Environmental News For The Week Ending 23 February 2019

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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Note: Because of the high volume of news regarding the coronavirus outbreak, that news has been published separately:

• Coronavirus Disease News 22February 2020
• Coronavirus Economic News 22February 2020

Coronavirus Has Temporarily Reduced China’s CO2 Emissions By a Quarter As China battles one of the most serious virus epidemics of the century, the impacts on the country’s energy demand and emissions are only beginning to be felt. Electricity demand and industrial output remain far below their usual levels across a range of indicators, many of which are at their lowest two-week average in several years. These include:

• Coal use at power stations reporting daily data at a four-year low.
• Oil refinery operating rates in Shandong province at the lowest level since 2015.
• Output of key steel product lines at the lowest level for five years.
• Levels of NO2 air pollution over China down 36% on the same period last year.
• Domestic flights are down up to 70% compared to last month.

5 more flu-related deaths push total in Cuyahoga Co. to 14 – The total number of flu-related deaths in Cuyahoga County has jumped to 14, health officials said Friday. The latest five deaths were an 88-year-old Bay Village woman; an 94-year-old Chagrin Falls woman; an 83-year-old East Cleveland woman; a 62-year-old Seven Hills man and a 60-year-old Shaker Heights man. The deaths were reported during the week of Feb. 15. The number of flu-related deaths last season (2018-19) didn’t hit 14 until mid-April, according to the Cuyahoga County Board of Health statistics. Health officials do not release any additional personal information about flu victims, including whether or not they had received the flu vaccine. Summit and Medina counties did not have any flu-related deaths in the weeks of Jan. 26-Feb. 8, according to the latest report. This season’s influenza vaccine is 45% effective in protecting people from the virus, according to an interim report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s in line with many past flu vaccines, which had an estimated effectiveness rates of between 40% and 60%. And it’s a reasonable improvement over last season’s vaccine, which the CDC says was about 29% effective overall. Children enjoyed greater protection from this year’s flu shot, the CDC said, estimating that the vaccine offered 55% protection for those aged 6 months to 17 years. When researchers looked at the flu shot’s effectiveness in children against influenza type A and type B, they found that it was 50% effective against type B, but largely ineffective against type A in youth.

Weekly U.S. Influenza Surveillance Report | CDC — Key indicators that track flu activity remain high but decreased slightly this week. Indicators that track overall severity (hospitalizations and deaths) are not high at this point in the season. The percentage of respiratory specimens testing positive for influenza at clinical laboratories decreased from 30.3% last week to 29.6% this week. Numbers of influenza B/Victoria and A(H1N1)pdm09 viruses are approximately equal for the season overall, with continued increases in influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 viruses in recent weeks. Genetic and antigenic characterization and antiviral susceptibility of influenza viruses collected in the U.S. are summarized in this report. Illness Visits to health care providers for influenza-like illness (ILI) decreased from 6.7% last week to 6.1% this week. All regions remain above their baselines.

• Outpatient ILI and clinical laboratory data remain elevated but decreased slightly this week. The overall decrease in the percentage of specimens testing positive for influenza was due to a decrease in the percentage of specimens testing positive for influenza B. The percentage of specimens testing positive for influenza A continued to increase.
• Overall, hospitalization rates remain similar to this time during recent seasons, but rates among children and young adults are higher at this time than in recent seasons.
• Pneumonia and influenza mortality has been low, but 105 influenza-associated deaths in children have been reported so far this season.
• CDC estimates that so far this season there have been at least 29 million flu illnesses, 280,000 hospitalizations and 16,000 deaths from flu.
• Interim estimates of 2019-2020 flu vaccine effectiveness were released this week. So far this season, flu vaccines are reducing doctor’s visits for flu illness by 45% overall and 55% in children.
• Antiviral medications are an important adjunct to flu vaccine in the control of influenza. Almost all (>99%) of the influenza viruses tested this season are susceptible to the four FDA-approved influenza antiviral medications recommended for use in the U.S. this season.

Flu-related pediatric deaths top 100 nationwide, CDC says – Some 13 influenza-associated pediatric deaths were reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for the week ending Feb. 15, bringing the season’s total for such deaths to 105.The toll among children and adolescents under 18 is, other than for the 2009 pandemic, the largest number of such deaths at this point in the season since reporting began for the 2004-2005 season, the CDC has said.According to the CDC’s most recent weekly surveillance report, 10 of the 13 newly reported deaths were associated with influenza B viruses, which can cause more complications and fatalities in children. Influenza B has predominated for much of the season.Flu activity remains high and widespread across the country, including in Massachusetts, which has had one influenza-associated pediatric deaths so far this season. The CDC continues to recommend anyone 6 months and older get the annual vaccination against influenza. It updated its prediction that flu activity is likely to remain elevated into March. In its interim report released Thursday, based on data from the U.S. Influenza Vaccine Effectiveness Network, the CDC said this season’s flu shot is estimated to reduced a person’s overall risk of having to seek medical care at a doctor’s office for flu illness by 45%.

Chemotherapy For Cancer Could Soon Be Unviable Because of Superbugs – Cancer doctors fear superbugs which can’t be treated with antibiotics will soon remove chemotherapy as a treatment option for their patients, a survey has revealed. Cancer patients are more vulnerable to infections because the disease and its treatments can stop the immune system from working correctly. a close up of a hand holding a toy: A stock image shows packets of drugs.© Getty A stock image shows packets of drugs. Of the 100 oncologists in the U.K. surveyed between December 20, 2019 and February 3, 2020 by the Longitude Prize – which was established to tackle antimicrobial resistance in cancer care – 95 percent said they were worried about the effect superbugs could have on their patients. An estimated one in five cancer patients need antibiotics during their treatment, according to existing research cited by the authors of the report, and cancers including multiple myeloma and acute leukaemia can’t be treated without them. The survey revealed that 46 percent of doctors believe drug-resistant bugs will make chemotherapy unviable. Some cancer treatments, which the report didn’t name, will be obsolete in five years, 28 percent of the cancer doctors predicted. A further 39 percent forecast this would happen within the next decade, and 15 percent in two decades. Four in 10 (41 percent) said they had seen a rise in patients developing drug-resistant infections in the last year, with 23 percent of their cancer patients developing an infection during treatment on average.

Air pollution’s tiny particles may trigger nonfatal heart attacks, Yale study finds – Myocardial infarction is a major form of cardiovascular disease worldwide. Ultrafine particles (UFP) are 100 nanometers or smaller in size. In urban areas, automobile emissions are the primary source of UFP. The study in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives is believed to be the first epidemiological investigation of the effects of UFP exposure and heart attacks using the number of particles and the particle length and surface area concentrations at hourly intervals of exposure. “This study confirms something that has long been suspected–air pollution’s tiny particles can play a role in serious heart disease. This is particularly true within the first few hours of exposure,” said Kai Chen, Ph.D., assistant professor at Yale School of Public Health and the study’s first author. “Elevated levels of UFP are a serious public health concern.” UFP constitute a health risk due to their small size, large surface areas per unit of mass, and their ability to penetrate the cells and get into the blood system. “We were the first to demonstrate the effects of UFP on the health of asthmatics in an epidemiological study in the 1990s,” said Annette Peters, director of the Institute of Epidemiology at Helmholtz Center Munich and a co-author of this paper. “Since then approximately 200 additional studies have been published. However, epidemiological evidence remains inconsistent and insufficient to infer a causal relationship.”

Phthalates Exposure in Womb Linked to Autistic Traits in Boys – Exposure in the womb to a group of endocrine-disrupting chemicals called phthalates was associated with autism traits in boys (but not girls) between ages 3 and 4 years, according to a new study. However, fewer of these traits were observed in boys whose mothers took the recommended amount of folic acid during the first trimester, the findings suggest. “Very few studies looked at autism and its associated traits, with inconsistent findings. We tried to look at this question in a large sample from a Canadian cohort that was designed specifically to look at potential developmental effects of exposure to environmental chemicals,” lead author Youssef Oulhote, assistant professor of biostatistics and epidemiology at UMass Amherst’s School of Public Health & Health Sciences, told Healthline. Phthalates are commonly used in many products, including soap and cosmetics. Oulhote and team enrolled 2,001 Canadian women with an average age of 33 who were in their first trimester of pregnancy between 2008 and 2011. Less than 10 percent of the women reported regularly drinking or smoking during pregnancy.All the participants were recruited from the Maternal-Infant Research on Environmental Chemicals (MIREC), a longitudinal pregnancy cohort study conducted in Canada.Researchers collected information from questionnaires, medical charts, and maternal blood and urine specimens during pregnancy and at delivery.Concentrations of 11 phthalate monoester metabolites were measured in first trimester urine samples at the Toxicology Centre of the Quebec Institute of Public Health. “We had several limitations, the most important one being that these phthalates exposures may vary in time, and therefore future studies should consider this and try to measure these phthalates at multiple time points in pregnancy,” Oulhote said.

5 Biggest Pesticide Companies Are Making Billions From ‘Highly Hazardous’ Chemicals, Investigation Finds — Poor people in developing countries are far more likely to suffer from exposure to pesticides classified as having high hazard to human health or the environment, according to new data that Unearthed analyzed. The analysis shows that the world’s top five pesticide makers are making billions, accounting for more than 36 percent of their income, from chemicals that are proven to hazards to humans and the environment and are contributing to the precipitous demise of bee populations, as Unearthed reported.The researchers found that the sale of these highly hazardous pesticides (HHPs), disproportionately occurred in poorer nations, which often have fewer regulations than industrialized nations, according to The Guardian. In India, for example, sales of HHPs were nearly 60 percent, while in the UK it was just 11 percent. The report from the investigative team at Unearthed focused on the practices of Bayer, BASF, Corteva (formerly Dow and DuPont), FMC and Syngenta, which are continuing to sell HHPs like neonicotinoids and glufosinate that have been banned in other parts of the world, according to the produce industry publicationFresh Produce Journal. Unearthed dove into data collected by Phillips McDougall, the leading agribusiness analysts, from buyer surveys that concentrated on the best sellers in the top 43 pesticide buying countries, as The Guardian reported.While regulations have stopped the sale of certain pesticides in Europe, the U.S. and Canada, it has hardly slowed down chemical companies, which sold $4.8 billion worth of products containing HHPs in 2018, as The Guardian reported. Bayer called the analysis “misleading” but did not offer proof of that assessment.Since the investigation focused on just 43 countries, it covered less than half of the companies’ global sales. That suggests that the companies actually made billions more from pesticides that regulatory agencies have said pose hazards like acute poisoning or chronic illness in people, or high toxicity to bees and other wildlife,according to Unearthed. The investigation found that pesticide manufacturers sold the majority of its highly hazardous pesticide in low- and middle-income countries like Brazil and India, where experts say the risks posed by using these chemicals are greatest, according to Unearthed. The biggest market for HHPs were for corn and soya crops.

Bayer and BASF Ordered to Pay $265 Million to U.S. Peach Farmer in Weedkiller Suit – A jury in Missouri awarded a farmer $265 million in a lawsuit that claimed Bayer and BASF’s weedkiller destroyed his peach orchard, as Reuters reported. The lawsuit is ominous for Bayer, which bought Monsanto in 2018 and now faces nearly 140 similar lawsuits in U.S. courts, plus thousands of other suits that claim health damage from Monsanto’s glyphosate-based Roundup. The jury in U.S. District Court in Cape Girardeau, Missouri awarded peach farmer, Bill Bader, $15 million in actual damages and $250 million in punitive damages, after agreeing with his claim that a herbicide the two German companies produced drifted onto his orchard from nearby farms and irreparably damaged his 1,000 acre peach-tree orchard, according to Reuters. Bader Farms is one of the largest peach tree farms in Missouri. As the AP reported, Bader’s attorneys argued that dicamba, which is present in herbicides made by Bayer and BASF, is so potent that there was no way for Bader’s trees to recover from the exposure. The generous award paves the way for a large spate of lawsuits from farmers who have seen their crops destroyed by inadvertent exposure to dicamba-based products. Like Roundup, dicamba was developed and distributed by Monsanto. Farmers across the country have claimed that dicamba turns into vapor and drifts for miles when used in certain weather conditions, as Reuters reported. They have alleged that it has destroyed millions of acres of U.S. cropland, according to The Associated Press. Attorneys for Bayer said they plan to appeal the decision. “We want our customers to know that, as this legal matter continues, we remain steadfast in our commitment to delivering them the effective and sustainable tools they need in the field,” Bayer said in a statement, as The Associated Press reported. In court, they argued that Bader Farms trees were damaged by root fungus and bad weather.

Minnesota Will Pay Homeowners to Replace Lawns with Bee-Friendly Wildflowers, Clover and Native Grasses – Minnesota just allocated nearly a million dollars in incentives for people to transform their lawns into bee-friendly wildflowers, clover and native grasses.The state is asking citizens to stop spraying herbicide, stop mowing so often, and let their lawns re-wild into a more natural state.The goal is to provide “food sources for pollinators of all kinds, but will specifically aim at saving the rusty patched bumblebee, a fat and fuzzy species on the brink of extinction that seems to be making its final stand in the cities of the Upper Midwest,” the Star Tribune reports.Research has shown bumblebees are particularly important to the region, as they vibrate at frequency that unlocks pollen other insects can’t reach.The loss of native prairies and forests across the country has made pollinators more dependent on urban and suburban lawn flowers, says James Wolfin, a bee habitat researcher at University of Minnesota.His research has focused on “bee lawns” – grassy yards interspersed with small flowers such as Dutch white clover, creeping thyme, self heal, ground plum and dandelions.The flowers make excellent food source for bees, while being cheap to plant and easy maintain.“A pound of Dutch white clover is about $7 and it grows low enough that people wouldn’t even have to change the way they mow their lawn,” Wolfin told the Star Tribune.Around 55 of Minnesota’s 350 bee species depend on white clover alone, he notes.“So just by not treating white clover like a weed and letting it grow in a yard provides a really powerful resource for nearly 20% of the bee species in the state,” Wolfin said.

Hive heists: why the next threat to bees is organized crime – Mike Potts was aware he was at risk of being a victim of crime, he just didn’t think it would happen to him. But Potts is an owner of an increasingly valuable commodity that thieves are targeting with growing sophistication in the US: bees. A booming demand for honeybees for pollination drew Potts, owner of Pottsy’s Pollination in Oregon, to load 400 hives of his bees on trucks and drive them down to California’s agricultural heartland last month. He unloaded them to a holding area just outside Yuba City and returned just a few days later to find 92 hives had been whisked away by thieves. “I pulled in the yard and noticed that there was some stuff missing,” said Potts, who estimated the theft cost him $44,000. Police subsequently pulled over three suspicious beekeepers traveling late at night, to no avail. “I’ve heard that there had been some stealing but didn’t think it would happen to me. It’s frustrating because it’s getting harder and harder to keep bees alive. And then you transport them down and they just get taken.” The theft is the latest in a string of beehive heists, often undertaken at the dead of night using forklifts and trucks. Hives are regularly split open or dismantled, interventions that can kill tens of thousands of the kidnapped bees. The problem has become severe enough in California that certain police officers now specialize in hive crime. “Hive theft has always been an issue but it has definitely increased over the last eight years,” said Rowdy Freeman, a Butte county police officer who is commonly referred to as “bee theft detective”. Freeman has compiled figures showing there was an explosion in California hive thefts in 2016, with 1,695 being taken, compared with 101 in 2015. In 2017, the figure was 1,048 hives.

Europe’s Anti-Science Plague Descends On Africa – European activists are putting lives at risk in East Africa, turning a plague of insects into a real prospect of widespread famine. The fast-breeding desert locust has invaded Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia, creating a state of emergency. The pests recently landed in Djibouti, Eritrea, Oman and Yemen. Swarms have also struck Tanzania and Uganda. They won’t stop on their own. According to the Food Agriculture Organization (FAO), “this is the worst situation in 25 years.” These beasts consume every plant in their path, leaving behind devastated croplands and pastures, and can migrate up to 150km in a day. They’ve already covered a million hectares in Kenya, with no signs of slowing down. The human toll is staggering. Twenty-five million people have been left hungry, by Oxfam’s estimate.Yet, instead of rallying around African nations in this time of great peril, more EU-funded NGOs have descended on the Kenyan parliament to demand that the government disarm itself in the battle against locusts. They want the Kenyan government to outlaw the pesticides used to fight locusts, the only effective tool that can stop these insects, and prevent the crisis from spiraling out of control.According to experts, a pesticide like fenitrothion will play a key role in eliminating locusts in Kenya and other African countries. Properly applied, it can thwart the desert locust swarms. But Kenya lacks the supplies it desperately needs. “The pesticide fenitrothion is very effective. It kills locusts within forty minutes to six hours of spraying,” says Salad Tutana, the Chair of Northern Kenya Locust Control Coordination team. Mr. Salad says they are experiencing a shortage of fenitrothion, but that fresh supplies of the pesticide have recently arrived from Japan.More planes are needed for spraying. Currently, there are only five planes being used to spray the available insecticides.Kenya has already set aside $2.5 million to combat locusts through spraying, but this is hardly enough as the situation continues to worsen. The U.N. FAO agreed to contribute $70 million to the spraying effort, but thus far only $15 million has made its way to the region.

Bald Eagles Are Still Dying From Lead Poisoning – America’s national bird is threatened by hunters. Not that hunters are taking aim at the iconic bald eagle, but bald eagles are dying after eating lead bullets, as CNN reported. The Cape Fear Raptor Center, North Carolina’s largest eagle rehab facility, has recently treated seven eagles for lead poisoning, executive director Dr. Joni Shimp told CNN. The center also said that 80 percent of the eagles it has had to euthanize since November were because of lead poisoning. Similarly, officials from the Hatteras Island Wildlife Rehabilitation in North Carolina said that 70 to 80 percent of the eagles they treat have high levels of lead in their system, and the effects are devastating,according to WTKR in North Carolina and coastal Virginia. “The bird is lethargic, it’s limp, it may have vision problems, staggering, legs not working correctly,” explained Lou Browning of Hatteras Island Wildlife Rehabilitation to WTKR. As CNN explained, hunters use lead bullets to kill deer and other animals. When the eagles feast upon the dead animals, they are indirectly exposed to toxic levels of lead. “Hunters in no way, shape or form intentionally try to kill an eagle, vulture or any other species,” Shimp said to CNN. “If the deer isn’t killed immediately and runs and the hunter can’t find the deer, the eagles and vultures find it and ingest the lead.” Shimp also explained some of the neurological problems that result from lead exposure to eagles. She told CNN that the eagles will show a “lack of judgment when flying across roadways, the inability to take flight quickly resulting in being hit by cars, seizures and death.” “It’s often said a piece of lead the size of a grain of rice is enough to take down an eagle,” Doug Hitchcox, a naturalist from Maine Audubon, said. Maine had five cases of eagles dying from lead poisoning in January alone, according to NECN in New England.

Plastic Watch: Congress Considers Bill to Impose Extended Producer Responsibility, AKA ‘You Break It, You Buy It’ -Jerri-Lynn Scofield –Senator Tom Udall and Representative Alan Lowenthal introduced on 11 February the Break Free from Plastic Pollution Act, legislation that imposes responsibility for disposing of plastic waste onto producers, and which encouragingly, has attracted strong opposition from the plastic industry.First up, I want to flag a recent grist article, which highlights the looming threat: Big Oil’s plan to ramp up American plastic production, Big Oil’s Plan B is already in the pipeline: More plastic. We’re engaged in a giant game of whack-a-mole, where the industry has huge incentives to find new uses for plastic, to replace any types that get banned or curtailed. Under the current system, the producer players book the profit for plastic products and the government – and society more generally – either pays to clean up, or drowns under, the increased waste.The US plastic recycling system is notoriously inefficient, more a massive exercise in virtue signalling than an effective waste management system. Only 8% of plastic waste is currently recycled, with the rest incinerated landfilled or shipped overseas to places even less able to process it, according to EcoWatch, Groundbreaking Legislation Would Help U.S. ‘Break Free From Plastic’. The world recycling system has broken down, ever since China elected not to accept any more plastic imports beginning in 2018. Since then, the recycling systems of many developing countries have been overwhelmed by plastic waste imports, and others have followed China’s lead, including recently, Malaysia. In January, China banned many types of single use plastic, to be implemented over five years (see Plastics Watch: China to Ban Single-Use Plastics, Malaysia Rejects Waste Shipments). Now, even if recycling rates were a perfect 100%, we should not use that fact as carte blanche for producing plastic. First, most plastic is currently made from fossil fuels. We simply cannot continue to use fossil fuels in this way. A 2019 report from the Center for International Environmental Law found the emissions in 2019 from the production and incineration of plastic to be more than 850 million metric tons of greenhouse gases – equal to the emissions from 189 five-hundred- megawatt coal power plants. By 2050, this figure is expected to more than triple, to the equivalent of 615 such plants. Second, any system that deals with plastic by recycling, especially if shipments to other countries are involved, also unnecessarily consumes fossil fuels.

More Plastic Is On the Way: What It Means for Climate Change — With the recent fracking boom causing low gas prices, fossil fuel companies are seeking other ways to bolster their profits – by making more plastic. Just as the world is starting to address its enormous plastic pollution problem, these companies are doubling down on plastic, with huge potential consequences for climate and the environment. The over-abundance of natural gas has resulted in the lowest gas prices since 2016. Consequently, some fossil fuel companies are being forced to shut down drilling rigs and file for bankruptcy protection. Big companies like Exxon Mobil, Shell and Saudi Aramco, which see signs of a coming decline in fossil fuel use, are compensating for the low prices by investing in plastic production, since plastics are made from oil, gas and their byproducts. As a result, the World Economic Forum expects plastic production to double by 2040. Natural gas contains ethane, which is a building block of plastic. Because the U.S. has extracted so much ethane with its natural gas, over $200 billion have been invested into 333 new chemical and plastics projects, as of the end of 2019. Judith Enck, former regional EPA director and a founder of Beyond Plastics, has said that 2020 is a critical year because many of the new plastic production facilities in the U.S. are in the permitting process; “If even a quarter of these ethane cracking facilities are built,” she said, “it’s locking us into a plastic future that is going to be hard to recover from.” One analyst from the data and analytics firm IHS Markit said that unless plastic production is slowed down, “they’ll just find something else to wrap in plastic.” To make plastic, companies separate ethane from the natural gas mixture and convey it in liquid form via pipeline to an “ethane cracker,” a large industrial plant that uses intense heat to crack or break apart ethane molecules. These molecules then reform into ethylene, a basic building block of the petrochemical industry that is used to make resins, adhesives, chemicals, and plastics. In the process, ethane crackers can emit pollutants such as nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide and particulate matter, as well as benzene, which is carcinogenic, and volatile organic compounds that can react with sunlight to form ground-level ozone. The United States already produces around 40 percent of the world’s ethane-based petrochemicals and is the largest exporter of ethane, selling to Norway, the U.K., and Scotland, and to China and India, where plastic demand is rising. The Department of Energy (DOE) expects that by 2025, the eastern U.S., including Appalachia, will be producing 20 times more ethane than it did in 2013. In 2018, DOE published a report about the potential for Appalachia to become a new “ethane hub” because of its Marcellus and Utica shale resources, and the Trump administration is touting the plastics and petrochemical industry as the next big thing for the region.

U.S. Products Labeled Recyclable Really Aren’t, Greenpeace Report Says — Just because that plastic item you rinsed out and placed in your blue bin says it is recyclable doesn’t mean it actually is.A new Greenpeace report released Tuesday found many examples of companies putting misleading labels on products that could not actually be processed by most U.S. material recovery facilities (MRFs).”Retailers and consumer goods companies across the country are frequently putting labels on their products that mislead the public and harm America’s recycling systems,” Greenpeace USA Oceans Campaign Director John Hocevar said in a press release. “Instead of getting serious about moving away from single-use plastic, corporations are hiding behind the pretense that their throwaway packaging is recyclable. We know now that this is untrue. The jig is up.” Greenpeace surveyed the U.S.’s 367 MRFs and found that they can only really process two types of plastic:

1. PET #1
2. HDPE #2 bottles and jugs

These two plastic types are reliably recyclable because there is high demand for them and because U.S. facilities have the capacity to process them. But plastics labeled #3 to #7 cannot reliably be called recyclable, the report found. Only 14 percent of the facilities surveyed accepted plastic clamshells, only 11 percent accepted plastic cups, only four percent accepted plastic bags and only one percent accepted straws, cutlery and stirrers, The Hill reported. In addition, plastic shrink wrap added to #1 and #2 plastics can render them unrecyclable, Greenpeace said. “[O]ur findings show that many items commonly found in beach cleanups – cups, bags, trays, plates and cutlery – are not recyclable. In America’s municipal recycling system, they are contaminants,” Jan Dell, the founder of the Last Beach Cleanup and the leader of Greenpeace’s survey team, told The Guardian. Yet despite this, Greenpeace found that several popular brands including Target, Nestlé, Danone, Walmart, Procter & Gamble, Clorox, Aldi, SC Johnson and Unilever had sold products with misleading labels. Greenpeace has asked the companies to correct their labelling. If they do not, the organization will file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

Washington State to Ban Bottled Water Operations – Bottled water manufacturers looking to capture cool, mountain water from Washington’s Cascade Mountains may have to look elsewhere after the state senate passed a bill banning new water permits, as The Guardianreported.The state, with its glacier-fed springs and rainforests, will become the first state in the country to put a total ban on new bottling operations looking to plunder the state’s natural resources. The proposal is one of several in the works in Washington to protect local groundwater and to fend off the growing bottled-water industry, as the Tribune News Service reported.The bill, once signed into law, will go into effect retroactively and apply to all new permits filed after Jan. 1, 2019, according to The Guardian. “Washington State is carving the path towards a groundbreaking solution,” said Mary Grant, the director of Food & Water Action’s public water for all campaign, in a statement, as The Guardian reported. “This legislation … would ban one of the worst corporate water abuses – the extraction of local water supplies in plastic bottles shipped out of watersheds and around the country.” Across the country, local activists have warned that bottling companies are taking their water almost for free and then shipping it elsewhere, leaving local aquifers depleted. “I was jolted to the core to realize the depth and breadth and magnitude of how they have lawyered up in these small towns to take advantage of water rights,” said Washington state Sen. Reuven Carlyle, who sponsored the bill to ban bottling companies from extracting groundwater, as the Tribune News Service reported. “The fact that we have incredibly loose, if virtually nonexistent, policy guidelines around this is shocking and a categorical failure.”

Trump signs order diverting water to California farmers against state wishes — President Trump on Wednesday signed an order in California to re-engineer the state’s water plans, completing a campaign promise to funnel water from the north to a thirsty agriculture industry and growing population further south. The ceremonial order comes after the Department of the Interior late last year reversed its opinion on scientific findings that for a decade extended endangered species protections to various types of fish – a review that had been spurred by the order from Trump. Trump said the changes to the “outdated scientific research and biological opinions” would now help direct “as much water as possible, which will be a magnificent amount, a massive amount of water for the use of California farmers and ranchers.” “A major obstacle to providing water for the region’s farmers has now been totally eliminated by the federal government,” Trump said Wednesday in Bakersfield, Calif., flanked by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), as well as Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, who helped shepherd the changes to the state’s water policy. Trump’s order comes as the state has taken several steps to deal with the water scarcity that has lasted for decades. “It would be different if you had a drought,” Trump claimed, despite concerns the state may be headed into another drought. “You don’t have a drought. You have tremendous amounts of water.” The state is expected to fight the order. “California won’t allow the Trump Administration to destroy and deplete our natural resources,” California Attorney General Xavier Becerra (D) said in a statement after the speech. “We’re prepared to challenge the Trump Administration’s harmful attack on our state’s critical ecosystems and environment.” Critics fear the new plan, which would allow large quantities of water to be diverted from the San Francisco Bay Delta to the Central Valley in order to irrigate farmland, would ultimately harm chinook salmon and the delta smelt, a finger-sized fish that for three decades has stood in the way of the diversion.

Dry February sends California back to drought: ‘This hasn’t happened in 150 years’ – San Francisco and Sacramento have not seen a drop of rain this February, and climate scientists are expecting that disturbing dry trend to hold, in what is typically one of the wettest months of the year for California. “This hasn’t happened in 150 years or more,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. “There have even been a couple wildfires – which is definitely not something you typically hear about in the middle of winter.” Combined with warmer than average temperatures, the state is parched, and there is no moisture in the forecasts. “The dryness has picked up as the season has gone on,” said Swain. The year began with snowpack at 90% of its historical average. But less than two dry, warm months later, it’s hanging in at just 52% of average. “Those numbers are going to continue to go down,” said Swain. “I would guess that the 1 March number is going to be less than 50%.” That snow isn’t just the basis for the mountain tourism industry in the winter – it serves as a significant source of water for California cities and agriculture come spring melt. Last year’s snowpack at this time was more than 125% of average, an indicator of what Swain calls “precipitation whiplash”. California has long weathered these wet and dry cycles. The state’s future in the climate crisis looks warmer and drier not because of a lack of rain, but because of the extra heat drawing moisture out of the ecosystem. That heat is a major contributor to reduced snowpack, both as less snow falls, and as more of it melts more quickly. Climate science points to a California bound for a future that looks less like endless extreme drought alone. “We aren’t going to necessarily see less rain, it’s just that that rain goes less far. That’s a future where the flood risk extends, with bigger wetter storms in a warming world,” said Swain.

Fort Lauderdale is facing a $1.8 million fine after 206 million gallons of sewage was discharged into the city’s waterways – Over the last two and a half months, more than 206 million gallons of toxic sewage has spilled into Fort Lauderdale waterways. That’s the equivalent of 312 Olympic-sized swimming pools. And now, the state of Florida is saying enough is enough. It has slapped Fort Lauderdale with a $1.8 million fine that the city is expected to pay by March 31, according to a letter sent to the city and obtained by CNN. The issue first began in December 2019. Since then, the city’s aging sewer pipes broke and discharged raw sewage seven times into multiple neighborhoods and tourist destinations. The most recent spill was on January 30 when millions of gallons of sewage began spouting out of the pipes buried under Fort Lauderdale’s George English Park, home to the city’s famed George English Lake. “All the fish are dead there,” Fort Lauderdale fisherman Jeff Maggio told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. “Everything’s just gone. Crabs, oysters, barnacles and plankton. Crews have been out there picking up hundreds of fish out of the water so it doesn’t look like holy hell. Manatees are swimming in that poison.” Fort Lauderdale’s sewer main system is 50 years old.

‘Historic, unprecedented’ flooding swamps southern USA; Mississippi and Tennessee hardest hit – Weeks of heavy rain have inundated a large portion of the southern U.S., bringing near-record flooding to portions of Mississippi and Tennessee. In Jackson, Mississippi, hundreds of residents either watched their homes flood over the weekend or worried their residence would soon be drenched as the Pearl River crested Monday at 36.8 feet, its third-highest level ever recorded – behind only 1979 and 1983. Calling the Jackson floods “historic” and “unprecedented,” Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves said in a Sunday press conference that “we do not anticipate this situation to end anytime soon. It will be days before we are out of the woods and the waters recede.” Reeves said at a news conference Monday that there were no reports of flood-related injuries and thanked the people of Mississippi for heeding evacuation orders. Only 16 search and rescue missions were necessary, he said, even though as many as 1,000 homes were flooded. The governor also warned the hundreds of evacuees in the Jackson area not to rush back home until they got the all clear. The flooding is the result of a stubbornly damp weather pattern: February has seen “a constant stream of wet storms rolling across the Deep South,” said AccuWeather meteorologist Paul Walker, who called it a “crazy month” for the amount of rain that’s fallen across the region. More wet weather is on the way: Rain showers were forecast to develop Monday night over the Mississippi River Valley, further saturating an already soggy South, the Weather Channel said.The National Weather Service said that this entire area is quite soaked and any additional rainfall may lead to more runoff issues and additional flooding.

“This Thing Isn’t Over Yet”: Officials Warn Flooding in Mississippi and Tennessee to Continue – As rainfall burst the banks of rivers across the two states, officials in Mississippi and Tennessee warned residents they are still in the path of more flooding as rain continues to hammer the soaked American South. “We have rain coming in between Sunday and Wednesday,” said Rankin County, Mississippi emergency management director Mike Word. “The water is coming. It’s just slower than they said. We don’t want the general public to lower their concern because this thing isn’t over yet.” Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves declared a state of emergency due to the flooding on Saturday. Jackson, just to the west of Rankin County, has been hit hard by flooding from the Pearl River, which reached its third-highest mark in recorded history Sunday morning. Further north, in Tennessee’s Hardin County, floodwaters spilled over roadways and houses were swept away by swollen rivers. “Spring flooding is already underway in the South,” said climate journalist Eric Holthaus. “It’s February.” “We are in a climate emergency,” he added. There are 10 million people in the South under flood warnings, according to NBC News. Though the flood waters are expected to recede quickly after the current storm system clears out, those waters will present their own dangers. The damage from the flooding could be catastrophic, Jackson resident Nate Greentold MSN. “One of the reasons people come and live down here is because they want to be close to the woods, close to the river, so they can ride four wheelers, hike, do that kind of stuff and this is part of what you pay,” said Green. “It’s going to be financially crushing to a lot of people.”

US Operational Weather Prediction Is Crippled By Inadequate Computer Resources – U.S. global numerical weather prediction has now fallen into fourth place, with national and regional prediction capabilities a shadow of what they could be.There are several reasons for these lagging numerical weather prediction capabilities, including lack of strategic planning, inadequate cooperation between the research and operational communities, and too many sub-optimal prediction efforts. But there is another reason of equal importance: a profound lack of computer resources dedicated to numerical weather prediction, both for operations and research. The bottom line: U.S. operational numerical weather prediction resources used by the National Weather Service must be increased 10 times to catch up with leading efforts around the world and 100 times to reach state of the science. Why does the National Weather Service require very large computer resources to provide the nation with world-leading weather prediction? Immense computer resources are required for modern numerical weather prediction. For example, NOAA/NWS TODAY is responsible for running:

• A global atmospheric model (the GFS/FV-3) running at 13-km resolution out to 384 hours.
• Global ensembles (GEFS) of many (21 forecasts) forecasts at 35 km resolution
• The high-resolution Rapid Refresh and RAP models out 36 h.
• The atmosphere/ocean Climate Forecast System model out 9 month.s
• The National Water Model (combined WRF and hydrological modeling)
• Hurricane models during the season
• Reanalysis runs (rerunning past decades to provide calibration information)
• Running the North American mesoscale model (NAM)
• Running the Short-Range Ensemble Forecast System (SREF)

This is not a comprehensive list. And then there is the need for research runs to support development of the next generation systems. As suggested by the world-leading European Center for Medium Range Weather Prediction, research computer resources should be at least five times greater than the operational requirements to be effective.

Here We Go Again – The Waterways Journal – Long-range flood outlooks issued by the NWS’s North Central and Missouri Basin River Forecast Centers said there is an above-average chance of widespread flooding this spring along stretches of the Mississippi River, Missouri River, Red River [of the north] and other tributaries in the northern and central U.S. The flood potential for this spring is “well above normal” for the Upper Mississippi River drainage area. There is a persistent 50 percent or greater chance of major flooding along the Mississippi River down to Lock and Dam 19, and the same chance of moderate flooding from Lock and Dam 19 to St. Louis. An extremely wet autumn – 300 percent above normal precipitation in some areas – and super-saturated soils from the upper Midwest to the Lower Mississippi and Tennessee River valleys means there’s no absorption left. 2019 was the wettest year on record in five Midwestern states: Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin. 2019 was among the 10 wettest years in almost every state in the Mississippi, Missouri and Ohio valleys. From Montana to the Southeast, soil moisture measurements are currently among the highest on record for mid-February. Rivers are still running high and above flood stage in some areas. Reservoirs are full, and some are still releasing 2019’s captured floodwaters. Unlike last year, the Ohio River basin also has a higher risk of flooding, along with the Tennessee River valley. In the upper Midwest, parts of the wet soil froze during a dry and cold November, and a later covering of snow insulated them from thawing. All this means any increase in rainfall will trigger immediate flooding. A brief warm spell in January and February has already produced ice jams and localized flooding along some tributaries of the Upper Mississippi. Along the Upper Mississippi, 49 gauges show a greater than 50 percent long-range risk of major flooding, and another 56 gauges show a greater than 50 percent of moderate flooding.

Racial Inequalities in Housing Extend to Flood Buyout Programs – Government buyouts of flood-damaged homes disproportionately benefit whiter, wealthier communities, even as low-income and minority homeowners are more likely to participate in such programs, according to new research from Rice University.In a nationwide analysis of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, researchers found that buyout programs both create and reflect historical discriminatory practices, even if the implementing agencies comply with anti-discrimination laws.The phenomenon is especially prevalent in urban areas and is an unintended outcome of other discriminatory housing practices like mortgage redlining and renter refusal based on race or other factors, the researchers found.“Basically, our analysis tries to follow the demographic trail,” said Jim Elliott, professor and chair of sociology at Rice and a fellow at the university’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research. “What we found is [buyouts are] not randomly distributed among neighborhoods and racial groups. Buyouts are about housing, and housing is a socialized asset” affected by race and other socioeconomic factors.“Cities have neighborhoods forged through long histories of racial segregation that live on to create unequal access to opportunities in good times and bad, as well as in ways that can accumulate across multiple of steps of housing transactions, even when the buyer is a government agency,” according to the study published in the sociology journal Socius. “Although sometimes blurry in practice and opaque in process, these steps matter because they allow racial inequities to enter at multiple points that can accumulate in unintended ways.”

Storm Dennis: Second massive storm in two weeks hits North Atlantic and Western Europe – One of the strongest storms in modern history is pummeling the North Atlantic and western Europe with massive waves and hurricane force winds. The system’s name is Dennis and it comes less than a week after storm Ciara helped power a British Airways flight to a new trans-Atlantic speed record over 800 mph. Dennis is massive, spanning more than 3,000 miles in width from eastern Canada to Scandinavia. The behemoth’s pressure dropped to 920 millibars near Iceland this weekend, on par with the most intense hurricanes including Hurricane Maria in 2017 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The lower the millibars – a measure of atmospheric pressure – the stronger the storm, and Dennis’ barometric pressure is just 7 millibars short of the record-strongest North Atlantic non-tropical storm from 1993. Storm Dennis will create another quick-moving jet stream one week after several flights broke transatlantic flight time records thanks to a boost from a storm-enhanced jet stream. On Friday and Saturday, wind gusts in Iceland reached well over hurricane force, clocking in at an astounding 256 km/hr, or 159 mph. The storm has since weakened, but is still raking Scotland and Ireland with gusts up to 75 mph along with torrential rains and intense street flooding. All weekend, average wave heights in the North Atlantic ranged from 40 to 60 feet, with rogue waves easily topping 100 feet.

As Extreme Weather Turns Deadly in UK, Climate Activists Are Forced to Cancel Meeting – Britain has been battered by back-to-back major storms in consecutive weekends, which flooded streets, submerged rail lines, and canceled flights. The most recent storm, Dennis, forced a group of young climate activists to cancel their first ever national conference, as CBS News reported. “There’s a bleak irony in our being beaten back by climate change,” 15-year-old Sophia Coningham from London said in a statement released by the UK Student Climate Network via Greenpeace UK, as CBS Newsreported. “We are now living in an age of climate storms – where the most extreme weather of the last century is becoming the norm in this one.” On Tuesday, CBS News reported that storm Dennis had turned deadly: One woman is believed to have died in the flooding caused by Dennis, the second major storm to hit the United Kingdom in two weeks. Two men reportedly drowned in the ocean as high winds churned up huge waves over the weekend, and another man was killed after falling into a river in Wales, Britain’s LBC radio news reported. The UK Student Climate Network had scheduled Sunday’s event to take place in Strattfordshire in the middle of England. However, police advised the group to cancel the event since travel to and from the event was unsafe, according to the Independent. The group said that heavy rain made the roads impassable. “This kind of last-minute cancellation is particularly difficult for young people without the financial resources to travel across the country whenever we choose,” Conningham said, as the Independent reported. “We are now living in an age of climate storms – where the most extreme weather of the last century is becoming the norm in this one.” “This is an emergency that’s now being felt across the world – from Staffordshire to Sri Lanka,” she added. CBS News reported that the UK government’s Environment Agency had issued a record 634 flood warnings on Sunday alone. More than 200 flood warnings remain in place across the UK, including nine severe – or “danger to life” – warnings, as the BBC reported.

Storm Dennis washes abandoned ghost ship onto rocks off Co Cork – A pollution control team has been deployed to east Cork after a ghost ship washed up onto rocks after drifting across the Atlantic over the last year.Locals in Ballycotton alerted the Irish Coast Guard Marine Rescue Co-ordination Centre at Valentia at about 1.15pm when they spotted the freighter driven high on to rocks at Ballyandreane during Storm Dennis.According to the Coast Guard, the vessel is the MV Alta, a 77-metre freighter that has been derelict since the US coast guard rescued the 10-man crew from the vessel in October 2018.The ship had been en route from Greece to Haiti but became disabled and had been drifting for almost 20 days when the crew radioed for help after their food and water supplies began to run low. The crew was taken off the vessel about 2,220km southeast of Bermuda in October 2018 but since then the ship has continued to drift being driven eastwards by the prevailing winds.The Royal Navy ice patrol ship, HMS Protector came across the abandoned vessel off Africa on August 30th 2019 as it sailed towards the Bahamas to assist with hurricane relief efforts. The Royal Navy attempted to make contact with the ship but received no response and it now appears it continued to drift before coming to lodge on the rocks at Ballycotton. According to the Coast Guard, it is continuing to monitor the vessel amid fears it may pose a pollution risk from its fuel tanks if it breaks up on the rocks due to stormy seas.

Dan Loeb’s Luxury Yacht Slams Into The Most Remarkable Reef In The West Indies Near Belize – Loeb’s yacht damaged what is being called a “pristine reef” near the famous Great Blue Hole outside of Belize, according to Bloomberg. Loeb’s 200 foot yacht was filmed last Sunday anchored at Belize’s Lighthouse Reef Atoll. Spokespeople say Loeb was not on the yacht at the time and the Financial Times has reported there will be an official investigation. A spokesperson for Belize’s department of the environment said Loeb’s yacht caused the damage: “Samadhi on Sunday lowered the anchor in a very sensitive area of Belize. Officers are doing an investigation. We know that damage was done,” the spokesperson to FT. Loeb responded:“As a life-long surfer and someone who loves the ocean, I was horrified to hear about this incident in Belize. We promptly contacted the Belize Audubon Society (a conservation group) and are committed to working together to restore the reef.” Loeb acquired his super-yacht back in 2013 from former Citigroup CEO Sandy Weill. It’s offered as for charter on several websites for about $360,000 per week.The yacht was on a charter trip at the time when its anchor was dragged through the coral. According to Bloomberg, the barrier reef outside of Belize “is a Unesco World Heritage site and the largest of its kind in the northern hemisphere.” It was once called “the most remarkable reef in the West Indies” by Charles Darwin.

‘The Great Barrier Reef is on a Knife Edge’: Reef Faces Third Major Bleaching Event in Five Years — Rains have only recently started dousing the historic wildfires that killed more than one billion animals on land. Now, scientists and environmentalists are warning that the Great Barrier Reef could see its third major coral bleaching event in five years if ocean temperatures remain high for the next two weeks, The Guardian reported Thursday. “The Great Barrier Reef is on a knife edge,” head of oceans at WWF-Australia Richard Leck told The Guardian. ‘We will know in the next couple of weeks whether we now have a mass coral bleaching event for the third time in only five years.” Scientists with the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority have already found “significant bleaching” at three reefs in the far north, the authority’s chief scientist David Wachenfeld told The Sydney Morning Herald. Wachenfeld said the reefs in the north were relatively protected from most human activity, but not from the rising of ocean temperatures caused by the climate crisis. Coral bleaching occurs when corals expel the algae that give them their color and nutrients in response to heat stress. Back-to-back bleaching events in 2016 and 2017 killed as many as half of the corals in the reef. Currently, temperatures across the reef are around two to three degrees Celsius above normal, and summer temperatures do not usually peak until mid March, professor Terry Hughes, director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University, told The Guardian. What happens will ultimately depend on the “vagaries of the weather,” he said. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has placed the reef on Alert Level 1 for the next seven days, which means a significant bleaching event is likely, ABC News reported. However, the agency’s Coral Reef Watch also forecast that the bleaching would not be as intense as the bleaching in 2016 and 2017.

Coral Reefs Could Be Completely Lost to the Climate Crisis by 2100, New Study Finds – Researchers released a sobering study this week showing that all of the world’s coral reefs may be lost to theclimate crisis by 2100.The bleak outlook means that restoration efforts will face Herculean challenges, according to the research presented by researchers at this week’s Ocean Sciences Meeting 2020 in San Diego, California.Rising sea temperatures, acidic water and pollution are proving too much for the reefs to handle. About 70 to 90 percent of the world’s existing coral reefs are predicted to disappear in the next two decades, according to scientists from the University of Hawaii Manoa, as CNN reported.”By 2100, it’s looking quite grim,” said Renee Setter, a biogeographer at the University of Hawaii Manoa in astatement.While pollution poses a large threat to many ocean creatures, corals seem most at risk from emissions, according to the researchers.”Trying to clean up the beaches is great and trying to combat pollution is fantastic. We need to continue those efforts,” Setter said in a statement. “But at the end of the day, fighting climate change is really what we need to be advocating for in order to protect corals and avoid compounded stressors.”To make their predictions, the scientists mimicked future ocean conditions like sea surface temperature, wave energy, acidity, pollution and overfishing in areas where corals are today. Looking at those models, the scientists found that most parts of the ocean will not sustain habitats for corals by 2045, and almost no suitable habitats will exist by 2100, according to CBS News.”Honestly, most sites are out,” said Setter in the statement. Coral reefs nurture about 25 percent of marine life and support local economies worldwide. As CBS Newsnoted, the new research is disheartening for efforts to restore corals by growing them in labs and then putting them back into the ocean. While those efforts have had a 60 percent success rate, the research suggests that lab-grown corals will not stand up to warming oceans and increased acidification.

Video: half a million mussels cooked to death at a New Zealand beach – Hundreds of thousands of mussels cooked to death in New Zealand due to rising temperatures in New Zealand’s oceans. New Zealand resident Brandon Ferguson posted a video on Facebook from Maunganui Bluff Beach, located on the country’s North Island, showing hundreds-of-thousands of dead mussels that had washed up on the shore. Ferguson told Business Insider that he happened upon the sight while out with friends and family last week. We waited for the tide to turn so we could gather mussels.” But instead, Ferguson saw hundreds of thousands of green-lipped mussels that had turned up dead. “It smelled like dead rotting seafood,” “There were well over 500,000 mussels and shells littering the coastline.” Ferguson said that he had witnessed this type of event on the same beach in the past, with different types of shellfish washing up dead along the shores. He blamed rising temperatures and warming sea waters for the phenomena. A 2019 report from the New Zealand government supports Ferguson’s theory – climate change has been warming sea temperatures, devastating the country’s native marine plants, animals and habitats. According to the report, between 1981 and 2018, overall sea-surface temperatures across New Zealand’s four oceanic regions, including Chatham Rise, the Tasman Sea, subtropical, and subantarctic increased between 0.1 and 0.2 degrees Celsius per decade. New Zealand’s Secretary for the Environment Vicky Robertson explained that the warmer the water gets, the less able it is to absorb greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, which have been increasingly released into the atmosphere and have a strong impact on climate change.

Sea Ice Loss Is Making Polar Bears Thinner, and They’re Having Fewer Cubs – The climate crisis wreaks havoc on animals and plants that have trouble adapting to global heating andextreme weather. Some of the most obvious examples are at the far reaches of the planet, as bees disappear from Canada, penguin populations plummet in the Antarctic, and now polar bears in the Arcticare struggling from sea ice loss, according to a new study, as CNN reported.In the study, published in Ecological Applications, researchers found that polar bears are losing weight and having fewer babies because their habitat is under threat. The scientists from the University of Washington found that polar bears are spending more time on land than in previous decades, as Oceanographic Magazine reported.Polar bears rely on sea ice for every aspect of their survival. They use sea ice to hunt seals, travel, build dens and mate. As ice begins to melt earlier in the year, the polar bears have less time for eating and having babies, as CNN reported. The intentional research team looked at satellite tracking and visual monitoring of polar bears in the 1990s and compared them with more recent years. The team focused on the area around Baffin Bay, a large expanse of water between northeastern Canada and Greenland.Laidre and her team tracked female polar bears and gauged their litter size and general health in two different periods – the 1990s and from 2009 to 2015, according to a press release from the University of Washington. The satellite tracking tags showed the researchers that the polar bears averaged 30 more days on land in the period from 2009 to 2015 than they did in the 1990s. In the 90s, the bears averaged 60 days on land. More recently, it has been 90 days, as Oceanographic Magazine reported.

French ski resort angers ecologists by using helicopters to transport snow – A French ski resort has angered ecologists by using helicopters to transfer snow to its lower slopes after a mild winter left them devoid of the white stuff. “Using helicopters to bring snow to ski resorts is not an option,” said the Minister of Ecological Transition Élisabeth Borne on Sunday. “It’s a question of putting a quick stop to it. It’s not possible to repeat such a highly polluting operation,” one of Borne’s advisers told AFP. Officials at the Luchon-Superbagnères ski resort in the Pyrenees made the decision on Friday to transport the snow from higher up the mountains to the lower slopes used by beginners and ski schools. It took two and a half hours to transport some 50 tonnes of snow at a cost of between €5,000 to €6,000, said Hervé Pouanu, the director of the local council in France’s southwest. Pounau said the resort expected to recoup at least ten times the cost of the operation from the business that would have been lost from the lack of snow. Pounau acknowledged the operation was not “very eco-friendly” but explained that it was an “exceptional move”. “We have no intention of doing it again. We didn’t have a choice this time,” said Pounau, adding that the operation would enable between 50 and 80 people – resort and hotel staff – to work through the holidays.

Permafrost is thawing so fast it’s gouging holes in the Arctic – Residents of the small Alaskan town Kongiganak can no longer bury their dead. Their cemetery has become a marshy swamp, sucking graves into the once frozen ground.On the island of Sarichef near the Bering Strait, the village of Shishmaref is shrinking so fastlocals are considering relocating it entirely.Global warming has shown that permafrost is not so permanent after all. And as it begins to melt, it is reshaping the Arctic. The rapidly thawing ice layer is creating great sinkholes and hollows across the region as the ground begins to collapse in on itself. Erosion and landslides have become a problem without the ice that once held the soil together. Permafrost – any area of land that remains frozen for at least two years – can vary from less than a metre thick to more than 1,500 metres. Some of it is tens of thousands of years old.In some areas, it is simply frozen rock. But in other parts, soils and organic matter have acted like a sponge and taken in water which has subsequently frozen. As ice, water takes up a larger volume than its liquid form, but once melted, great pits are created in the land.But the problem extends beyond an increasingly pock-marked landscape.Scientists have known for years that melting permafrost will release greenhouse gases stored within and under it, creating a climate change feedback loop with the potential to warm our planet even faster. Rather than acting as a carbon sink, permafrost becomes a source of emissions. But the abrupt melting of the permafrost layer in some places, caused by warmer polar temperatures, could mean far more carbon is released than previously estimated, according to a new study in Nature Geoscience.Less than one-fifth of the permafrost zone is likely to see this abrupt thawing, but its impact on the surrounding landscape means up to half of permafrost carbon could be affected. Existing climate change models are based on gradual thawing of the permafrost layer caused by seasonal temperature fluctuations and fail to take into account the impact of more rapid thawing. This means we need to put in place measures to counteract human-induced emissions more quickly than we thought.

Antarctica Melts Under Its Hottest Days on Record – On February 6, 2020, weather stations recorded the hottest temperature on record for Antarctica. Thermometers at the Esperanza Base on the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula reached 18.3°C (64.9°F) – around the same temperature as Los Angeles that day. The warm spell caused widespread melting on nearby glaciers. The warm temperatures arrived on February 5 and continued until February 13, 2020. The images above show melting on the ice cap of Eagle Island and were acquired by theOperational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8 on February 4 and February 13, 2020. The heat is apparent on the map below, which shows temperatures across the Antarctic Peninsula on February 9, 2020. The map was derived from the Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS) model, and represents air temperatures at 2 meters (about 6.5 feet) above the ground. The darkest red areas are where the model shows temperatures surpassing 10°C (50°F). Mauri Pelto, a glaciologist at Nichols College observed that during the warming event, around 1.5 square kilometers (0.9 square miles) of snowpack became saturated with meltwater (shown in blue above). According to climate models, Eagle Island experienced peak melt – 30 millimeters (1 inch) – on February 6. In total, snowpack on Eagle Island melted 106 millimeters (4 inches) from February 6- February 11. About 20 percent of seasonal snow accumulation in the region melted in this one event on Eagle Island. He also used satellite images to detect widespread surface melting nearby on Boydell Glacier. The warm temperatures of February 2020 were caused by a combination of meteorological elements. A ridge of high pressure was centered over Cape Horn at the beginning of the month, and it allowed warm temperatures to build. Typically, the peninsula is shielded from warm air masses by the Southern Hemisphere westerlies, a band of strong winds that circle the continent. However, the westerlies were in a weakened state, which allowed the extra-tropical warm air to cross the Southern Ocean and reach the ice sheet. Sea surface temperatures in the area were also higher than average by about 2-3°C.

In Warren, planning for rising sea levels – – If the accelerating pace of sea-level rise requires a retreat from the Rhode Island coast sometime in the future, its beginnings will be found on a narrow residential street that ends at the Warren River.Here, at the terminus of Bridge Street within view of Narragansett Bay, the river’s brackish waters lap at the leading edge of asphalt, which is hidden by the dead plants and other wrack left behind by the last high tide.“The asphalt is eroding,” said Wenley Ferguson, director of habitat restoration for Save The Bay. “There are probably chunks of it in the intertidal zone.”Rhode Island has seen as much as 10 inches of sea level rise in less than a century and the rate is picking up. By some estimates from federal scientists, levels could rise another 10 feet or more by 2100 as polar ice melts, ocean currents slow, and waters continue to warm and expand.With more and more regularity, tides are pushing waters onto Bridge Street. During moon and other extreme high tides, the flooding can reach 10 feet or more up the gently-sloping street.And so the town sees no point in trying to maintain the section of roadway closest to the water that floods most often. Instead, it plans to dig out about 16 feet of asphalt and replace one side with a native garden and the other with water-permeable paving leading down to a new boat ramp. “We’re seeing more flooding,” said Bob Rulli, Warren’s director of planning and development. “Doing nothing is not an option.”

Gov. Edwards’ plan to combat sea level rise in Louisiana? It starts with greenhouse gas emissions – Gov. John Bel Edwards announced Thursday that his administration plans to embark on an ambitious expansion of coastal restoration and flood protection efforts that for the first time will target greenhouse gas emissions by Louisiana industry as a way of reducing future sea level rise. “Louisiana will not just accept or adapt to climate change impacts,” said Edwards, flanked by top aides, during a news conference at the LSU Center for River Studies in Baton Rouge. “Louisiana will do its part to address climate change. “Science tells us that rising sea level will become the biggest challenge we face, threatening to overwhelm our best efforts to protect and restore our coast. Science also tells us that sea level rise is being driven by global greenhouse gas emissions.” While such statements might attract scant notice if they were uttered by a governor of another state, Edwards’ speech marked the first time a Louisiana governor had announced such intentions. In parts of Louisiana’s ‘Cancer Alley,’ toxic emissions set to rise with a raft of new plants Special report: In parts of Louisiana’s ‘Cancer Alley,’ toxic emissions set to rise with a raft of new plants The energy and petrochemical sectors have great sway over Louisiana’s economy – and over what happens in the halls of the state Capitol – so the new direction Edwards signaled comes with some political peril. On the other hand, Edwards was recently re-elected to a second term and he is barred from seeking a third, making the gesture less risky. Notably, too, Edwards offered few specifics about how aggressive a line he would take towards reducing emissions, and he praised Louisiana industry and stressed its centrality to the state and national economy. The governor said his effort will include a new Climate Initiatives Task Force that will come up with “next steps” for the state to take. “We are not announcing targets today, or metrics, and we are certainly not starting with a series of regulations,” he said.

Student climate change protests across the UK – On the first anniversary of climate change protests in the UK, young people again took to the streets in towns and cities across the country last Friday, joining similar protests around the globe. Thousands participated in over 100 UK demonstrations. Some 3,000 protests were held worldwide in 150 countries. A section of the protest in Mancheter’s St Peter’s Square In London’s Parliament Square, school and university students protested against the lack of government action to reverse the climate disaster. Some carried banners declaring: “Roses are red, violets are blue, our Earth is burning and soon we will too” and “Planet over Profits.” The protests stretched the length and breadth of the country, including Scotland’s largest city, Glasgow. In Aberdeen, students staged a “die-in” outside the university library. In the South-West, there were demonstrations in Plymouth and Bristol, as well as in smaller towns such as Bideford and Barnstaple. In Stroud, the protest led to delays on the busy A419 motorway. In Cambridge, those protesting wore red and orange to symbolise the Australian fires as they listened to music and speeches outside King’s College. Hundreds demonstrated in Oxford. In Yorkshire, the climate change protest in Leeds shut down several roads as over 300, including many school students, marched through the city centre. A similar number gathered in Sheffield. Environmental organisations such as Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and Extinction Rebellion, as well as the Green party, were present at many of the demonstrations. A handful of trade union banners could be seen.

Floods Force U.K. Climate Strikers to Cancel First Gathering – Young climate protesters in the U.K. have been forced to cancel their first national conference following serious flooding and heavy rainstorms on two successive weekends. The conference was expected to take place from Sunday to Wednesday, but flooding in Staffordshire in England’s west midlands region made the venue unaccessible. Police advised against the meeting going ahead, according to a statement from the U.K. Student Climate Network. “The fingerprints of climate change are all over Storms Ciara and Dennis,” said Simon Lewis, professor of global change science at University College London. Winter storms aren’t new in the U.K., but climate models predict that, with rising average temperatures, the country will experience wetter winters. Storm Ciara hit the island nation last weekend, and Storm Dennis has battered its shores this weekend. On Sunday, the Met Office issued its first red alert linked to rainfall in almost two years. England had 480 flood warnings in place on Monday – a record. The youth activists, who have organized a series of strikes in the past, such as those organized by Greta Thunberg’s global Fridays for Future movement, were meeting to exchange lessons and improve the effectiveness of future strikes.

‘Done Playing by the Rules,’ 20 Sunrise Activists Arrested at Capitol Protest Demanding Lawmakers Back Green New Deal — Twenty teenagers were arrested Monday at the U.S. Capitol as they took part in a Sunrise Movement action demanding senators back the Green New Deal. Those arrested, which included one 13-year-old, according to Sunrise, were part of larger climate action by more than 150 middle- and high-schoolers calling for the lawmakers to “step up or step aside.” “Instead of leaving our classrooms for our day off, we are bringing our classroom to the capitol because our government is failing to protect our generation, and we’re terrified,” said 17-year-old John Paul Mejia of Miami. Video shared on the group’s social media pages showed activists chanting “Which side are you on?” and holding “report cards” giving non-Green New Deal backers an F-. At least two participants took to the floor of lobby to give speeches about the importance of urgent climate action by lawmakers before police came and demanded they leave. A large group left and continued their protest outside Union Station while a smaller group remained and was ultimately escorted away by police. Evan Weber, who heads political strategy for Sunrise, said that it was “Sad that this is what young people have to do to make our voices heard.” Don’t expect the climate group to let up anytime soon. Among their upcoming agenda items are three consecutive days of “massive srikes” set to begin Earth Day, April 22. “It’s only going to get worse unless thousands take action and force those in power to listen to our generation.” – Selene Santiago-Lopez”We’re done playing by the rules,” declared 18-year-old Selene Santiago-Lopez of Wake Forest, N.C., who was among those arrested Monday, in a press statement. “Our entire lives, we’ve seen politicians failing our generation and our communities. People are dying, I’m terrified about what my future will look like, and it’s only going to get worse unless thousands take action and force those in power to listen to our generation. That’s exactly what we’re going to do.”

Green New Deal and R.I. Climate Efforts Lack Color – – Four of the six people sitting at a table near the front door of a busy coffee shop politely pointed out the inadequacies of the Green New Deal and the country’s timid efforts to address a centuries-old system that continues to marginalize people of color.The affable quartet noted that indigenous people like them have been largely shut out of efforts, both locally and nationally, to address the climate crisis and the connected issue of economic inequality.“The smartest person in the room needs to get out of the room,” said Bella Noka, a Rhode Island resident and Narragansett Indian Tribe member. “We need to listen to the child in the corner. We need to listen to everybody.” The Green New Deal makes a lone mention of indigenous people, but, according to Cristina Cabrera, a member of the Pocasset Wampanoag Tribe of the Pokanoket Nation, few, if any, helped craft the document and few have been asked for their thoughts on the issues it addresses. She noted that efforts at the local level to decarbonize don’t include indigenous people.Cabrera said climate and social policy are being increasingly shaped by corporations and the politicians they help elect, which creates a revolving door of corporate interests in government. She noted that corporations enjoy the status of personhood but Mother Earth does not. She said these influences are visible in the Green New Deal. “Corporations continue to extract, mine, dump, and trash, and net-zero formulas and taxing carbon aren’t going to stop the destruction,” the Rhode Island activist and Uruguay native said. “Corporations will capitalize on the solutions. The culture needs to change. We need a celebration of culture, not extraction.”

Extinction Rebellion Targets Commodity Traders in Geneva — Scores of climate change protesters from a Swiss branch of the Extinction Rebellion campaign group staged protests against commodity houses in Geneva, occupying the office of Vitol Group, the biggest independent oil trader. About 50 protesters breached the offices of Vitol near the Hotel des Bergues in Geneva on Monday, where they used tape to create human outlines on the ground resembling a murder scene. The actions show that disruptive climate activists are now looking beyond crude producers and to the role of commodity traders in buying, transporting, storing and selling fossil fuels. Vitol handles more than 7 million barrels of oil a day and Switzerland is a hub for the industry, with more than 500 firms based there. Dominic Bourg, a spokesman for Extinction Rebellion Lausanne, said the group targeted Vitol both because of its clout as one of the world’s biggest hydrocarbon traders and its ongoing legal problems in developing countries. “If we can imagine a company is a devil, we’ve got a lovely one here,” Bourg said. In a statement, a Vitol spokeswoman said the company “recognizes the need for the energy mix to evolve over time and is already investing in renewable and alternative energy projects. We engage with a range of stakeholders on these matters, and will continue to engage in constructive and informed dialog.” Protesters also visited the exterior of energy trader Gunvor Group’s offices on Rue du Rhone, Geneva’s priciest shopping street, where they constructed another crime scene with taped human outlines and fake blood. “Switzerland is one of the biggest commodity trading hubs and most people don’t know this because they are operating in darkness,” said Sara, an Extinction Rebellion protester, who declined to give her last name.

Climate activists would be better off buying BP — This week climate activists targeted the front lawn of Trinity College Cambridge to draw attention to the university’s fossil fuel investments, which in their minds should be divested immediately. They also targeted the offices of oil trading companies in Geneva on the basis that they “contribute to climate disruption.” The logic behind both protests is flawed. Take the issue of divestment. Even the most environmentally-committed financiers tend to agree divestment is not a sound strategy to achieve global climate change objectives. Selling an asset doesn’t eradicate the problem at hand. In many cases it just makes the asset more affordable to a new group of opportunistically-minded investors, who may be less concerned about the environment than the old lot.Back in 2015, FT Alphaville moderated a panel at the Paris Climate Finance Day precisely about this matter. It was entitled “How can institutional investors bring their portfolios into line with 2 degrees C?”That was five years ago. Even then, panelists agreed divestment wasn’t necessarily the solution. They preferred to back shareholder activism focused on using votes to influence corporate leadership to transform their business models in line with climate policy targets. Putting your money where your mouth is is sometimes what really counts. Buyingmore fossil fuel investments rather than fewer can ironically be more effective. After all, only then can you buy the companies out and put them under new management inclined to favour clean energy over the fossil sort.The opposite action, on the other hand, risks turning fossil-fuel assets into extremely cashflow-positive dividend stocks, a la tobacco stocks. These remain a no-brainer buy for yield-hungry investors with a penchant for risk-free investing for a reason. Some might argue: Ah! but divestment increases the cost of capital for bad actors, and this can eliminate their businesses by rendering them bust.But this logic doesn’t necessarily apply to highly profitable cashflow-generating assets which operate in an environment where demand for their core product — cheap energy — is still increasing year-on-year.If removing legitimate financing from bad actors (operating in highly profitable businesses) really worked, then those dealing in illegal narcotics would have long gone bust by now and the drug problem would be no more. Economic embargoes, meanwhile, would have created world peace. And funding for lending would have saved our economy. None of this has happened because the reality is, if a business is worth doing, somebody somewhere will finance it. That applies to fossil fuel as much as it does to narcotics.

Jeff Bezos Pledges $10 Billion to Fight the Climate Crisis – Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos just pledged $10 billion to fight the climate crisis. The world’s richest man announced his Bezos Earth Fund in an Instagram post Monday. “Climate change is the biggest threat to our planet,” he wrote. “I want to work alongside others both to amplify known ways and to explore new ways of fighting the devastating impact of climate change on this planet we all share.” Jeff Bezos on Instagram: “Today, I’m thrilled to announce I am launching the Bezos Earth Fund.⁣⁣⁣ ⁣⁣⁣ Climate change is the biggest threat to our planet. I want to…” The fund will donate money to scientists, activists and non-governmental organizations working to protect the environment and will begin issuing grants this summer. The announcement is a departure for Bezos, who has historically not chosen to direct his wealth towards philanthropy, according to The New York Times. Indeed, he is the only U.S. citizen among the world’s five richest people who has not signed the Giving Pledge to give away more than half his fortune during his life or in his will, Business Insider reported. His $10 billion donation now accounts for around 7.7 percent of his net worth of $130 billion, but even if he gave the whole amount away right now, he would still be the richest man on Earth, The New York Times pointed out. Still, his new fund is the third largest charitable pledge by an individual donor, CNN reported. His foray into philanthropy comes after about a year of climate activism on the part of Amazon employees seeking to push the company in a more Earth-friendly direction. Amazon emitted 44.4 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2018, according to its own figures released in September and reported by The New York Times.

Amazon’s Bezos pledges $10 billion to climate change fight – (Reuters) – Amazon Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos will commit $10 billion to fund scientists, activists, nonprofits and other groups fighting to protect the environment and counter the effects of climate change, he said on Monday. Cutting emissions will be challenging for Amazon. The e-commerce company delivers 10 billion items a year, has a massive transportation and data center footprint, and has faced criticism from within its own workforce. Bezos, the world’s richest man, is among a growing list of billionaires to dedicate substantial funds to battling the impact of global warming. “Climate change is the biggest threat to our planet,” Bezos said in an Instagram post. “I want to work alongside others both to amplify known ways and to explore new ways of fighting the devastating impact of climate change on this planet we all share.” The Bezos Earth Fund will begin issuing grants this summer as part of the initiative. “It’s going to take collective action from big companies, small companies, nation states, global organizations, and individuals,” Bezos said. Counteracting climate change has become a popular cause for U.S. billionaires in recent years, with Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg and hedge fund manager Tom Steyer counted among the world’s wealthiest environmental philanthropists. ⁣⁣⁣ Last year, Bezos pledged to make online retailer Amazon net carbon neutral by 2040 – the first major corporation to announce such a goal – and to buy 100,000 electric delivery vehicles from U.S. vehicle design and manufacturing startup Rivian Automotive LLC. Bezos also said at the time that Amazon would meet the goals of the Paris climate accord 10 years ahead of the accord’s schedule and invest $100 million to restore forests and wetlands.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos launches $10 billion climate change fund – Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, the world’s wealthiest individual, announced on Monday that he is creating a $10 billion charitable fund with his own money to address climate change which will start issuing grants as soon as this summer. In an Instagram post that included a photo of the Earth, the Amazon founder wrote that he was creating the Bezos Earth Fund “to work alongside others both to amplify known ways and to explore new ways of fighting the devastating impact of climate change on this planet we all share.” Bezos also said that the fund would be a “global initiative” that would provide resources to “scientists, activists, NGOs – any effort that offers a real possibility to help preserve and protect the natural world.” He concluded, “We can save Earth. It’s going to take collective action from big companies, small companies, nation states, global organizations, and individuals.” The $10 billion in philanthropy represents less than eight percent of Bezos’s estimated $130 billion net worth. In the world of billionaire charitable giving, the Amazon CEO would jump to third place behind Warren Buffet, who gave $36 billion to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2006, and Helen R. Walton, who provided $16.4 billion to the Walton Family Foundation in 2007. While there are many questions about the Bezos Earth Fund and how it will operate, one thing is abundantly clear: a significant portion of the $10 billion fund, if not all of it, will be subsidized by the US tax code. Therefore, Bezos’s charitable “global initiative” is in reality a massive American tax shelter that will drain critical government funding.

BP to be “Net Zero:” Unpacking the Oil Major’s Announcement – On February 12, 2020, the new CEO of BP made a major announcement. Bernard Looney declared that the oil & gas major would achieve net-zero carbon emissions in all its operations by 2050. He also promised BP would achieve net-zero emissions in all its products by the same date. “The world’s carbon budget is finite and running out fast,” said Looney. “We need a rapid transition to net zero.” Looney followed up the announcement with a statement on his Instagram account. “Simply put, we have to change,” he wrote. “We want to change. And we will change.”The company currently produces 3.7 million bpd, holds 19 billion in proven reserves, and turns out 11.9 million tons of petrochemical products. Net emissions from operations total 55 million tons of CO2 equivalent (MteCO2e) while products emit 360 MteCO2e. To accomplish the feat of net-zero emissions, Looney proposes a re-organization of BP’s entire corporate structure – away from the standard “upstream and downstream” division towards a four-part divisional system focused on Productions & Operations, Customers & Products, Gas & Low Carbon Energy, and Innovation & Engineering.While details remain sketchy, Looney has promised a market day in September, where BP will set out its long-term strategy.The slow rollout of the BP plan has led some to speculate that this may be a public relations move. It is reminiscent of BP’s “Beyond Petroleum” campaign, launched in 2000 and meant to rebrand the company as environmentally friendly.Nor is it unique to BP. Shell famously declared itself to be a gas company first and foremost, following its purchase of BG Group in 2016. It’s becoming fashionable for major corporations to adopt environmentally-friendly PR strategies. Net-zero promises have become very common. And the fine-print in BP’s declaration leaves quite a lot of room for interpretation.

“The Human Race Could Go Extinct”: JPMorgan Fearmongers Climate Change Impact In Leaked Report – A new explosive report from JP Morgan was leaked out this week titled “Risky business: the climate and the macroeconomy” warns climate change poses a significant macroeconomic risk to the world economy and could result in a “catastrophic” event. “The response to climate change should be motivated not only by central estimates of outcomes but also by the likelihood of extreme events (from the tails of the probability distribution). We cannot rule out catastrophic outcomes where human life as we know it is threatened,” the report advised its top clients. JPM’s David Mackie and Jessica Murray, the authors of the report, said: “climate change would not only impact GDP and welfare directly but would also have indirect effects via morbidity, mortality, famine, water stress, conflict, and migration.” They said the impact of climate had been underestimated by governments, adding: “Something will have to change at some point if the human race is going to survive.” A “global carbon tax should be introduced immediately” to curb climate change and prevent an epic meltdown of the global economy, the economists warned. JPM has so far been reserved in their language about climate change. Still, the new report offers some insight into fearmongering by the investment bank of how global warming could crash the economy, and how a carte blanch approach is needed to solve the crisis. The so-called climate crisis is a guise for the introduction of green bonds, unlimited fiscal deficits, and MMT, a move that would be orchestrated by central banks, governments, and financial elites to fire up the printing presses once more. Financial elites have already crafted a narrative for the average bloke, that governments need to fight climate change immediately through spending vast amounts of money for a green transformation of the economy, or risk economic implosion and loss of life. So the illusionary emergency of climate change is nothing more than fearmongering by financial elites who understand that after decades of money printing via central banks risks a global reset in financial assets, and the only way to solve this upcoming crisis is to create another crisis, called the climate change crisis, to trick everyone into believing more money printing is needed to save the world from rising temperatures (but really more money printing shore up financial assets in hopes the everything bubble doesn’t implode in the next recession). And if you care to read JPM’s leaked report, here it is:

How to roast the planet with good intentions: The Climate Equity Act – I have suggested (here and here) that idealism is leading progressives astray. Unfortunately, climate policy offers many examples. Consider the Climate Equity Act of 2019. The CEA was, I believe, the first concrete piece of legislation proposed as part of the Green New Deal. Unfortunately, it illustrates several of the problems with progressive idealism. The CEA is moralistic rather than strategic. It does not take policy analysis seriously; it assumes that Congress can simply write a law requiring justice and that justice will magically appear. In practice, the CEA will do little to promote justice, but it will put a powerful weapon in the hands of opponents of a clean energy transition.The purpose of the CEA is to ensure all people a right to a healthful environment, and to address systemic environmental injustices and inequities. To achieve these goals, the CEA imposes extensive procedural and analysis requirements on federal rules that affect “frontline communities”, which the act defines as low income communities, indigenous communities, communities of color, deindustrialized communities, vulnerable elderly communities, unhoused populations, people with disabilities, and communities dependent on fossil fuel industries. Protecting frontline communities is a worthy goal. However, the federal rulemaking process is already too cumbersome to address a problem like climate change, which will require rapid, economy-wide changes. The CEA will make the problems with the federal rulemaking process much worse. The CEA 1) requires agencies to engage in a comprehensive review of proposed rules and possible alternatives to proposed rules that minimize negative economic, environmental, and health consequences on frontline communities, or maximize benefits to these communities, 2) fails to specify a clear standard for agencies to use when evaluating alternative rules, and does not explain how conflicts between or within frontline communities should be resolved by government agencies, and 3) gives members of any aggrieved frontline community the right to judicial review, including the right to block enforcement of agency rules.If progressives care about preventing climate change, this is insane. Requiring agencies to evaluate multiple options using vague standards and giving a wide array of groups easy access to the courts will turn the CEA into a powerful weapon against all federal rulemaking, including rules that are essential for stopping climate change.

Coronavirus Has Temporarily Reduced China’s CO2 Emissions By a Quarter – As China battles one of the most serious virus epidemics of the century, the impacts on the country’s energy demand and emissions are only beginning to be felt.Electricity demand and industrial output remain far below their usual levels across a range of indicators, many of which are at their lowest two-week average in several years. These include:

• Coal use at power stations reporting daily data at a four-year low.
• Oil refinery operating rates in Shandong province at the lowest level since 2015.
• Output of key steel product lines at the lowest level for five years.
• Levels of NO2 air pollution over China down 36% on the same period last year.
• Domestic flights are down up to 70% compared to last month.

All told, the measures to contain coronavirus have resulted in reductions of 15% to 40% in output across key industrial sectors. This is likely to have wiped out a quarter or more of the country’s CO2 emissions over the past two weeks, the period when activity would normally have resumed after the Chinese new-year holiday. (See methodology below.) Over the same period in 2019, China released around 400m tonnes of CO2 (MtCO2), meaning the virus could have cut global emissions by 100MtCO2 to date. The key question is whether the impacts are sustained, or if they will be offset – or even reversed – by the government response to the crisis.Initial analysis from the International Energy Agency (IEA) and Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) suggests the repercussions of the outbreak could shave up to half a percent off global oil demand in January-September this year. However, the Chinese government’s coming stimulus measures in response to the disruption could outweigh these shorter-term impacts on energy and emissions, as it did after the global financial crisis and the 2015 domestic economic downturn.

Trump’s plan to plant a trillion saplings misses the forest for the trees – Donald Trump, it turns out, is a fan of trees. A big fan. Such a fan, in fact, that at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, late last month, the president announced that the United States will join the One Trillion Tree Initiative, an international plan to plant and restore a trillion trees globally by 2050. Doing so, he said, illustrated the country’s commitment to “conserving the majesty of God’s creation and the natural beauty of our world.” Two weeks later, he again touted the project in his State of the Union speech. These were odd statements and an even odder policy shift from a man who has pushed for drilling and logging in millions of acres of Alaska’s Tongass National Forest, the United States’ largest national forest; shrunk national monuments; and proposed slashing funding for environmental agencies. In a way, experts tell me, Trump’s apparent commitment to the World Economic Forum’s One Trillion Tree Initiative is welcome news. Trees pull carbon from the atmosphere, lead to better air and water quality, increase property values, and, some studies show, may even reduce crime. But while we all love trees, a plan to plant a trillion of them is nowhere near sufficient in addressing climate change. So if this is Trump’s plan to address the global climate crisis, it’s a complete cop-out. “This needs to be, must be, part of a much broader suite of actions,” says Rachel Cleetus, policy director with the Climate and Energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “It’s going to be a drop in the bucket unless we actually are taking ambitious, aggressive near-term efforts to also cut CO2 emissions from our fossil fuel use.”Basically, planting trees without cutting emissions is like trying to clean up a major oil spill without stopping the leak first. It makes zero sense.

German Court Rules Tesla Must Stop Cutting Down Local Forest To Make Room For Its Gigafactory – A German court ruled this week that Elon Musk must halt his plan to clear a forest near Berlin in order to build Tesla’s German Gigafactory. The court put the stay on Tesla while it considers challenges from environmentalists, according to Bloomberg. That’s right – Tesla was cutting down a forest to put up an EV factory – this is environmentalism in 2020. The court issued an injunction against further construction after it overturned a lower court’s ruling against environmental group Gruene Liga Brandenburg, who is looking to prevent Tesla from clearing the forest. The court is expected to render a final decision on the complaint in several days. Joerg Steinbach, spokesman for the regional government said: “Tesla and the local government have already filed their response to the complaint and are now relying on the prompt decision of the court.” The court order obviously could hinder Tesla’s proposed data to open the factory, which is mid 2020. When open, Musk says the factory would be able to produce 500,000 cars per year and employ 12,000 people. The factory is located right in the backyard of major German auto players like Volkswagen and BMW. Tesla has already cleared about “150 soccer fields” worth of forest and has been forced to relocate several species of animals, while also considering the breeding periods of local wildlife.

German court allows Tesla to keep chopping down trees at factory site – A German court has given Tesla a green light to continue chopping down trees at the site of its next factory after temporarily halting the work. The Higher Administrative Court of Berlin-Brandenburg on Thursday rejected environmental activists’ request to block the electric-car maker from clearing 91 hectares, or about 224 acres, of forested land for its so-called Gigafactory.The court said its decision in Tesla’s favor is final. The ruling came just four days after the court ordered Tesla to stop cutting down the trees so it could consider the advocates’ appeal.Environmental activists have argued the factory, where Tesla plans to produce about 500,000 cars a year, could threaten the area’s water supplies and wildlife. The factory site is in the municipality of Grünheide outside Berlin.CEO Elon Musk’s Silicon Valley-based company has pledged to address environmental concerns about the project by planting trees in an area three times the size of its factory plot and implementing “water-saving measures” in the plant. Tesla has also had to deal with several World War II bombs that were discovered at the factory plot.Tesla first announced plans in November to build its fourth Gigafactory in Germany. The the other three are in Sparks, Nevada; Buffalo, New York; and Shanghai, China, where the company started production last year.

Bernie Sanders Punk’d By Russians Posing As Greta Thunberg — Vladimir Kuznetsov and Alexey Stolyarov told A.P. News they fooled Sanders in an 11-minute call, all recorded and uploaded to YouTube on Friday. The call was allegedly recorded in early December, over a Skype interview with Stolyarov taking the role of Svante while an unknown woman pretends to be Greta. The imitators started with the possibility of “Greta” endorsing Sanders’ presidential campaign. “Let us continue to talk and when you come to the United States I will bring some people together and we can do some interesting things, and if you wanted to make a statement in support of my candidacy and the program we have outlined for climate change, I would be very very appreciative,” Sanders said. The pranksters then suggested that “Greta” would record a hip-hop song in support of Sanders together with singer Billie Eilish and rapper Kanye West. They said there would be luxury sports cars and hot women dancing while Sanders wears “gold jewelry.” The senator thought it was funny and laughed it off, but apparently, “Greta” was serious. Sanders said the best way for “Greta” to get involved with his campaign was to release a statement of support, along with, if she was in the U.S., could visit him on the campaign trail. The YouTube video is absolutely hilarious, until it all went downhill after “Greta” asked the Vermont senator about his 1988 visit to the Soviet Union. “In the Soviet Union in 1988, after you were recruited, you were programmed to work for Russia, and your memory was erased so the CIA wouldn’t track you down,” she said. “This is what you believe?” Sanders responded. “Yes, you became a sleeper agent of the KGB. Now it’s time to wake up and fulfill your mission, become president of the United States, build communism in the United States, and work for Russia!” And it was at that very moment, a little after ten minutes on the call, Sanders hung up after he realized he was punk’d.

Listen: A national climate policy or US energy dominance? (podcast) Even with the Democratic candidate still uncertain, this November’s US presidential election presents two distinctly divergent paths forward for global oil policy, David Goldwyn says on today’s Platts Capitol Crude podcast.Goldwyn, president of Goldwyn Global Strategies and chair of the Atlantic Council’s energy advisory group, says a Trump victory will allow the Trump administration to fully implement its plans to expand US oil and gas production and cut environmental regulations.A Democrat victory will lead to the launch of a national climate policy and strict new limits on energy infrastructure permitting and drilling on federal lands and waters.Oil policy could also swing November’s election, particularly in battleground states like Pennsylvania, Goldwyn says.Goldwyn is the co-author of the new report: “Election 2020: What’s at Stake for Energy.”

What Democrats said on energy – Former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg used his first appearance on the debate stage last night to boast about his role in the shutdown of coal-fired power plants and to call for enforcing rules to stop the release of methane from fracking. But the former mayor also echoed Sen. Amy Klobuchar by calling natural gas a transition fuel and pitching a piecemeal approach to fracking. (Klobuchar also pointed to plans to make the U.S. carbon neutral, saying “we’re not going to be able to pass this unless we bring people with us.”) “We’re not going to get rid of fracking for a while,” Bloomberg said last night. “… It is a technique. When it’s done poorly like they’re doing in too many places where the methane gets out into the air, it is very damaging. … We want to go to all renewables but that’s still many years from now.” Sen. Bernie Sanders meanwhile was asked about a recent New York Times report on whether a candidate who calls for a fracking ban can win in states like Pennsylvania. “What I tell these workers is that the scientists are telling us, if we don’t act incredibly boldly within the next six, seven years, there will be irreparable damage done,” Sanders said. The candidates also argued about how to get China to cut its carbon emissions. “You’re not going to go to war with them,” Bloomberg said. “… You have to convince the Chinese that it is in their interests as well. Their people will die just as our people will die, and we’ll work together.” Former South Bend, Ind. Mayor Pete Buttigieg shot back that he was “a little skeptical that convincing is going to do the trick when it comes to working with China,” because “America has repeatedly overestimated our ability to shape Chinese ambitions.” And, former Vice President Joe Biden called it “clear” that China is taking the dirtiest coal and spreading it around the world. He said last night he would “invite all the members of the Paris accord to Washington, D.C.,” if elected president. “They know me. I’m used to dealing with international relations. I will get them to up the ante,” he said. On China, Biden added that he would make it clear to the nation that, “If you continue, you will suffer severe consequences because the rest of the word will impose tariffs on everything you’re selling.” Sen. Elizabeth Warren was asked about her call to end new drilling and mining on public lands, and opened the door to exceptions for specific resources like lithium or copper. “If we need to make exceptions because there are specific minerals that we’ve got to have access to, we locate those and we do it not in a way that is just about the profits of giant industries, but in a way that is sustainable for the environment,” she said. The senator also brought up the issue of environmental justice, calling for it to get “more than a glancing blow in this debate. … We can’t simply talk about climate change in big global terms. We need to talk about it in terms of rescuing the communities that have been damaged,” she said.

EIA projects U.S. energy intensity to continue declining, but at a slower rate – (EIA) EIA’s recently released Annual Energy Outlook 2020 (AEO2020) projects that U.S. energy consumption will grow more slowly than gross domestic product (GDP) through 2050 as energy intensity continues its decades-long trend of decline through the AEO2020 forecast period. Energy intensity is a measure of how efficiently the economy uses energy to produce every dollar of GDP. In the AEO2020 Reference case, total U.S. energy consumption increases at an average annual rate of 0.3% between 2019 and 2050, and GDP grows at an annual rate of 1.9%, which indicates a 1.5% average annual decline in energy intensity during the projection period. By 2050, the domestic energy consumption associated with each dollar of U.S. economic growth is less than half of what it was in 2005. Although growth of energy consumption in the United States is closely tied to growth in GDP and other economic assumptions, it is partially offset by improvements in energy efficiency and other changes in the economy that result in lower energy use per unit of economic output. This trend does not differ much across the AEO2020 side cases that assume faster or slower rates of GDP growth. In the AEO2020 High Economic Growth case, both economic growth and energy consumption are higher than in the Reference case, but energy intensity still declines at 1.6% annually, close to the 1.5% annual decline in the Reference case. Similarly, in the Low Economic Growth case, energy intensity declines 1.4% annually. The U.S. industrial sector consumes more energy than any other sector, and its energy use grows faster than any other sector at an average annual rate of 0.8% through 2050 in the AEO2020 Reference case. Energy intensity in the U.S. industrial sector – measured as energy consumption per dollar of output – declines by 0.4% per year on average through 2050 in the Reference case, mainly because EIA expects less energy-intensive manufacturing industries to grow faster than more energy-intensive manufacturing industries. Energy consumed in the U.S. transportation sector declines by an average of 0.2% annually between 2019 and 2050 in the Reference case. Current fuel efficiency regulations require no additional improvements for new light-duty vehicles after 2025 nor for new heavy-duty vehicles after 2027. Ultimately, vehicle travel demand outpaces fuel economy improvements, and on-road transportation sector energy consumption increases starting in 2041. Beyond light- and heavy-duty vehicles, the energy intensity associated with other transportation modes such as rail, bus, and air travel also decline as energy-efficient technologies and practices are adopted. U.S. residential energy consumption growth is flat between 2019 and 2050, and commercial energy consumption growth averages 0.3% annually in the AEO2020 Reference case.

UK Airports Must Shut to Reach 2050 Climate Target, New Research Concludes — With the UK due to host this year’s round of crucial UN climate talks in Glasgow in November, a group of academics has embarrassed the British government by showing it has currently no chance of meeting its own legally binding target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to nothing within 30 years. Their report, Absolute Zero, published by the University of Cambridge, says no amount of government or public wishful thinking will hide the fact that the country will not reach zero emissions by 2050 without barely conceivable changes to policies, industrial processes and lifestyles. Its authors include colleagues from five other British universities. All are members of a group from UK Fires, a research program sponsored by the UK government, aiming to support a 20% cut in the country’s true emissions by 2050 by placing resource efficiency at the heart of its future industrial strategy. The report was paid for under the UK Fires program. As well as a temporary halt to flying, the report also says British people cannot go on driving heavier cars and turning up the heating in their homes. The government, industry and the public, it says, cannot continue to indulge themselves in these ways in the belief that new technologies will somehow save them – everyone will have to work together to change their way of life. Because electric or zero-emission aircraft cannot be developed in time, most British airports will need to close by the end of this decade, and all flying will have to stop by 2050 until non-polluting versions are available.

NEW YORK: Study refuels debate about power line CO2 emissions — Wednesday, February 19, 2020 — Increased imports of Canadian hydroelectricity could be a boon for the Northeast’s climate goals, despite widespread skepticism from environmentalists and power companies, according to a new working paper from Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers.

3 things Rep. Metcalfe’s one-sided hearing got wrong about RGGI | Opinion – The House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee’s Feb. 5 hearing was a colossal waste of time and taxpayer resources. Even worse, it spread false and deliberately misleading information about a proven approach to fighting climate change. There was no attempt to debate solutions in a fair and civil public forum. The hearing should have been an opportunity for an open discussion on Pennsylvania joining the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a cap-and-invest program that creates economic incentives for reducing carbon emissions from power plants. Gov. Tom Wolf announced that his administration would establish a Pennsylvania program designed to join the 10 other states in RGGI, but conservative lawmakers have introduced legislation to block that effort. Despite this meaningful policy disagreement, there was no debate about RGGI at the hearing. The Capital-Star called it “one-sided.” That’s being generous. It was a farce. In reality, it was a RGGI-bashing session led by coal industry execs and orchestrated by committee Chairman Daryl Metcalfe, R-Butler. As the Capital Star reported, Metcalfe invited a dozen anti-RGGI speakers. He invited zero RGGI supporters or anyone from the state agency actually tasked with evaluating and implementing the program. That’s right, not one single climate scientist, green energy industry representative or policymaker from states where RGGI is already working was invited to speak. It’s not possible to refute every false and misleading claim that came out of the hearing in one op-ed. But Commonwealth residents deserve to know the truth about a few critical facts when it comes to RGGI and the future of our environment. First, Governor Wolf’s administration has clear and considerable authority under existing law to join RGGI and adopt a program to control carbon pollution from power plants. The state Air Pollution Control Act delegates this power to the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), leaving RGGI opponents straining to argue that this market-based program somehow constitutes a “tax.” The second fact the public must understand is that we have more work to do beyond RGGI to reduce carbon emissions in Pennsylvania. S Finally, RGGI is a proven approach to addressing climate change. Several testifiers argued that curbed emissions here would simply pop up in other states that do not participate in RGGI, and Pennsylvania would become an importer of energy. These industry representatives don’t seem to understand that Pennsylvania can structure its program to mitigate emissions “leakage.”

US solar jobs have risen 167% since 2010, new data shows – The solar industry in the U.S. employed 249,983 people in 2019, a 2.3% increase compared to the previous year, according to The Solar Foundation’s “National Solar Jobs Census.” The 2019 numbers represent a small boon for the industry, which saw job losses in both 2017 and 2018. The numbers for 2018 and 2019 include data from Puerto Rico. In a statement Wednesday, The Solar Foundation, a nonprofit organization, said that jobs in the industry had grown by 167% since the publication of the first census for 2010. When it comes to jobs by state, California leads the way with 74,255 workers, although the Golden State did see a 3.4% drop in solar jobs compared to 2018. Overall, solar jobs grew in 31 states last year. Breaking the census down, the 249,983 figure refers to people who spent “the majority of their time on solar-related activities.” If people who spent “some portion of their time” on solar-related work are included, then the total number of workers grows to 344,532. “In just ten years, despite facing many challenges, solar has grown from a niche product to a mainstream energy source that provides a quarter of a million high-quality jobs,” Andrea Luecke, The Solar Foundation’s president and executive director, said in a statement. “This is great news, but it’s only a fraction of what can be accomplished if we are truly committed to solving the climate crisis and expanding the use of solar and storage,” Luecke added. “It’s past time for us to unite as a nation and create even more jobs by harnessing the power of the sun.” To put the solar figures in some sort of context, the American Wind Energy Association says it represents more than 114,000 jobs in the U.S. According to a 2017 report from PricewaterhouseCoopers, produced for the American Petroleum Institute, 10.3 million full and part-time jobs in the U.S. were supported by the natural gas and oil industry in 2015, more than twice the number shown by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Cheap Gas Imperils Climate Fight by Undercutting Wind and Solar – This will almost certainly be a record-breaking year for the advance of solar and wind power across the U.S. The additions that are in progress or planned are significant enough to boost hopes for emissions-free electrical grids within a generation – if natural gas doesn’t get in the way. It just may. Gas is such a bargain that it’s being viewed less as a bridge fossil fuel, driving the world away from dirtier coal toward a clean-energy future, and more as a hurdle that could slow the trip down. Some forecasters are predicting prices will stay low for years, making it tough for states, cities and utilities to achieve their goals of being zero-carbon in power production by 2050 or earlier.“Gas is a tough competitor. “It’s reliable and it’s cheap.” The flood of inexpensive gas does have a big environmental upside, because it’s putting increased pressure on struggling coal plants that contribute significantly to global warming. But it’s also squeezing margins for nuclear reactors, which are the U.S.’s biggest source of carbon-free power. And it’s driving utilities to lay down infrastructure that could ensure gas remains central to the power mix for decades. Solar and wind are certainly winning in many markets on price alone. Just look at the largest grid in the U.S., which stretches from Washington to Chicago and serves more than 65 million people: It has been boosting the amount of power generated with gas and drawing in renewables at a slower rate. That grid happens to crisscross a section of the U.S. that’s home to some of the world’s most abundant natural gas reserves. A drilling boom there and in the Permian Basin in Texas and New Mexico is a reason why the U.S. benchmark price for gas is less than $2 per million British thermal units. That’s the least for this time of year since the late 1990s. In Asia, prices fell to a record low of less than $3 this month amid a global supply glut and as the coronavirus began slowing demand from China. In Europe, the benchmark Dutch price hit a decade low.

Oil and Gas Industry Is 25 to 40% More Responsible for Global Methane Emissions than Previously Thought — The oil and gas industry may be contributing even more to the climate crisis than we thought. A study published in Nature Wednesday found that methane emissions from fossil fuel extraction have been underestimated by 25 to 40 percent.”This indicates that the fossil fuel sector has a much more polluting impact beyond being responsible for the overwhelming majority of carbon dioxide emissions,” Dr. Joeri Rogelj, a climate change lecturer at the Grantham Institute who was not involved with the research, told The Guardian. “This is worrying and overall bad news.” While carbon dioxide is the greenhouse gas contributing the most to the climate crisis, methane is now responsible for 25 percent of current global warming, according to CNN. The amount of methane in the atmosphere has more than doubled since the preindustrial era, according to The New York Times, but it has been difficult to pinpoint its source. Methane is released naturally by the ocean and by formations on land known as mud volcanoes. But it is also released by the fossil fuel industry, and most current estimates of the industry release of methane have been grassroots and not comprehensive,The Guardian pointed out. “We have a really good understanding of how much methane concentrations have increased in the atmosphere,” . “But it’s difficult to track where the increases are coming from for a number of reasons.” In order to get a better estimate, the University of Rochester team looked at methane data from before the industrial era. They measured air from around 300 years ago trapped in bubbles in glaciers in Greenland, The Guardian reported. This showed that the natural contribution to methane emissions was much lower than the number currently used to estimate emissions, The New York Times explained. “We’ve identified a gigantic discrepancy that shows the industry needs to, at the very least, improve their monitoring,” study lead author Benjamin Hmiel told The New York Times. “If these emissions are truly coming from oil, gas extraction, production use, the industry isn’t even reporting or seeing that right now.”

Trump’s agriculture department announces 30% biofuel goal for 2050 – (Reuters) – The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Thursday announced a goal for biofuels to make up 30% of U.S. transportation fuels by 2050, a move that could bolster an industry that has been otherwise battered by the Trump administration. Refineries are currently required to blend 20.09 billion gallons of biofuel in 2020, about 10% of projected crude oil production, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. President Donald Trump has been criticized by the corn-based ethanol industry after his Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) granted exemptions to the blend requirement for dozens of oil companies over the last two years. The biofuel goal, which also included getting the blend rate to 15% in 10 years, is part of a new department-wide sustainability initiative aiming to boost farm production by 40% and cut the farm sector’s environmental impact by 50% during the same period. The environmental goal also could deflect criticism from farmers and ethanol producers in an election year. “I think, really, that’s maybe one of the easiest to achieve, with going from E10 to E15 … that’s a 50% increase,” USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue said at a news conference.

Biodigester would transform manure into energy at West Michigan farms – – A dairy farmer in Ottawa County is working with a San Francisco-based energy company with the goal of building a biodigester to transform manure into natural gas. “It’s going to help us become carbon neutral,” said Bill Henke, who owns Beaver Creek Farm in Polkton Township. “It’s going to lower emissions. It’s going to reduce odors.” The machine would be owned and operated by Brightmark Energy, which specializes in renewable natural gas and plastic energy. The company would sell the natural gas created by the biodigester. The goal is to complete the biodigester project by the end of 2021. At this time, the cost of building the biodigester is not finalized, Brightmark officials said. The process of turning manure into natural gas creates sewage, and the plan is to dispose of that sewage at the Muskegon County Wastewater System. Brightmark is working with the county to develop an agreement allowing it to do so, said Dave Johnson, director of the Muskegon County Wastewater Management System. Officials say the plan is to build a pipeline that would carry the biodigester’s sewage to the wastewater treatment plan. Initial estimates show the pipeline could cost $30 million, and that design and engineering expenses could total $1.3 million.

California’s natural gas fight shows the false promise of “renewable natural gas” – Vox – To stay in line with the targets laid out in the Paris climate agreement, the US needs to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, known as “deep decarbonization.” Virtually every credible study on deep decarbonization agrees on the basics of a strategy to get there. The heart of the strategy is cleaning up the power grid, which is currently responsible for 28 percent of US greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. It must be rapidly transitioned to zero-carbon sources like renewables, hydro, and nuclear. Concurrently, two of the biggest sources of GHGs, transportation and buildings, must switch over to run on that zero-carbon power. The transportation system (29 percent of US emissions) is almost entirely powered by gasoline and diesel; it must transition to electric vehicles to the extent possible. And buildings (also 29 percent of US emissions) are now frequently heated and cooled by oil or, more commonly, by natural gas; they must transition to electric heating and cooling to the extent possible. This strategy – for which I use the shorthand “electrify everything!” – is beginning to catch on, especially in California, which is always something of a preview of broader trends to come. In a relatively short span of time, a robust “all-electric movement” has emerged, as dozens of towns and cities take steps to encourage all-electric construction in new buildings. Natural gas utilities do not like this movement one bit. The more all-electric buildings there are, the fewer natural gas ratepayers there are. An all-electric future inevitably involves the obsolescence, or at least the substantial diminution, of natural gas utilities. Naturally, they are fighting back furiously, with astroturf groups, PR campaigns, and lobbying at the local level. Their main argument – playing out with particular intensity in California – has to do with “renewable natural gas” (RNG), an industry term for methane captured from biogenic (organic) waste at landfills, livestock operations, farms, and sewage treatment facilities. (It is sometimes called “biogas” or “biomethane.”) RNG can, depending on feedstock and circumstances, be low or even zero-carbon. Utilitiesargue that ramping up the production of RNG and blending it with normal natural gas in pipelines can reduce GHGs faster and cheaper than electrifying buildings. By pursuing electrification, they say, regulators are pushing unnecessary cost hikes onto consumers. It would be nice for the utilities if this were true. But it’s not. RNG is not as low-carbon as the industry claims and its local air and water impacts are concentrated in vulnerable communities. Even if it were low-carbon and equitable, there simply isn’t enough of it to substitute for more than a small fraction of natural gas. And even if it were low-carbon, equitable, and abundant, it still wouldn’t be an excuse to expand natural gas infrastructure or slow electrification.

Judge rips PG&E for poor safety record leading to wildfires – A U.S. judge ripped into Pacific Gas & Electric on Wednesday, saying its executives have put greed before safety and telling officials from the utility blamed for catastrophic California wildfires to plan to add at least 1,100 more tree trimmers to cut the risk of even more blazes. “I am going to do everything I can to protect this state from more death and destruction from this convicted felon,” U.S. District Judge William Alsup said of PG&E. He delivered the harsh rebuke of the nation’s largest utility during a court hearing to review how well PG&E has complied with the terms of a five-year criminal probation imposed after its natural gas lines blew up a San Francisco Bay Area neighborhood and killed eight people in 2010. The utility was convicted of six felony counts of falsifying records and safety violations in 2016. Alsup blasted PG&E for its abysmal track record since its probation began in January 2017. In that time, PG&E’s aging power lines have been blamed for igniting a series of wildfires that killed nearly 130 people and destroyed thousands of homes. The aftermath saddled PG&E with more than $50 billion in potential liabilities, driving the San Francisco company into bankruptcy 13 months ago. The judge told PG&E that he believes the fires could have been prevented had it upgraded and maintained its electrical system instead of funneling billions of dollars into shareholder dividends and executive bonuses. “PG&E poses a threat to the safety of the people of Northern California because you are so far behind,” Alsup said.

As electric car sales soar, the industry faces a cobalt crisis — Global production of electric vehicles is predicted to top four million cars globally this year, rising to 12 million in 2025. In Europe alone, 540,000 electric cars will be sold this year, an increase from 319,000 last year. For that to happen, we don’t just need gigafactories to build the batteries but also need to get hold of the key materials, notably lithium and cobalt – and the gold rush on both has already begun. Last week, The Times reported that Jaguar Land Rover would pause production on the I-Pace, pinning the blame on shortages at battery maker LG Chem. Mercedes halved its 2020 production goals after shortages with the same supplier. “Currently EV uptake is arguably being constrained more by lack of manufacturing capacity than anything else,” says Paul Anderson, co-director of the Birmingham Centre for Strategic Elements and Critical Materials. “Lack of battery manufacturing capacity is a key part of this, which is why there is the rush to build gigafactories.” A lack of gigantic factories is a problem that can be relatively easily solved. “In June 2019, there were 91 factories in the pipeline for producing lithium ion cells around the world, of which around half were already in production the previous year,” says Gavin Harper, research fellow at the Faraday Institution, a battery research group. What isn’t so easily solved is the issue of getting enough raw materials out of the ground. “It’s been predicted that as demand for electric vehicles surges, there could be constraints around the key strategic elements and critical materials needed for EV battery manufacture in the future,” says Harper. Aside from the usual hurdles of sourcing and extracting deposits and processing material for use, the key ingredients for EV batteries face geopolitical upheaval including trade wars, local protests, and raise human rights and environmental concerns. That will cause “structural undersupply,” says Andrew Leyland, head of strategic advisory at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, and could wreak havoc on EV supply chains just as the industry is hoping to go mainstream.

Solar, wind and batteries expected to outpace new gas-powered generation in Texas – Texas is increasingly moving away from power generated by natural gas, the backbone of the state’s electricity system and which supplies about half of the state’s generating capacity. Solar power is emerging as the state’s fastest growing electricity source, according to the state grid manager, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas. Solar developers are expected to install about 68 gigawatts of solar power capacity, representing 61 percent of the power projects expected to come on the grid between now and 2023. One gigawatt provides enough power for about 700,000 homes.Wind developers are expected to add 30 gigawatts of power or 27 percent of total new capacity in the next three years, according to ERCOT. Battery storage developers are on the books to generate 8 gigawatts or 7 percent of new capacity. New natural gas-fired power plants are predicted to add only 6 gigawatts to the Texas power mix, or 5 percent of the total, from 2020 to 2023.

Retirement Of Major Indiana Coal Plant Indicates Shift Toward Sustainable Energy Future – Indiana has 16 coal-fired power generating stations. Each can produce at least one megawatt of electricity. The smallest eight don’t produce much electricity, while the top eight generate a majority of the state’s power. The Merom Generating Station is the fifth-biggest power plant in Indiana, producing almost 6 million megawatts of electricity in 2018. But it’s closing in 2023. Now CEO of the Utilities District of Western Indiana-Rural Electric Co-Op, Doug Childs, much like the state itself, is at a crossroads. After almost 25 years of working with municipal utilities, Childs is now faced with an energy future that will rely less on coal than it ever has. “Really what’s happening is the economics of the whole power business have changed so much that generating power by coal is just not the cheapest way to go, by a long shot,” Childs says. “So really, it’s just sheer economics have really caught up with Merom. And really, it’s catching up or has caught up with virtually every coal plant in the country.” Recent developments in the coal industry have changed the outlook on coal. Tougher federal environmental regulations, market forces and advancing technology have made coal more expensive than other forms of energy. “What’s happening [is] the market is responding to the economic signals they have, and really regardless of what happens, coal is just too expensive right now to be a viable generating source anymore,” Childs says. “Indiana has enough coal, according to the Geological and Water Survey, to power us for another 500 years using today’s technology,” says Bruce Stevens, president of the Indiana Coal Council. Improvements in sustainable energy are making it more reliable. And natural gas is thecheapest it’s ever been.

Just Transition: Amid Climate Debate And Coal’s Decline, West Virginia Considers Its Future — On a recent soggy Wednesday evening, dozens of West Virginians packed a conference room inside the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center to discuss the need for a “just transition” for coal-impacted communities.As the nation grapples with climate change, the need for a fair transition for workers and communities that depend upon coal jobs and revenue has also gained traction. Nearly every 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful has touted some version of the idea, ranging from the expansive “Green New Deal” championed by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders to former Vice President Joe Biden’s more modest mix of worker training and direct assistance for coal country.In West Virginia, discussions are starting to get attention in the state’s capital despite strong political support for the coal industry.“When you’re hearing a call for a just transition for coal-reliant communities, folks are saying ‘look, starting now and into the future, we’re going to decarbonize the economy,’” said Ann Eisenberg, a law professor at the University of South Carolina. “There will be disproportionate losses imposed on coal-reliant communities. And that’s unfair. So we’re going to offset the losses. And that is where I think this is a good thing. And it’s also tricky.”Eisenberg was one of a handful of experts who spoke at the event hosted by West Virginia University’s Center for Energy and Sustainable Development, the nonprofit West Virginia Center on Climate Change (an offshoot of conservation group Friends of Blackwater), and the left-leaning West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy. The speakers facilitated a conversation about what constitutes a “just transition” as well as how West Virginia and other regions that depend on coal could actually get there.

In Coal-Heavy W.Va., Senate Advances Utility Solar Bill | West Virginia Public Broadcasting – Lawmakers in the West Virginia Senate have passed a bill that would markedly increase solar generation in the coal-heavy Mountain State. More than 90 percent of electricity generated in West Virginia came from coal in 2018. S.B. 583 creates a utility solar program. Under the bill, the state’s two power generators, American Electric Power and FirstEnergy, could each install up to 200 megawatts of solar capacity, in 50 megawatt increments, potentially creating a 2,500 percent increase in the state’s installed solar capacity. The bill passed the upper chamber Friday, 31-0, with three members absent. It now heads to the House, where a version of the bill introduced in that chamber sparked considerable debate in the House Energy Committee. The West Virginia Commerce Department requested the bipartisan bill. Officials there said West Virginia’s lack of solar energy is a detriment to attracting some new businesses to the state, as increasingly large companies require access to renewable energy to meet corporate sustainability targets. If fully implemented, the bill could expand West Virginia’s installed solar exponentially. According to the Solar Energy Industries Association, West Virginia has just over 8 megawatts of installed solar through the third quarter of 2019, and ranked 48th in the nation in installed capacity. “History is being made today,” said Sen. Randy Smith, a Republican from Tucker County, on the Senate floor Friday. “I believe this is the first solar bill ever brought forth on the Senate floor, and I can guarantee it’s the first one ever brought forth by a coal miner.” Under the bill, utilities will be able to concurrently recover the costs of installing the solar through a rate increase approved by the Public Service Commision. PSC Chair Charlotte Lane previously told lawmakers residents can expect to pay about 18 cents per month to cover the cost. Once 85 percent of each 50 megawatt block of solar is purchased or claimed, ratepayers would begin to see the surcharge decrease, she said. The proposal drew sharp criticism from some lawmakers from energy-rich regions of the state. Lobby group the West Virginia Coal Association is opposed to the measure.

Solar bill heads to House as utilities await its fate – – The bill that sets up a system for rapid development of solar as an energy resource in West Virginia will be assigned to a House of Delegates committee for consideration during Monday’s floor session. The measure, SB 583. passed the state Senate unanimously Friday. It would create the Renewable Energy Facilities Program through the state Public Service Commission. Incentives would be available for utilities who go solar.The measure also cuts through the red tape a utility currently faces in the approval process through the PSC and allows for Appalachian Power and First Energy to build as many as four 50 megawatt solar energy plants.Appalachian Power President and CEO Chris Beam said within the last few years a varied energy portfolio has become a top priority for many companies including many of those the state is trying to convince to locate in West Virginia. “I would say five years ago we didn’t hear about this a lot but as things continue to change we are starting to hear about this more and more,” Beam said last week on MetroNews “Talkline.” Actually it’s becoming now, not more of a question, but more of a requirement.”Appalachian Power currently has coal fired power plants, natural gas plants, hydro generation and wind but no solar. The bill would allow solar to be added in an expedited way. Beam said the bill has some wisdom built into it. It only allows his company and First Energy to build one 50 megawatt solar plant at a time. He said a second plant could not be built until all of the energy is being used from the first plant. Up to four could be constructed. “If you don’t have anyone that wants any more you don’t build any more and you don’t subject any customers to any higher risks,” Beam said.

House OKs bill regulating repairs to structures damaged by mining – The West Virginia House of Delegates on Friday voted for a rules bundle that included new regulations on how coal companies are to repair damages or compensate property owners in the event underground mining damages a home or other structure.In December, the Republican majority in the Legislature’s rule-making review committee voted that if coal operators cause damage to a home or other structure due to underground coal mining, those coal operators, and not the residents, would get to decide how they want to make up for the damages.Lawmakers had originally decided to alter that area of code at the request of the coal industry, after West Virginia Supreme Court justices found that the code was ambiguous and that the owner of the damaged structure should decide which remedy, compensation or repair. Last month, lawmakers in the House of Delegates Energy Committee took out the rule-making review committee’s amendment and adopted their own. They adopted language stating that the property owner would decide if the company would have to compensate them in the amount of the cost to repair, but not to exceed the pre-mining value of the structure, or if the company would pay them the amount the home lost in value. Their version was supported by the West Virginia Coal Association.Republicans in that committee rejected an attempt by Democrats to allow the owners, if they selected the option to repair, to receive up to 150 percent of the value of their home. Democrats had noted that repairs could end up being more expensive than the home was worth, and that homes have sentimental value.Thursday, the House of Delegates approved an amendment, put forward by House Judiciary Chairman John Shott, R-Mercer, to allow home-owners to receive up to 120 percent of the structure’s value, should they choose the option to repair.Republicans said, on the floor Friday, that voting down the bill, House Bill 4217, would mean going back to the DEP rule in effect in July 2019. Under questioning on the floor Friday, Shott said it would mean giving coal companies the decision-making authority.However, House Minority Leader Tim Miley, D-Harrison, said the legal counsel for the Democrats believed that voting down the rule would mean reverting to the rule originally introduced by DEP.And even though the coal industry had requested the DEP give them the decision-making authority, DEP had not proposed that. Republicans on the rule-making review committee had. DEP did not alter that section of code, only adding a section clarifying that the DEP doesn’t adjudicate property rights disputes.

EPA consulting White House over biofuel waiver program: source – (Reuters) – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is seeking White House guidance on the future of its controversial biofuel waiver program after a court ruling cast doubt over its legitimacy, and aims to announce a decision by early next month, a source familiar with the matter said on Friday. In late January the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit said the EPA must reconsider some waivers it gave oil refineries exempting them from the nation’s biofuel blending laws. The ruling here has prompted speculation that the EPA will need to reconsider dozens of other waivers it has granted under similar circumstances, and drastically reduce the numbers of waivers handed out in the future. The exemption program has saved oil refineries hundreds of millions of dollars in regulatory costs. But it has infuriated the corn and biofuel industries, which say the Trump administration has overused the exemptions in a way that undermines demand for corn-based ethanol. The oil industry refutes that the exemptions hurt ethanol demand. The EPA will announce a response to the court’s decision by March 9 after consultations with the White House, according to the source, who asked not to be named. “EPA and (the Department of Justice) are reviewing the decision and carefully considering its potential impact on the program,” EPA spokeswoman Molly Block said in a statement. EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler had told reporters this month that the ruling “has the potential of completely, of changing the small refinery program.”

Trump May Approve Strip Mining on Tennessee’s Protected Cumberland Plateau – Even as the nation’s demand for coal tumbles, the Trump administration is considering a permit that would allow strip mining on protected ridgelines in Tennessee’s Cumberland Plateau over the objection of environmental groups and the state’s Republican attorney general. The wild, scenic terrain is within 75,000 acres designated, at the state’s behest, as unsuitable for surface coal mining in 2016 by the Obama administration’s Office of Surface Mining and Reclamation, the agency responsible for regulating coal mining in the state. Senior Assistant Attorney General Elizabeth McCarter said in an October letter to the Trump administration that the federal designation prohibits surface mining on protected ridgelines in what is now the North Cumberland Wildlife Management Area, even though a mining company with mineral rights in the area had recently obtained surface rights from the state to 150 protected acres. Triple H Coal of Jacksboro, Tennessee, has been trying to get permission to mine about 400 acres in the area since 2012, and filed an updated application last March to strip mine part of that land in Campbell County. “I don’t think the environmental impacts are there,” said Phillip Boggs, an engineering consultant for Triple H, when asked about the company’s plans. “They’re minimal, I’ll put it that way.” Michael Castle, director of the Office of Surface Mining’s Knoxville Field Office, referred questions to headquarters about whether a prohibition on strip mining remains in effect on the land designated unsuitable for mining. “We are processing that permit, business as usual,” he said. “There’s no final decision yet.” The Cumberland Plateau spans eastern Tennessee from Alabama into Kentucky. The Nature Conservancy describes it as a “labyrinth of rocky ridges and verdant ravines dropping steeply into gorges laced with waterfalls and caves, ferns, and rhododendrons.”

Top coal mines in the Illinois Basin decreased production 2% in 2019 – The top-producing coal mines in the Illinois Basin held production relatively flat in 2019 despite declining coal demand across the U.S. The 25 largest coal mines in the region produced a total of about 91.5 million tons of coal in 2019, down by about 2.0% from the prior year, according to an S&P Global Market Intelligence analysis. The same mines produced about 20.0 million tons of coal in the fourth quarter of 2019, decreasing from 22.8 million tons in the previous quarter and 23.7 million tons in the year-ago quarter. A December 2019 report from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis projected that “most of the Illinois Basin coal industry will be gone” within 20 years. Production in the region will be challenged by new coal plant retirements and reduced utilization of the coal plants remaining, the report from the sustainability-focused energy think tank said. “Just in the past year, producers have closed or idled mines that produced almost nine million tons of coal in 2018,” the report stated. “Further closures are likely, both in the near- and long-term. The Illinois Basin will clearly be hit hard economically by the structural decline of the region’s coal industry.” Alliance Resource Partners LP owns five of the top-producing mines in the region. Together, they produced about 27.9 million tons of coal in 2019, increasing slightly from 27.5 million tons of production in 2018. “In 2019, [Alliance] was able to pick up 2.8 million tons of domestic market share because of mine closings in the Illinois Basin,” Alliance President and CEO Joseph Craft said on a Jan. 27 earnings call. “We believe the pressures on other operators are increasing as the headwinds facing the U.S. thermal coal industry persist.” River View, the company’s largest mine in the Illinois Basin, produced 11.3 million tons of coal in 2019, increasing from 9.8 million tons in 2018. The company’s Cardinal and Gibson mines also produced more coal in 2019 compared to 2018. The company’s other two mines in the region reported lower production in 2019 year over year, including Gibson South with a 22.7% drop to 5.4 million tons compared to 2018.

Coal Shipping In US Industrial Heartland Collapses To 35-Year Low — President Trump vowed to make “Coal Great Again” and restore the industrial heartland. But it seems as Trump’s many campaign promises to coal miners have been broken, as there’s hardly a peep from the administration about the imploding industry. Take, for instance, a new report from A.P. News, that details how Twin Ports of Duluth-Superior, recorded its lowest coal cargo volumes in three decades during the 2019 shipping season. Greg Nemet, a public affairs professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said coal shipments in the port have plunged as the demand for renewable energy has soared in recent years. “It’s really a competition between coal, natural gas, and renewables. It’s cheaper to make electricity with natural gas and with solar,” Nemet said. “Coal really can’t compete with either of those.”A.P. said 8 million tons of coal moved through the Twin Ports, the lowest volume since 1985. U.S. coal production has plunged from 1.2 billion tons in 2008 to 597 million last year. Despite Trump’s promises to revive the industry, production continues to decline. Trump was silent last year after a significant bankruptcy wave devastated the industry. Deteriorating coal industry fundamentals and escalating environmental, social and governance concerns, led to the recent bankruptcy of Peabody, the world’s largest coal producer. Trump routinely pumped the coal industry, calling it “indestructible” and telling everyone on social media that “coal is back.” The hopes of a coal rebound were all for election purposes. The industry is imploding, as it’s clear that, according to Trump, the stock market is more important than the real economy.

Gulf Power’s coal burn falls 20.8% on month in January: filing – Gulf Power saw its coal burn fall to 88,593 st in January, down 20.8% from 111,925 st in December and 47.1% lower than 167,418 st in the year-ago month, according to a state regulatory filing. Coal’s generation mix was at 27.6%, or 170,821 MWh, in January, down from 49.3%, or 317,511 MWh expected for the month, according to filings published by the Florida Public Service Commission. The generation mix was down from 34.1%, or 229,280 MWh, in December and 50.5%, or 324,217 MWh, in the year-ago month. Natural gas’ mix was at 71.8%, or 472,859 MWh, in January, up from 65.5% in December and 49.2% in the year-ago month. In January, Gulf Power’s average fuel cost for coal was $65.56/st, down from $66.17/st in December but up from $63.38/st in the year-ago month. Heat rate efficiency for coal was at 9,414 Btu/KWh in January, while gas was at 7,048 Btu/KWh, resulting in dispatch prices of roughly $33.98/MWh and $18.61/MWh, respectively. In December, coal’s dispatch price was $33.02/MWH and gas’ price was $19.64/MWH, while in the year-ago month, coal was at $33.45/MWh and gas at $27.33/MWh. Gulf Power owns the Crist coal-fired power plant in Pensacola, Florida, as well as a 50% ownership of Mississippi Power’s Daniel plant in Escatawpa, Mississippi and a 25% stake in one generating unit at Georgia Power’s Scherer plant in Juliette, Georgia.

One-fifth of recent coal shipped to US power sector went to plants set to retire – Nearly one in five of the tons of coal delivered to U.S. power generators in the first three quarters of 2019 went to power plants planning to close by 2025 or earlier. With no coal-fired power plants on the drawing board at home and diminished demand overseas, U.S. producers will likely struggle to find a new home for tons that were going to the export market as producers compete for what remains of a domestic customer base in secular decline. Of the 540.5 million tons of coal produced in the first three quarters of 2019, 406.0 million tons were reported as delivered to U.S. coal plants, an S&P Global Market Intelligence data analysis shows. Of those shipments, coal companies sent 19.6% of the tonnage to plants scheduled to retire before the end of 2025. The domestic market needs to see coal producers pull back on output to match supply to demand, Alliance Resource Partners LP President and CEO Joseph Craft said on a Jan. 27 earnings call. This year will be an inflection point for producers, according to the CEO. “Reduced export volumes and tepid domestic coal demand due to persistently low natural gas prices caused a significant oversupply in the United States, creating additional pressure on domestic coal prices and producers,” Craft said. “We continue to believe that current market conditions are unsustainable for most of [Alliance’s] competitors.” Of the 20.8 million tons of coal Alliance shipped to U.S. power plants in the analyzed period, 11.9% went to plants retiring before the end of 2025. Power plants closed 13.7 GW of coal capacity in 2019, the highest annual level since 2015, a recent Market Intelligence analysis found. The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimated in January that another 69 GW of coal-fired capacity would retire, mostly by 2025. Based on its 2020 Annual Energy Outlook, the agency expects the annual rate of retirement from 2023 to 2025 to exceed the record 15 GW of coal-fired capacity shut down in 2015. Other U.S. coal producers are even more reliant on plants scheduled to close by 2025. Peabody Energy Corp. and Arch Coal Inc. are finishing regulatory approval for a joint venture tying together certain Powder River Basin and Colorado coal mines, hoping to better compete with natural and renewable energy resources. The two producers are the largest companies by production volume in the country’s largest coal basin. In the first three quarters of 2019, 22.0% of Peabody’s reported deliveries to power plants and 17.7% of Arch’s deliveries to power plants went to power plants set to retire in 2025 or earlier.

Morgan Stanley: $64B capex upside for utilities replacing coal with renewables | S&P Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC sees a $64 billion spending opportunity on top of double-digit earnings accretion for more than a dozen utilities that decide to retire uneconomic coal plants and replace them with cheaper renewables by 2025. “We compared the costs of operating each coal plant against our state-by-state forecasts of renewables costs across 13 stocks and identified [47,000 MW] of coal capacity that will become more expensive than renewables by 2024,” Morgan Stanley analysts wrote in a recent research report. “We estimate this represents a capex opportunity of [$64 billion] and earnings accretion for the stocks we cover of up to 14% in 2025.” The report, “The Second Wave of Clean Energy – Part II: Who Can Ride the Wave?” follows a December 2019 report in which the research firm forecast that about 70,000 MW to as much as 190,000 MW of coal-fired generation is “economically at risk” from the deployment of a “second wave of renewables” in the U.S. The research firm said these projections exclude about 24,000 MW of coal generation already set to shut down. “We think that the economics make sense that the utilities in general should be pursuing this just because it seems to benefit everybody,” Morgan Stanley analyst Stephen Byrd said in a Feb. 11 phone interview. “It benefits shareholders, customers and the planet.” Ameren Corp., American Electric Power Co. Inc., Duke Energy Corp. and Pinnacle West Capital Corp. are seen as best positioned to take advantage of a second wave of clean energy. The research firm said it has identified $2.9 billion in untapped renewables investment opportunity that could allow Ameren, which it upgraded to “overweight,” to grow its earnings “at the high end” of the St. Louis-headquartered utility’s 6% to 8% earnings growth target.

Why the world’s third-largest economy is still betting on coal – Japan, the world’s third-largest economy, is leaning into coal power, a striking move at a time when the climate crisis is accelerating and most of its economic peers are cutting back on the high-polluting energy source. The prospect of more coal has been looming for years: In 2018, Japan proposed adding 36 new coal plants to its fleet. Earlier this month, the New York Times reported that Japan has revised that plan but is still on track to add a total of 22 coal-fired power plants at 17 sites in the next five years. Some 15 of these plants are already under construction.If all 22 plants were to come to fruition, Japan will install enough new coal power capacity to emit an additional 74.7 million metric tons of carbon dioxide each year, more than the total emissions of countries like Norway and Sweden.This coal buildout would make Japan, the world’s fifth-largest greenhouse gas emitter, the only G7 country building more coal power plants domestically and the largest G7 financier of coal generation in other countries. Under the Paris climate agreement, Japan committed to cutting its emissions 26 percent below 2013 levels by 2030, a target activists already considered to be weak. Last year, Japan’s cabinet also adopted an emissions reduction strategy that would make the countrycarbon neutral after 2050. But if the 22 new coal plants get up and running, Japan couldblow past its 2030 target and move further off track from its 2050 target.

House again considers tax breaks for aging, struggling coal-fired power plants – – The House of Delegates is again considering a tax break for struggling coal-fired power plants. A bill that was passed out of the House Energy Committee on Tuesday afternoon serves as a sequel. Last summer, the Legislature passed a bill aimed specifically at providing relief for financially-troubled Pleasants Power Station. This bill would affect plants beyond that, particularly the Mount Storm Generating Station, operated by Dominion Energy in Grant County. It’s possible the bill could affect the Longview Power Plant near Morgantown. The tax cuts could amount to about $16 million, state Deputy Revenue Secretary Mark Muchow told members of the energy committee. That’s a tough ask in a flat budget year, but those who support the bill say it’s money the state would never see if power plants go bust. Last summer, analysts at Moody’s predicted that use of thermal coal for U.S. power generation could fall to as little as 11 percent by 2030. That’s largely because as aging coal-fired plants go offline they are being replaced by natural gas-fired plants. “Most of the coal plants now are not operating at full capacity, yet they are being taxed as if they are at full capacity,” said House Energy Chairman Bill Anderson, R-Wood. Under the bill being considered, those plants would be taxed at a rate of 45 percent of their capacity. “That puts everyone on the same playing field, and it’s the reality of the state of coal-fired generation in the state today,” Anderson said. “It’s an attempt to provide relief to these plants that employ thousands of West Virginians and to allow them to continue.” Chris Hamilton, president of the West Virginia Coal Association, said the potential relief is welcome. “It’s very consistent with our primary objective, trying to extend the life of these plants, trying to extend the reliance on coal-fired electricity.”

Senate, too, moves bill providing tax breaks for aging, struggling coal-fired power plants – WV MetroNews – The Senate Finance Committee quickly voted for a bill that would give tax breaks for aging, struggling coal-fired power plants.Democrats on the committee asked several questions about Senate Bill 793 that weren’t clearly answered, but a majority of committee members voted in favor of moving the bill to the floor after a discussion of about 15 minutes.The House Energy Committee approved a similar bill just the prior day. That one is also assigned to House Finance.State revenue officials have said the tax cut could amount to $16 million.“Who would benefit from this bill?” asked Senator Bill Ihlenfeld, D-Ohio, later asking if the bill was written with any particular power plant in mind.The answer from Deputy Revenue Secretary Mark Muchow didn’t specify any particular power plant operator. Instead, Muchow spoke of the challenges coal-fired power plants are currently facing.“It’s a tough outlook for coal-fired power plants,” Muchow said.Last summer, analysts at Moody’s predicted that use of thermal coal for U.S. power generation could fall to as little as 11 percent by 2030. That’s largely because as aging coal-fired plants go offline they are being replaced by natural gas-fired plants.“So basically this bill is an attempt to go against the trend of these power plants shutting down all across the country,” said Senator Corey Palumbo, D-Kanawha.

Bow power plant wins funding through 2024 – The Merrimack Station power plant in Bow can stay open through at least mid-2024, as the coal-fired power plant has won another year’s funding from a New England program designed to guarantee future electricity supplies. The coal-fired plant will receive roughly $676,000 for each month from June 2023 through May 2024, a total of $8.1 million, in return for promising to generate power at any time if the need arises. The plant has previously won payments to stay open through mid-2023. That award comes as part of the capacity auction run by ISO-New England, which operates the six-state power grid. The auction, which involves electricity generators throughout the region, is designed to make sure that enough power plants will be open three years from now to meet projected demand. The capacity payment is made regardless of whether emergency electricity is needed, and comes on top of any per-kilowatt income the power plants receive for actually generating power. The auction results are good news for the town of Bow, which receives hefty property tax payments from Merrimack Station. The state’s two other coal-fired plants – smaller units in Portsmouth – and an adjacent wood-burning plant did not win anything in the capacity auction. This might affect whether the future of those three, known as Schiller Station. The 448-megawatt Merrimack Station and 150-megawatt Schiller Station are owned by Granite Shore Power, an investment group that bought them from Eversource in 2017. These days they operate mostly as “peaker plants,” providing power only occasionally to meet peak demand, usually during winter when gas-fired power plants can’t get enough fuel because natural gas is used to heat homes.

After historic environmental spill, TVA says it now has ‘world class’ coal ash cleanup approach The coal ash slurry spill at the Kingston Fossil Plant more than 11 years ago dumped more than 1.1 billion gallons of coal fly ash into neighboring rivers and properties in one of the worst environmental spills in U.S. history. TVA President Jeff Lyash said the spill “should never have happened” and TVA needs to and has taken responsibility for the mistakes that led to the ash dike failure. But in spite of claims by some cleanup workers that they were lied to and unnecessarily harmed by TVA’s main contractor for the cleanup, Lyash said the ultimate site restoration has become a model for other utilties on how to clean up coal ash. The spill at Kingston in December 2008 released a slurry of fly ash and water, which traveled across the Emory River and its Swan Pond embayment, and eventually covered up to 300 acres of the surrounding land. The initial spill, which rendered many properties uninhabitable, cost TVA more than $1 billion to cleanup, and was declared complete in 2015. But many employees of an engineering firm hired by TVA to clean up the spill, Jacobs Engineering, have since developed illnesses and cancers and sued both Jacobs and TVA for damages. In November 2018, a federal jury ruled that the contractor did not properly inform the workers about the dangers of exposure to coal ash and failed to provide them with necessary personal protective equipment. A grand jury in Roane County last month filed an addendum to their report suggesting that the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation should pursue a criminal investigation “into certain issues pertaining to cleanup worker safety.” The judge in the Knoxville case against Jacobs ordered the company and plaintiffs to try to mediate a monetary settlement in the case for the roughly 200 affected workers, but 15 months later no deal has yet been struck. Jacobs continues to deny it caused the workers to be injured. Jacobs attorney Theodore Boutrous said the company “stands by its work assisting TVA with the difficult job of managing the cleanup of the Kingston coal ash spill.”

Coal ash battle continues in middle Georgia — Residents of the city of Juliette are rallying behind a pair of bills working through the state legislature that would require more stringent standards for the disposal of coal ash. At a meeting on Monday night in Monroe County – the third such meeting held for the community – environmental advocates, county officials, residents and at least one state representative expressed concerns about how the plant waste might be managed at Georgia Power’s Plant Scherer and how Juliette residents could be assured their water is clean in the interim. Residents have been concerned that the coal ash – waste from coal-fired plants that may contain arsenic, lead, mercury and other heavy metals that can be toxic to humans – has gotten into their water supply.With more than 6 million tons of coal ash produced each year, Georgia is one of the top coal ash-generating states. Most of Georgia’s coal ash has been generated by Georgia Power at 11 coal-fired power plants stretching from Rome in the northwest part of the state to Brunswick on the coast.Plant Scherer, in Juliette, north of Macon, open since the 1980s, is one of five plants across the state at which Georgia Power has proposed leaving toxic ash in unlined pits where environmentalists say it may come into contact with groundwater. Georgia Power has said the closure plans meet the requirements of both state and federal laws and are under review with the state Environmental Protection Division, and that their data found no risks to public health or drinking water.

Public hearing on Dukeville coal ash plans scheduled Monday – – The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality will hold a public hearing 6 p.m. Monday about plans to excavate coal ash at Duke Energy’s Buck Power Station. The hearing will take place in the auditorium at North Rowan High School in Spencer and begin with an informational session where attendees can have questions answered before public comments. In addition to the comments received at the public hearing, written and emailed comments will also be considered until March 16 for whether the state should approve the closure plans. Written comments can be submitted to Louise Hughes of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality at 1601 Mail Service Center in Raleigh, NC, 27699. Comments can also be submitted via email to [email protected]. Duke submitted closure plans in December for the excavations, as required by the Coal Ash Management Act of 2016. Also in 2016, Duke, the Yadkin Riverkeeper and the Waterkeeper Alliance reached a settlement that requires Duke to excavate and recycle all coal ash at Buck Steam Station. If not recycled, the coal ash can be transported to a lined landfill away from groundwater and the Yadkin River, according to the settlement. The settlement came at a time when water contamination was a major issue in the rural Dukeville community. In January, the coal ash debate was settled after Duke, state regulators and environmental advocacy groups agreed to permanently close Duke’s remaining nine coal ash basins in the state by excavating the ash to lined landfills. Bill Norton, a spokesperson for Duke Energy, said the recycling unit at Buck Power Station is set to begin fully operating in August. Buck is the first of three recycling units in North Carolina. Norton added that once all three recycling facilities are operating, the units will be able to recycle more coal ash – both old and new – in a given year than the six remaining coal-fired facilities in the Carolinas can produce. This amounts to 400,000 tons of ash per year per unit.

County hearing on TVA landfill set – – – Anderson County Commission has planned a hearing regarding a possible future TVA landfill in the Claxton community. The County Commission hearing will be at 4 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 18, in Room 312 of the Anderson County Courthouse in Clinton, an official announcement stated. County Commission is encouraging citizens to voice opinions or provide written comments to TVA Permit, 101 S. Main St., Suite 310, Clinton, TN, 37716. The landfill public hearing specifically involves a landfill TVA may build near the intersection of Edgemoor Lane and New Henderson Road to hold byproducts of burning coal, including coal ash. “I didn’t realize the extent of this landfill,” County Law Director Jay Yeager told County Commission at its Jan. 21 meeting, explaining it will, if built, be located on 60 acres. TVA has not committed to whether or not it will build the landfill. Scott Brooks with TVA public relations has said if built, the landfill will be for storing coal ash and other byproducts of burning coal – called coal combustion residuals or CCR – currently kept near the Clinch River or for new coal ash produced before the Bull Run Fossil Plant closes in 2023. Yeager told The Oak Ridger in a phone interview that the county is looking for people to express “health and environmental concerns” at the hearing. He said TVA and Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation officials will be present, along with citizens, but he is not certain which officials will attend.

EPA proposes additional rollback to Obama-era coal ash regulation – The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Wednesday announced a new proposed rollback to an Obama-era regulation dealing with waste from coal-fired power plants known as coal ash. The proposed changes are the Trump administration’s second set of changes to protections on waste laden with arsenic. The EPA’s proposal would ease regulations for the liners that coat the bottom of coal ash pits in order to stop the cancer-linked substance from leaking into groundwater. It would also in some cases allow the use of coal ash in closing landfills. “These common-sense changes will provide the flexibilities owners and operators need to determine the most appropriate way to manage [coal ash] and the closure of units based on site-specific conditions,” EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler said in a statement. Environmentalists, however, said that the changes would weaken environmental protections. “The draft rule is a gift to the coal utility industry while endangering the health of people around the country and the environment,” Lisa Evans, senior attorney for Earthjustice, said in a statement. “Coal plants are the number one source of toxic pollution in the nation’s waterways, and coal ash has contaminated groundwater at nearly every power plant site in the country,” Evans added. She also said she believes that the rule changes are “contrary” to a court order requiring the EPA to strengthen protections from coal ash. Coal ash is used in a variety of ways, largely as a replacement for soil. It can be used to create level ground for construction projects or sprinkled over landfills as a protective cover. The Trump administration has previously proposed eliminating restrictions that restricted coal ash use to 12,400 tons per site.

EPA Proposes New Federal Coal Ash Disposal Permits – Utility companies in most states would need a federal permit to dispose of coal ash under a proposal that the EPA announced Wednesday.The EPA announced its plan to require federal permits for coal ash disposal in states that lack their own permitting programs.Under the Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act of 2016, states can create their own permitting programs for coal ash disposal, which must be at least as stringent as federal law. Only Georgia and Oklahoma have EPA-approved permitting programs so far. The new proposal would make federal coal ash disposing permits mandatory in nonparticipating states.

The Oil Industry Is Quietly Winning Local Climate Fights – – Some of the most important fights over climate change aren’t being waged in Washington. They’re happening state by state, in a melee of utilities, fossil-fuel companies, state legislators, and persuaded voters. To see one in action, visit Beaver, Pennsylvania, where two Westinghouse nuclear reactors produce roughly a fifth of the Keystone State’s zero-carbon electricity. Three years ago, FirstEnergy Corporation, a private utility worth $28 billion, announced that it would soon have to sell the nuclear plants or shut them down. Even though the reactors were supposed to operate for another few decades, the plunging cost of natural gas had made them noncompetitive. Only direct subsidies could keep the plants alive, the utility warned. State lawmakers had not even proposed a bill floating that option when a new group called Citizens Against Nuclear Bailouts burst onto the scene. Boasting support from local manufacturers and, unexpectedly, the AARP, the group told local reporters that itopposed “any legislative effort” to subsidize the plants. At the same time, a micro-targeted group of Pennsylvanians received a deluge of direct mailers, phone calls, and Facebook ads, exhorting them to call state senators to oppose a “nuke bailout.” “These billion dollar companies don’t need bailouts, they need to compete with other energy companies on a level playing field,” said one postcard-size mailer. A small disclosure on the mailers revealed that they had, in fact, not come from a group of self-organized Pennsylvanians. The mailers were funded and shipped by the American Petroleum Institute, the lobbying champion for oil and natural-gas companies in national politics. The return address on the mailers was one of the group’s offices in downtown Washington, D.C.

TVA and Oak Ridge National Laboratory to jointly study small modular reactor project at Oak Ridge -America’s biggest government utility is getting some extra federal help in developing and planning for the possibility of building the next generation of flexible, advanced nuclear reactors.The U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Tennessee Valley Authority last week signed a memorandum of understanding to jointly evaluate how to develop, build and operate small modular reactors, which TVA is considering building near ORNL in Oak Ridge. Under the agreement, ORNL and TVA will collaborate on ways to improve the economic feasibility of potentially licensing, building, operating and maintaining one or more advanced nuclear reactors, such as a small modular reactor, at TVA’s 935-acre site on the Clinch River. TVA gained approval in December from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for an early site permit in Oak Ridge where DOE planned on building a breeder reactor in the 1970s until then President Jimmy Carter scrapped the project over concerns about nuclear proliferation.

Energy deputy secretary nominee faces heat after contradicting Trump – Trump administration officials are internally raising concerns about President Trump’s nominee for Energy deputy secretary, who appeared to openly contradict the president on nuclear waste storage at Nevada’s Yucca Mountain last week. While speaking at a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing last Wednesday, Mark Menezes told members of the panel that the Trump administration is still interested in storing nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain and that “what we’re trying to do is to put together a process that will give us a path to permanent storage at Yucca.” His statement came just weeks after Trump tweeted that he hears and respects Nevadans’ concerns about the nuclear waste repository – part of a long-standing “not in my backyard” battle. “[M]y Administration is committed to exploring innovative approaches – I’m confident we can get it done!” Trump said. Menezes’ remarks also came just days after the White House unveiled its fiscal year 2021 budget, which does not include funding for Yucca Mountain. The administration’s previous budget requests included $120 million and $116 million, respectively, to maintain licensing for the site. Menezes’ comments were flagged internally to White House officials who have been working on Yucca Mountain, an administration official told Axios. “It’s a big deal that the possible No. 2 at the Department of Energy came out in defiance [of] the president’s very strong position on a huge issue,” the official said, calling it “shocking” that Menezes would “basically give a middle finger to the president.” A second administration official told Axios that Menezes knew for weeks that funding for Yucca Mountain was going to be seized, adding to internal frustration over his comments last week: “When the budget comes out, and it has made a change from previous years, everyone’s notified of that. Department of Energy is clearly in the know about that because it’s a core change.” Trump’s comments about Yucca Mountain, as well as his decision to cease funding for the repository, come as his re-election campaign seeks to turn Nevada red again after narrowly losing the state to Hillary Clinton in 2016.

France Shuts Down Oldest Reactors, But Nuclear Power Still Reigns (AFP) – France will start closing its oldest atomic power plant on Saturday after 43 years in operation, the first in a series of reactor shutdowns but hardly a signal the country will reduce its reliance on nuclear energy anytime soon. Unplugging the two reactors at Fessenheim, along the Rhine near France’s eastern border with Germany and Switzerland, became a key goal of anti-nuclear campaigners after the catastrophic meltdown at Fukushima in Japan in 2011. Experts have noted that construction and safety standards at Fessenheim, brought online in 1977, fall far short of those at Fukushima, with some warning that seismic and flooding risks in the Alsace region had been underestimated. Despite a pledge by ex-president Francois Hollande just months after Fukushima to close the plant, it was not until 2018 that President Emmanuel Macron’s government gave the final green light. “This marks a first step in France’s energy strategy to gradually re-balance nuclear and renewable electricity sources, while cutting carbon emissions by closing coal-fired plants by 2022,” Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said in a statement Wednesday. The first reactor will start being shut down on Saturday and the second on June 30, though it will be several months before they go cold and the used fuel can start to be removed. France will still be left with 56 pressurised water reactors at 18 nuclear power plants — only the United States has more reactors, at 98 — generating an unmatched 70 percent of its electricity needs. Just months after his 2017 election, Macron infuriated environmental activists by abandoning a 2015 target to reduce nuclear in France’s energy mix to just half by 2025. He staunchly defends the use of what he calls “zero carbon” nuclear energy in coming decades, putting him at odds with fellow EU giant Germany, which swore to drop nuclear power in the wake of the Fukushima disaster.

Exclusive: Westinghouse set to sign pact with Indian firm for nuclear reactors during Trump visit – (Reuters) – U.S. energy firm Westinghouse is expected to sign a new agreement with state-run Nuclear Power Corporation of India for the supply of six nuclear reactors during U.S. President Donald Trump’s visit next week, officials said, aiming to kickstart a long-running project. The agreement will lay out timelines and the lead local constructor for the reactors to be built at Kovvada in southern India and also address lingering concerns over India’s nuclear liability law. The United States has been discussing the sale of nuclear reactors to energy-hungry India since a 2008 landmark civil nuclear energy pact and last year the two governments announced they were committed to the establishment of the six reactors. Last week representatives from U.S. energy and commerce departments, Westinghouse, the U.S.-India Strategic Partnership Forum and The Nuclear Energy Institute were in India for talks with government officials as part of a commercial mission to promote nuclear exports to India. “We are encouraging moving forward with Westinghouse and NPCIL to sign a MoU. It certainly is a private industry to private industry, a business to business decision,” Dr. Rita Baranwal assistant secretary for the Office of Nuclear Energy in the U.S. Department of Energy, told Reuters in a phone interview. “We’re optimistic that an MoU will be signed shortly,” Baranwal, who was part of the mission, said. Once that is cleared the two sides will begin contract negotiations, delivery schedules and pick vendors. The plan for a new MoU has not been previously reported.

The UAE gets green light to operate the Arab world’s first nuclear power plant – The independent nuclear regulator for the United Arab Emirates on Monday issued the operating license for Unit 1 of the country’s Barakah Nuclear Power Plant, giving the go-ahead on operations for the first nuclear power plant in the Arab world. The project, which national officials describe as a strategic and economic imperative for the UAE, is more than a decade in the making and involved collaboration with external bodies including the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the government of South Korea. Once operation of the plant begins – the exact date of which has not been announced, but is expected in the coming weeks – the UAE will become the newest member of an exclusive club of currently just 30 countries running nuclear power operations. It’s also the first new country to launch a nuclear power plant in three decades, the last being China in 1990. FANR, the country’s regulator, granted the license after years of extensive reviews and inspections, its officials said. This included more than 185 inspections, reviewing 14,000 pages of the plant’s operating license application, and requesting more than 2,000 additional pieces of information concerning reactor design, safety, geography and other areas to ensure the plant’s compliance with regulatory requirements. The operating license is expected to last 60 years, and allows the UAE’s Nawah Energy Company, the Emirates Nuclear Energy Company’s (ENEC) subsidiary operating the plant, to start loading fuel and eventually move into partial and full operation of the first unit, al Kaabi told CNBC in an interview. Partial operation could take a few weeks while full operation may take a few months, he said.

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