas and Electric Company, with billions of dollars of potential wildfire liabilities pushing it toward bankruptcy, has been cleared of responsibility for one giant 2017 fire in Northern California, brightening its financial outlook. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said on Thursday that private electrical equipment at a home was responsible for starting the Tubbs Fire in Sonoma County in October 2017. The exact cause could not be determined, however, because much of the equipment was destroyed in the fire, which eventually killed 22 people and destroyed over 5,600 buildings.After the department made the announcement, PG&E’s stock soared, closing up 75 percent on Thursday at $13.95. Even so, the shares remain much lower than where they were before last November, when a new wave of devastating fires swept through the utility’s vast service territory. PG&E, facing an estimated $30 billion of liability for fires in 2017 and 2018, said last week that it planned to seek bankruptcy protection by the end of the month. California officials say the company’s equipment caused at least 17 of 21 major 2017 wildfires in the state.
PG&E says it might have to quintuple rates if it’s forced to clear trees and inspect electric grid – California utility company PG&E said in a court filing Wednesday that it can’t afford a federal judge’s order to inspect its energy grid and clear trees that could fall into its power lines, work it estimates would cost between $75 billion and $150 billion.The company told the U.S. District Court in San Francisco that the judge’s so-called vegetation management plan would force it to dramatically increase the rates it charges customers to employ more than 650,000 full-time workers.”PG&E would inevitably need to turn to California ratepayers for funding, resulting in a substantial increase – an estimated one-year increase of more than five times current rates in typical utility bills,” it said in the filing.The work was proposed in a Jan. 9 order by U.S. District Judge William Alsup. “The work that would be required is so labor-intensive and costly that compliance is technically and operationally infeasible,” PG&E said in the court filing. “PG&E would be required within less than five months to remove or trim trees and branches that could bend, break or fall into powerlines, poles or electric equipment in high-wind conditions.” PG&E faces at least $30 billion in potential liability costs stemming from wildfires in 2017 and 2018, many allegedly started by the company’s equipment, that have led state officials to doubt the safety of the company’s electric distribution system. Investigators have already determined PG&E’s equipment was liable in at least 17 major wildfires in 2017. State investigators are still working to determine if the company’s equipment was partly responsible for November’s Camp Fire, which killed at least 86 people and destroyed about 14,000 homes, making it the state’s deadliest fire.
US shutdown stalls training, other prep for wildfire season – – Just two months after a wildfire wiped out Paradise, California, officials are gearing up for this year’s fire season and fear the government shutdown could make it even more difficult than one of the worst in history. The winter months are critical for wildfire managers who use the break from the flames to prepare for the next onslaught, but much of that effort has ground to a halt on U.S. land because employees are furloughed. Firefighting training courses are being canceled from Tennessee to Oregon, piles of dead trees are untended in federal forests and controlled burns to thin dry vegetation aren’t getting done. Although the furloughs only affect federal employees, the collaborative nature of wildland firefighting means the pain of the four-week-long shutdown is having a ripple effect – from firefighters on the ground to federal contractors and top managers who control the firefighting strategy. State and local crews who need training classes, for example, are scrambling without federal instructors. Conservation groups that work with the U.S. Forest Service to plan wildfire-prevention projects on federal lands are treading water. Annual retreats where local, state and federal firefighting agencies strategize are being called off. The fire season starts as early as March in the southeastern United States, and by April, fires pop up in the Southwest. Last year’s most devastating fire leveled the Northern California town of Paradise just before Thanksgiving, leaving just a few months to prepare between seasons. “I think a lot of people don’t understand that while there’s not fire going on out there right now, there’s a lot of really critical work going on for the fire season – and that’s not getting done,” said Michael DeGrosky, chief of the Fire Protection Bureau for the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation.
Judge Dismisses Company’s Racketeering Claims Against Greenpeace — A U.S. judge on Tuesday dismissed the most serious claims in a lawsuit brought by a Canadian logging company that accused Greenpeace and another advocacy group of running a criminal enterprise to damage the company.The case, and a similar one filed later by the developer of the Dakota Access oil pipeline, had gained the attention of civil liberties and environmental advocacy organizations who warned it could set a dangerous precedent if it were allowed to proceed. These groups argued that the lawsuit, filed by Resolute Forest Products, aimed to silence legitimate advocacy by characterizing the basic elements of activists’ campaign work as a criminal conspiracy.By invoking the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, a federal conspiracy law that was devised to ensnare mobsters, the lawsuit threatened the defendants with a lengthy and complex legal battle and potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in damages. “The judge’s decision to throw out the abusive racketeering charges is a positive development and a win for advocacy,” said Tom Wetterer, general counsel for Greenpeace USA, in a statement. “From day one, it was clear Resolute intended to bully legitimate advocacy organizations and forest defenders by abusing laws designed to curtail the mafia.” While U.S. District Judge Jon S. Tigar dismissed the racketeering claims, he also ruled that defamation and unfair competition claims against Greenpeace could continue. All of the claims again the other organization, Stand.earth, were dropped.
Exxon Reps Pose as Reporters to Query Lawyer Leading Climate Lawsuit Against the Company – Two public relations strategists representing Exxon recently posed as journalists in an attempt to interview an attorney representing Colorado communities that are suing Exxon for climate change-related damages.The strategists – Michael Sandoval and Matt Dempsey – are employed by FTI Consulting, a firm long linked with the oil and gas industry. They did not deny they represent Exxon. The duo are listed as writers for Western Wire, a website by the Western Energy Alliance, a regional oil and gas association that includes Exxon as a member and an Exxon executive sits on its board.Their call to Marco Simons, general counsel for EarthRights International, who represents the city and county of Boulder and the County of San Miguel in a lawsuit the communities filed last year seeking climate damages from Exxon, potentially runs afoul of ethics rules for both the legal and public relations industries, and appeared to be a fishing expedition for information about Simons’ clients in that suit.On the call to Simons, which was recorded and released by EarthRights, the two men pressed for an interview even though Simons quickly said he couldn’t talk to them if they represented Exxon in any way. When they evaded the question, Simons refused to comment. Western Wire, which bills itself as the “go-to source for news, commentary and analysis on pro-growth, pro-development policies across the West,” is staffed with strategists from FTI Consulting, a public relations firm that also provides staff to Energy In Depth, a pro-fossil fuel “research, education and public outreach campaign” and a project of the Independent Petroleum Association of America. It was founded in 2009 with funding fromXTO Energy, which is now an Exxon subsidiary.
U.S. copper projects gain steam thanks to electric vehicle trend (Reuters) – Once seen as a laggard in the global mining industry, U.S. copper deposits have quietly drawn more than $1.1 billion in investments from small and large miners alike as Tesla and other electric carmakers scramble for more of the red metal. Four U.S. copper projects are set to open by next year – the first to come online in more than a decade – with several mine expansions also underway across the country, home to the world’s fifth-largest copper reserves, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The rising popularity of electric vehicles – which use twice as much copper as internal combustion engines – and increasingly pro-mining policies in the U.S. while other nations exert greater control over their mineral deposits are fueling the spending, according to mining executives and investors. “Fifteen years ago, U.S. mining was thought to be a dead industry, but now it’s a profitable area for us,” said Richard Adkerson, chief executive of Freeport-McMoran Inc. The Phoenix-based miner, which last month relinquished majority control of the world’s second-largest copper mine under pressure from the Indonesian government even though it will remain the project’s operator, is set to open a $850 million expansion of one of its Arizona copper mines next year. “The U.S. is really the core for our future growth,” Adkerson said. The U.S. is home to half of Freeport’s reserves. The buildouts are expected to boost U.S. copper production by at least 8 percent in the next four years, according to data from the International Copper Study Group and DBS, with Nevada Copper Corp, Taseko Mines, THEMAC Resources Group and Excelsior Mining Corp aiming to open copper mines by the end of 2020. The development trend has gone largely under the radar, with copper industry customers like Tesla Inc – rather than miners themselves – grabbing the headlines. The prospect of a copper boom in the U.S., where the Trump administration is pushing for mining permit approvals to be approved five times faster and where resource nationalism fears are largely absent, is starting to draw major institutional investors.
IEA Chief: EVs Are Not The End Of The Oil Era – Electric vehicles (EVs) today are not the end of global oil demand growth, nor are they the key solution to reducing carbon emissions, Fatih Birol, the Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), said during the ‘Strategic Outlook on Energy’ panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Tuesday. According to Birol, analysts need to put things into perspective and consider that five million EVs globally is nothing compared to 1 billion internal combustion engine (ICE) cars. “This year we expect global oil demand to increase by 1.3 million barrels per day. The effect of 5 million cars is 50,000 barrels per day. 50,000 versus 1.3 million.” “Cars are not the driver of oil demand growth. Full stop,” Birol said. The drivers of oil demand growth are trucks, the petrochemical industry, and planes, with Asia just starting to fly, the IEA’s head said. “To say that the electric car is the end of oil is definitely misleading,” Birol noted. “Electric cars today are not the end of the oil era,” he reiterated. EVs are not the ultimate solution to the climate change problem because most of the electricity used to charge the vehicles comes from fossil fuels, Birol added.
EIA forecasts renewables will be fastest growing source of electricity generation – EIA expects non-hydroelectric renewable energy resources such as solar and wind will be the fastest growing source of U.S. electricity generation for at least the next two years. EIA’s January 2019 Short-Term Energy Outlook(STEO) forecasts that electricity generation from utility-scale solar generating units will grow by 10% in 2019 and by 17% in 2020. According to the January STEO, wind generation will grow by 12% and 14% during the next two years. EIA forecasts total U.S. electricity generation across all fuels will fall by 2% this year and then show very little growth in 2020. EIA projects that the share of total U.S. electricity generation produced by all renewables other than hydropower will increase by three percentage points during the next two years, from 10% of total generation in 2018 to 13% in 2020. This projected growth is a result of new generating capacity the industry expects to bring online. About 11 gigawatts (GW) of wind capacity is scheduled to come online in 2019, which would be the largest amount of new wind capacity installed in the United States since 2012. EIA expects electricity generated from wind this year will surpass hydropower generation. An additional 8 GW of wind capacity is scheduled to come online in 2020. The share of total U.S. generation from wind is projected to increase from 7% in 2018 to 9% in 2020. Solar is the third-largest renewable energy source in the United States power sector, having surpassed biomass in 2017. The U.S. electric power sector plans to add more than 4 GW of new solar capacity in 2019 and almost 6 GW in 2020, a total increase of 32% from the operational capacity at the end of 2018. Because of this increase, solar is forecast to contribute slightly more than 2% of total utility-scale generation in 2020. In addition to utility-scale solar in the electric power sector, some residences and businesses have installed small-scale solar photovoltaic systems to supply some of the electricity they consume. EIA forecasts that small-scale solar generating capacity will grow by almost 9 GW during the next two years, an increase of 44%.
State utility regulators seek to address backlog in solar development — The Michigan Public Service Commission has started what could be a two-year process to govern how renewable energy projects are connected to the electric grid. The plan to make new interconnection rules seeks to resolve an unprecedented backlog of requests from independent power producers to build solar projects at a time when utility customers increasingly are turning to solar for self-generation. The interconnection process between developers and utilities is a fundamental first step before beginning plans, whether for large projects or smaller residential installations. Utilities have to prepare the distribution system for new generation that comes online, but the problem is they haven’t seen hundreds of requests come in virtually at once, as recently happened. Late last year, the MPSC opened a docket seeking input from interested parties before it officially begins a rulemaking process, which takes about 18 months. The MPSC says Michigan’s interconnection rules are outdated based in part on new federal guidelines and Institute of Electric and Electronics Engineers standards, as well as new state energy laws passed in 2016. More immediately, Consumers Energy and DTE Energy have hundreds of megawatts of proposed solar projects from developers waiting in their interconnection queue. “We’re looking at a system to handle maybe five or six (projects) in a year,” said Paul Proudfoot, director of the energy resources division at the MPSC. “Now we have hundreds of projects.”
Wood, not corn, may be New York’s renewable fuel future – A Georgia company is buying the largest corn ethanol refinery in the state and vowing that it one day will use the state’s abundant forests, rather than food, to make the next generation of renewable energy. Attis Industries is paying $20 million to fossil fuel giant Sunoco for a 90-acre facility near Fulton in Oswego County, according to the company on Tuesday. Attis CEO Jeff Cosman said the company plans to invest up to $100 million over the next two years to transform the plant into a “first-of-its-kind, major renewable energy campus” that will explore how to gain energy, plastics and other products from wood wastes. Attis has businesses in the healthcare, medical waste, and environmental technology sectors. This would be the company’s first biorefinery. Sunoco has been making corn ethanol in Fulton since acquiring and rebuilding the property, a former Miller brewery, in 2009. The plant now consumes about 22 million bushels of corn a year from as far away as Ohio to make about 85 million gallons of ethanol, which is later blended into gasoline.
Region’s power generators using more oil, coal — FRIGID CONDITIONS led the region’s power generators to use more oil and coal than usual over the last few days, but as temperatures edged up Tuesday the fuel mix is expected to return to normal. Typically, coal and oil each account for less than 1 percent of the region’s power generation fuel mix and natural gas is at 41 percent. But when temperatures plummet and the use of natural gas for heating rises, pipeline constraints often lead to shortages of natural gas, prompting some generators to switch to fuels that can be stored on site. Higher use of coal and oil is problematic for the region because those fuels generate more greenhouse gas emissions than natural gas. Over the last few days, the fuel mix of the region’s power generators has shifted a bit, with oil use rising occasionally into the 11 percent range and coal use hovering in the 5 to 6 percent range, according to real-time statistics gathered by ISO-New England, the region’s power grid operator. Last winter, a 15-day cold spell put severe pressure on generators who relied on natural gas. The deep freeze prompted a lot of fuel switching, with the region burning more oil during that short period than it did in all of 2017 and 2016 combined.
Indianapolis Power & Light looking to build coal inventory at Petersburg plant – Indianapolis Power & Light is trying to build up the coal inventory at its 1,700-MW Petersburg station in Pike County, Indiana, but is encountering some transportation challenges, according to a regulatory filing. Expert witnesses for the Indiana Office of Utility Consumers Counsel, the state’s consumer watchdog, discussed the AES Corp.’s coal-fired plant status in a filing with the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission late last week. Greg Guerrettaz, an accountant, said IP&L’s existing coal stockpile at Petersburg is in the range of 25 to 50 days. The utility, he said, “is trying to build supply to prepare for inclement weather,” adding, however, it is facing “several challenges with available transportation” that have slowed progress. Guerrettaz did not detail the challenges and IP&L officials could not be reached for comment Tuesday. This winter has been colder than normal in the Indianapolis area, with forecasts of the coldest weather of the year this weekend. Meanwhile, Michael Eckert, assistant director of the OUCC’s electric division, said the about 670-MW Petersburg-3 unit is scheduled to restart commercial operations by the end of January. The unit has been on an extended outage for repairs since September 15. Petersburg’s four coal units came online between 1967 and 1986. The plant burns in excess of 4 million st of Illinois Basin coal from mines in the surrounding region.
After campaign pledge, N.C. Gov. Roy Cooper faces test on coal ash — North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper won his election in 2016 pledging to protect the state’s environment and drinking water from coal ash. This is the year the Democrat’s promise will be put to the test. Duke Energy, the statewide utility that generates a third of its electricity from coal, owns 14 ash dumps that are perched near major rivers and leaking contaminants into the groundwater below. Before Cooper took office, the company was already legally bound to close these sites and excavate eight of them. What happens to the other six is now up to his administration, in a decision anticipated before the end of 2019. “This is the first big opportunity for the Cooper administration to make good on his commitments to coal ash cleanup,” said Dave Rogers, the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign representative in the Carolinas. Cooper officials are starting to air cleanup options, this month visiting six communities around the state for an initial round of public meetings. Duke proposes leaving at least some ash in unlined pits at all the sites in question, while environmental advocates, local communities, and many scientists say the toxic waste should be dug up and moved away from water supplies and into dry, lined landfills. “This is the turning point,” said Ridge Graham, field coordinator for the Boone-based advocacy group Appalachian Voices. It’s a chance for the Cooper administration, he said, “to be different from the previous administration and not just go along with what Duke asks.”
Court packing in coal country – If a pending bill passes in West Virginia, Republican Gov. Jim Justice – a billionaire former coal company executive – will appoint 82 percent of the state’s appellate judiciary in just his first term. The bill, which would create a new appeals court, is likely to pass the state Senate, but the state Housedeclined to take up a similar bill last year. West Virginia’s five-member Supreme Court of Appeals, as the high court is known, is currently its only appellate court.In the last few months, Justice has appointed replacements for three Supreme Court justices who resigned in the wake of a scandal involving lavish renovations and overspending. Two former justices face criminal charges, and another resigned in the wake of the state legislature’s impeachment of the entire high court. The impeachment trials were halted for violating the separation of powers by a substitute state Supreme Court assembled due to the justices’ conflict of interest. The substitute court criticized the impeachment process as “a rush to judgment to get to a certain point without following all of the necessary rules.” By that point, three seats had already been vacated. Justice appointed a majority of the court in the span of a few months. The legislature is now considering a bill to create an Intermediate Court of Appeals, and it would allow Justice to appoint all six members of the court, which would be divided into two districts. If the bill passes, the governor will have appointed nine of the 11 judges on the state’s appellate judiciary. This radical re-shaping of West Virginia’s judiciary is happening as the state’s high court hears a lawsuit over noise and air pollution from fracking, as well as other oil and gas cases. A local attorney recently argued that a new appellate court isn’t necessary because the state’s “population is declining, new case filings are down, and the number of appeals to our Supreme Court continues to decline.”
Coal miners have been inhaling deadly silica dust for decades. Now they’re dying (PBS NewsHour – video & transcript) Judy Woodruff: It is easy to lose sight of how dangerous working in a coal mine can be. A new investigation by “Frontline” and NPR that airs tonight called “Coal’s Deadly Dust” sheds fresh light on that. It turns out that, for decades, thousands of miners were exposed to a toxic dust that led to a deadly form of black lung disease. John Yang tells has the story. For decades, coal miners have been inhaling silica dust on the job. The extremely fine particles, generated when the quartz-rich limestone surrounding coal seams is cut, lodge in the lungs, obstructing respiration. According to a Frontline/NPR report, both the industry and the government understood the hazard for decades but did little to contain it. Howard Berkes of NPR joins John Yang.
Calls for Change Follow FRONTLINE/NPR Black Lung Investigation – Thousands of coal miners are dying from an advanced form of black lung disease, and federal regulators could have prevented it if they’d paid closer attention to their own data. That’s the conclusion of a joint FRONTLINE and NPR investigation that aired last month, and continues tonight, Jan. 22, on PBS. The regulatory system that is supposed to protect coal miners from exposure to toxic silica dust failed to prevent dangerous exposures more than 21,000 times since 1986, according to data collected by the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) and analyzed by NPR/FRONTLINE. And while the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) counted 115 cases of advanced black lung nationwide through its monitoring program from 2010 to 2018, NPR and FRONTLINE identified more than 2,300 cases by contacting health clinics across Appalachia. Federal regulations for silica dust in coal mines haven’t changed in decades, even as mining has changed. But since the FRONTLINE/NPR report, some are calling for a new response. Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.), the chair of the U.S. House Committee on Education and Labor, says he will schedule congressional hearings on the epidemic of advanced black lung disease and the regulatory failures cited by the NPR/FRONTLINE investigation. “There are people literally working in the mines right now, hundreds of them … that have complicated black lung that do not have a clue.” NIOSH is generally limited by law to testing working miners only, and the program is voluntary. Nationwide, only a third of working coal miners get tested. In Kentucky, just 17 percent show up. Mandatory testing was long opposed by miner advocates because, they reasoned, no one should be forced to undergo a medical procedure against their will. Miners also told NPR they feared losing their jobs if coal companies learned of positive signs of the disease. The epidemic has softened that resistance, to a point. The United Mine Workers union now supports mandatory testing as long as results remain confidential. The mining industry wants mandatory testing of all miners at regular intervals.
Coal ash cleanup bill wins bipartisan backing in Virginia – Dominion Energy would have to clean up four coal ash ponds around Virginia – some dating to the 1930s, all of them leaking – under legislation that Gov. Ralph Northam, a bipartisan group of legislators and the utility backed Thursday. The company would have to fully excavate the unlined ponds, which collectively hold more than 27 million cubic yards of the toxic ash and which environmentalists say are polluting groundwater. Coal ash, which is generated when coal is burned to create electricity, contains significant amounts of arsenic, mercury and heavy metals. The bill requires that 25 percent of the ash be recycled into a cleaner form for use in concrete and other building materials. The rest would be moved to modern, lined landfills. The legislation also would limit how much of the cost Dominion could pass on to rate payers to about $5 a month per customer. Dominion, the state’s largest utility and most prolific political donor, has stored coal ash in ponds in four sites around the state – in Prince William, Chesterfield and Fluvanna counties and the city of Chesapeake. Environmentalists have contended for years that the ponds were sending toxins into the groundwater, posing a danger to people and wildlife. Monitoring wells near the company’s Possum Point power plant, near the Potomac River in Prince William, have shown elevated levels of nickel, boron and other metals in the groundwater. Dominion has been under federal orders since 2014 to safely dispose of the pollutant. The company had sought permission to leave the coal ash in place and cap it, but now it has agreed to a more lasting solution
Queensland coal exports hit record high – Queensland’s coal exports have reached a record high and yearly totals are predicted to continue growing, the Queensland Resources Council (QRC) says. The peak mining body said 223 million tonnes of coal was shipped from Queensland ports to 30 different countries and territories last year, trumping the previous record set in 2016 by 2 million tonnes. QRC chief executive Ian Macfarlane said big players and new entrants to the state’s coal industry had driven billions of dollars in investment. “There is a very strong demand out there which is underpinning our economic strength at the moment in Queensland,” he said. Mr Macfarlane said based on early figures, demand and job numbers for this year were promising. “It’ll depend on how that demand holds up but even at this early stage we’re seeing very strong demand, both for metallurgical coal and for thermal coal out of Queensland, we’re still seeing lots of job advertisements for people,” he said. “We have a number of projects on the drawing boards in Central Queensland right across the Central Highlands and the Galilee Basin as well, so we are seeing very strong investment and very strong jobs growth that goes with it. “We do have those extreme green activists who continually say coal is in decline but these figures clearly show that that is a lie, and the reality is that coal is continuing to grow and continuing to play an important part in our economy.”
China firms funding coal plants offshore as domestic curbs bite: study (Reuters) – China has become a key backer for coal-fired power globally, funding more than a quarter of all new plants being developed outside its borders even as it clamps down on the polluting fuel at home, a study published on Tuesday said. The top destinations are Bangladesh, Vietnam, South Africa and Pakistan, and about a quarter of the proposed capacity would use technology no longer allowed in China, the report by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), a U.S.-based think-tank, said. “China is taking very forceful steps to slow down the increase in coal-fired power facilities in China, but is looking to take that capacity and sell it overseas,” said Melissa Brown, IEEFA’s energy finance consultant and an author of the report. China, the world’s biggest energy consumer, has been investing heavily in alternative fuels in order to cut its dependence on coal, a major source of smog as well as climate-warming carbon emissions. It has closed down ageing mines and power plants, with the aim of cutting the fuel’s share of total energy consumption from 69 percent in 2011 to 58 percent by next year. But even as it slashes coal use within its borders, its financial institutions have committed or offered funding of $35.9 billion for 102 gigawatts (GW) of coal-fired power now being developed outside the country, the report said. While overseas financial institutions like the World Bank aim to restrict new coal investments, Chinese state-owned enterprises and policy banks are becoming “lenders of last resort” for coal-fired power, it said.
China’s Belt and Road Coal Links Are Crumbling – When a giant infrastructure project in an emerging country doesn’t make sense these days, you can usually count on China’s Belt and Road to be on hand with a bailout check.For the global coal industry, that prospect has been one of the last great hopes for demand growth. Chinese policy banks have committed some $45 billion to coal projects overseas since 2000, according to a Boston University database. That pattern may be starting to crack. Pakistan, which has been working on an aggressive expansion of new coal power plants under the Belt and Road’s China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, is getting cold feet. The country’s planning minister has told Beijing that it’s not interested in developing the Rahim Yar Khan plant, a potential 1.32 gigawatt project that would probably have left the country’s grid well over capacity.While the big beasts of potential coal development are China and India, smaller second-ranked markets such as Pakistan are likely the tougher nuts to crack to wean the world from its most polluting fossil fuel. Turkey, Vietnam, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Egypt, Pakistan and the Philippines together have about 144,729 megawatts of coal plants that are between initial announcements and their first concrete pour, according to CoalSwarm, a group that tracks project activity. That’s more than the 139,656 megawatts of projects at the same stage in China and India.
Hitachi freezes UK nuclear project as energy supply crunch looms –– Japan’s Hitachi Ltd (6501.T) put a $28 billion nuclear power project in Britain on hold on Thursday, dealing a blow to the country’s plans for the replacement of aging plants. Hitachi’s UK unit Horizon Nuclear Power failed to find private investors for its plan to build a plant at Wylfa in Anglesey, Wales, which was expected to provide about 6 percent of Britain’s electricity. “We’ve made the decision to freeze the project from the economic standpoint as a private company,” Hitachi said, adding it had booked a write-down of 300 billion yen ($2.8 billion). Chief executive Toshiaki Higashihara said Hitachi could seek to withdraw completely from the project and sell the Horizon unit, depending on discussions with the British government. Hitachi shares have risen 13 percent since Japanese media first reported the possible suspension last week. The Japanese company had urged the UK government to boost financial support for the planned power station. Higashihara, however, denied turmoil over Britain’s impending exit from the European Union had any impact on Hitachi’s decision to freeze the project. People close to the matter had previously said it had limited the government’s capacity to devise plans. The withdrawal of the Japanese conglomerate could leave the nuclear newbuild industry open to Russian and Chinese state-owned companies as Western private firms struggle to compete.
Massachusetts lawmakers seek delay in Seabrook, New Hampshire, nuclear plant license renewal –Questions about degraded concrete at the Seabrook Nuclear Power Station have prompted three Massachusetts lawmakers to call for a delay in the coastal New Hampshire facility’s federal relicensing. In a Jan. 18 letter to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Sens. Edward J. Markey and Elizabeth Warren joined U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton to ask that a license amendment for Seabrook be stayed until a hearing can be held this summer on the concrete problems and whether they pose a safety hazard. “There is no reason why the Seabrook license amendment should be approved before the hearing occurs,” the letter reads. Seabrook operator NextEra is expected to receive a 20-year operating license renewal from the commission at the end of January. NextEra needs a separate license amendment — related to the concrete — which it will receive sometime this week, the commission announced on Jan. 11. Structural concrete at the plant suffers from alkali-silica reaction, or ASR, a condition made worse by exposure to moisture. The swelling and cracking was identified by plant operators in 2009. Over the years, NextEra submitted plans describing how it would monitor and manage the problem while continuing to operate the atomic reactor. In a final safety evaluation report issued in September, the federal commission said it was satisfied with the proposal.
PSEG Drives Home Vow to Shutter Nuclear Plants Unless Public Subsidizes Them – Absent financial help, PSEG Nuclear vows to close its nuclear units in South Jersey within three years, saying the plants are not projected to cover hundreds of millions of dollars in annual expenditures, according to applications submitted to the state.But the energy company provided no financial information to back up that assertion – at least to the public – in voluminous filings, most of which will remain confidential except to the Board of Public Utilities, its staff and consultants, as well as the Rate Counsel and PJM Independent Market Monitor.The company contends the redacted financial information – detailing the three units’ finances going back five years and projections by PSEG through 2030 – demonstrates the plants qualify for up to $300 million in annual subsidies from ratepayers for the next three years.The proposed subsidies, dubbed zero emission credits, were part of a c ontroversial bill signed into law last spring by Gov. Phil Murphy after PSEG successfully pushed through legislation to prop up its Hope Creek and Salem 1 and Salem 2 nuclear units, which face stiff competition from plants burning cheap natural gas. The bill faced opposition from consumer advocates, environmentalists and business groups who argued PSEG failed to demonstrate the plants are not profitable.
What does PG&E filing for bankruptcy mean for Diablo Canyon? — News that San Luis Obispo County’s largest private employer plans to declare bankruptcy in the coming days had some officials worrying Monday, with many noting PG&E’s plans could put the decommissioning of Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant in jeopardy.“I am very concerned about layoffs that could affect employees who live in our community, and I remain concerned that the plant operate to the end of its licenses,” county Supervisor Adam Hill said in an email to The Tribune on Monday. “There are no (greenhouse gas)-free replacements that could make up for the power the state’s grid needs. It would be very bad for the state to allow it to go offline sooner than its licensed end.”John Geesman, legal counsel for the San Luis Obispo-based activist group Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility, said “this is a period of enormous uncertainty.”“The bankruptcy process is going to result in questions being asked in a bankruptcy court that no one could have foreseen prior to the bankruptcy proceeding,” he said. “For example, is the Diablo Canyon power plant a marketable asset?” “PG&E expects that the Chapter 11 process will, among other things, support the orderly, fair and expeditious resolution of its potential liabilities resulting from the 2017 and 2018 Northern California wildfires, and will assure the company has access to the capital and resources it needs to continue to provide safe service to customers,” read a news release on the company’s website Monday morning. PG&E intends to file bankruptcy on or about Jan. 29, according to the release. The company will not go out of business as a result of the filing, it said, and it does not expect any impact to natural gas or electrical service for customers.
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