Written by rjs, MarketWatch 666
This is a collection of interesting news articles about the environment and related topics published last week. This is usually a Tuesday evening regular post at GEI (but can be posted at other times).
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Iceland Livestreams 10-Year-Old McDonald’s Cheeseburger That Won’t Decompose – BBC – When McDonald’s closed all its restaurants in Iceland in 2009, one man decided to buy his last hamburger and fries. “I had heard that McDonald’s never decompose so I just wanted to see if it was true or not,” Hjortur Smarason told AFP. This week, it’s 10 years since the seemingly indestructible meal was purchased, and it barely looks a day older. Curious observers can watch a live stream of the burger and fries from its current location in a glass cabinet in Snotra House, a hostel in southern Iceland. “The old guy is still there, feeling quite well. It still looks quite good actually,” the hostel’s owner Siggi Sigurdur told BBC News. “It’s a fun thing, of course, but it makes you think about what you are eating. There is no mould, it’s only the paper wrapping that looks old.” The hostel claims that people come from around the world to visit the burger, and the website receives up to 400,000 hits daily. Pictures posted on social media sparked discussion of other robust foods that have resisted the ravages of time.”The health teacher in our high school did this, but just left them on a shelf,”commented one Twitter user. “He would point out how even after years they didn’t grow mould because apparently there weren’t even enough nutrients in it for microbes.”
‘Bug Macs’- London Eatery Serves Up Worm-Burgers (To Save The Planet) – A trendy ‘urban farm’ in London is serving up burgers made from live worms, claiming that they are tastier than beef burgers and will help save the planet. Horizon, an insect farm in London, produces thousands of worms and crickets for its customers to eat.It claims to use leftover food from local businesses to feed the insects, including Mealworms, and says that the worms only require 10% of the land used for beef, and produce far less CO2.‘Experimental chef’ Tiziana Di Costanzo, the founder of the ‘farm’, says that the insects have a ‘nutty to earthy flavour’, and claims that she can produce enough worms to feed her family with just bran and used vegetable peel. “Let them crawl into your menu once, and you’ll be hooked! Costanzo said, adding that “Once you get past the ‘yuck effect’, you’ll find that they actually taste really good.” “We are hoping to scale up the operation to a production of 100kg per week in the next 6 months, all of this with zero waste” Costanzo added.The craze for eating insects stems from UN guidelines that “promote insects as a sustainable high-protein food.” The London insect farm is holding events to teach people how to cook with worms and crickets. Dishes include the afore mentioned burger, as well as cricket bruschetta, curry and coriander mealworm fritters, crispy chocolate mealworm cupcakes and cinnamon and raisin insect biscuits.
Measles epidemic spreads from New Zealand to Pacific Islands – Nearly 3,000 people across the southwestern Pacific, where poverty and poor health are endemic, have so far fallen victim to an outbreak of measles, a highly contagious and life-threatening disease. New Zealand is in the midst of its worst outbreak in 20 years, with 2,014 notified cases from January until November 8. Of these, 1,631 are in the Auckland region, with over two-thirds in the economically-deprived suburbs of South Auckland. Some babies admitted to hospital have almost died and two pregnant women lost their unborn children due to complications related to the disease. In late September, children were reportedly being turned away from pop-up clinics and GP (general practioner) offices due to a shortage of vaccines. Papakura GP Jacqueline Allan criticised health officials on Radio NZ for poor planning, saying many practices could not meet vaccination targets because of a nurse shortage. As an emergency measure, the Labour-led government has now authorised 450 pharmacies nationwide to administer the vaccine. With New Zealand’s population just five million, the measles outbreak ranks among the worst in the developed world. Measles does ongoing damage to the immune system, with children particularly vulnerable to consequent infections and severe illnesses. The Ministry of Health warned in August that “the current situation in New Zealand could become a threat for other countries in the Pacific region.” This has proved to be the case. Dr Helen Petousis-Harris, an immunologist at Auckland University, told Radio NZ on November 1 she was furious that New Zealand had “exported” measles to Samoa. Samoa’s government declared a measles epidemic in mid-October. As of November 7, the number of suspected cases had reached 513 and was expected to keep rising. Three babies and an adult are now thought to have died from the disease. Seven people were hospitalised from the recent batch of cases. An early case is understood to have resulted from contact with an Aucklander attending a church conference in Samoa, not realising he had the illness. Last month Samoa’s health ministry urged New Zealand to control the rampant outbreak before it made things worse. Petousis-Harris said given New Zealand’s direct responsibility for the 1918 influenza epidemic reaching Samoa, which wiped out 22 percent of the population, the country should have done more to protect Samoa. “It was inevitable that we would export this to Samoa… [It] is well known that they have very low levels of immunity there,” she said.
Measles Wipes Your Immune System’s ‘Memory,’ So It Can’t Fight Other Infections – The notorious measles virus not only makes people sick, it also sneaks inside important immune cells in the body and wipes their “memories,” new research suggests. Once infected, the amnesic immune system no longer recognizes the harmful pathogens that it has fought off in the past. This means measles survivors can remain susceptible to dangerous diseases – such as the flu and pneumonia – for years to come, despite having weathered their initial illness.”Measles essentially takes away their ability to efficiently protect themselves,” said Michael Mina, an epidemiologist at Harvard University and co-author of the new study, published today (Oct. 31) in the journal Science. The paper pairs with another published today in Science Immunology. Using data from a group of unvaccinated children in the Netherlands, both studies revealed what scientists have long suspected: that the measles virus cripples the immune system in a profound and lasting way. “What this has done is document exactly how that immunosuppression takes place, and gives us a sense of how broad that immunosuppression can be,” said Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine and infectious disease at Vanderbilt University who was not involved in the work. The findings also serve as a reminder that this year’s record-breaking measles outbreaks in the U.S. will have lingering effects, Schaffner added. “Those children are now living through a period of post-measles life more susceptible to other infections,” he said. Worldwide, the number of measles cases has increased by more than 280% since 2018, according to the World Health Organization – that means hundreds of thousands of people who caught the virus this year may now bear the brunt of secondary infections as well.
‘We Now Have a New Exotic Disease in Europe’: Native Zika Virus Spreads Due to Climate Change – The first three cases of Zika that started in southern France have been confirmed and experts are sounding the alarm that the climate crisis may cause more cases to spread across the continent, as CNN reported.The European Centers for Disease Control reported that all three cases were in Hyères, a French Riviera town. In all three cases the infected person had no travel history to countries where Zika is endemic, according to Zika News.This is the first time that local tiger mosquitoes have developed and spread the virus, which stands in stark contrast to the nearly 2,400 cases that Europe has seen since 2015 when an outbreak spread in South America, as The Telegraph reported.All three patients got sick within a short time of each other, which suggests they were all part of the same transmission cycle. Since they have all recovered, the European Centers for Disease Control says the risk to travelers and residents is low, according to CNN. Experts warn that Zika and other tropical diseases are likely to flourish in Europe, as CNN reported. This is “the first time that locally acquired Zika cases were identified, which poses new challenges for the control of these diseases,” Moritz Kraemer, a researcher into infectious diseases at the University of Oxford, told CNN.Kraemer added that native Zika is particularly surprising because the type of mosquito that carries it in South America isn’t usually found in Europe. That means the virus has moved to the Asian tiger mosquito, which is now commonly found in southern Europe, according to CNN.The Asian tiger mosquito “has become common in parts of southern France, where it has probably also been responsible for transmission of dengue. It has also been detected widely throughout southern Europe and sporadically further north,” said Anna Checkley, consultant in Tropical Medicine at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases, to CNN. “Warmer temperatures favor its survival, and as we go into winter it is much less likely that we will see further new cases. (But) if global temperatures increase, this mosquito may spread further north in Europe and we may see small clusters of cases further north.”
CDC announces breakthrough in vaping lung injury investigation -Samples of lung fluid from 29 lung injury patients in 10 states all contained the same chemical, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said today. The discovery is a huge step forward for the ongoing investigation into the severe and mysterious lung injuries that have affected e-cigarette users across the country.The chemical, called vitamin E acetate is now considered a “chemical of concern” by the CDC, which is investigating the outbreak. As of November 5th, 2019, 39 people have died of the injury, and 2,051 cases are being investigated. The agency says that vitamin E acetate is an oily substance found in a ton of typical household items, including foods, supplements, and even skin creams.According to the CDC’s website, “Vitamin E acetate usually does not cause harm when ingested as a vitamin supplement or applied to the skin. However, previous research suggests when vitamin E acetate is inhaled, it may interfere with normal lung functioning.”The oil might be great for skincare, but when heated up, it can act almost like a grease, chemistry professor Michelle Francl told The Washington Post in September. As you might imagine, breathing in vaporized grease could seriously affect the lungs, though researchers are still trying to figure out the exact mechanism that’s causing the lung damage.Investigators believe that the substance has been added to e-cigarette products as a thickener, and is particularly attractive to people manufacturing illicit products because it resembles tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) oil. THC is the substance in marijuana that provides a high.
Vaping Causes Lung Damage in Just 3 Days of Use, New Study Says – E-cigarette use, or vaping, can damage lungs in as little as three days of use, according to a new study from The Lundquist Institute (formerly known as LA BioMed) and the University of Rochester. For the study, male and female mice were exposed for two hours per day for three days to aerosols vaped from e-cigarettes using propylene glycol as the “carrier fluid,” common among these products. Exposure for just three days was enough to incur sufficient damage to their lungs, setting the stage for long-term chronic lung damage. This damage occurred both with e-cigarettes containing nicotine, and those with just the propylene glycol carrier fluid. The study also found that more inflammatory responses to e-cigarettes containing both propylene glycol and nicotine occurred in female mice, suggesting women might be more vulnerable to negative health impacts from vaping. The study also provides novel insights to the lung damaging effects of vaping – reporting for the first time that acute exposure to e-cigarette aerosol containing polyethylene glycol alone can induce oxidative stress in lungs. It also showed that vaping does not have to occur over long periods of time to be harmful. The study was a collaborative effort between The Lundquist Institute and the University of Rochester, with some of the key analytic components leading to its conclusions performed at The Lundquist Institute.
Lead levels in Canadian water ‘exceed safe limit’ in a third of cases — The amount of lead in the water supply of major Canadian cities exceeded safe levels in hundreds of thousands of homes, a major investigation has found.Some areas showed lead levels “similar” to those in the US city of Flint, Michigan, during its 2015 water crisis.Out of 12,000 samples taken from 2014 to 2018, one third exceeded the national safety guideline of 5 parts per billion (ppb).Canada has the third-largest per-capita fresh water reserve in the world.Lead contamination has been linked with low IQ in children, hypertension and heart disease. The year-long work was conducted by 120 journalists, from 10 media outlets and nine universities, in partnership with the Institute for Investigative Journalism.Investigators gathered the results of 12,000 tests carried out between 2014 and 2018 in 11 cities.While a third exceeded the safe limit of 5ppb, 18% were over the US limit of 15ppb.Among the areas studied were Montreal, the second-largest city in Canada (population 1.75m), and Oakville, an affluent part of the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). Regina, the capital of the prairie province of Saskatchewan, and the city of Prince Rupert, in northern British Columbia, were also included. Results found in some cities were “conspicuously similar to Flint,” according to the Toronto Star, based on average lead levels found using comparable testing methods.Reporters also tested the drinking water in older homes in 32 cities across the country, taking samples from residents who volunteered.Out of 260 homes sampled, about 39% exceeded the current federal guideline.
High lead levels found in many Detroit metropolitan cities – In recent days and weeks, Detroit area news sources have reported high levels of lead in the drinking water of many local communities. The demographically heterogeneous character of these reports is remarkable. Wealthier cities such as Birmingham, Michigan test with significant high lead levels just as less affluent working-class cities like as Garden City and Inkster. Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha lives in Royal Oak, Michigan, one of the communities that showed high lead levels in the homes whose water was sampled. She is the Flint pediatrician who conducted the September 2015 study of blood-lead levels in Flint children that revealed the city’s children were being poisoned as a result of the switch of Flint’s water source. She says the recent discovery of high lead in many Michigan communities is a result of more stringent sampling protocols that were adopted and enforced by the state in June. Hanna-Attisha is cited in the Detroit Free Press: “Michigan adopted this model lead and copper rule that’s really allowing us to better see what’s in our water … The testing in the past never adequately captured the reality of lead in water. Now, as anticipated, community after community is learning they have elevated lead levels in their drinking water, and they can now do something about it.” The City of Royal Oak issued a public advisory on October 29, stating, “This new, more rigorous sampling method is expected to result in higher lead results found at sample sites, not because the water source or quality has changed, but because of the Rule’s more stringent sampling procedures and analysis.” After the malfeasance and lies of state officials in the Flint water crisis were exposed in late September 2015 – and Republican Governor Rick Snyder was forced to return the city to its long-time source of treated water – a barrage of state measures were introduced, ostensibly to address the harm done to the 100,000 residents of Flint. It is arguable that these initiatives were motivated by Snyder’s need to establish “plausible deniability” to his claim that he knew nothing of the malignant effects of the state-imposed switch to Flint River water until days after Hanna-Attisha’s revelations of the lead-poisoning of Flint children. The new protocol requires the sampling of an additional draw from each site. Besides evaluating the first draw from the tap, the fifth draw is also sampled.Edwards added, “The AWWA [American Water Works Association] actually did a study, years ago, that showed if a second draw sample was collected, to capture lead in water from a lead pipe, that about 50-60 percent of utilities would suddenly fail the lead and copper rule. Certainly, we have known about this problem for a long time … it has been causing a lot of people to be exposed to higher than recommended levels of lead.”
Delhi struggles to breathe but not even in top 10 polluted Indian cities – Over the last few days, Delhiites are having a tough time breathing. With thick smog in the air, the Capital has practically converted to a gas chamber. On Monday, however, there was a slight improvement in pollution levels with the Air Quality Index (AQI) dipping from ‘severe’ (400+) to ‘unhealthy’ (150-200). India Today Data Intelligence Unit (DIU) analysed the AQI bulletin provided by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and found that Delhi, in fact, does not feature among the 10 most polluted cities of India. The average AQI calculated for 24 hours (November 3, 4 pm to November 4, 4 pm) showed that Jind in Haryana had the most toxic air among 97 cities analysed. Jind’s average AQI was 448. Delhi’s average AQI was 407. A total of 15 cities had an average AQI above 400, which is ‘severe’ according to CPCB standards. Of these, nine are in Uttar Pradesh and five in Haryana, apart from Delhi. Eight UP cities followed Jind for having the most toxic air quality.Despite unbearable smog, Delhi was not among the 10 most polluted cities in India even before Diwali. DIU had earlier reported that in the last week of October, cities in UP and Haryana fared worse than the Capital in AQI.
As Delhi Declares Emergency Over Air Quality, a Look at What Needs to Be Done After the air quality deteriorated to ‘severe-plus’ – or emergency levels – in the Delhi National Capital Region (NCR), the Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority (EPCA) declared a public health on Friday. As a result, all construction activity stands banned until November 5. Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal also ordered all schools closed until that day. In his letter to chief secretaries of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Delhi, EPCA chairperson Bhure Lal cautioned that the body had declared a “public health emergency … as air pollution will have adverse health impact on all, particularly our children.” Lal wrote that the “current air quality is a combination of the accumulated toxins because of local pollution, which … further spiked because of cracker-burning on Diwali night, combined with stubble-burning and extremely adverse weather.” Under the circumstances, Lal directed that all construction activities in Delhi, Faridabad, Gurgaon, Ghaziabad, Noida and Greater Noida be suspended and all hot mix plants and stone crushers in all NCR districts closed until the morning of November 5. The EPCA has also asked “all coal and other fuel based industries, which have not shifted to natural gas or agro-residue (with exemption to power plants)” and “industries that have not shifted to piped natural gas” to cease operations until the same data and banned the use of firecrackers until the end of winter – typically January. There is a flavour of frustration in these measures because, despite the efforts of the Centre, the EPCA, the Supreme Court and the National Green Tribunal, the NCR’s air quality has only gone from bad to worse. Recently, Chief Minister Kejriwal retweeted an article that said the five lakh farmers in Haryana and Punjab burning their paddy stubble were to blame. However, Anumita Roychowdhury, the executive director of research and advocacy at the Centre for Science and Environment, New Delhi, explained that changes in agricultural methods exacerbated the crisis, since new harvesting machines leave crop stubble in their wake and farmers find it too expensive to hire labourers to remove the stubble. Roychowdhury said systems need to be devised and put into use for proper utilisation of the nearly 32 million tonnes of straw that gets left behind in the fields. She said there is the in situ solution of mixing the straw with the earth so that you do not have to burn it and it can be used to fertilize the field. Here, Roychowdhury said the Government of India has given some subsidy for the farmers but there is a need for the Centre and state governments to work out a plan to provide affordable access to the farmers to the implements. She said many small farmers still do not afford to use happy seeders to bury the straw in the ground and there was a need to look at options like a cooperative model or sharing system so that they too may be able to use these implements.
It’s Man Vs Wild in India’s Economy, and Wild Has the Upper Hand – With a makeshift spear in hand to defend himself should a tiger attack, Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently trekked through the Himalayan foothills of northern India with Bear Grylls to create awareness about environmental conservation and climate change.The Man Vs Wild appearance comes as Asia’s third-largest economy grapples with deluge and drought, adding to growth headwinds. It’s a battle that’s having real economic consequences: A recent Stanford study estimated the economy is 31% smaller than it would have been in the absence of global warming.Growth in farm sector output, which accounts for about 16% of India’s gross domestic product, has been cooling for the past few years as unseasonable rains and frequent droughts add to farmers’ distress. In 2019, sugar output may drop to the lowest in three years as delayed showers shriveled cane in parts of Maharashtra.Deficient rainfall in other areas also threatened oilseed crops. The need to offset the shortfall will add to India’s import costs – another challenge for a nation already running trade and current account deficits. The hunt for rising incomes is driving India’s rural residents from the village to the city. Climate-induced uncertainty in agriculture accelerates the process. The share of agriculture in overall employment dropped to 42% in 2016 from 70% in 1981.That urbanization is increasing stress on water availability. A recent water crisis in the southern city of Chennai forced doctors to buy water for surgery. Desertification, land degradation and drought cost India about 2.5% of gross domestic product in 2014-15, according to India’s environment ministry.Modi’s re-election pitch this year included pledges to improve the environment. He’s created a separate ministry for water, pledged to reduce pollution in cities and help the country embrace electric vehicles – part of a shift to cleaner energy in everything from power plants to cooking gas. Those changes can’t come soon enough. India racks up health-care costs and productivity losses from pollution of as much as 8.5% of GDP, according to the World Bank.
The toxic smog choking New Delhi – A cloud of toxic smog has forced residents in New Delhi to stay indoors, closed factories and schools, diverted flights and halted building works this week. With India declaring a public health emergency in recent days, the heavy pollution – caused by industrial production, vehicles and farmers burning field stubble – has scared off tourists to the Indian capital and other northern cities. This is the worst time of year for pollution in New Delhi, one of the world’s most polluted cities. Visibility on some days is as poor as 50 metres and the poor air quality is expected to persist until January. Pollution levels on the Air Quality Index have reached between 200-300, many times above the safe level of 50. Last month the readings hit more than 400, prompting Arvind Kejriwal, New Delhi’s chief minister, to say the capital city had “turned into a gas chamber”. The financial costs are also mounting. “The economic impact is the direct effect of pollution on health and lost productivity,” said Karthik Ganesan from the Council on Energy, Environment and Water, a Delhi-based think-tank. “The service sector and tourism are hit, too. Usually tourists want to see the ‘Golden Triangle’ – Delhi, Jaipur and Agra – but those cities are some of the worst affected by pollution.” Total welfare costs related to pollution amounted to $505bn, approximately 7.7 per cent of India’s gross domestic product in 2013, according to the World Bank. While the emergency measures may help reduce some emissions, better-off New Delhi residents have invested in air-filtration systems and purifiers, and sealed their windows and doors. The rest rely on masks or nothing at all. “The kids are suffering more and with the severity of the problem, the severity of symptoms is also increasing.” More than 620m children in south Asia breathe polluted air, according to Unicef, which called on the Indian government to take “urgent action to address the air quality crisis”. Amol Arora, managing director at the Shemrock and Shemford Group of Schools, said his schools have a later start time – 9am instead of the normal 7.30am or 8am – to avoid the worst pollution in the morning. The schools have also installed a double air filtration system. “Today, children carrying a nebuliser [a device used to treat asthma] in Delhi is very common,” said Mr Arora. “It’s almost criminal not to be giving our children clean air.”
Why New Delhi’s air is always so toxic this time of year -India’s capital city of New Delhi has been making headlines this week for its abysmal air quality as the concentration of particulate matter reached above 400 micrograms per cubic meter, 20 times the levels deemed healthy by the World Health Organization and the worst the city has seen since 2016.On October 31, the government declared a public health emergency, closing schools, banning construction and fireworks, and limiting private vehicle use to every other day for five days in an effort to protect the population and make a dent in the pollution. Flights have been delayed and hospitals inundated with patients suffering from coughs, dry eyes and throats, and other symptoms brought on or exacerbated by the toxic air.On the ground, it looks like a scene from a post-apocalyptic movie. Blanketing the streets is smog so dense you can’t see the length of a city block, and the sharp smell of smoke is detectable even through a mask, without which you’d be exposed to air that, over the course of a day, is equivalent to smoking a couple packs of cigarettes.Unfortunately, this sort of air pollution is nothing new to the residents of Delhi, nor those of many other Indian cities. A study released earlier this year found that 22 of the world’s 30 most polluted cities are in India, and the fall and winter months are always especially toxic. The stew of pollution choking New Delhi this time of year doesn’t have one single source. Massive clouds of smoke drift south from the neighboring states of Punjab and Haryana, where farmers burn crop stubble from their fields after the harvest to trap nutrients in the soil. Fireworks set off in the streets by the city’s 2 million residents during the Hindu festival of lights, Diwali, don’t help either. And then there are the usual suspects: car and industrial emissions. But it’s not just human activity that’s to blame – local weather patterns don’t help the problem, either. Cold air settles into the low-lying city, bringing with it, and holding in, pollutants. The government has been struggling for years – mostly without success – to curb air pollution. Crop burning and firecrackers are both illegal, but people mostly ignore these bans, as well as the efforts to replace the practices with greener alternatives.
Eat carrots, perform yagnas: Indian officials have absurd tips to survive Delhi’s deadly smog – On Sunday, the intense toxic haze building up in North India over the past week reached apocalyptic levels. Ten monitoring stations in the National Capital Region recorded pollution levels in the “severe plus emergency” category.#DelhiAirEmergency was the top Twitter trend, followed by #DelhiPollution and #DelhiBachao – literally, save Delhi. Despite living in Delhi, however, top ministers in the prime minister Narendra Modi’s government seemed to be on another planet.Environment minister Prakash Javadekar tweeted yesterday (Nov. 3) to ask Indians to start their day with music.His tweet came after a day of squabbling between the central government and the Delhi government. On Saturday, Javadekar accused Delhi chief minister Kejriwal of “politicising” air pollution and claimed the centre had organised interstate meetings between officials and ministers of North Indian states about the problem.But a government document surfaced on Sunday showing that Javadekar had cancelled the previous three meetings of state environment ministers scheduled in September and October.India’s health minister Harsh Vardhan also tweeted some advice: Eat carrots for “help against pollution-related harm” This prompted much carrot-munching on Twitter. (ie, Bugs Bunny) Uttar Pradesh minister Sunil Bharala, meanwhile, noted that farmers have always practiced stubble burning, a major cause of atmospheric pollution as smoke from neighbouring states gathers over the capital. “It’s a natural system,” said Bharatala, reported the news agency ANI. “Repeated criticism of it is unfortunate.” He offered a solution: “Governments should hold yagnas (Hindu rituals held in front of a sacred fire) to please Lord Indra (the God of rain) as done traditionally. He will set things right.”
Mekong shrivels as drought, dam strangle SEAsia’s largest river -The once mighty Mekong river has been reduced to a thin, grubby neck of water in stretches of northern Thailand — record lows blamed on drought and a recently opened dam far upstream. The $4.47 billion Thai-owned Xayaburi dam went into operation this week in Laos after years of warnings over the potential impact on fish flow, sediment and water levels of a river which feeds millions.Along parts of Thailand’s northeastern border at Loei, the kilometre (3,300-foot) wide river has shrivelled to a few dozen metres, with boulders and bedrock encasing muddy pools of water. From above the encroaching banks of Laos and Thailand are now a thread of water apart, restricting fishing grounds to a slim channel. Fishermen blame a combination of this year’s weak monsoon and the Xayaburi dam, around 300 kilometres (185 miles) to the north. “I don’t want any more dam construction,” said fisherman Sup Aunkaew, who tossed a meagre catch into his boat, adding that the fish spawning habits have been “confused” by the unseasonally low water levels. “But we can’t really oppose their plans if they want to do it.” Landlocked and impoverished Laos has set its sights on becoming “the battery of Asia”, with 44 operating hydro plants and 46 more under construction many on key tributaries of the Mekong, according to monitor International Rivers. Experts say the dam-building frenzy in China and Laos has compounded the drought. “These are causing the Mekong to die a death of a thousand cuts,” said Brian Eyler, author of “The Last Days of the Mighty Mekong.” “Some parts of the river (have) hit historic lows for any time of the year.”He said the lower part of the river is at a “crisis point” until rains come again next year but no one is sounding the alarm. The Mekong, which rises on the Tibetan plateau and courses through China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam — sustains tens of millions of people along its banks through fishing and agriculture.
China Is Weaponizing Water And Worsening Droughts Across Asia – Asia, the world’s driest continent in per capita terms, remains the center of dam construction, with more than half of the 50,000 large dams across the globe. The hyperactivity on dams has only sharpened local and international disputes over the resources of shared rivers and aquifers. The focus on dams reflects a continuing preference for supply-side approaches, which entail increased exploitation of water resources, as opposed to pursuing demand-side solutions, such as smart water management and greater water-use efficiency. As a result, nowhere is the geopolitics over dams murkier than in Asia, the world’s most dam-dotted continent. Last summer, water levels in continental Southeast Asia’s lifeline, the 4,880-kilometer Mekong River, fell to their lowest in more than 100 years, even though the annual monsoon season stretches from late May to late September. Yet, after completing 11 mega-dams, China is building more upstream dams on the Mekong, which originates on the Tibetan Plateau. Indeed, Beijing is also damming other transnational rivers. China is central to Asia’s water map. Thanks to its annexation of the water-rich Tibetan Plateau and the sprawling Xinjiang province, China is the starting point of rivers that flow to 18 downstream countries. No other country in the world serves as the riverhead for so many countries. By erecting dams, barrages and other water diversion structures in its borderlands, China is creating an extensive upstream infrastructure that arms it with the capacity to weaponize water. A serious drought presently parching parts of the vast region extending from Australia to the Indian peninsula has underscored the mounting risks from the pursuit of dam-centered engineering solutions to growing freshwater shortages. Asia’s densely populated regions already face a high risk that their water stress could worsen to water scarcity. The dam-driven water competition is threatening to also provoke greater tensions and conflict. Among its planned new dams is a massive project at Metog, or Motuo in Chinese, on the world’s highest-altitude major river, the Brahmaputra. The proposed dam, close to the disputed, heavily militarized border with India, will have a power-generating capacity nearly twice that of the Three Gorges Dam, whose reservoir is longer than the largest of North America’s Great Lakes. Several of the Southeast Asian dam projects financed and undertaken by Chinese companies, like in Laos and Myanmar, are intended to generate electricity for export to China’s own market. Indeed, China has demonstrated that it has no qualms about building dams in disputed territories, such as Pakistan-administered Kashmir, or in areas torn by ethnic separatism, like northern Myanmar.
The world is getting wetter, yet water may become less available for North America and Eurasia – With climate change, plants of the future will consume more water than in the present day, leading to less water available for people living in North America and Eurasia, according to a Dartmouth-led study in Nature Geoscience. The research suggests a drier future despite anticipated precipitation increases for places like the United States and Europe, populous regions already facing water stresses. The study challenges an expectation in climate science that plants will make the world wetter in the future. Scientists have long thought that as carbon dioxide concentrations increase in the atmosphere, plants will reduce their water consumption, leaving more freshwater available in our soils and streams. This is because as more carbon dioxide accumulates in our atmosphere plants can photosynthesize the same amount while partly closing the pores (stomata) on their leaves. Closed stomata means less plant water loss to the atmosphere, increasing water in the land. The new findings reveal that this story of plants making the land wetter is limited to the tropics and the extremely high latitudes, where freshwater availability is already high and competing demands on it are low. For much of the mid-latitudes, the study finds, projected plant responses to climate change will not make the land wetter but drier, which has massive implications for millions of people. “Approximately 60 percent of the global water flux from the land to the atmosphere goes through plants, called transpiration. Plants are like the atmosphere’s straw, dominating how water flows from the land to the atmosphere. So vegetation is a massive determinant of what water is left on land for people,” explained lead author Justin S. Mankin, an assistant professor of geography at Dartmouth and adjunct research scientist at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University. “The question we’re asking here is, how do the combined effects of carbon dioxide and warming change the size of that straw?”
The warming climate is making baby sea turtles almost all girls – Only stars glowed on this remote beach, where the sea turtle arrived to lay her eggs. She dodged plastic, fishing nets and oil spills to get this far. But another threat to her species lurks in the ground: sand temperatures that foster only one gender. “One hundred percent girls,” whispered the biologist, crawling next to the pregnant reptile. “This nest will be 100 percent girls.” As the earth gets hotter, turtle hatchlings worldwide are expected to skew dangerously female, scientists predict, making the animals an unwitting gauge for the warming climate. On the tiny West African island nation of Cape Verde – home to a sixth of the planet’s nesting loggerheads – the disparity is stark. Eighty-four percent of youngsters are now female, researchers from Britain’s University of Exeter found in a July report. Populations in Florida and Australia are also showing dramatic sex imbalances, sparking fears creatures that outlasted dinosaurs are plodding toward extinction. “Males here could vanish in two or three decades,” said Adolfo Marco, a Spanish researcher who camps every summer on Boa Vista, one of Cape Verde’s 10 islands in the Atlantic. “There will be no reproduction.” The past five years have been the hottest on record for the globe. Roughly a tenth of the planet has warmed beyond 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit), according to a Washington Post analysis – the point at which scientists say rising temperatures can trigger irreversible damage to ecosystems. Here in Cape Verde, the warming is above average – about 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.3 Fahrenheit) just since 1964, based on records from the primary airport. If the trend continues at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s lowest projection, researchers estimate that fewer than 1 percent of the country’s sea turtles will be born male by the century’s end. Higher rises could wipe them out completely.
Sea urchin population soars 10,000% in five years, devastating US coastline – Tens of millions of voracious purple sea urchins that have already chomped their way through towering underwater kelp forests in California are spreading north to Oregon, sending the delicate marine ecosystem off the shore into such disarray that other critical species are starving to death. A recent count found 350m purple sea urchins on one Oregon reef alone – more than a 10,000% increase since 2014. And in northern California, 90% of the bull kelp forests have been devoured by the urchins, perhaps never to return. Vast “urchin barrens” – stretches of denuded seafloor dotted with nothing but hundreds of the spiny orbs – have spread to coastal Oregon, where kelp forests were once so thick it was impossible to navigate some areas by boat. The underwater annihilation is killing off important fisheries for red abalone and red sea urchins and creating such havoc that scientists in California are partnering with a private business to collect the over-abundant purple urchins and “ranch” them in a controlled environment for sale to a global seafood market. “We’re in uncharted territory,” said Scott Groth, a shellfish scientist with the Oregon department of fish and wildlife. “You can’t just go out and smash them. There’s too many. I don’t know what we can do.” The explosion of purple sea urchins is the latest symptom of a Pacific north-west marine ecosystem that’s out of whack. Kelp has been struggling because of warmer-than-usual waters in the Pacific Ocean. And, in 2013, a mysterious disease began wiping out tens of millions of starfish, including a species called the sunflower sea star that is the only real predator of the ultra-hardy purple urchin. Around the same time, the purple urchins had two excellent breeding years – and with no predators, those gametes grew up and are now eating everything in sight.
Why are birds and seals starving in a Bering Sea full of fish? Marine biologist Gay Sheffield drove to the airport on an August day to pick up the seabird carcasses collected by the Bering Strait villagers of Shishmaref and bring it back to a laboratory just off the main street of this northwest Alaska town. Sheffield found mostly shearwaters, slender birds with narrow wings – also kittiwakes, crested auklets, thick-billed murres, a cormorant and a horned puffin. Most were painfully skinny, bones protruding like knife-edged ridges.“They starved to death,” Sheffield said. “Why?”The birds should have been able to fatten on small fish, krill and other food that typically abound in the northern Bering Sea, a body of water so rich in marine life that gray whales, after they winter off Mexico, swim more than 5,000 miles north to feed here each summer. But as climate change warms the die-offs of seabirds and marine mammals have been on the rise. The grim tally includes a nearly fivefold increase in ice-seal carcasses spotted on shore, strandings of emaciated gray whales, and near the St. Lawrence Island village of Savoonga, a discouraging spectacle: auklets abandoning seaside nests as their chicks succumb to hunger. The animal die-offs offer the world a stark example of the perils of rising ocean temperatures, which already are upending parts of the Bering Sea ecosystem as climate change – driven by greenhouse-gas pollution from fossil fuels – unfolds in Alaska at a breakneck pace. For the past two years, the winter ice has largely disappeared, and this fall, ice formation in some of the northern waters has been at historic lows. These are startling developments for those who live along the shores and for the Seattle-based fishermen whose fortunes are tied to the Bering Sea harvests that are some of the biggest on the planet. Federal and university scientists are trying to better understand why some birds and marine mammals have been unable to find enough food, and whether toxic algae blooms – increasing as the water warms – could have contributed or caused some of the die-offs. As the warming takes hold – raising some summer sea-bottom temperatures by more than 12 degrees in less than a decade – Sheffield has emerged as a front-line scientist traveling around the region to document death tolls and gather specimens for analysis. Along the way, she’s heard from Yup’ik and Iñupiat villagers who eat the seabirds and marine mammals, and – disturbed by what they were finding – began to gather samples from dead animals and airfreight them to Sheffield in Nome. “If you live here, it’s a real-world problem. It’s an immediate, stop, get an answer problem. It’s a food security and health problem … and people are very brave in taking action.”
Climate Crisis Is Causing a Deadly Virus to Spread Amongst Marine Mammals – A lethal virus that killed tens of thousands of harbor seals in the northern Atlantic in 2002 suddenly spread to sea lions, seals and otters in the northern Pacific Ocean two years later, confusing scientists, as NBC News reported.How could the pathogen that causes a measles-like disease in marine mammals that had only been found on the Atlantic coasts suddenly have spread to the Pacific?”We didn’t understand how a virus from the Atlantic ended up in these sea otters. It’s not a species that ranges widely,” said Tracey Goldstein, a scientist at the University of California Davis who investigates how pathogens move through marine ecosystems, as National Geographic reported.Goldstein and her colleagues looked at 15 years of data and realized that the spike in the virus was commensurate with Arctic sea ice loss. The data, published in a new study in the journal Scientific Reports, finds that the loss of Arctic sea ice allowed otters and other mammals to move west and spread the virus. The study shows that global heating is opening new avenues for diseases to spread, as National Geographicreported.”The loss of sea ice is leading marine wildlife to seek and forage in new habitats and removing that physical barrier, allowing for new pathways for them to move,” said Goldstein in a press release. “As animals move and come in contact with other species, they carry opportunities to introduce and transmit new infectious disease, with potentially devastating impacts.”The rapid loss of sea ice is creating a fertile breeding ground for viruses as animals travel to areas they have never been before. The phenomenon was first observed 17 years ago. “It was a perfect storm in 2002,” said Goldstein, as NBC News reported. “It was the lowest ice year on record at the time, and at the same time, in August and September, there was a really large outbreak.”
Thousands of animals around the world are at risk of extinction. But not jellyfish – they’re thriving in warm, polluted water. – The world is in the midst of a mass extinction – the sixth time in the planet’s history that species are experiencing a major global collapse in numbers. Up to 1 million species are threatened with extinction, many within decades, according to a United Nations report. Human activity is to blame: Habitats are being destroyed due to pollution, climate change, and deforestation. But one group of creatures is bucking this ominous trend: jellyfish. Jellyfish have roamed Earth’s oceans for 500 million years. The bell-shaped underwater denizens can be found all over the world; there are some 4,000 species of them, according to the Smithsonian Institute. Over the past two decades, global populations of many jellyfish species have skyrocketed. Swarms of them, known as “jellyfish blooms,” have become more common worldwide, forcing beach closures, causing power outages, and killing other fish. Recent research has revealed that the increases in jellyfish populations can be linked to human activity, too. As greenhouse gases trap heat on the planet, oceans are heating up – they absorb 93% of that excess heat. Unlike many marine species, jellies can thrive in warmer water with less oxygen. What’s more, their natural predators, like turtles and sharks, are being overfished by humans. Here’s what to know about why jellyfish are thriving – and why their population explosion could be dangerous.
‘Zombie in the Water’: New Greenpeace Report Warns of Deadly Ghost Fishing Gear -A lot of the discussion around ocean plastic pollution focuses on consumer items like bottles, bags and straws. But a new Greenpeace report zeroes in on a different plastic threat: lost or abandoned fishing gear.Discarded plastic fishing equipment, dubbed “ghost gear,” is especially dangerous to marine life because it was designed to trap and kill it.”(Ghost gear) is like a zombie in the water,” Greenpeace marine biologist and oceans expert Thilo Maack toldAFP. “Nobody takes out the catch, but it’s still catching.”The report found that there is an alarming amount of this deadly plastic gear in the oceans. Around 640,000 tonnes of it enter the world’s oceans every year, around the same weight as more than 50 thousand double decker buses. While fishing gear represents 10 percent of ocean plastic overall, it makes up a much larger proportion of large plastic pollution. In some areas, it contributes the “vast majority of plastic rubbish.”
- It makes up around 70 percent of plastics more than 20 centimeters (approximately 8 inches) large floating on the ocean’s surface; buoys alone account for 58 percent.
- Fishing nets make up 86 percent of the large plastics in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
- Fishing equipment makes up more than 85 percent of the plastic pollution on sea mounts, ocean ridges and the sea floor.
- Fishing industry debris comprised 60 percent of six tonnes of garbage collected from the remote Henderson Island in the Pacific Ocean.
This is a major problem for marine life. A single ghost fishing net killed around 300 sea turtles in Mexican waters in 2018. And every year, ghost gear kills more than 100,000 whales, dolphins, seals and turtles, UK-based charity World Animal Protection told AFP.
How Plastic Pollution Is Making Central America Uninhabitable – THE FISHERMEN STAND thigh-deep in the muddy water as our boat pulls up to the shore, grass shushing against the hull. Beside them, half-submerged, a plastic soda bottle noses purposefully past, toward the sea.As I step onto shore, I notice more bits of plastic lying among the reeds, half-buried in the mud, as well as stained scraps of cloth, bits of packing foam, a single cracked plastic sandal. Just beyond, Guatemala’s Motagua River pours into the Caribbean, carrying with it a daily freight of trash washed out of overcrowded city dumps and unofficial landfills hundreds of miles upstream. Worldwide, an estimated 80 percent of ocean plastic comes from land as “mismanaged waste.” Indeed, in Guatemala, there are almost no properly managed landfills and virtually no public water treatment plants. The result is a noxious chowder of sewage, industrial and agricultural runoff, and an ever-replenished flotilla of plastic trash, churning out from the river mouth toward the massive Mesoamerican reef, which has long supported rich biodiversity and fishing communities from Cancún to Nicaragua. Now, the beaches here and in neighboring Honduras are regularly buried in artificial tidewrack of toothbrushes, makeup containers, old syringes and bottles of IV fluid, action figures, streamers of plastic film, and foil chip bags. El Quetzalito sits at the end of a dirt road that jounces through endless plantation rows of banana and palm trees, just a few miles from Guatemala’s border with Honduras. Though this small community, home to only about 305 people, lies nearly 200 miles from the busy, exhaust-choked capital, the city’s trash floats past and washes up onto the beaches every day. In 2016, footage of a massive landslide of garbage in the overfilled Guatemala City dump reportedly killed three trash-pickers and briefly drew international attention to the untenable conditions there. But with overburdened or nonexistent infrastructure throughout Guatemala, the rainy season regularly washes large quantities of trash out of many such dumps and into the rivers every year. “It’s something that’s been happening for a while now,” said Marco Dubón, who goes by Marquito. Growing up, he doesn’t remember a time when the river wasn’t full of trash. In recent years, however, it’s gotten much worse.
Why biodegradables won’t solve the plastic crisis – Throwaway plastic has found its way into almost every aspect of our lives: from the disposable coffee cup you pick up on the way to work or the straw in your smoothie, to the hidden fibres woven into wet wipes and tiny glittering fragments in make-up. Of the 6.3 billion tonnes of plastic we’ve thrown away since we started mass-producing it in the 1950s, just 600 million tonnes has been recycled – and 4.9 billion tonnes has been sent to landfill or left in the natural environment. While awareness of the detrimental impact plastic can have on the environment has exploded in recent years, environmentally friendly alternatives are only now picking up steam. Biodegradable plastics are one set of materials that are becoming a popular replacement as consumers demand green alternatives. Rather than remaining stable for hundreds of years – the quality for which we prized plastic when we first began using it – biodegradable plastics can be broken down by microbes, chewed up and turned into biomass, water and carbon dioxide (or in the absence of oxygen, methane rather than CO2). That coffee cup with a Seedling logo you’re drinking from won’t decompose very quickly, if at all, on your home compost heap, but will break down inside the right kind of industrial equipment. There’s a European standard for compostable packaging: EN 13432. It requires that the packaging break down underindustrial-scale composting conditions within 12 weeks, leaving no more than 10% of the original material in pieces bigger than 2mm, and doing no harm to the soil itself through heavy metals or worsening its structure. But while most of these bioplastics require industrial composters to break them down after use, they are far from guaranteed to make it to one. Given humanity’s track record, it makes sense to ask what happens if they end up where they shouldn’t. Imogen Napper at the University of Plymouth collected carrier bags with various claims about biodegradability, and put them in three different natural environments over a period of three years: the bag labelled “compostable” (which stated it adhered to standard EN 13432) disappeared entirely within three months when it was left in seawater. In soil it remained intact for two years, but disintegrated when the researchers loaded it with shopping. The rest of the bags – including the one labelled “biodegradable” – were still present in both soil and sea water after three years, and could even hold shopping.
Argentina could become ‘sacrificial country’ for plastic waste, say activists – Argentina has changed its definition of waste in a move that could allow it to import millions of tonnes of plastic waste discarded in the US.The country’s president, Mauricio Macri, signed a decree in August reclassifying some materials destined for recycling as commodities instead of waste, allowing looser oversight of mixed and contaminated plastic scraps that are difficult to process, and are often dumped or incinerated.Social and environmental groups say the decree is illegal and bucks a global trend toward improving controls over waste imports. They worry it could be the first step towards Argentina taking in the plastics that have flooded developed nations after China began to refuse all but the cleanest of shipments in late 2017. Jim Puckett, the executive director of the Basel Action Network, a group that fights the export of toxic waste from industrialised societies to developing nations, said: “They’re willing to become a sacrificial country where the rest of the world could send their waste and they could profit from it.”Argentinian environment official Alejandra Acosta said advocates are misunderstanding the decree and that it would actually be more stringent than previous policies, although she could not explain why multiple groups are interpreting the change as relaxing plastic import rules. She acknowledged the government did not do enough outreach with advocates and argued that no mixed plastics or plastics destined for “final disposal” or “energy recovery” via incineration would be allowed.More than 180 countries are party to the Basel convention, which governs the international waste trade, but the US is not.Under a recent amendment proposed by Norway, developed nations will not be able to export low-quality plastic waste to developing nations without getting their explicit consent and ensuring the waste can be appropriately handled.The amendments aim to ensure that even abstaining countries, such as the US, follow the Basel convention rules when sending plastic waste to poorer countries. Basel convention countries could still strike separate agreements with the US, as long as they ensure that any plastics they receive will not be disposed of in ways that harm the environment and violate the convention, said Pål Spillum, the deputy director general of Norway’s environment ministry.
Monsanto Wins $7.7 Billion Lawsuit in Brazil – but Farmers’ Fight to Stop its ‘Amoral’ Royalty System Will Continue – A Brazilian appeals court has decided in favor of Monsanto, the global agribusiness conglomerate, in a landmark class-action lawsuit filed by Brazilian farmers’ unions. The court’s nine justices unanimously ruled on Oct. 9 that farmers cannot save seeds for replanting if the seeds are harvested from Monsanto’s patented Roundup Ready soybeans, which are genetically engineered to withstand direct application of the company’s Roundup herbicide. The Brazilian ruling aligns with similar decisions in the U.S. and Canada. Courts in all three countries determined that, as a product of genetic engineering, Roundup Ready soybeans are protected by domestic patent law. In a public statement, Monsanto – which was acquired by Bayer in 2018 – said the decision will strengthen “agricultural innovation in Brazil.”How strict patenting of seeds affects innovation, however, is a matter of debate. And the lawsuits challenging Monsanto’s aggressive pursuit of its patent rights raise a vexed legal issue: When intellectual property laws that protect companies conflict with the rights of farmers to plant their fields, who should win? Monsanto has invested heavily in agricultural biotechnology to become the world’s largest seller of seeds. Its biotech seeds have proved attractive to farmers because they simplify farm management. Monsanto says its genetically modified seeds also increase crop yields, and thus farmer income – but evidence on this subject isnot probative. In the United States and Canada, Monsanto requires buyers of its genetically modified seeds tosign extensive licensing contracts that prevent them from saving seeds. North American farmers who violate those agreements have been sued for patent infringement and compelled to pay tens of thousands of dollars in damages. In Brazil, Monsanto charges 2% royalties on the sale of its patented soybeans, a conventional industry practice. More unusually, the company charges an additional royalty – 3% of farmers’ sales – when soybeans are grown from saved Roundup Ready seeds. Soybeans are Brazil’s biggest export. The royalties in dispute in the class action, which is likely to be appealed to the Brazilian Supreme Court, are estimated at US$7.7 billion. “I can’t stand it anymore – seeing those Monsanto people showing up at the grain elevator and behaving as if they own everything,” one grain cooperative manager told the Brazilian Congress during a special commission on agriculture I attended in December 2017.
Illegal Loggers Murder Amazon Forest Guardian – Paulo Paulino Guajajara, in his 20s, was a member of the Guajajara group Guardians of the Forest, which was formed in 2012 to protect the Araribóia reservation in Brazil’s Maranhão state. In an interview with Reuters in September, he said that his work had become more dangerous. “I’m scared at times, but we have to lift up our heads and act. We are here fighting,” he said. Paulo Paulino Guajajara was a part of Guardians of the Forest – a group set up buy his Guajajara tribe to protect the Amazon rainforest. On Saturday, he was shot dead by illegal loggers https://t.co/SOoKlNk8ec pic.twitter.com/8yvf3UFxjk – Reuters (@Reuters) November 3, 2019 Another guardian, Laércio Guajajara, was also shot and taken to the hospital, The Guardian reported. One of the loggers is also missing. Sérgio Moro, justice minister for the administration of far-right Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, said that federal police would investigate the murder. “We will spare no effort to bring those responsible for this serious crime to justice,” he tweeted, as The Guardian reported. But indigenous rights groups blamed the Bolsonaro government for the killing, since the president has promised to open indigenous reserves to extractive industries. “The increase in violence in indigenous territories is a direct result of his hateful speeches and steps taken against our people,” the Association of Brazil’s Indigenous Peoples (APIB) said in a statement reported by Reuters.
China Exports African Swine Fever To Russia –A new report from Bloomberg details how African swine fever has likely been exported to Russia. This could be problematic for Russia, due in part that if the hog-killing disease spreads, it could start wiping out large swaths of herds, as it has already done in China. In the last several months, about 60 cases of African swine fever have been reported to Russian authorities in the Amur Oblast region in Russia, a federal district that borders China in the Russian Far East. Dirk Pfeiffer, a professor of veterinary medicine and life sciences at the City University of Hong Kong, told Bloomberg that a cross-border spread between the two countries is likely underway. “Wild boar are very likely to now also be infected in northern China,” Pfeiffer said.China has so far observed at least 50% of its herd this year wiped out from the fast-spreading disease. Russia’s hog population in the Far East accounts for barely 2% of the country’s total hog population, which for now, could be contained. Rosselkhoznadzor, Russia’s biosecurity watchdog, has been on guard for a cross-border spread since summer, there have been several reports of Chinse citizens attempting to sneak infected meat across checkpoints into Russia. Andriy Rozstalnyy, an animal health officer with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN, told Bloomberg that once the wild pig population is infected with African swine fever, then the spread of the disease is virtually uncontrollable. In the last month, 275 pigs have died, and 2,473 have been killed in the Amur Oblast region, a move spurred by authorities to limit the outbreak. The cross-border spread of African swine fever, from China to Russia, is undoubtedly a significant cause for concern because now countries bordering China are being affected.
China’s pork imports may hit record 4.6 million tonnes in 2020: Rabobank (Reuters) – China’s pork imports will reach record levels of as much as 4.6 million tonnes next year, Dutch financial services firm Rabobank said on Friday, as domestic output falls to a historical low following a devastating disease outbreak. China’s pork imports are already set to surpass previous records this year, reaching between 3.1 million and 3.3 million tonnes including offal, the bank said in a report, up from 2.1 million tonnes last year. It comes after African swine fever, a fatal pig disease, spread through the world’s largest hog herd, killing millions and discouraging many farmers from replenishing their farms. Though soaring hog prices recently have spurred large producers to begin restocking empty farms and speed up plans for new ones, the sow herd will begin recovering only next year, with pork supply picking up again from 2021, Rabobank said. China’s pork production is expected to shrink by a quarter this year versus 2018 to about 40.5 million tonnes, and by another 10 to 15% in 2020, the bank said.
Pork Pile-Up Continues- Bacon Levels In US Cold Storage Surge To 48-Year High — Cold storage facilities across the U.S. have just hit record-high levels of pork bellies, the cut of the pig used to make bacon, reported Bloomberg. Much of the oversupply problem stems from farmers’ increasing herd sizes ahead of a possible trade deal that was expected to occur earlier this year. Farmers in 1H20 across Central and Midwest regions were desperately trying to increase herd sizes and or fields planted of corn and soybean because President Trump kept touting imminent trade deal in the press. What the farmers didn’t realize is that there was no trade deal at the time, and the impending trade deal comments were only to boost the stock market. What this created was massive misguidance by the government that has led to shocking oversupplied conditions. According to new U.S. government data published last week, there are more than 40 million pounds of pork bellies in cold storage facilities across the U.S. The levels are so high that some cold storage facilities could run out of space. The last time storage facilities saw this much pork belly was 1971. Hog producers, listening to every trade headlines from the Trump administration, quickly expanded herds through spring and summer with the anticipation of an imminent trade deal with China. U.S. herd levels rose to 7.7 million heads as of Sept. 1, a level not seen since 1943. While the massive overhang of pork bellies could be short-lived due to the anticipation of a “Phase 1” trade deal could be signed imminently between the U.S. and China, the lesson to be seen is that fake trade news has consequences, such as disrupting free markets and creating imbalances.
U.S. Winter-Wheat Acres Set to Drop to Lowest in 110 Years — America’s bread basket looks like it’s going gluten free: Dogged by lower prices and tepid demand, U.S. wheat farmers are poised to plant the fewest acres of winter varieties in 110 years. That’s according to a Bloomberg survey. Analysts are predicting another year of declines for acreage as U.S. producers face stiff competition from global rivals gathering bumper crops. World supplies are so plentiful that futures for hard red winter wheat are down about 15% in 2019, one of the worst performances for commodities this year. In some parts of the southern U.S. Plains, wheat is now cheaper than corn, making the yellow grain a better bet. “The price doesn’t get high enough to tell us to keep planting wheat,” said Ken Horton, who grows wheat, corn and sorghum with his sons in Leoti, Kansas. Horton is cutting plantings of the HRW wheat variety by 30% to about 3,000 acres. “Any time you have cash corn higher than cash wheat, you’ll see more acres go to corn,” Horton said in a telephone interview. As of Oct. 27, U.S. farmers had planted 85% of their winter wheat, up from 77% at the same time in 2018, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data. However, rains in parts of the Midwest may hamper the last phase of sowing. Some growers who double-crop wheat in soybean fields might not be able to harvest their soy in time to seed wheat, according to Arlan Suderman, chief commodities economist at INTL FCStone in Kansas City. That could result in fewer planted acres of the soft red winter variety, he said. “There’s quite a correlation in soybean-harvest pace and wheat plantings,” Suderman said by phone. Planted acres of all varieties of winter wheat are forecast to decline to 31.118 million, according to a Bloomberg survey of six analysts. That would be down from 31.159 million a year ago and above only the 29.196 million acres from 1909, the first year in USDA records. The agency won’t make an official estimate until January. In the Texas Panhandle, farmers are turning to cotton instead of wheat, “The low wheat prices have given way to other options,”
Are We Reaching Peak Phosphorus? Maybe -Considering how the manmade climate crisis is threatening the global food chain already, farmers don’t need any more headaches. But, in addition, to climate change, several scientists are warning of a global phosphorus shortage by 2030. Phosphorus is a natural mineral, the 11th most abundant mineral on the planet. First isolated in 1699, it has been revealed to be a component in everything from DNA to urine. Its also present in fossilized animal bones. It’s also crucial for crop and livestock production, both within soil and as a fertilizer, because of its ability to “build up organic material and stimulates biological activity in surface layers,”according to Penn State’s Nutrient Management Program.It can also increase the biological productivity of lakes and streams by accelerating the natural process of eutrophication, which can help fish and underwater plants prosper. That acceleration isn’t a good thing: it can create afeeding ground for toxic algae blooms which can wipe out all other life in a body of water, as Floridians saw in 2018. Modern phosphate, for fertilizers and other uses like in detergents and nerve gas, comes from the non-renewable source of rock. Around three-fourths of the world’s known supply of mineable phosphorus is found in the West Sahara and African nation of Morocco with approximately 50 million tonnes of ore, while China, Algeria, Syria, South Africa, and the United States have over a million tonnes of ore, according to the United States Geologic Survey (USGS).However, much of the phosphorus supply chain is a mystery. A recent study called the global supply chain “a black box.” There are currently no international guidelines for best phosphorus practices.The USGS estimates that global phosphorus use will increase to 50.5 million tons by 2022 a increase from 47.0 million tons in 2018. Scientists disagree about how much more food will be needed to feed the planet in coming years, with numbers ranging from 25 to 56% more. Man-made climate change will negatively affect farms in a number of ways, from heat waves to increased pests. Those changes could force farmers to use even more fertilizer, further increasing phosphorus usage. Unlike man-made climate change, an issue on which the science is settled, there is a scientific debate on “peak phosphorus,” a point at which the global amount of phosphorus will decline. Some scientists warn it could come as early as 2030, while a group from the International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC) has found that there could be enough phosphorus to last hundreds of years.
Trump team has a plan for national parks: Amazon, food trucks and no senior discounts -At the urging of a controversial team of advisors, the Trump administration is mulling proposals to privatize national park campgrounds and further commercialize the parks with expanded Wi-Fi service, food trucks and even Amazon deliveries at tourist camp sites.Leaders of the Interior Department’s “Made in America” Outdoor Recreation Advisory Committee say these changes could make America’s national parks more attractive to a digitally minded younger generation and improve the quality of National Park Service facilities amid a huge maintenance backlog. As part of its plan, the committee calls for blacking out senior discounts at park campgrounds during peak holiday seasons.“Our recommendations would allow people to opt for additional costs if they want, for example, Amazon deliveries at a particular campsite,” said Derrick Crandall, vice chairman of the committee and a counselor with the nonprofit National Park Hospitality Assn. “We want to let Americans make their own decisions in the marketplace.” But the group’s proposals face angry opposition from conservation organizations and senior citizen advocates, who call them a transfer of public assets to private industry, including businesses led by executives appointed to the Outdoor Advisory Committee. “America’s outdoor heritage is on the line,” said Jayson O’Neill, deputy director of the Western Values Project, a nonprofit public lands watchdog group in Montana. “The trouble with these recommendations is that they were written by concessionaire industry representatives vying for more control of national parks.” “This proposal is an insulting attempt to push older Americans out of our national parks,” Bill Sweeney, senior vice president of government affairs at AARP said. “The cost of a senior pass already jumped in recent years from $10 to $80, and this proposal would further hurt older Americans who want to visit national parks. Enough is enough.”
Sudden oak death spreading fast, California’s coastal forests facing devastation — It is the forgotten killer when compared to our increasingly frequent climate calamities, but the virulent pathogen known as sudden oak death remains active and is spreading death so fast it could destroy California’s coastal forest ecosystem, UC Berkeley scientists reported Thursday. The deadly microbe has now established itself throughout the Bay Area and has spread along the coast from Monterey to Humboldt County, according to a study of 16,227 trees in 16 counties in Northern California. Millions of coast live oak and tan oak trees have withered and died over the past quarter century, leaving acres of kindling for wildfires, but the outbreak this year was one of the worst. Oak trees have historically been abundant in California and southwestern Oregon, with hundreds of millions of them stretching all the way to Baja California. The rate of trees infected almost doubled in 2019 – from 3.5% to 5.9% – and was 10 times higher in some places compared with the 2018 survey, said Matteo Garbelotto, the director of the UC Berkeley Forest Pathology and Mycology Laboratory, which tested leaf samples taken by 422 volunteers. Infections were found in all the well-known hotbeds, like Marin and Sonoma counties, the East Bay, Big Sur and the Santa Cruz mountains. But the 12th annual survey detected more of the pathogen this year in virtually every location. That’s mainly because the disease spreads faster in the kind of wet weather that hit California last winter, Garbelotto said. “There was a significant increase in infection rates over last year, but that’s not totally surprising because we had a lot more rainfall,” Garbelotto said. “But it was a surprise to see them all at once. It’s telling us we are entering a different phase of the disease, where the organism isn’t really establishing itself in new areas, but is showing itself more when weather conditions are favorable.”
Australia bushfires: Record number of emergencies in New South Wales -Australian authorities say an “unprecedented” number of emergency-level bushfires are threatening the state of New South Wales (NSW).More than 80 blazes were raging across the state on Friday.Gusty winds and up to 35C heat have exacerbated the fires, many of which are in drought-affected areas.There are reports of people trapped in their homes in several places, with crew unable to reach them due to the strength of the fires. “We are in uncharted territory,” said Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons. “We have never seen this many fires concurrently at emergency warning level.”At one point, 17 emergency-level fires were burning simultaneously across NSW. But fire authorities said that falling temperatures, increases in humidity and helicopter assistance were helping with efforts to tackle the blazes. Authorities have deployed more than 1,000 firefighters and 70 aircraft to save “as many people as possible”, Mr Fitzsimmons said. The Rural Fire Service tweeted on Friday that “due to the size and speed of the fires we couldn’t get to everyone, even by road or helicopter”. The blazes are spread across about 1,000 km (621 miles) of Australia’s coast, stretching the emergency response.Some people were warned to seek shelter from fires rather than flee, as it was now too late to leave. Emergency warnings were also issued on Friday for bushfires burning in Queensland and Western Australia.
California wildfires: Climate change driving ‘horror and the terror’ of devastating blazes, say scientists – The words from California’s former governor could barely have been more stark.“I said it was the new normal a few years ago,’’ says Jerry Brown. “This is serious, but this is only the beginning. This is only a taste of the horror and the terror that will occur in decades.” As firefighters in California continue to confront a three-week spate of blazes that has reached across the state, attention has also turned to why this year’s wildfires have been so severe. The reason, according to scientists, is climate change. “It’s warmer weather, more evaporation, and drier conditions. They just burn more,” says Park Williams, a bioclimatologist at Columbia University.“And we expect this trend to continue. We can’t say if it will happen every year – there are natural variations as well. But we know that when things are drier, a larger area burns.” Speaking from New York, Williams adds: “We’ve always had the fires. But things are now two or three degrees hotter. That’s enough to make a major difference.” The editorial writers at the Los Angeles Times have echoed the words of the former governor, who spoke to Politico, by declaring: “Climate change has set California on fire. Are you paying attention?” “Nobody can honestly say this is a surprise, given the devastating fires of recent years. Yet it feels surprising all the same. How did things get so bad in California, so quickly,” they write. “The answer is climate change. It is here and our communities are not ready for it.” The energy company Pacific Gas and Electric has been at the centre of controversy by its decision to shut off power to thousands of residents in the hope that broken lines would not trigger more blazes. Yet experts say, apart from the specific triggers for the fires – this week, a crash involving a police vehicle chase sparked one fire in Jurupa Valley, southwest of San Bernardino – the broader context is of drier, hotter conditions. “Since the early 1970s, California’s annual wildfire extent increased fivefold, punctuated by extremely large and destructive wildfires in 2017 and 2018,” Williams and his colleagues write in a paper published this summer in Earth’s Future. “This trend was mainly due to an eightfold increase in the summertime forest fire area and was very likely driven by drying of fuels promoted by human‐induced warming.”
Firefighters finally getting a handle on wildfires burning across California – Firefighters Saturday continued to get the upper hand on destructive fires across California. The Kincade fire, which has burned 77,000 acres and destroyed 350 structures in Northern California’s wine country, was 72% contained. The Maria fire, which has burned nearly 10,000 acres and several structures in rural Ventura County was 30% contained. All evacuations have been lifted. The Easy fire in Simi Valley was 95% contained after burning 1,845 acres. The Maria fire, for which evacuation orders are still in effect, remains the biggest concern, with hundreds of firefighters still on the scene.Offshore wind gusts of 20 to 30 mph and humidity below 5% continued to hinder efforts to control the fire Saturday morning, but a shift to weaker onshore wind was expected by midday, said Ryan Kittell, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Ventura County.The moister ocean breezes were expected to be about 10 mph and would raise humidity to 20% to 30%, Kittell said.The wind shift would be good news for firefighters but could also pose problems by pushing the flames in different directions, Kittell said. Red flag warnings remain in effect until 6 p.m. Saturday, but would probably not be required after that, Kittell said.Drier offshore winds were expected to return later Saturday or early Sunday but at speeds of 10 to 20 mph and with humidity of about 10%.A spokesman for the Ventura County Fire Department said the Maria fire was still only 20% contained late Saturday morning and still threatened 2,500 homes.Evacuation orders were lifted in parts of Santa Paula.The cause of the fire is unknown. But Southern California Edison told regulators Friday that it had reenergized a 16,000-volt power line 13 minutes before the fire broke out. Edison had earlier turned off the line due to heavy winds.Edison has also reported to regulators that its lines might have been involved in the Easy fire as well as the Saddleridge fire that swept the northern San Fernando Valley two weeks ago.
Over 1,500 California fires in the last 6 years – including the deadliest ever – were caused by one company: PG&E. Here’s what it could have done, but didn’t. Over the past week, the Kincade Fire has torn through nearly 78,000 acres of California wine country, forcing about 180,000 people to evacuate. At the same time, millions have gone without electricity, often for days at a time. The state’s largest utility, Pacific Gas & Electric Co., is responsible for these blackouts and possibly for the fire itself. About the same time the Kincade Fire ignited, a jumper cable broke on a PG&E transmission tower in the area, the company told state regulators on October 24. A problem with PG&E equipment was also the cause of the Camp Fire, a California state agency said, which killed at least 85 people last year and razed more than 18,800 structures. It was the deadliest and most destructive fire in California history. In fact, according to The Wall Street Journal, the utility company’s equipment led to more than 1,500 fires from June 2014 to December 2017. So this fall, as low humidity and strong winds created fire-hazard conditions in northern California, PG&E cut power to nearly 1.1 million customers in October to minimize risks that sparking wires could start more blazes. PG&E CEO Bill Johnson said Californians should expect these types of preemptive service interruptions for another 10 years. But many Californians say they should have never been forced into this choice: deadly fires or multiday blackouts. Instead, PG&E’s critics accuse the company of shirking safety precautions to funnel money toward investor dividends. Here’s how the company wound up in this position, and what it could have done instead, from better tree trimming to power-line upgrades.
‘Get Your Act Together’- Trump Threatens To Pull Federal Support As California Fires Rage — As Californians grapple with this year’s annual fire season, President Trump has a message for Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom; clean up your act. “The Governor of California, @GavinNewsom, has done a terrible job of forest management. I told him from the first day we met that he must “clean” his forest floors regardless of what his bosses, the environmentalists, DEMAND of him,” Trump tweeted on Sunday. Trump then threatened to withhold federal money, which California receives every time they declare a state of emergency. “Must also do burns and cut fire stoppers,” he continued. “Every year, as the fire’s [sic] rage & California burns, it is the same thing-and then he comes to the Federal Government for $$$ help. No more. Get your act together Governor.” “You don’t see close to the level of burn in other states…But our teams are working well together in putting these massive, and many, fires out. Great firefighters! Also, open up the ridiculously closed water lanes coming down from the North. Don’t pour it out into the Pacific Ocean. Should be done immediately. California desperately needs water, and you can have it now!” California state Senator Mike McGuire tweeted “Total crap” in response to Trump, claiming that “Approx 57% of CA’s forest land is owned by the Fed Gov’t. Only 3% is owned by State/local gov’t. THE FEDS HAVE CUT their forest budget by hundreds of millions.”
PG&E Blackouts Spur Calls for Public Ownership – In this Real News Network interview, Democracy Collaborative researcher Johanna Bozuwa discusses increasing pressures for public ownership of utilities, as Californa burns.
PG&E Spent Millions on Lobbying After Declaring Bankruptcy – THE DECISION BY Pacific Gas & Electric to declare bankruptcy in January did not prevent the utility giant from continuing to spend big on political influence in California’s Statehouse. The investor-owned utility’s transmission lines have been blamed for multiple wildfires, including the Tubbs fire in October 2017 and the Camp Fire wildfire in November 2018, the two most destructive and deadly wildfires in California history. The company infamously neglectednecessary safety upgrades on infrastructure known to be a fire hazard, instead choosing to spend its ratepayers’ money on executive compensation, billions of dollars of investor dividends, and on buyingpolitical influence.The company’s plunge into Chapter 11, widely viewed as maneuver to avoid legal liability for wildfire victims, has temporarily suspended dividend payments to investors, but it hasn’t stopped the company from showering the political system with money in an attempt to secure a preferential bond that could leave customers picking up the tab to cover the company’s negligent behavior.The latest ethics filings disclosed with the California Secretary of State show that PG&E has spent at least $2.1 million on lobbying policymakers this year, well after declaring bankruptcy, with hefty fees spent to retain half a dozen prominent consulting firms and branding experts, along with a team of in-house lobbyists.The company also paid for beverages for California State Assemblyman Chad Mayes, R-Yucca Valley, and Assemblyman Rob Bonta, D-Alameda. Both lawmakers sponsored legislation, introduced in February, to provide PG&E with as much as $20 billion in tax-exempt bonds, a measure widely criticized as a ratepayer bailout. Mayes, the disclosure notes, was treated to drinks by PG&E in September at Brasserie Capitale, a French restaurant just two blocks from the California state Capitol. Bonta was served drinks by the utility giant at Pebble Beach, the famed golf course, in July.
California is on track to miss its climate targets – by a century – California has established itself as a global model on climate issues, with Teslas filling its roads and solar farms stretching across its sun-baked Central Valley. The state set up the nation’s first economy-wide cap-and-trade program, put in place aggressive vehicle fuel efficiency standards, and passed a series of ever stricter climate pollution rules. That includes the landmark 2018 law requiring all of the state’s electricity to come from carbon-free sources by the end of 2045. But for all its regulatory achievements, California also offers a case study in just how hard it is to make progress on the only thing that really matters: reducing emissions. The state’s climate pollution declined by just 1.15% in 2017, according to the latest California Green Innovation Index. At that rate, California won’t reach its 2030 decarbonization goals (cutting emissions to 40% below 1990 levels) until 2061 – and wouldn’t hit its 2050 targets (80% below 1990 levels) until 2157. If a state that’s actively trying to slash emissions is on pace to miss its targets by a century, that bodes poorly for progress in the many other parts of the world that are barely bothering. Crucially, the UN’s climate panel says the world as a whole needs to achieve “net zero” emissions by 2050 to halt warming at 1.5 ˚C, or by 2070 to stay below 2˚ C. What went wrong? Transportation emissions, the state’s largest source, have steadily risen since 2013, as the improving economy put more cars on the road and planes in the sky. Emissions from waste dumped into landfills have also been ticking up since the recovery took hold. Meanwhile, highly potent greenhouse gases from the aerosols, foams, and solvents used in refrigeration and air conditioning are rising sharply. These increases have offset the highly touted declines in emissions from the electricity sector as a growing share of the state’s power comes from renewable sources like wind and solar. Emissions from in-state generation are down 35% since 2000. The new math means California will now need to boost its annual emissions cuts to 4.51% per year to pull off its 2030 targets – or 5.34% annually to achieve its 2050 goals, the report found. And of course, every year the state comes in below those rates will only push those numbers even higher. The problem is it’s likely to get harder, not easier, for California to achieve ever deeper cuts in emissions. Electricity is actually the easy part of decarbonization, because we have relatively cheap and reliable wind, solar, geothermal, and other carbon-free sources. Achieving deeper cuts in other areas is even harder. California’s worsening wildfires are also complicating its efforts to cut emissions. Burning forests pump out massive amounts of greenhouse gases stored in plants and trees. And rising temperatures and shifting precipitation patterns have already extended the fire season by 75 days across the state’s sprawling Sierra Nevada range. The raging wildfires in 2018 produced about 45 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. That’s nine times more than the amount by which the state cut emissions the previous year.
NASA Flew Gas Detectors Above California, Found ‘Super Emitters’ – Over the course of three years, NASA flew a plane carrying gas-imaging equipment above California and made a discovery that surprised even the state’s own environmental agencies: A handful of operations are responsible for the vast majority of methane emissions. In a report published in Nature on Wednesday, scientists estimated that 10% of the places releasing methane — including landfills, natural gas facilities and dairy farms — are responsible for more than half of the state’s total emissions. And a fraction of the 272,000 sources surveyed — just 0.2% — account for as much as 46%. The report doesn’t identify these “super emitters,” but notes that landfills give off more methane than any other source in the state. NASA’s equipment found that a subset of these landfills were the largest emitters in California and exhibited “persistent anomalous activity.” The study marks the first time anyone has ever carried out a systematic survey across California of methane, a greenhouse gas that’s 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide in trapping heat and contributing to global warming. The release of methane has been a continual challenge for California, which has some of the most aggressive goals in the nation for curbing emissions and slowing the impacts of climate change. NASA’s aircraft made dozens of flights across 10,000 square miles from 2016 through 2018. Landfills accounted for 41% of the source emissions it identified, manure management 26% and oil and gas operations 26%. Researchers cautioned that the survey wasn’t foolproof. It was, after all, their first attempt at estimating emissions from individual sources on such a large scale over multiple years. Some of the emissions detected were intermittent, some were too small to measure and others were affected by winds. The results, however, are already effecting change. The survey revealed four incidents of leaking natural gas distribution lines and one leaking liquefied natural gas storage tank, which operators confirmed and repaired.
Ozone Depleting Gas Declines After Rising For Years – An ozone depleting gas is on the decline after rising since 2012, according to preliminary data reported by scientists yesterday, as the New York Times reported. Scientists were previously shocked to learn that levels of a banned gas, the most abundant form of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) known as CFC-11, which was supposed to have been worldwide production stop by 2010 was actually on the rise again. The gas is partly responsible for degrading the ozone layer and creating a hole that hovers over Antarctica every September, according to the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Researchers from NOAA published a paper in the journal Nature last year that pinpointed an area in eastern China where unreported production of the gas was taking place. They found that from 2014 to 2016, emissions of CFC-11 increased by 25 percent above the average measured from 2002 to 2012. “We’re raising a flag to the global community to say, ‘This is what’s going on, and it is taking us away from timely recovery of the ozone layer,'” said NOAA Scientist Stephen Montzka, the study’s lead author, in a NOAA press release in 2018. “Further work is needed to figure out exactly why emissions of CFC-11 are increasing, and if something can be done about it soon.”If the emissions increase went unabated, NOAA said that it would impede progress in restoring the ozone layer, which protects all of life on Earth from harmful solar radiation, as the New York Times reported.Another paper published this spring found that 40 to 60 percent of global emissions were coming from two provinces in the eastern part of mainland China.The new findings suggest that China has made significant headway in curtailing illegal production of the gas, which is used to make insulating foams, as the New York Times reported. The new data was presented in Rome by a NOAA scientist, Montka. CFCs were first banned in 1987 at the Montreal Protocol, which is largely considered the most successful environmental pact in history. The success of phasing out production of CFCs as refrigerants and aerosol propellants has led to a remarkable recovery of the ozone layer, which may be fully restored by the middle of this century, according to the New York Times.
Earth Just Experienced Its Hottest-Ever October – CBS -Last month was the hottest ever October on record globally, according to data released Friday by the Copernicus Climate Change Service, an organization that tracks global temperatures. The month, which was reportedly 1.24 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the average October from 1981-2010, narrowly beat October 2015 for the top spot.According to Copernicus, most of Europe, large parts of the Arctic and the eastern U.S. and Canada were most affected. The Middle East, much of Africa, southern Brazil, Australia, eastern Antarctica and Russia also experienced above-average temperatures.Parts of tropical Africa and Antarctica and the western U.S. and Canada felt much colder than usual, however. While all major oceans experienced unusually low temperatures, air temperatures over the sea were still much higher than average. October is following a 2019 trend. The hottest-ever September follows a record-setting summer, which included the hottest-ever June and July and the second-hottest August. Overall, 2019 will make history as one of the top five warmest years on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association.
An Arctic blast could bring record low temperatures to the Eastern US – Large parts of the US may experience record low temperatures as an Arctic blast sweeps across the Midwest and Northeast through the middle of next week. Nearly two-thirds of the country will be vulnerable to unseasonably cold temperatures. “We are in a pattern where multiple waves of cold are moving in from Canada and impacting the Central and Eastern US,” CNN meteorologist Taylor Ward said Thursday. “One wave of cold came in late last week, another is moving in today and tomorrow, and the coldest blast by far moves in early next week.” For much of the country east of the Rocky Mountains, the cold wave could mean temperatures 20-30 degrees below average. Starting Tuesday morning, record low temperatures are possible across Texas and Oklahoma, along with parts of the Ohio Valley. By Wednesday, there could be more than a dozen record lows in the Deep South and the Gulf Coast, Ward said. In parts of Mississippi and Alabama, highs aren’t likely to rise out of the 30s Wednesday. For those areas, that’s more than 10 degrees colder than usual even in mid-January.. In the Kansas City area, residents were saying they smelled an unusual odor, which meteorologists traced to a farm in Albert Lea, Minnesota, CNN affiliate KMBC reported. The National Weather Service in Kansas City tweeted out a map and blamed the bad smell on a culprit more than 300 miles north. The odor of manure from a large stock farm was trapped in a part of the atmosphere that moved southward with the cold front as it passed over Kansas City, meteorologists said.
Video Shows Sea ‘Violently Boiling’ with Methane Bubbles in Siberia as Arctic Permafrost Thaws – Scientists have released images of a methane “fountain” found “violently boiling” beneath an Arctic sea in Siberia. Photos taken on-board the Akademik Mstislav Keldysh research vessel in the East Siberian Sea show huge methane bubbles rising to the surface of the water. Usually, scientists sample the water with special plastic cones, but they ditched those in favor of buckets with a bigger capacity, according to a statement by Russia’s Tomsk Polytechnic University.The images were captured during a 35-day-long expedition in the seas of the Eastern Arctic, which launched from the city of Archangel in northwest Russia, on September 17, and involved an international team of scientists.The fountain near Bennett Island in the northern part of the East Siberian Sea spanned an area of around five metres.At the site, the sea was “violently boiling with methane bubbles,” Sergey Nikiforov, a journalist and spokesperson for the Tomsk Politechnical University on-board the research vessel told The Siberian Times. Nikiforov said the scientists were lucky to find the fountain. “It was a needle in a haystack chase, to find an exact place of a methane seep in dark sea waters, but we found it!””Just right off the Academician Keldysh scientists noticed a spot of emerald-coloured water, with gas rushing to surface in thousands of bubble threads,” he said. The pockets of gas were released as frozen ground, known as permafrost, thawed beneath the ocean. Researchers measured concentrations of methane in the area and found it was six to seven times higher than the global average. By sampling the water near the fountain, the scientists found levels of methane were nine times higher than the global average. This is a concerning sign for global warming.
Melting glaciers reveal five new islands in the Arctic – The Russian navy says it has discovered five new islands revealed by melting glaciers in the remote Arctic.An expedition in August and September charted the islands, which have yet to be named and were previously hidden under glaciers, said the head of the northern fleet, Vice-Admiral Alexander Moiseyev. “Mainly this is of course caused by changes to the ice situation,” Moiseyev, who headed the expedition, said at a press conference in Moscow. “Before these were glaciers; we thought they were (part of) the main glacier.Melting, collapse and temperature changes led to these islands being uncovered.”Glacier loss in the Arctic in the period from 2015 to 2019 was more than in any other five-year period on record, a United Nations report on global warming said last month.Russia has opened a string of military and scientific bases in the Arctic in recent years, with interest in the region growing as rising temperatures open up shipping routes and make hitherto inaccessible mineral resources easier to exploit. This summer’s expedition to two archipelagoes – Franz Josef Land and Novaya Zemlya – involved a team of 60 people, including civilians from the Russian Geographic Society, and was the first onboard a rescue towboat instead of an icebreaker.
Sea Level Rise Is Locked in Even If We Meet Paris Agreement Targets, New Study Says – Sea level rise will change the landscape of coastlines and challenge our ability to adapt over the next couple of centuries, even if all the 2030 emissions targets set in the Paris agreement are met, according to a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).Just like a large ship charging at full speed takes a long time to come to a stop, the rising seas will need centuries before they stop encroaching on to land. The researchers found that the greenhouse gas emissions from the signing of the Paris agreement in 2015 to the target date of 2030 is enough to make the oceans rise 3.1 inches by the end of the century, according to Agence-France Presse (AFP).The study shows that the period from 2015-2030 will, on its own, emit enough greenhouse gasses to raise the oceans 7.87 inches by 2300. It will only be 7.87 inches of sea-level rise if nations around the world honor their commitments to the Paris agreement.However, that may be a conservative estimate since it assumes all the countries in the world drastically reduce their emissions and stop emitting greenhouse gasses after 2030. Another study last week found that without drastic reductions in emissions, entire cities could be underwater by 2050 and 300 million people could experience annual flooding, as EcoWatch reported.Additionally, from 1990 to 2030, the authors of the new PNAS study found that the top five top polluters will be responsible for over 10 inches of sea-level rise. The researchers crunched the numbers and found the lag time between the reduction in emissions and the oceans response will mean the oceans will continue to rise for sometime – we are already locked into a one meter sea rise by 2300, the study says.
Thousands of scientists across the globe warn planet is ‘facing a climate emergency’ – Over 11,000 scientists have signed up to a declaration stating that the Earth is “facing a climate emergency.” The declaration is written in a paper published in the journal BioScience. Authored by a number of scientists from around the world, it paints a stark picture of how our planet is faring. The “climate crisis”, according to the authors, “has arrived and is accelerating faster than most scientists expected.” It is described as being “more severe than anticipated, threatening natural ecosystems and the fate of humanity.” Published Tuesday, the paper comes 40 years after the First World Climate Conference, which took place in Geneva in 1979. It is informed by decades of analysis related to data such as energy consumption, per capita meat production, human population and fossil fuel consumption. “Despite 40 years of major global negotiations, we have continued to conduct business as usual and have failed to address this crisis,” Oregon State University’s William J. Ripple, a co-lead author of the paper, said in a statement. The authors of the report highlight six areas where urgent action is required: energy, short lived pollutants, nature, food, the economy and population. They argue that fossil fuels should be replaced by renewables and “other cleaner sources of energy if safe for people and the environment.” When it comes to food, a plant-based diet combined with a reduction in the consumption of animal based products is advocated, while they also call for the protection and restoration of the planet’s ecosystems. The paper will be troubling for many, but it does offer some hope for the future. “We are encouraged by a recent surge of concern,” the authors write.
U.S. ingenuity can tackle climate threat, fossil energy chief says – (Reuters) – The United States can tackle threats to the climate through technological advances as fossil fuels will remain a priority for the U.S. government and business, the assistant secretary for fossil energy said on Tuesday. The world should look to the United States’ ability to reduce its emissions, the Department of Energy’s Steven Winberg said at an oil conference in South Africa a day after the Trump administration formally moved to exit the Paris Agreement. “We can solve any climate issue with technology development, one thing you see back in U.S. history is we have consistently solved challenges that were put before us,” Winberg told Reuters at the event which drew energy ministers from across Africa as well as U.S. and other international energy companies. The United States, the top historic greenhouse gas emitter and a leading oil and gas producer, is the only party to the accord to formally seek an exit.
Defying Trump, Governors Who Represent Over Half the U.S. Population Pledge to Uphold Paris Climate Agreement -A group of two dozen state governors, mostly Democratic but also including Republicans, pledged to uphold the Paris climate agreement despite the Trump administration’s withdrawal from it.The State Department announced on Monday that the formal process of pulling out from the historic international agreement on tackling climate change is now underway and will be completed exactly one year later, which is the day after the 2020 election.President Donald Trump has argued that the Paris agreement, which includes separate emission-reduction targets for each country with a collective goal of keeping global temperature rises down,is unfair to the U.S. and said he would only re-enter on new terms. The graphic below, provided by Statista, illustrates which countries have signed and ratified the Paris agreement.
Carbon Taxes and Carbon Pricing Are Not Solutions to the Climate Crisis — We can only solve the emissions crisis by stopping emissions. And taxing them won’t do that, any more than taxing tobacco has ever stopped smoking. Other measures – like bans – have been needed to make progress on that goal. That is even more the case for carbon. As importantly, the essence is that what both carbon tax and carbon price arguments suggest is that business can carry on supplying products emitting carbon as before, but that those products will simply suffer a price differential when compared to lower or non-carbon emitting products and what we are then supposed to rely on is the price mechanism of the market to alter consumer demand. I suggest that logic is wrong. First, this assumes that none of the responsibility for the climate crisis rest on the manufacturers of the products that have get us into this mess. That’s definitely wrong. They are primarily to blame. They have known for decades what they have been doing with regard to carbon emissions, and have carried on doing it regardless. And we can be quite sure that they will carry on doing so into the future if they can pass the blame to us as consumers who, they will say, clearly indicate we still want their polluting and life-threatening products if we still buy them after carbon taxes are added. What this ignores is the fact that much of that demand will be driven by an absence of alternatives, which business will have no incentive to promote if there are carbon taxes, and that consumer behaviour is anyway heavily influenced by supplier behaviour through advertising and other market-distorting activities.Second, this assumption presumes that we, as consumers, know as much about the products that we buy as those who sell them do. It is presumed, therefore, by the proponents of carbon taxes and carbon trading that we can make rational, informed decisions on this issue after tax is added to a price. That, though, is clearly absurd. The makers of products known massively more about the carbon impact of what they are doing than a consumer might ever do. The asymmetries between the two are enormous. In that case to presume that the consumer can make an informed choice on such an issue, even after a tax is added, is just wrong. And third, there is no market for carbon. There has never been. It’s a fictional creation that pretends that something is being done when that is not true. No one wants to buy or sell carbon. It’s an externality that cannot be priced. That’s partly because no one wants it. That essential quality of a market – a willing buyer – does not exist. But it’s also because you cannot price something that we know has to be unavailable to any market. A market presumes that there will be demand. The reality is that we have to eliminate that demand to ensure there can be life on earth.
Wall Street increasingly weighs risk from climate change (Reuters) – In the wake of two years of devastating wildfires in California, Wall Street is incorporating a new risk metric when evaluating companies: climate resiliency. Investors, analysts, research firms and companies are putting more emphasis on how climate issues ranging from rising sea levels to record heatwaves will affect profits and revenues in the United States and what companies are doing to address those risks. Companies located in areas such as California, Florida and Louisiana that put them at a higher risk of being affected by more severe weather patterns are increasingly being asked how they will protect their businesses from climate change. Overall, more than 70 firms have discussed the potential impact of climate change on their business on their quarterly results calls since the start of the year, more than double that of last year or any other year since 2014, according to a Reuters analysis of Refinitiv data. As a result, fund managers, who typically do not incorporate environmental attributes in their analysis of a company, are taking a closer look at whether the physical locations of their property and equipment will put them at a higher risk of being impacted by climate change. “Without expecting a company to significantly change its strategy, we are increasingly having conversations with management teams to ask them about their plans for climate resilience,” said Arthur Hurley, senior portfolio manager on the Columbia Real Estate Fund. So-called ESG funds, which focus on a company’s environmental, social, and governance attributes, have been at the forefront of focusing on the physical risks of climate change. But now fund managers like Hurley are finding that companies in their portfolio like Equity Lifestyle Properties Inc (ELS.N), are revealing to analysts on their earnings call that they are evaluating the potential for rising water levels when it purchases new marinas. Shares of the company are up 43% for the year to date.
Exxon denies that it misled investors on climate risks (AP) – Climate change may be the defining risk for oil and gas companies in coming decades, and attorneys for New York state are saying Exxon Mobil misled investors about how it was handling that risk. The state made closing arguments Thursday in a case that accused the energy giant of downplaying the impact of stricter climate regulations in a warming world. Exxon countered that the company has been taking climate change risks seriously and its executives did nothing wrong. The lawsuit, brought by New York State Attorney General Letitia James, says Exxon Mobil used two sets of books to account for how potential regulations would impact its business. “The question in this case is whether Exxon’s disclosures were accurate, and the evidence shows they were not,” said attorney Jonathan Zweig, arguing for the state. In shareholder meetings and reports, Exxon was using two different metrics to account for stricter climate regulations: greenhouse gas costs, which measure how local regulators may tax emissions, and proxy costs, which aim to predict how demand for oil and gas may change around the world due to regulations. Exxon attorneys and executives have said the company applied appropriate costs depending on the situation. But the state says Exxon was conflating these concepts, leading investors to believe the company was applying a projected cost of $80 per ton for its emissions when it was not, and making some oil and gas development projects look more attractive to investors, Zweig said. “Exxon applied much lower costs or no costs at all,” Zweig said. For example, Exxon made an $850 million investment into a chemical facility in Beaumont, Texas, but didn’t apply the appropriate greenhouse gas costs in its projections, Zweig said. Instead, “Exxon was making a business as usual assumption that existing law would be frozen in place forever,” Zweig said. In assessing an oil sands project in Alberta, Canada, Exxon assumed costs would remain flat through 2030 and 2040, instead of applying escalating costs for the likelihood of increasingly stringent climate regulation, Zweig said. “The reality is that many investors, including some of the largest financial firms in the world, believe there is a real likelihood that governments will rise to the challenge of climate change,” Zweig said.
Exxon’s lawyer calls lawsuit a ‘cruel joke’ as climate change fraud trial ends – (Reuters) – Lawyers for New York state and Exxon Mobil Corp delivered closing arguments in a closely watched trial accusing the oil company of hiding from investors the true cost of addressing climate change. The case, filed in October 2018 in Manhattan state court, was the first of several climate-related lawsuits against major oil companies to go to trial. It featured testimony from investors, experts and former Exxon Chief Executive Rex Tillerson, who denied the allegations against the company. New York’s attorney general alleges that Exxon caused investors to lose up to $1.6 billion by falsely telling them it had properly evaluated the impact of future climate regulations on its business. A verdict is expected within the next 40 days. Exxon’s lawyer said on Thursday the case was “meritless” and that the state failed to offer testimony from any investor who was misled. “The case is almost a joke,” Theodore Wells said. “But it’s a cruel joke, your honor, because the reputations of a lot of people have been hurt and disparaged by the bringing of the complaint.” A lawyer for the state said the case came down to whether Exxon had adequately disclosed the cost of climate change. “The question here isn’t whether Exxon employees are good people or even were trying their best,” Jonathan Zweig said. He told the court that the state was dropping two of its four fraud claims and would limit its closing argument to claims brought under the Martin Act, a law that gives the New York attorney general’s office broad power to pursue securities fraud cases without having to prove intent to defraud. “The question in this case is whether Exxon’s disclosures were accurate, and the evidence shows they were not,” Zweig said.
The United States Is the World’s Second Largest Economy: When It Comes to Climate Change, It Matters Dean Baker — The New York Times has an article on the Trump administration’s decision to pull the United States out of the Paris Agreement on climate change. The first sentence wrongly describes the United States as “the world’s largest economy.” Actually China passed the United States as the world’s largest economy early in the decade. According to the I.M.F. its economy is now more than 25 percent larger than the U.S. economy. It is projected to be more than 50 percent larger by 2024. This matters because China actually has moved aggressively to adopt clean energy. It is now by far the world leader in the use of solar and wind power and electric car sales. The fact that the Trump administration is determined not to cooperate in efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is unfortunate, but the fact that the world’s actual largest economy is taking big steps to curb emissions is hugely important.
Italy Becomes First Country to Add Climate Crisis to Its Core School Curriculum – Italy has stepped into the forefront of environmental education by adding the climate crisis and sustainable development as a mandatory part of the curriculum, the country’s education minister announced Tuesday, asThe New York Times reported. Education Minister Lorenzo Fioramonti is the government’s most vociferous advocate for green policies and encouraged students to skip school in September to participate in the global climate strike, according toReuters.His new initiative means all state-run schools will tie-in the UN’s 2030 agenda for sustainable developmentinto as many subjects as possible, with one hour each week dedicated to how humans have altered the planet and the causes and effects of global warming. Sustainability will also be incorporated in geography, mathematics and physics, Fioramonti announced, as The Guardian reported.”The entire ministry is being changed to make sustainability and climate the center of the education model,” said Fioramonti, to Reuters. “I want to make the Italian education system the first education system that puts the environment and society at the core of everything we learn in school.” The changes will go into effect at the beginning of the next school year, which will start in September 2020. A panel of experts will act as “peer reviewers” as ministry staff prepares the curriculum, which will be ready by January to train teachers, according to Fioramonti. The expert panel will include Jeffrey D. Sachs, director of the Harvard Institute for International Development, and Kate Raworth of Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute, according to The New York Times.
London Police Ban on Extinction Rebellion Ruled ‘Unlawful’ – The Metropolitan Police’s decision to ban Extinction Rebellion from London last month was “unlawful,” the city’s high court ruled Wednesday, as CNN reported. The police imposed the ban Oct. 14 for the last four days of Extinction Rebellion’s two-week “Autumn Uprising,” a campaign of civil disobedience in London intended to pressure the government into action on theclimate crisis. “Extinction Rebellion is delighted with the Court’s decision,” Tobias Garnett, a human rights lawyer in Extinction Rebellion’s Legal Strategy team, said in an Extinction Rebellion press release. “It vindicates our belief that the Police’s blanket ban on our protests was an unprecedented and unlawful infringement on the right to protest. Rather than wasting its time and money seeking to silence and criminalise those who are drawing its attention to the Climate and Ecological Emergency, we call on the Government to act now on the biggest threat to our planet.” The police had issued the ban under Section 14 of the Public Order Act of 1986, which grants them the power to impose restrictions on assemblies that “may result in serious public disorder.” But the court ruled that the police had overstepped their authority by banning a series of protests as if they were a single assembly. “Separate gatherings, separated both in time and by many miles, even if coordinated under the umbrella of one body, are not a public assembly within the meaning of the Section 14 of the 1986 Act,” Lord Justice Digemans said, according to CNN. “The XR autumn uprising intended to be held from October 14 to 19 was not therefore a public assembly … therefore the decision to impose the condition was unlawful because there was no power to impose it under Section 14 of the 1986 Act.”
How green is your bond? EU battle lines drawn on investment rules – (Reuters) – A battle over whether oil, coal and nuclear fuel can classify as “green” is expected to begin on Wednesday when EU states and lawmakers begin talks on sustainable investment rules. Brussels proposed the law as part of a plan to make Europe the world’s first climate neutral continent by 2050 but also to widen the market in green bonds and securities. Any delay on introducing eco-labels on financial investments could deter investors from eco-friendly assets. The negotiations, due to finish in December, will pit the more conservative European Union countries against a European Parliament, where Green parties have a louder voice. The European Commission first proposed legislation in May 2018 to tackle “greenwashing”, where banks and other companies claim undeserved environmental credentials for investments. The European Council, which is made up of the bloc’s 28 member states, generally supports the Commission’s proposals. But EU lawmakers want to go further by making clear distinctions between what is sustainable and what is not. The parliament has singled out financing of solid fossil fuels such as coal, saying these cannot be called “sustainable”. The Council and Commission want a more wide-ranging law, that would not have a specific list of green investments, leaving the door open for nuclear energy, for example, to be considered sustainable.
The Companies That Invest in the Earth’s Destruction Must Be Held Accountable – Greta Moran – You may not have heard of the company BlackRock, yet you are certainly feeling its impact. The global investment management corporation, responsible for managing $7 trillion worth of assets, is a massive backer of climate destruction, investing billions in new coal plant construction and the deforestation of the Amazon. Earlier this month, an investigation by the Guardian found that BlackRock has $87.3 billion worth of shares in oil, coal, and gas companies. BlackRock’s headquarters, a nondescript skyscraper in Manhattan, is usually easy to miss. But – on Tuesday, around 200 activists gathered outside the entrance to protest the company’s major role in financing climate destruction. The action was held on the anniversary of Hurricane Sandy, the storm that devastated New York City in 2012. Towards the end of the protest, 10 activists, from New York Communities for Change (NYCC), Sunrise Movement, and Extinction Rebellion, blocked the entrance to BlackRock’s headquarters, risking arrest. Across the entrance, the activists displayed a 20 foot banner that depicted two worlds – one in grayscale of flooding and an oil refinery, and another in full color of trees and windmills – and read “BlackRock: Which side are you on?” Some of the groups that protested are part of a larger global campaign called BlackRock’s Big Problem, which also helped organize other actions on Tuesday in Boston and Toronto, building on an escalating series of actions around the world to pressure the company to divest from the climate catastrophe. BlackRock’s Big Problem campaign is also singling out the company’s CEO Larry Fink for what Sikora described as his “superficially progressive profile.” Fink formerly sat on the board of the Nature Conservancy. Last year, a New York Times article titled “BlackRock’s Message: Contribute to Society, or Risk Losing Our Support,” described Finke’s professed commitment for socially responsible investing as a potentially “watershed moment on Wall Street.”
Study Shows Pension Funds’ Refusal to Divest From Fossil Fuels Cost Retired Teachers, Firefighters, and Public Workers $19 Billion – Amid global demands for immediate and bold climate action, a new economic analysis released Tuesday reveals that the pensions of working-class people are paying the price for continued investments in the same fossil fuel companies that are ruining the planet. Toronto-based firm Corporate Knights revealed in a new study that three major state pension funds in California and Colorado lost over $19 billion collectively as a result of investments in fossil fuel industries over ten years. CalSTRS and CalPERS, which represent nearly three million retired teachers, firefighters, police officers, and other public employees, lost out on more than $17 billion over a decade. Those losses came as the pension funds invested people’s retirement savings in extractive industries, which are losing jobs and stock value as the renewable energy sector hasadded jobs in recent years.The funds’ members lost an average of $5,572 and $6,072 per person, respectively. Colorado’s pension fund for state retirees would have gained an additional $1.7 billion in value if it hadn’t invested in fossil fuels, Corporate Knights reported, translating to a loss of nearly $3,000 per member. The global grassroots movement 350.org urged those affected by fossil fuel investments to call for immediate divestment.
States, green groups challenge rollback of Obama-era lightbulb rules – Separate coalitions of states and environmental advocacy groups sued the Department of Energy (DOE) Monday, challenging a decision to eliminate energy efficiency standards for nearly half the lightbulbs on the market. Fifteen states and a coalition of seven environmental and consumer groups are fighting the rule, arguing it will hasten climate change as utilities crank out more electricity to power inefficient bulbs. “The United States cannot and will not be the exception to the international movement to phase out the inefficient, unnecessary, and costly use of incandescent bulbs,” New York Attorney General Letitia James, who spearheaded the suit, said in a statement. “The Trump Administration’s not-so-bright idea to rollback light bulb energy efficiency standards is an obvious attempt to line the pockets of energy executives while simultaneously increasing pollution and raising energy bills for consumers.” The controversial rule erases Obama-era efficiency standards for lightbulbs, keeping in place rules for standard pear-shaped bulbs, while removing such requirements for recessed lighting, chandeliers and other shapes of bulbs. The rule will increase U.S. electricity use by 80 billion kilowatt hours over the course of a year, roughly the amount of electricity needed to power all households in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, according to an analysis by the Appliance Standards Awareness Project. That translates to more than an $100 a year added onto the average consumer bill. In addition to New York, the suit was filed by California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont and Washington, as well as the District of Columbia and the city of New York.
NH delegation calls for EPA to help biomass – (AP) – New Hampshire’s congressional delegation is calling on the Environmental Protection Agency to level the playing field for producers of biomass energy. The four-Democrat delegation wants electricity in the Renewable Fuel Standard program in time for biomass power producers to participate in the 2020 market. They say New Hampshire’s biomass power industry has been directly threatened by the agency’s failure to include electricity in the program. The program was created by Congress in 2005 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector and expand the nation’s renewable fuels sector, which includes electricity produced by biomass. The letter signed by Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan and Reps. Annie Kuster and Chris Pappas says the omission puts rural jobs and local government infrastructure at risk in farming, forestry, logging and waste-to-energy.
New report highlights Vermont’s advanced wood heating program as example of clean energy policy innovation – – Vermont’s Clean Energy Development Fund is highlighted in the newly released report, Returning Champions: State Clean Energy Leadership Since 2015, by the Clean Energy States Alliance (CESA), a national, nonprofit coalition of state agencies and other public organizations. The report provides a comprehensive look at the ways in which states are advancing clean energy and suggests how to further encourage growth. The report highlights that Vermont’s strategic focus on advanced wood heating across state government is building support for wood heat throughout disparate governmental departments. Together, these agencies and departments are presenting a unified vision for the sustainable development of a long-term market that will support clean energy, forest health, economic development, and improved air quality. View the Full Report: Returning Champions describes the many important ways that states across the nation are supporting clean energy generation and markets. The report highlights 21 case studies from 19 states, covering a variety of state programs such as r community solar, low-income solar access, bioenergy, renewable heating and cooling technologies, energy storage, offshore wind, and renewable thermal. “Vermont’s increased efforts to promote wood heating across state government in a coordinated and strategic way are providing real benefits to Vermonters” said Vermont Public Service Department Commissioner June Tierney. “We are proud of our efforts in this sector and glad to see it recognized in the CESA Report.”
Seeking Voter Approval of Ban on New Fossil-Fueled Power Plants in NJ – It falls short of being a moratorium on new fossil fuel infrastructure, but prominent state legislators are pushing for a constitutional amendment to ban new power plants fired by either natural gas, coal or oil. The bipartisan proposal (SCR-197) was introduced this summer, but its backers are hoping to put the question before voters statewide no later than 2021, timing that might be too late to block a handful of power plant projects pending in New Jersey. “It is the most sensible approach to curbing global warming,’’ said Sen. Bob Smith (D-Middlesex), who chairs the Senate Environment and Energy Committee, arguing that shutting down new fossil fuel generation also will dry up demand for new natural gas pipelines. Sen. Chris Bateman (R-Somerset) is a co-sponsor of the bill. The proposal is expected to come up early next year at a time when the debate over how New Jersey transitions to a 100% clean energy future is likely to heat up as the Murphy administration adopts a new energy master plan and determines how to phase out fossil fuels contributing to global climate change. The issue is of growing concern to the business community, particularly over the transition from natural gas to other technologies. Cheap natural gas from Pennsylvania has led to sharp drops in winter heating costs, as well as declines in electricity costs for consumers. About 85% of homes and businesses rely on gas to heat their homes, and more than 40% of homes are powered by natural gas power plants. Some environmentalists are disappointed the proposed amendment only applies to fossil fuel plants.
State Appellate Court Puts JCP&L Transmission Line Back in Play – A state appeals court yesterday affirmed a two-year-old decision by the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities to allow Jersey Central Power & Light to build a seven-mile transmission line between Montville Township and East Hanover.In a 16-page ruling, the court found no reason to overturn the agency’s decision, which had been challenged by Montville’s Board of Education, saying the new line would be too close to a school and may limit future expansion at the facility.For the state’s four electric utilities, transmission projects have been a growing source of their rate base, often earning more profits than utility upgrades to their distribution systems, which send power to local homes and smaller businesses.But it is generally more difficult to overcome community objections, largely because of health concerns from the electromagnetic field (EMF). In the hearing before an administrative judge, JCP&L presented testimony from two experts that exposure to EMF would be well below state and international exposure limits. The Montville BOE challenged the BPU order, saying the agency’s decision was inconsistent with previous determinations and saying reasonable effort must be made to increase the distance between transmission lines and schools.The court was not persuaded by those arguments. “BOE raises no convincing argument that BPU’s decision is lacking in evidentiary support or that the agency acted outside its statutory authority,’’ the court ruled.In addition, the court found the route proposed by JCP&L was probably the most ideally suited to resolve the reliability-criteria violation.“The proposed route was the shortest of the alternatives, had the least environmental impact, and did not present the complications, environmental threats, and costs associated with putting a new transmission line underground, as proposed by BOE,’’ the court said.
NYISO to study climate change impact on 100% renewable energy system – As New York moves to meet the US’ most aggressive climate change mitigation goals, its power grid operator is to study how a system powered with 100% emissions-free energy could be impacted by climate change. The New York Independent System Operator is conducting a climate change study that will examine various scenarios that could potentially impact the electric system as a result of climate-related disruptions, according to a presentation posted to the grid operator’s website Tuesday. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo in July signed the state’s landmark Green New Deal, which calls for a carbon-free power system by 2040 and codifies the goal of achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The legislation – the New York State Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act – includes two features that will impact the power sector. First it creates a framework to meet the economy-wide zero emissions by 2050 goal that the Department of Environmental Conservation is responsible for administering. Second is a strengthening of the existing Clean Energy Standard and the Public Utilities Commission is responsible for implementing those measures with the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority. That involves a process to strengthen existing goals of 50% renewable energy by 2030 to 70% renewables by 2030, while setting a path toward 100% zero power sector emissions by 2040. One tool for achieving those targets is the installation of 9,000 MW of offshore wind by 2035 from 0 MW installed currently. The NYISO’s climate study will examine whether the bulk power system in 2040 will be able to serve its load and meet reserve requirements under a variety of conditions.
FirstEnergy nears proposal to decouple Ohio utility revenues, electricity consumption: CEO — FirstEnergy plans to file a proposal with Ohio utility regulators by the end of November to decouple the link between the company’s revenues and the amount of electricity used by its customers, President and CEO Chuck Jones told analysts on the company’s third quarter earnings call Tuesday. The move “supports continued energy efficiency efforts while ensuring that our utilities have adequate resources to continue providing safe and reliable power to our customers,” Jones said. FirstEnergy’s plan would keep base distribution rates at 2018 levels for residential and commercial customers. Once the plan is filed, the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) will have 60 days to review and approve it. When a utility’s revenues and financial well-being are dependent on electricity consumption, that can create a disincentive to promoting energy efficiency and other conservation measures to reduce use. “By establishing the fixed base [for distribution costs in Ohio], it’s going to accomplish what the legislature tried to do. It allows us to continue to promote energy efficiency with our customers so that they can get the benefit of that without impacting our base revenues,” Jones said. “It fixes our base revenues and essentially it takes about one-third of our company and I think makes it somewhat recession-proof,” he added.
Amendment introduced to prohibit foreign ownership in critical infrastructure in Ohio – Introduced on October 26, 2019, House Joint Resolution 2 (HJR 2), titled the “Ohio Critical Infrastructure Protection Amendment,” seeks to place a constitutional amendment before Ohio voters prohibiting foreign businesses and individuals from having a majority ownership interest in critical infrastructure located in Ohio. Impacted types of infrastructure include power plants, intrastate electric transmission lines, intrastate natural gas pipelines and water treatment plants. HJR 2 is sponsored by Representatives Jamie Callender (R-Concord) and Don Manning (R-New Middletown). In order to be placed on the ballot for voters, such a joint resolution requires a three-fifths majority vote in both the Ohio House and Senate.[View source.]
Illinois lobbying scandal rattles alliance backing state clean energy legislation – A lobbying scandal involving Illinois’ largest power companies threatens to unravel an already tenuous coalition supporting a new round of ambitious clean energy legislation in the state. As federal investigators issue subpoenas and search warrants related to lobbying activity by ComEd and Exelon, some clean energy and consumer advocates have already said they will no longer work with the companies. ComEd is the state’s largest electric utility, serving the Chicago area and much of northern Illinois. Its parent company, Exelon, also operates six nuclear power plants in the state. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking to extend funding for the state’s solar incentives, which will likely run out of money next year without new legislation. The federal probe is widely seen to have torpedoed the bill’s chances in a six-day veto session concluding next week, and cast doubt on its chances in next year’s regular session. Subpoenas issued in the federal investigation involve communications between ComEd and Exelon and at least two public officials: Martin Sandoval, a prominent state senator representing Chicago, and Michael Zalewski, a former Chicago City Council member who was reportedly seeking lobbying work with ComEd. ComEd and Exelon have long been known to have immense political power in the Illinois Capitol, and ComEd’s lobbyists include a number of former staffers of Michael Madigan, the powerful speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives. Sandoval’s daughter Angie Sandoval also works for ComEd.
On nation’s biggest proposed offshore wind farm, Dominion plans to fly solo – Virginia Mercury Dominion Energy intends to move forward alone with developing the nation’s largest proposed offshore wind farm, an enterprise estimated to cost $8 billion, top utility leaders indicated to investors in a third-quarter earnings call Friday morning.“The project will be developed and owned by Dominion Energy Virginia, with regulated cost recovery subject to approval by the Virginia State Corporation Commission,” said Dominion CEO, Chairman and President Tom Farrell during the presentation.The company’s approach bucks the dominant trend among East Coast utilities, which have otherwise partnered with private developers to add offshore wind energy to their portfolios.New Jersey’s Ocean Wind project, which at 1,100 megawatts should power half a million homes, is being developed by Danish company Ørsted, with efforts underway by New Jersey utility Public Service Enterprise Group to acquire a 25 percent stake in the project. New York’s 816-megawatt Empire Wind is owned by private company Equinor, while its 880-megawatt Sunrise Wind is being developed jointly by Ørsted and New England energy utility Eversource. The latter pair are also the drivers behind the Revolution Wind project providing energy to Connecticut and Rhode Island. And in North Carolina, Avangrid is developing the Kitty Hawk wind farm.
As wind farms age, owners look to ‘repower’ them with new blades –The owner of a wind farm in Barnes County wants to “repower” the turbines with new blades and gearboxes that will increase the amount of electricity produced at the facility, a process that’s expected to become more common across the state as wind farms age. The Ashtabula I Wind Energy Center was built in 2008 with a capacity to generate 148.5 megawatts of power. Installing the new equipment would boost the capacity to 160.4 megawatts. Ashtabula Wind, a subsidiary of NextEra Energy, is seeking approval from the North Dakota Public Service Commission, which discussed the matter at a meeting Thursday. Commissioner Julie Fedorchak said she believes repowering wind farms will be the “new normal” in the years ahead as companies look to replace older parts with newer, more efficient ones and take advantage of federal tax credits. “This will probably be the first of many that we see,” she said. Blades tend to last 10-15 years, Commissioner Brian Kroshus said. “The fiberglass breaks down over time,” he said. “Dust particles in the air hitting the blades as they’re spinning begins to compromise the integrity of the blade.” Windy states are grappling with how to dispose of the blades, which can range in size from 100-300 feet. More than 5,100 blades sit atop wind turbines in North Dakota. Diana Trussell, solid waste program manager with the North Dakota Department of Environmental Quality, said in an interview that at least two landfills in the state have accepted blades. “They are requiring them to cut the blades down to more manageable lengths,” she said. “That way, it is easier to bury them or crush in the landfill.”
Was There Another Reason For Electricity Shutdowns In California? – Could it be that PG&E’s heavy reliance on renewable energy means they don’t have the power to send when an “historic” weather event occurs? The two most popular forms of renewable energy come with operating limitations. With solar power the constraint is obvious: the availability of sunlight. One does not generate solar power at night and energy generation drops off with increasing degrees of cloud cover during the day.The main operating constraint of wind power is, of course, wind speed. At the low end of the scale, you need about a 6 or 7 mph wind to get a turbine moving. This is called the “cut-in speed.” To generate maximum power, about a 30 mph wind is typically required. But, if the wind speed is too high, the wind turbine will shut down. This is called the “cut-out speed,” and it’s about 55 mph for most modern wind turbines. Now consider how California’s power generation profile has changed. According to Energy Information Administration data, the state generated 74.3 percent of its electricity from traditional sources – fossil fuels and nuclear – in 2001. Hydroelectric, geothermal, and biomass-generated power accounted for most of the remaining 25.7 percent, with wind and solar providing only 1.98 percent of the total. By 2018, the state’s renewable portfolio had jumped to 43.8 percent of total generation, with wind and solar now accounting for 17.9 percent of total generation. That’s a lot of power to depend on from inherently unreliable sources. Thus, it would not be at all surprising to learn that PG&E didn’t stop delivering power out of fear of starting fires, but because it knew it wouldn’t have power to deliver once high winds shut down all those wind turbines.
Natural Gas or Renewables? New Orleans Choice Is Shadowed by Katrina – Susan Guidry stepped up as a volunteer in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, and saw firsthand the disaster’s toll, including the crippling of the power supply. When voters elected her to the City Council, she said, she hardly knew what a kilowatt was. But she came to the conclusion that the city had to change its approach to energy. “I just started researching,” Ms. Guidry said. “That was a lot of hard learning.” What she found out led her into battle over a question central to the climate debate. Is it wise to keep building fossil-fuel plants – even those powered by natural gas rather than coal – that will be in operation for decades? Or are wind turbines and solar farms now reliable and economical enough to take their place? Ms. Guidry began her homework after a subsidiary of Entergy – a major utility in a state heavily reliant on the oil and gas industry – said it needed to build a new natural-gas plant to replace an outdated unit in the New Orleans East neighborhood. When the issue arose in 2015, “that probably sounded fine to me,” said Ms. Guidry, whose district hugged the city’s western boundary. “There was solar power, there was wind, whatever. It all seemed a bit ahead in time for that to be sufficient for us.”But in the course of briefings by city advisers, she began to raise questions. “About a year into it,” she said, “I was like, wait a minute, this is not a good idea.”A retired trial lawyer who worked on civil litigation, Ms. Guidry began reading books, searching the internet, seeking out experts, finding out how other states and cities were addressing their needs. “Having a legal background,” she said, “you’re prone to search for the facts.”The advisers had told her that the regional grid operator was requiring the gas plant. The grid operator told her otherwise. Entergy said that solar and wind power were inadequate because the sun does not always shine and the wind does not always blow, and that the associated cost of battery storage was too high. But she saw the economics changing.Even with environmental concerns and mounting community opposition, Ms. Guidry was the sole dissenter when the council approved the plant last year. “It was very clear we were fighting a utility that wanted to live in the Dark Ages,” she said.Now, with the project well underway, the opponents have a chance for a do-over. In July, a judge voided the council’s decision, ruling that proponents had used illegal means to win approval – specifically, that actors had been hired to pack a crucial City Council meeting and voice support.
How 100% renewables backfired on a Texas town – An inconvenient truth is hanging over Georgetown, Texas: Its celebrated shift to renewable energy doesn’t look like a national model these days. Electric rates are up. Critics are blasting the costs. And the city north of Austin is trying to figure out how to mitigate the situation. Georgetown, whose green push gained global attention thanks to former Vice President Al Gore and others, can claim to have 100% renewable power thanks to a credit system tied to electricity purchases. In 2018, the city bought enough power from wind and solar projects to account for all of the community’s consumption. It also pays for power fueled by natural gas. In all, the city contracts for more electricity than its municipal utility needs to serve customers – and that’s been a problem. Surplus power is sold into a market hampered by weak prices, often delivering financial losses instead of the returns Georgetown expected. “It’s unfortunate that the Georgetown experiment went so quickly from being a success story to being something of a cautionary example,” said Adrian Shelley, director of the Texas office of Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group. Shelley remains optimistic about renewable energy’s growth in Texas and beyond. He tied Georgetown’s predicament to the specifics of the growing city’s plan to meet demand as well as lower-than-expected natural gas prices. In Texas’ main power market, electricity prices are heavily influenced by the price of gas.
Energy vs Waste – Ilargi: I did a little interview on the topic this week, and that was a little too little. Can’t cover it all in 5 or 10 minutes, even though that is mostly because people understand so precious little. We fool ourselves non-stop 24/7 on the topic, just the way industry and politics like it. A wee step back: “The only clean energy is the one that isn’t used.” I see terms like “clean energy”, “zero-emissions” and “zero-carbon” fly by all the time, used to depict things that are not clean at all. Perhaps less polluting, but that’s only perhaps; we’re experts at discounting externalities. Still, we do still realize that without oil and gas there would be no wind turbines and solar panels, don’t we? How much carbon waste is generated in the production process of the two may be up for grabs, if only because that’s nobody’s favorite topic, but it’s a whole lot more than zero. More for solar, I would guess, because mining of rare earth metals is a pretty dirty process. But in the end, the only aspect that I find really interesting, and that everybody appears to ignore, is why we produce so much waste. If you were hell-bent on designing a contraption aimed at wasting as much energy, and generating as much waste, as possible, you would have a hard time competing with the automobile. Your run of the mill internal combustion engine uses maybe 10% of the energy you put in at the gas station, and you use it to transport yourself in a contraption that is 20x heavier than you are. That leaves you with just 0.5% of the energy embedded in the gasoline that is effectively used. And that’s not all: before the gas reached the station, there was an entire process of extraction, refining, multiple transport steps. And before the car reached the store, it had already generated over a third of all the waste it will in its ‘lifetime’. If ever you need a way to demonstrate that people are not very smart, look no further. Angela Merkel this week said she wants 1 million car charging points in Germany by 2030 (the country is way behind). And she may mean well, but for a physicist it’s still disappointing. If anyone could understand that replacing petrol powered cars with electric ones is a very poor deal, it should be her. But sure, Germany has some very large carmakers, and she needs to appease them. Cars run the economy, after all. Or, rather, that’s not quite right, it’s in fact generating waste that runs the economy. Which is the only sensible conclusion we can draw after seeing that way less than 0.5% of energy is efficiently used in and by a car. And for people like Merkel, practical politicians with ties to industry, that means you have to keep them running. And help the media and industry in convincing people that electric cars, produced by BMW, Merc and VW, is a great way to save the planet. Still, making those things requires enormous amounts of oil and gas.
Dominion, Smithfield Foods double their investment to turn pig manure into energy – You don’t have to live near a hog farm or processing plant to know how potent pig manure is. About 75 million swine are producing manure in this country. That means they’re also producing methane – a powerful greenhouse gas that’s shorter-lived in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, but packs about 25 times the punch at heating the planet. Environmentalists have long pushed for reductions in methane emissions to combat climate change, or for capturing methane from livestock operations to produce renewable natural gas, a biofuel. A year ago, Dominion Energy and Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest pork producer, announced they would do just that in a $250 million, 10-year joint venture to turn animal waste into energy. Now the companies are doubling their effort, vowing to invest half a billion dollars in manure-to-energy projects in several states. “It was just a very natural fit,” said Kraig Westerbeek, senior director of Smithfield Renewables. “It was obvious from the beginning that Smithfield has expertise in raising animals and farming operations. Dominion’s obvious strengths are in the renewables market area.” “From Dominion’s standpoint,” said Ryan Childress, director of Gas Business Development at Dominion Energy, “our customers want more renewables, and we want to provide those.” Dominion is the biggest electric utility in Virginia, largely powering its generation plants using fossil fuels. It’s is also a natural gas provider. It operates in 18 states in the mid-Atlantic, the Northeast and Midwest.
Joni Ernst speaks with Trump in effort to resolve RFS issue –After speaking by phone with President Donald Trump earlier this week, Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, remains convinced he wants to “work through” a decision by the Environment Protection Agency director that Iowa agriculture leaders say could lead to a further slowdown in ethanol production and more farm bankruptcies. “The president is upset that this is not the same formula that we agreed on in the Oval Office,” Ernst told reporters Thursday. “I do think there is opportunity for correction.” Ernst, as well as her Iowa GOP colleagues U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley and Gov. Kim Reynolds, are calling on the EPA to uphold an agreement worked out last month on the Renewable Fuel Standard. The agreement called for blending 15 billion gallons of ethanol and biodiesel into other motor fuel. Since then, the EPA issued rules that Iowa elected officials, corn growers and biofuels groups say will not fulfill the agreement reached with the president. In comments submitted to the EPA, Reynolds said she left that Oval Office meeting with the understanding that “15 billion gallons means 15 billion gallons.” A week later, the EPA proposed a rule that reallocated small refinery exemptions to the RFS based on federal Department of Transportation recommendations rather than actual waived gallons.
The economics of driving seven Teslas for 2.5 million miles – Few have driven a Tesla to the point at which the vehicle really starts to show its age. But Tesloop, a shuttle service in Southern California comprised solely of Teslas, was ticking the odometers of its cars well past 300,000 miles with no signs of slowing. The company’s fleet of seven vehicles – a mix of Model Xs, Model 3s and a Model S – are now among the highest-milage Teslas in the world. They zip almost daily between Los Angeles, San Diego, and destinations in between. Each of Tesloop’s cars are regularly racking up about 17,000 miles per month (roughly eight times the average for corporate fleet mileage). Many need to fully recharge at least twice each day. These long days have pushed Tesla’s engineering to the limit making Tesloop an extreme testbed for the durability of Elon Musk’s cars. Tesloop provided Quartz with five years of maintenance logs, where its vehicles racked up over more than 3.5 million miles, to understand how the electric vehicles (EV) are living up to the promising of cheaper vehicles with unprecedented durability compared to their conventional combustion-engine counterparts. The results reveal Tesla to be a company still ironing out bugs in its products, but one that pushes the limits of what vehicles can do. “When we first started our company, we predicted the drive train would practically last forever,” Tesloop founder Haydn Sonnad told Quartz. “That’s proven to be relatively true.” He notes that every car except one, a vehicle taken out of service after a collision with a drunk driver, is still running. “The cars have never died of old age,” he added.
GM sells shuttered Ohio plant to EV truck start-up – (Reuters) – General Motors Co confirmed on Thursday it has sold its shuttered Lordstown Assembly plant in Ohio to a start-up that has an ambitious plan to begin building electric pickup trucks by the end of 2020. Lordstown Motors Corp, which is 10% owned by Workhorse Group Inc, has retained Ohio investment bank Brown Gibbons Lang & Co and is working to raise additional capital, Lordstown Chief Executive Steve Burns said in an interview. Workhorse shares closed up 27% on the news. The fate of the northeastern Ohio plant has become a lighting rod in the 2020 presidential election after GM announced in November 2018 its planned closure, drawing condemnation from U.S. President Donald Trump and many U.S. lawmakers. The fate of the plant, which ended operations in March, remained uncertain until the Detroit automaker reached a new contract with the United Auto Workers union last month. The company has been working on the engineering of the new truck called Endurance and hired Rich Schmidt, a former director of manufacturing at Tesla Inc, as chief production officer. GM said Thursday it believes “LMC’s plan to launch the Endurance electric pickup has the potential to create a significant number of jobs and help the Lordstown area grow into a manufacturing hub for electrification.”
Germany Boosts Electric-Car Incentives to Stimulate Demand – Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government and German automakers agreed to increase cash incentives for electric cars, intensifying an effort to move away from the combustion engine and reduce harmful emissions. A so-called environment bonus will jump by 50% to as much as 6,000 euros ($6,680) per electric vehicle and the auto industry will continue to cover half the cost, Merkel’s chief spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said in a statement. The changes will take effect this month and run through 2025, according to Bernhard Mattes, president of Germany’s VDA auto lobby. “It will therefore be possible to provide support for another 650,000 to 700,000 electric vehicles,” Seibert said. The measures were agreed Monday evening in Berlin between Merkel and officials from automakers, parts suppliers and labor unions, including the chief executives of Volkswagen AG, BMW AG and Daimler AG. The accord came a day after Merkel visited a revamped VW electric-car plant in Zwickau, eastern Germany. The chancellor has come under fire for failing to make more progress in curbing greenhouse-gas emissions, while VW — the world’s biggest carmaker — has invested billions in the shift to electric vehicles.
Democrats’ Baffling Blind Spot On Cars – Few objects symbolize America’s unique place in the world better than the automobile. Residents of the United States drive more than 37 miles per day, nearly twice as much as the average Swede or Norwegian. America has 1.16 cars for every licensed driver and spends roughly $534 per person each year building and maintaining its road network. Three out of four U.S. workers drive to work alone; fewer than 1 in 20 walk or bicycle. America’s unique enthusiasm for the automobile has become one of the greatest challenges to solving climate change. Transportation is now the greatest source of greenhouse gases in the United States. And while utility companies are phasing out coal in favor of renewable energy, the auto industry is moving in the opposite direction. In March, the International Energy Agency reported that America’s oil use was rising more quickly than any other nation. In 2016, the average American drove 1,300 more miles than they did in 1992. Nearly every advance in fuel economy has been wiped out by more driving, bigger cars – or deliberate sabotage by the Trump administration. And yet, no prominent Democrats have proposed policies to reverse this trend. The 2020 presidential candidates have put forward ambitious targets for weaning power plants off of fossil fuels, closing federal lands to drilling and dramatically increasing subsidies to electric vehicles. None of them, however, has acknowledged the urgent necessity for America to kick its driving habit. “It’s difficult to imagine addressing the climate crisis in any meaningful way without taking on automobiles,” said Clayton Nall, a political science professor at Stanford University who specializes in infrastructure spending. “It’s not enough to convert vehicles to electric. And even if it was, it’s not likely to happen on a timeline that will address the carbon emissions problem. It’s a real blind spot.”
The One Metric That Matters For Electric Cars – We need to focus on one number that determines when electric vehicles (EVs) will make economic sense. So says a report out of Argonne Laboratories sponsored by the Department of Energy. That number, according to researcher George Crabtree, is the price of the battery (as measured in $ per kwh), which he says has to halve in order to make EVs competitive with conventional cars. Not promising one might think. Well, researchers now believe that battery prices could reach the magic level somewhere between 2022 and 2026. But, there is more to come. Researchers are working on lithium ion-solid state batteries. These would not only eliminate the unfortunate flammability issue that dogs lithium batteries but also possibly double the milage per charge. Toyota hopes to have such a battery ready in the early 2020s. Still, what about the potential shortage of minerals required to build the batteries? Crabtree points out that the key to making sure we do not have a lithium shortage is to recycle the batteries. At present we recycle almost 100% of lead acid automotive batteries and less than 5% of lithium batteries. However, figuring out how to recycle the latter economically will require research.What all this says is that the electric vehicle could emerge from its present position in the United States as a well subsidized status symbol to a commercially competitive vehicle within five years. It looks as if the automobile manufacturers will be ready.But how about the electricity producers? This requires new modes of power distribution for charging stations as well as an ongoing commitment to fossil-free energy sources. This is not a trifling issue for electricity producers. Electric vehicles could eventually account for 30-40% of US electricity sales. This is huge. But these sales will not be made unless the industry has in place an infrastructure to deliver the power to the right places at the right time.That brings up the perennial chicken-or-the-egg question. Should we incur the expense and build EV infrastructure hoping demand will eventually follow? Or should we first allow car manufacturers to first build and sell their cars while hoping electric utilities move fast enough to satisfy the demand for EV charging infrastructure?
Today’s Electric Car Batteries Will Be Tomorrow’s E-Waste Crisis, Scientists Warn -Electric vehicles will play a crucial role in humanity’s fossil fuel-free future, but no technology comes without cost. The lithium-ion batteries that EVs run on are made from metals that are mined at a serious environmental and human toll, and from supplies that won’t last forever. When those batteries die, they’re liable to join the tens of millions of tons of spent electronics piling up as e-waste in landfills around the world.That’s why we badly need to develop better methods for recycling EV batteries and start scaling up the recycling infrastructure now, a team led by researchers at the University of Birmingham in the UK argue in a review paper published today in Nature.As the paper notes, the one million EVs sold around the world in 2017 will eventually result in 250,000 tons of battery pack waste that the world’s recycling infrastructure is ill-equipped to handle. And while EV batteries can last for up to 20 years, the potential battery waste in the pipeline as EV sales grow year over year is enormous.“It is important that we anticipate problems before they happen,” said lead study author Gavin Harper, a research fellow at the University of Birmingham’s Faraday Institution. “We have seen in the past with car tires and fridges how waste mountains can arise if we don’t anticipate waste management problems.”In their paper, Harper and his colleagues try to sketch out what an effective waste management infrastructure could look like for EV batteries, which, in addition to lithium, contain critical metals like manganese, copper, and cobalt. As with consumer electronics, managing waste starts with extending the life of EV batteries as much as possible. When they’re no longer useful for driving, they can be repurposed for other types of energy storage like home batteries – an idea that companies are already pilot-testing around the world.But eventually, EV batteries will reach the end of their useful life, at which point they need to be recycled. Today, Harper said, most recycling revolves around using heat to melt the batteries down to slag, followed by chemical separation techniques that recover specific metals like cobalt. But these so-called pyro and hydro-metallurgical techniques are energy intensive and produce toxic gas byproducts, and the materials they recover are often low quality.
REALLY want to help Mother Nature? Don’t drive electric cars, ignore paper bags & forget about organic food – Organic farming – growing food without the use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers – isn’t the planet-saver it’s promoted as, according to a study published last month in Nature Communications. Farming certain crops organically, including beans, potatoes, and oats, creates more emissions over the entire course of the farm-to-table cycle than farming them conventionally, researchers at Cranfield University found. Trying to get all of Britain eating organic would create an environmental catastrophe, they believe. Nor is organic food the only “green” product less environmentally sound than its marketing suggests. Renewable energy, hailed as the answer to the world’s petrochemical dependency, is not the cure-all it is depicted as. Solar power, for example, creates no carbon emissions once the solar panels are up and running, but their manufacture is a toxic mess. Produced with the carcinogenic, mutagenic heavy metal cadmium and requiring billions of liters of water to manufacture and cool, solar cells have their own dark side seldom examined in discussions of the impending shift to renewable energy. Electric cars have become a symbol of environmental progress, with companies that produce them receiving government subsidies in many countries. But more energy is consumed in the production of an electric car than a gas-powered vehicle, and a 2011 study found the carbon footprints of both vehicles to be about the same. Electric cars may not produce emissions while driving, but they’re only as green as the electricity used to charge them. Worse, the batteries they use are loaded with toxic metals like lithium, copper, and cobalt. Mining these substances devastates the environment, and improper disposal of used batteries can cause them to leak back into nature. Biomass and biofuels certainly sound environmentally friendly – how can you go wrong with “bio” in the name – but it actually generates more carbon emissions than fossil fuels to create the same amount of energy. Substances burnable under the aegis of “biomass” can include anything from timber waste to garbage, meaning it can burn clean or litter the atmosphere with pollutants. And even burning ‘clean’ wood means cutting down trees – hardly environmentally friendly.
Green technology revolution needs a green metals revolution: Andy Home –(Reuters) – “Society expects more of our industry.” That was the stark warning from Jean-Sebastien Jacques, head of one of the world’s largest mining companies, Rio Tinto, in a keynote speech at last week’s London Metal Exchange Week. “There is absolutely no doubt in my mind we will face greater regulation and scrutiny,” Jacques went on to say. The scrutiny has already begun. The next day environmental protesters disrupted the International Mining and Resources Conference in Melbourne, leading to multiple arrests and a draconian threat by Australia’s prime minister to ban future anti-mining demonstrations. Half way around the world, protesters were blocking access roads to SQM’s lithium operations high in Chile’s Atacama Desert in a rumbling dispute over water rights. Here writ small is the industrial metals industry’s big problem. The green technology revolution, at the heart of which sits lithium, holds massive promise for the world’s miners, but to reap the rewards the entire metals supply chain will have to “green” itself. An unwelcome reminder of just how massive a challenge that’s going to be came in the form of yet another fatal tailings dam collapse, this time at a Russian gold mine. The death of at least 15 artisanal miners ticked all the wrong boxes on the industry’s new target list of environmental responsibility, sustainability and good governance (ESG). It is, sadly, very unlikely be the last tailings dam failure, particularly in the high-risk artisanal mining sector. The problems for the world’s metals industry, moreover, extend the entire length of the supply chain. Mining and metals processing is a dirty business, generating waste, often toxic, at every segment of the chain. The global mining and metals industry is responsible for around 10% of the total impact of climate change, according to the United Nations Environment Programme. That was what the activists in Melbourne were demonstrating against. The likes of Rio Tinto and other mining majors are now in a scramble to clean up their collective act. At one level this is about the industry’s licence to operate in a world that is increasingly wary of the environmental costs of mining. Protests such as those at SQM’s lithium mines in Chile are becoming ever more frequent across the metallic spectrum. At a more fundamental level, it is about exposing metals to the sort of transparency standards that apply to other consumer sectors.
More airports consider going off the grid as power outages ground flights – Should airports go off the grid? Pittsburgh International Airport – and others – think so. Remember that 11-hour power outage at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in December 2017 that canceled hundreds of flights, stranded thousands of passengers and cost Delta Airlines alone an estimated $50 million in lost business? Since then power outages linked to everything from equipment failures, faulty wires and an explosion at an electric power station have disrupted operations at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Los Angeles International Airport, New York’s LaGuardia Airport, John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California, Philadelphia International Airport and McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas. And just last Saturday, power at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport went out – twice – due to high winds associated with Tropical Storm Olga. In addition to flight cancelations and delays, a celebratory open house for the new $1 billion terminal opening Nov. 6 had to be postponed by a few hours. During power outages at airports, generators and other forms of back-up power usually kick-in to power essential emergency lighting, but boarding, deplaning, airfield activity and the business of the airport often comes to a standstill. That’s just one reason Pittsburgh International Airport recently declared its intention to become the first major U.S. airport to create a self-sufficient energy system, or microgrid, using only energy sources – solar and natural gas – from its own property. Pittsburgh International Airport plans to have its microgrid in place by 2021 to power the entire airport, including the airfield, the on-site Hyatt hotel and a Sunoco station.
Coal plant on tribal land to close after powering US West (AP) – One of the largest coal-fired power plants in the American West will close before the year ends and others in the region are on track to shut down or reduce their output in the next few years. Owners of the Navajo Generating Station near the Arizona-Utah border are turning to cheaper power produced by natural gas as they and other coal-fired plants in the U.S. face growing pressure over contributing to climate change. Those shifts are upending people’s livelihoods, including hundreds of mostly Native American workers in northeastern Arizona who mined the coal, loaded it from a roadside silo and helped produce the electricity. Two tribes each will lose millions of dollars in income, while workers are forced into early retirement. Some employees will stay on to restore the land, while others aren’t sure what’s next. “I got all emotional, started tearing up. It’s kind of sad because I love what I do,” The power plant was built in the late 1960s on land leased from the Navajo Nation, one of two coal-mining Native American tribes that has the largest land base, spanning parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. The plant was a compromise to keep more hydroelectric dams from being built through the Grand Canyon and to power a series of canals that deliver water to Arizona’s major cities. At the time, the U.S. was facing a natural gas shortage and utilities turned to coal to feed the electric grid.
EPA to scale back federal rules restricting waste from coal-fired power plants – The Environmental Protection Agency on Monday plans to relax rules that govern how power plants store waste from burning coal and release water containing toxic metals into nearby waterways, according to agency officials.The proposals, which scale back two rules adopted in 2015, affect the disposal of fine powder and sludge known as coal ash, as well as contaminated water that power plants produce while burning coal. Both forms of waste can contain mercury, arsenic and other heavy metals that pose risks to human health and the environment.The new rules would allow extensions that could keep unlined coal ash waste ponds open for as long as eight additional years. The biggest benefits from the rule governing contaminated wastewater would come from the voluntary use of new filtration technology. Trump administration officials revised the standards in response to recent court rulings and to petitions from companies that said they could not afford to meet stringent requirements enacted under the Obama administration. They also reflect President Trump’s broader goal of bolstering America’s coal industry at a time when natural gas and renewable energy provide more affordable sources of electricity for consumers. Under the Obama-era rule, coal ash ponds leaking contaminants into groundwater that exceeded federal protection standards had to close by April 2019. The Trump administration extended that deadline to October 2020 in a rule it finalized last year. In August 2018, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit instructed the EPA to require that companies overhaul ponds, including those lined with clay and compacted soil, even if there was no evidence that sludge was leaking into groundwater. In a statement, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said the Obama-era rules “placed heavy burdens on electricity producers across the country.”“These proposed revisions support the Trump administration’s commitment to responsible, reasonable regulations,” Wheeler said, “by taking a common-sense approach that will provide more certainty to U.S. industry while also protecting public health and the environment.”Under the new proposal, companies will have to stop placing coal ash into unlined storage ponds near waterways by Aug. 31, 2020, and either retrofit these sites to make them more secure or begin to close them. Unlike the Obama-era rules, the EPA will allow greater leeway and more time for operators to request extensions ranging from 90 days to three years, until Oct. 15, 2023, if they can convince regulators that they need more time to properly dispose of the waste.
Trump EPA Targets More Coal Ash Rules for Rollback. Water Pollution Rules, Too. – The Trump administration made another attempt on Monday to prop up the sagging coal industry by proposing to relax two Obama-era rules meant to curb water pollution from power plants and clean up the ponds utilities use to store toxic coal ash.The moves would make it less expensive for utilities to burn coal to produce electricity at a time when coal mining companies are going bankrupt and coal-fired power plants are closing. With the next presidential election now just 12 months away, the moves may also represent the start of a final-year deregulatory push by the administration. In the coming months, the EPA alone is expected to make key decisions affecting coal-burning utilities’ obligations under the nation’s Superfund toxic cleanup program, the regulation of mercury, and the nation’s air quality standards for lung-damaging particulates and smog.”The (rule-making) pace is likely to pick up,” said University of Pennsylvania professor of law and political science Cary Coglianese. That’s normal for administrations as they reach what could be the end of their time in power, he said.”My thought would be none of these moves will save the coal industry,” he added.Other researchers have come to similar conclusions. Coal has been fighting for its survival on many fronts in recent years amid a glut of cheaper natural gas and increasingly competitive pressure from wind and solar power, in addition to a broad range of federal regulations.Burning coal has produced one of the nation’s largest waste streams, and the EPA has wrestled with what to do with all the ash and scrubber sludge for decades. The Obama EPA declined to classify it as hazardous, even though it contains toxic heavy metals linked to cancer and other illnesses. Still, EPA sought to force utilities to better manage their ash in the aftermath of the 2008 coal ash disaster in Kingston, Tennessee, where a levee holding back a mountain of sodden ash suddenly broke loose and spilled into two rivers. Three homes were destroyed, dozens more were damaged and now dozens of sick cleanup workers and the families of cleanup workers who have died are suing for damages.
Environmentalists describe proposed coal ash rule changes as ‘dangerous’ -A nonprofit already fighting the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to allow Oklahoma to independently regulate disposal of coal combustion residuals (CCRs) inside the state promised Monday it will fight two new proposed federal rule changes related to coal ash disposal it asserts will roll back environmental protections further. Officials at Earthjustice, an environmental law organization, said Monday they believe rules the EPA proposed Monday would drastically weaken public health and safety protections from pollution produced by coal-fired power plants. A release issued Monday by the EPA, however, counters that its proposed rule changes would reduce regulatory complications and boost the amount of waste removed from the environment. One proposes to give companies a longer period of time to use clay-lined coal ash ponds that no longer meet required federal standards. The agency stated the extension also would give some operators time to develop alternative ways to manage their waste. Earthjustice officials said there are at least 24 documented cases nationwide where coal ash impoundments have contaminated drinking water. They also note the proposed rule flouts a previous judge’s decision that ordered the closure of unlined facilities.
Why Obama’s plans to clean up coal ash barely got off the ground – On Monday, in yet another last-ditch effort to save the coal industry from obsolescence, EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler proposed new rollbacks of regulations addressing toxic waste generated by coal-burning power plants. The original regulations, established just four years ago under President Obama, were historic. For the first time ever, power plants would be required by federal law to monitor groundwater near coal ash ponds and clean up ponds that were actively leaking. For the first time ever, there would be federal limits on the concentration of toxic metals in the wastewater discharged from these plants into waterways. Overdue though they may have been, Obama’s rules barely got off the ground. Groups like the Environmental Integrity Project and the Sierra Club challenged the coal ash rules in court on the grounds that they did not go far enough to protect the public. Industry groups also challenged the rules, alleging that EPA was exceeding its authority. And as those petitions have made their way through the court system, the Trump EPA has been trying to weaken regulations on coal. These regulations address two types of waste: solid waste, i.e. coal ash, and liquid waste, i.e. wastewater. Coal ash is the second largest form of waste generated in the United States after municipal trash. Power plants take the ash left over from coal combustion and either landfill it or pour it into a pit and mix it with water, creating a sludgy pond. Most of the time these landfills and ponds are unlined, meaning that chemicals like arsenic, lithium, mercury, and lead from the ash can seep into groundwater and contaminate nearby wells and waterways. These plants also have to deal with wastewater laden with similar contaminants after cleaning out their filters and boilers. This highly polluted water was being discharged into rivers and streams untreated. According to Southerland, back in 2015, the EPA estimated that plants were dumping more than 1 billion pounds of pollutants into nearby waterways every year. Obama’s regulations aimed to limit all this chemical leaking and dumping – but almost none of them were ever actually implemented. Monitoring is one of the only aspects of the Obama-era rules that was fully implemented. And because of that, we know that most of these sites do leak. Earlier this year, the Environmental Integrity Project and Earthjustice analyzed industry data and found that more than 91 percent of the sites being monitored had unsafe levels of toxic pollutants in their groundwater. In August, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Obama-era rules were, in fact, not aggressive enough. The ruling meant that the EPA had to require power plants to shut down all active unlined coal ash ponds near waterways, not just the ones that are leaking. The rules that Wheeler proposed this week incorporate that requirement, but they’re flexible – they allow some power plants to keep using unlined ponds for up to eight more years.
Justice coal company wants another day in court to argue against $35 million penalty – – Lawyers for a company owned by Gov. Jim Justice and his family are trying to fight a $35 million ruling in federal court. Lawyers for Kentucky Fuel Corp. last week asked for oral arguments on a prior motion to alter or amend the ruling in the Eastern District of Kentucky. “The Opinion in this long-running case imposed extraordinary damages on Defendants, in an amount exceeding $35 million,” Richard Getty, lawyer for Kentucky Fuel, wrote in a motion filed this past Wednesday. Lawyers for the other side of the case have filed documents calling the Kentucky Fuel protests “improper” and “ungrounded.” They say Kentucky Fuel is only rehashing old arguments. “Oral argument on such a flawed motion would be an unnecessary waste of time and money,” wrote lawyers for New London Tobacco Market and its agent, Fivemile Energy LLC. The judgment includes $17 million for unpaid royalties, another $17 million to punish the Justice companies for abuses such as withholding information and $1 million for attorneys’ fees. The lawsuit was first filed in 2012 and has had a number of twists and turns over the years. It stands out because of the sheer amount of money involved, as well as the prickly tone that emerges in the court filings. “These defendants just make it up,” the New London Tobacco lawyers wrote of Kentucky Fuel’s positions.
What will happen to Murray Energy’s coal mines if company goes out business? – Murray Energy, which has filed for bankruptcy protection, has 13 mining permits in Ohio. The state estimates that it would cost $202 million to reclaim those mining sites if the company went out of business and walked away from them, but a state fund to cover those costs contains only $21 million. As Murray Energy bankruptcy proceedings continue, state officials are trying to figure out what to do with 13 of its Ohio mining permits if the company walks away from them before they’re reclaimed. The St. Clairsville-based coal company, the eighth coal company in the U.S. to file for bankruptcy within a year, is the largest permit-holder for coal mining in Ohio. An actuarial report on the state’s coal reclamation fund issued in June estimates that it would take more than $202 million to clean up all of the Murray mining sites. That would be a problem. The state’s fund to cover the costs of reclaiming coal mining sites that companies abandon contains about $21 million. That means taxpayers could be asked to make up the difference. “I’m going to count on (Ohio Department of Natural Resources staff) to sit down with them or any other company and work with them,” ODNR Director Mary Mertz said. “I do believe operators want to do a good job for Ohio and are not trying to be irresponsible.” If the fund had to be used to reclaim all of Murray’s coal mining sites, it would take 150 years – assuming no other companies walked away from their mines – for the fund to recover, according to the report. Whether the fund should be restructured or any other changes made, Mertz said, “I don’t have a recommendation now on that.” “In other words, Murray Energy defaulting on its reclamation obligations – which becomes more likely as Murray Energy approaches bankruptcy – is the exact ‘catastrophic event’ that the recent actuarial report found the forfeiture fund could not cover,” said Margrethe Kearney, an attorney representing the Environmental Law and Policy Center, in a 10-page letter sent last week to the federal Office of Surface Mining and Reclamation and Enforcement. The federal Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 is supposed to ensure that mines are reclaimed in a timely manner as coal is removed. But under the Trump administration, the law hasn’t been enforced and more and more acres are being left unreclaimed.
Australia’s threat to outlaw mining protests highlights industry split: Russell (Reuters) – The boss of a major mining company last week made a plea to the industry to do more to win the hearts and minds of the broader public. A few days later the leader of the country hosting the bulk of his operations threatened to outlaw those opposed to mining. What makes the situation more bizarre is that the threat against the right to protest was made by Scott Morrison, the prime minister of Australia, a country with a long democratic tradition and a history of political tolerance. Morrison, the leader of the conservative Liberal Party, told a meeting of a mining lobby group on Nov. 2 that there is a “new breed of radical activism” that didn’t permit the expression of alternative viewpoints. But seemingly unaware of the hypocrisy he was about to expound, Morrison said his government is looking at measures that would make it illegal to advocate so-called secondary boycotts of companies that do business with miners targeted by climate activists. “Let me assure you this is not something my government intends to allow to go unchecked,” The Guardian newspaper reported Morrison as saying. “Together with the attorney general, we are working to identify mechanisms that can successfully outlaw these indulgent and selfish practices that threaten the livelihoods of fellow Australians,” Morrison said. Morrison’s comments unleashed a predictable storm of opposition from political rivals and legal experts, but the real damage is once again being inflicted on the mining industry. There are those who are determined to try and win public support for their operations by committing to reducing their carbon footprint and constantly highlighting that minerals are essential to the transition to a low-carbon economy. And then there are those miners, predominantly coal producers, that are largely climate change denialists, and they are increasingly focused on debunking science while seeking the protection of conservative governments, such as those led by Morrison and U.S. President Donald Trump.
China’s seaborne coal imports slide in October, but not by enough: Russell –(Reuters) – China’s seaborne coal imports slumped 19% in October from September, but the world’s biggest buyer of the polluting fuel is still on track to record an unwanted annual increase. Seaborne imports were 19.9 million tonnes in October, according to vessel-tracking and port data compiled by Refinitiv, down from September’s 24.5 million – the lowest monthly total of seaborne arrivals since February. That shows Beijing’s aim of limiting 2019 imports to the same level as those in 2018 is having some effect. But even with the drop in October imports, China is well on track to comfortably exceed 2018’s total of 281.2 million tonnes. Official customs data showed imports for the first nine months at 250.6 million tonnes, a gain of 9.5% over the same period in 2018. Add the October seaborne imports of 19.9 million tonnes, plus around 7 million tonnes more in overland arrivals from Mongolia and Russia, and it’s likely that imports for the first 10 months of the year will be around 277 million tonnes. Even if imports for November and December are severely curbed, it’s still likely that the 2019 total will exceed 300 million tonnes. Imports may even approach the annual record of 327.2 million tonnes from 2013. The rise in imports has been accompanied by increasing domestic output, with production totalling 2.74 billion tonnes in the first nine months of 2019, up 4.5% from the same period a year earlier. The robust coal import and domestic output data show just how difficult it is for an economy the size of China to wean itself off the fuel.
Nuclear bill coming due for JEA – The Plant Vogtle nuclear plant in Georgia is 230 miles away from Jacksonville, but the financial impact of the budget-busting plant keeps coming closer as JEA begins to assess how much Vogtle will drive up customers’ bills. The nuclear plant’s swollen price also hovers over JEA’s negotiations with bidders interested in buying the utility because its multi-billion dollar Vogtle obligation would need to be resolved if the city were to sell JEA. Plant Vogtle might not be a household name for JEA’s 478,000 electric customers because so far, JEA’s cost for purchasing power from the plant when Vogtle’s two units come online in 2021 and 2022 hasn’t shown up in monthly electric bills. JEA said last December it had a path forward to avoid rate increases through at least 2023, touting it as a “bold plan” that was achievable because of the utility’s financial strength. JEA officials now say they plan to start crunching numbers for Vogtle in the coming months with an eye toward possible rate increases in 2021 or 2022. “The reality is we’re looking down the barrel at some pretty substantial expense increases,” JEA CEO Aaron Zahn said at a recent board meeting. The initial analysis shows double-digit boosts in what customers will pay. JEA’s cost will rise sharply when the new nuclear units are finished in the next three years, said Ryan Wannemacher, chief financial officer for the utility. “As those go online, we’re going to have to look at rate adjustments at that time,” he said.
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