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:
Weekly U.S. Influenza Surveillance Report | CDC –Nationally, the percent of laboratory specimens testing positive for influenza at clinical laboratories continued to decrease while ILI activity continued to increase. More people are seeking care for respiratory illness due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Nationally, influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 viruses are the most commonly reported influenza viruses this season. Previously, influenza B/Victoria viruses predominated nationally. Laboratory confirmed influenza-associated hospitalization rates for the U.S. population overall are higher than most recent seasons and rates for children 0-4 years and adults 18-49 years are the highest CDC has on record for these age groups, surpassing rates reported during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic. Hospitalization rates for school-aged children (5-17 years) are higher than any recent regular season but remain lower than rates experienced by this age group during the pandemic. Pneumonia and influenza mortality levels have been low, but 155 influenza-associated deaths in children have been reported so far this season. This number is higher than recorded at the same time in every season since reporting began in 2004-05, except for the 2009 pandemic. CDC estimates that so far this season there have been at least 39 million flu illnesses, 400,000 hospitalizations and 24,000 deaths from flu. 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.
Monarch Butterfly Populations Are Plummeting – Both Eastern and Western monarch butterflies are seeing their populations plummet precipitously, worrying scientists that the future of the species is in peril, according to multiple surveys of butterfly populations. The New York Times recently reported on efforts to track the Western monarch butterfly, which spends its winter on California’s central coast before heading off to breeding sites that covers a wide swathe from the state’s central valley all the way to Idaho. However, recently it’s been harder to find migrating butterflies. “Something’s going on in early spring,” said Cheryl Schultz, a professor at Washington State University in Vancouver, to The New York Times. Researchers know that winter survival isn’t the issue in the short-term, she said. The researchers do not know if butterflies are not making it to breeding sites, unable to find mates, or starving along the way. What they do know is that the population of Western monarchs was in the millions in the 1980s, down to 200,000 three years ago, and then down to 30,000 in 2018, according to The New York Times. Matt Forister, an insect ecologist at the University of Nevada, Reno, told the The New York Times that research identified various factors in butterfly loss, including development, climate change, farming practices and widespread pesticide use by farmers and on lawns. On the other side of the country, expect to see far fewer Eastern monarch butterflies migrating over the summer. According to a new population survey, the Eastern monarch has passed the extinction threshold, according to a new population survey by the Center for Biological Diversity. An annual count showed that the population in 2020 dropped 53 percent from its already low 2019 numbers. “Scientists were expecting the count to be down slightly, but this level of decrease is heartbreaking,”
New Player Begins Clearing Rainforest for World’s Largest Palm Oil Plantation – A new company has begun clearing rainforest in an area of Indonesia’s easternmost Papua province earmarked to become the world’s largest oil palm plantation, in a vast project that has been mired in allegations of lawbreaking.If seen through to completion, the Tanah Merah project will generate an estimated $6 billion in timber and create a plantation almost twice the size of London, at the heart of the largest tract of intact rainforest left in Asia. It will also release an immense amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, at a time when Indonesia has committed to reducing emissions from deforestation.Since March of last year, the Digoel Agri Group, founded by a politically connected Jakarta family and now backed by an investor from New Zealand, has bulldozed 170 hectares (420 acres) of rainforest in a section of the project previously spared from land clearing, satellite imagery shows.The clearance amounts to a fraction of the 280,000 hectares (692,000 acres) allocated for the project, now controlled by several different conglomerates. But it signals that deforestation could quickly accelerate after a decade of false starts by other investors. Since it was first conceived in 2007, the rights to the project have changed hands several times, involving a string of investors who have deployed crude and complex corporate secrecy techniques to hide their identities.The licensing process for the project has been plagued by irregularities. A cross-border investigation by The Gecko Project, Mongabay, Malaysiakini and Tempo, published in November 2018, revealed that key permits were signed by an elected official who was simultaneously serving a prison sentence for embezzling state funds. A subsequent report found that officials believe other essential permits – for both the plantation and a giant sawmill to process the timber – were falsified.
New Trump Wildlife Services Appointee Worked for Trophy Hunting Lobby for 20 Years – President Donald Trump‘s controversial trophy hunting council may have been disbanded, but trophy hunters and their advocates still have influence at the Department of the Interior.Anna Seidman, former lawyer for pro-hunting group Safari Club International (SCI), is now the assistant director of the Fish and Wildlife Services (FWS) International Affairs program, HuffPost reported Friday. During her 20 years of work for SCI, Seidman sued FWS several times and testified before Congress that hunters should have greater access to Alaskan wildlife, according to Earther. But she will now be in charge of a program designed to protect endangered species around the world.”I’m not quite sure how this will happen with someone in charge who’s advocated against stripping creatures of these protections,” Earther’s Yessenia Funes wrote.Funes pointed out that Seidman’s appointment is in keeping with other Trump administration hiring decisions, such as the choice of former coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler to head the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency(EPA). Seidman’s new boss David Bernhardt was also a controversial hire who has so many conflicts of interests he has to keep a notecard on hand to keep track of them. In an email to HuffPost, an FWS spokesperson called Siedman “an effective, innovative leader with 20 years of legal and policy experience, including expertise in international environment and natural resource management.”
China Recommends Bear Bile to Treat COVID-19, Worrying Wildlife Advocates – Even though China recently banned open air markets that trade wildlife, the government has issued guidelines for treating COVID-19 that include medicines containing bear bile, according to National Geographic.A list of medicines to treat COVID-19 that the Chinese government put out included both traditional and Western medicines. The list was compiled and published by China’s National Health Commission, the government body responsible for national health policy. One of the alleged cures from traditional Chinese medicine that the government recommends for treating severe and critical cases of COVID-19 is an injection of Tan Re Qing, which contains bear bile, as National Geographic reported.Wildlife advocates are alarmed by the disconnect of a comprehensive ban on trading wildlife for consumption in open air markets but allowing and promoting the use of wildlife in traditional Chinese medicine, according to the International Business Times.”Restricting the eating of wildlife while promoting medicines containing wildlife parts exemplifies the mixed messages being sent by Chinese authorities on wildlife trade,” said Aron White, a China specialist at the London-based Environmental Investigation Agency, in a statement. “Aside from the irony of promoting a wildlife product for treatment of a disease which the scientific community has overwhelmingly concludedoriginated in wildlife, the continued promotion of the use of threatened wildlife in medicine is hugely irresponsible in an era of unprecedented biodiversity loss, including illegal and unsustainable trade.”The use of bear bile in Chinese medicine dates back at least 1,300 years. Bile is secreted by the liver and stored in the gall bladder. Bile from bears tends to be high in ursodeoxycholic acid, also known as ursodiol, which is helpful in dissolving gallstones and treating liver disease. A synthetic version of ursodeoxycholic acid has been available for decades, according to National Geographic. There is no evidence that ursodeoxycholic acid cures or relieves symptoms of COVID-19. “The use of the threatened wildlife is traditional medicine in totally unnecessary, especially given the availability of acceptable herbal and artificial alternatives, and many traditional medicine practitioners and users want to see an end to use of wildlife products,” said White in a statement.Furthermore, extracting bear bile is a brutal process that requires inserting a catheter, syringe, or pipe into the gallbladder. All these avenues are invasive and “cause severe suffering, pain, and infection,” according to Animals Asia, a nonprofit dedicated to ending bear bile farming, as National Geographic reported.
Frightened Mobs In Peru Burn Hundreds Of Bats With Torches As COVID-19 Hysteria Grows – As the coronavirus outbreak continues to grow, misinformation in the form of fake news, rumors, and gossip have continued to feed mass hysteria and panic over the deadly disease. In Peru, this has resulted in locals attempting to fight CoViD-19 by attacking communities of bats despite the fact that the novel virus still hasn’t been decisively proven to have originated from the winged creature.On Wednesday, the Peruvian government issued a statement warning residents to stop killing bats after authorities were forced to intervene when roughly half a thousand of the flying mammals came under attack by gangs of peasants hoping to exterminate what they believed were carriers of the disease, reports Peruvian network América Noticias.Roughly 300 of the creatures were killed in the arson attacks that took place in the small village of Culden, which lies in the Cajamarca region, after mobs attacked the caves where the bat communities dwelled, Peru’s National Service of Wild Forests and Fauna (SERFOR) announced.About 200 bats were saved from the torch-bearing gangs by members of the wildlife service and National Agrarian Health Service (SENASA) who later released the animals into a distant cave far from Culden. AFP reports that in a statement, SERFOR said: “We must not distort the situation due to the pandemic. Bats are not our enemies.”
COVID-19 Could Threaten Already Vulnerable Great Apes -The new coronavirus may have passed from animals to humans, but now there are concerns that it could pass from humans to endangered species of apes. Twenty-seven conservation experts from the Great Ape Health Consortium urged a letter to Nature Tuesdaythat all great ape tourism be suspended and field research be reduced in an effort to protect already vulnerable species from contracting COVID-19. “The Covid-19 pandemic is a critical situation for humans, our health and our economies,” lead letter writer Thomas Gillespie of Emory University told The Guardian. “It’s also a potentially dire situation for great apes. There is a lot at stake for those in danger of extinction.” Since no gorilla, orangutan or chimpanzee has yet caught COVID-19, it is impossible to know exactly how it would impact our closest genetic relatives, but human respiratory illnesses as mild as the common cold have proved fatal to gorillas, The Associated Press reported. Some parks are already taking measures to protect the animals. Virunga National Park in the Congo, which is home to a third of the world’s mountain gorillas, is closing to human visitors until June 1 to prevent transmission, and Rwanda is also closing three parks home to gorillas and chimpanzees to tourists and researchers. In Malaysian Borneo, meanwhile, the Sepilok Rehabilitation Centre is also closing to protect orangutans. “This disease could be fatal for the already critically endangered orangutan: it is a risk that we cannot afford to take,” Susan Sheward of Orangutan Appeal UK explained to The Guardian. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature issued guidelines in response to the coronavirus March 15 urging interactions between humans and apes to be reduced to the minimum possible. It advised that the normal seven meter (approximately 23 foot) distance between apes and humans be expanded to 10 meters (approximately 33 feet) and that no one who is ill or has been in contact with someone who was ill within the past 14 days be allowed to interact with apes.
Coronavirus: ‘Nature is sending us a message’, says UN environment chief -Nature is sending us a message with the coronavirus pandemic and the ongoing climate crisis, according to the UN’s environment chief, Inger Andersen.Andersen said humanity was placing too many pressures on the natural world with damaging consequences, and warned that failing to take care of the planet meant not taking care of ourselves.Leading scientists also said the Covid-19 outbreak was a “clear warning shot”, given that far more deadly diseases existed in wildlife, and that today’s civilisation was “playing with fire”. They said it was almost always human behaviour that caused diseases to spill over into humans.To prevent further outbreaks, the experts said, both global heating and the destruction of the natural world for farming, mining and housing have to end, as both drive wildlife into contact with people.They also urged authorities to put an end to live animal markets – which they called an “ideal mixing bowl” for disease – and the illegal global animal trade.Andersen, executive director of the UN Environment Programme, said the immediate priority was to protect people from the coronavirus and prevent its spread. “But our long-term response must tackle habitat and biodiversity loss,” she added.“Never before have so many opportunities existed for pathogens to pass from wild and domestic animals to people,” she told the Guardian, explaining that75% of all emerging infectious diseases come from wildlife.“Our continued erosion of wild spaces has brought us uncomfortably close to animals and plants that harbour diseases that can jump to humans.”
Environmentalist Group- Corona Is The Cure – Humans Are The Disease – A climate change group that aligns itself with Extinction Rebellion posted stickers claiming that coronavirus is a “cure” for the “disease” that is humanity. “Earth is healing. The air and water is clearing,” tweeted Extinction Rebellion East Midlands“Corona is the cure. Humans are the disease!”The post shows stickers with the same message and the Extinction Rebellion logo plastered on lamp posts. Earth is healing. The air and water is clearing. Corona is the cure. Humans are the disease!#ClimateCrisis #CoronaCrisis #coronavirus pic.twitter.com/nYJp30WhtH – XREastMidlands (@xr_east) March 24, 2020 When another branch of Extinction Rebellion challenged that this “does not follows XR’s principles,” the East Midlands chapter doubled down.“We are pointing out that from the perspective of the Earth, humans behave like a disease. The idea is not to be,” they responded. While Extinction Rebellion East Midlands may represent little more than the ravings of one idiot, the notion that humanity somehow deserved coronavirus and that it’s good for the planet has been widely shared by environmentalists and celebrities.
Coronavirus pandemic leading to huge drop in air pollution –The coronavirus pandemic is shutting down industrial activity and temporarily slashing air pollution levels around the world, satellite imagery from the European Space Agency shows. One expert said the sudden shift represented the “largest scale experiment ever” in terms of the reduction of industrial emissions. Readings from ESA’s Sentinel-5P satellite show that over the past six weeks, levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) over cities and industrial clusters in Asia and Europe were markedly lower than in the same period last year.Nitrogen dioxide is produced from car engines, power plants and other industrial processes and is thought to exacerbate respiratory illnesses such as asthma. While not a greenhouse gas itself, the pollutant originates from the same activities and industrial sectors that are responsible for a large share of the world’s carbon emissions and that drive global heating. Paul Monks, professor of air pollution at the University of Leicester, predicted there will be important lessons to learn. “We are now, inadvertently, conducting the largest-scale experiment ever seen,” he said. “Are we looking at what we might see in the future if we can move to a low-carbon economy? Not to denigrate the loss of life, but this might give us some hope from something terrible. To see what can be achieved.” Monks said that a reduction in air pollution could bring some health benefits, though they were unlikely to offset loss of life from the disease. “It seems entirely probable that a reduction in air pollution will be beneficial to people in susceptible categories, for example some asthma sufferers,” he said. “It could reduce the spread of disease. A high level of air pollution exacerbates viral uptake because it inflames and lowers immunity.” Agriculture could also get a boost because pollution stunts plant growth, he added.
Coronavirus Shutdowns Causing Huge Drops in Traffic, Air Pollution – The novel coronavirus that has caused a global pandemic is also having an enormous impact on the environment, according to new satellite data. As governments around the world have restricted people from moving, industry, air travel and vehicular traffic have grinded to a halt, causing pollution levels to plummet, according to The New York Times. Areas that have been COVID-19 hotspots, like China and Italy, have already seen huge reductions in air pollution. Now the same trend is happening in major U.S. cities like Los Angeles, Seattle, New York, Chicago and Atlanta where rush hour congestion has vanished as trucks and cars are no longer choking the streets, according to The New York Times.”Air pollution levels as observed by satellite are showing drastic improvements in many areas that have been undergoing restrictive quarantines due to COVID-19,” Peter DeCarlo, an associate professor of environmental health engineering at Johns Hopkins University, told Newsweek.”But it’s [also] very clear that airline passenger numbers are way down, as many countries introduce travel bans and meetings/conferences/work-related travel is canceled. Industrial activity is also reduced, but not necessarily to the extent of traffic. For example, power plants still need to run to produce electricity, water treatment plants still need to continue to treat water, etcetera,” he said.Satellite imagery taken over the U.S. in the first three weeks of March shows less nitrogen dioxide over the country than the same period last year, according to data from the European Space Agency, as CNNreported. Nitrogen dioxide levels are driven by burning fuels, as well as emissions of cars, trucks, buses, power plants and off-road equipment, according to CNN.The New York Times noted that freeway traffic in Los Angeles, which is usually at a standstill during rush hour, was moving at a brisk 71 miles per hour.”There’s basically no rush hour anymore, or at least not what we would recognize as a rush hour,” said Trevor Reed, a transportation analyst at INRIX, a company that analyzes traffic data from vehicle and phone navigation systems, to The New York Times. A similar trend is happening in the Bay Area, where crossings of the heavily trafficked Bay Bridge that connects San Francisco to Oakland have dropped by 40 percent, according to the California Department of Transportation, as The New York Times reported. The drop in pollution levels is mirrored around the world, wherever people are staying home to try to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus. In China, nitrogen dioxide levels dropped 35 percent, and up to 60 percent in some cities. Similarly, reductions of up to 40 percent were seen in Milan, according to Newsweek.
Smoke from Australia’s bushfires killed far more people than the fires did, study says – Smoke pollution that blanketed Australia’s south-east for many months during the bushfire crisis may have killed more than 400 people, according to the first published estimate of the scale of health impacts – more than 10 times the number killed by the fires themselves.The figures, published in the Medical Journal of Australia, are “definitely alarming”, according to Chris Migliaccio, who studies the long-term effects of wildfire smoke at the University of Montana in Missoula and was not involved in the research.Lead author Fay Johnston, an epidemiologist at the University of Tasmania in Hobart, estimates 80% of Australia’s population of about 25 million was blanketed by smoke this summer.“The fires were unprecedented in Australia’s history, in terms of vast amounts of smoke, the huge populations affected by the smoke and the long duration,” she said.Sydney experienced 81 days of poor or hazardous air quality in 2019, more than the total of the previous 10 years combined. To come up with a picture of the overall health burden of smoke exposure, they looked at existing data on death rates and hospital admissions to get a baseline. They then modelled how the known levels and extent of smoke exposure across the southeast, during the height of the crisis from 1 October to 10 February, would have affected these. Their results estimate that over this period there were 417 premature deaths, 3,151 extra hospitalisations for cardiorespiratory problems and 1,305 additional attendances for asthma attacks. This compares to 33 who reportedly died as a direct result of the bushfires.Many of the deaths and hospitalisations are likely to have been older patients with heart disease or lung problems, such as chronic bronchitis or emphysema – but severe asthma attacks will likely have resulted in deaths in younger people too, Johnston said.In patients with pre-existing cardiorespiratory issues, smoke exposure promotes inflammation, stresses the body and makes blood more likely to clot, increasing the risk of a heart attack. “In someone at high risk, subtle changes due to stress … can be the precipitating factor for a very serious or terminal event,” she said.
Australia Bushfire Smoke Killed 12.6x More People Than Fires, Study Finds – The Australian wildfires that burned for five months and destroyed millions of acres also killed 33 people. However, the smoke from the fires killed 12.6 times as many people. New research has shown that smoke from the fires killed 417 people and caused thousands of hospitalizations between October and February, asCBS News reported.The study was published in the Medical Journal of Australia. The research team, led by Fay Johnston at the University of Tasmania in Hobart, collected data on deaths, hospitalizations and emergency room visits. They then took that data and created a comprehensive map that pinpointed exactly how spikes in air pollutionlevels linked to increases in hospital visits, according to Nature.”The fires were unprecedented in Australia’s history, in terms of vast amounts of smoke, the huge populations affected by the smoke and the long duration,” Johnston said, as The Guardian reported.The wildfires caused Australia’s air quality to plummet. Sydney experienced 81 days of poor or hazardous quality in 2019, more than the last 10 years combined. The capital, Canberra, at one point during the fires, had the world’s worst air quality. In January, tennis players at the Australian Open in Melbourne complained that the smoke from the nearby fires hurt their lungs.”When you’re affecting millions of people in a small way, there are going to be enough people at high enough risk that you’re going to see really measurable rises in these health effects,” Johnston said to The Guardian. The data that Johnston and her team collected found that the smoke accounted for 1,124 cardiovascular-related hospital admissions, 2,027 respiratory-related hospital admissions, and 1,305 asthma-related emergency room admissions, according to CBS News.
PG&E to plead guilty to lethal crimes in 2018 wildfires (AP) – Pacific Gas & Electric will plead guilty to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter for a swath of death and destruction left behind after its fraying electrical grid ignited a 2018 wildfire that destroyed three Northern California towns and drove the nation’s largest utility into bankruptcy. The plea agreement announced Monday resolves the charges facing PG&E as part of a previously sealed indictment in Butte County. It marks the second time this decade that the company’s neglect has culminated in it being deemed a criminal. PG&E already is serving a five-year criminal probation imposed after it was convicted of six felony counts for falsifying records and other safety violations underlying a natural gas explosion that blew up a neighborhood in 2010 and killed eight people in San Bruno, California. As with its prior criminal conviction, no one from PG&E will go to prison for the company’s felony crimes. Instead, its plea agreement with the Butte County District Attorney’s office calls for PG&E to pay a $4 million fine, the maximum allowed. It will also help pay for efforts to restore access to water for residents affected by the loss of a canal destroyed by what became known as the Camp Fire. “We cannot replace all that the fire destroyed, but our hope is that this plea agreement, along with our rebuilding efforts, will help the community move forward from this tragic incident,” PG&E Corp. CEO Bill Johnson said. In a statement, Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey said he hopes the plea agreement will bring “a bit of a sense of justice done” for the fire. Camp Fire survivor Lisa Williams was outraged with the outcome. “It’s a crime against society,” she said. “A fine doesn’t change their behavior. They pay it and repeat bad behavior.”
PG&E to plead guilty to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter for Camp Fire deaths – California’s largest utility, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) announced Monday that it agreed to plead guilty to charges of involuntary manslaughter in the deaths of 84 people during the devastating Camp Fire in 2018. The move came after state regulators conclusively determined that poorly maintained utility lines were at fault for the 2018 fire that completely destroyed the town of Paradise, population 26,000, and obliterated more than 18,000 buildings, causing $16.5 billion in damages. The plea deal was reached to drive down the company’s financial liability for the disaster to as minuscule an amount as possible, while preventing prosecutors from pursuing further charges associated with the Camp Fire. PG&E’s goal throughout the proceedings has been to maintain profits at the expense of public safety, refusing to modernize its electrical infrastructure by replacing its antiquated wooden transmission lines with resilient steel or underground lines. The Camp Fire was sparked by a worn-out hook on a 100-year-old transmission tower. According to the findings of the state utility commission, the tower had not been inspected since 2001. Sentencing will not take place until April 24 at the earliest due to the coronavirus pandemic. However, on March 17, PG&E filed a report with the Securities and Exchange Commission outlining the expected details of the sentencing. The report stated that the utility will be sentenced to “pay the maximum total fine and penalty of $3.5 million,” or only $41,176 for each victim of the Camp Fire. Additionally, PG&E would be responsible for a $500,000 payment to reimburse costs associated with investigating their responsibility for the wildfire, for a total of $4 million. The total fine is only a fourth of the $16 million bonus package PG&E executives intended to award themselves in early 2019, which was disallowed by the bankruptcy judge. This came after the utility’s responsibility for the wildfire was already known, and after the company had declared bankruptcy earlier in the year to escape its debt obligations and other legal liabilities. To shield PG&E and the other regional utility monopolies in California from future financial damages, last summer Democratic governor Gavin Newsom worked with the state legislature to create a $21 billion wildfire fund that would effectively shield the utilities from future liabilities. Newsom, notwithstanding his public criticism of PG&E, has taken over $200,000 in campaign funding from the company and has repeatedly sponsored legislation exempting it and the other utilities from legal liability.
EPA suspends enforcement of environmental laws amid coronavirus – – The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a sweeping suspension of its enforcement of environmental laws Thursday, telling companies they would not need to meet environmental standards during the coronavirus outbreak. The temporary policy, for which EPA has set no end date, would allow any number of industries to skirt environmental laws, with the agency saying it will not “seek penalties for noncompliance with routine monitoring and reporting obligations.” Cynthia Giles, who headed EPA’s Office of Enforcement during the Obama administration, called it a moratorium on enforcing the nation’s environmental laws and an abdication of EPA’s duty. “This EPA statement is essentially a nationwide waiver of environmental rules for the indefinite future. It tells companies across the country that they will not face enforcement even if they emit unlawful air and water pollution in violation of environmental laws, so long as they claim that those failures are in some way ’caused’ by the virus pandemic. And it allows them an out on monitoring too, so we may never know how bad the violating pollution was,” she wrote in a statement to The Hill. The EPA has been under pressure from a number of industries, including the oil industry, to suspend enforcement of a number of environmental regulations due to the pandemic. “EPA is committed to protecting human health and the environment, but recognizes challenges resulting from efforts to protect workers and the public from COVID-19 may directly impact the ability of regulated facilities to meet all federal regulatory requirements,” EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said in a statement. In a 10-page letter to EPA earlier this week, the American Petroleum Institute (API) asked for a suspension of rules that require repairing leaky equipment as well as monitoring to make sure pollution doesn’t seep into nearby water. Other industries had also asked to ignite the “force majeure” clauses of any legal settlements they had signed with EPA, allowing for an extension on deadlines to meet various environmental goals in the face of unforeseen circumstances. But Giles and others say the memo signed Thursday goes beyond that request, giving industries board authority to pollute with little overnight from the agency. “Incredibly, the EPA statement does not even reserve EPA’s right to act in the event of an imminent threat to public health,” Giles said.
Plastic Bag Bans Put on Hold Amid Coronavirus Fears – A number of states and cities that implemented bans on plastic bags are putting them on hold over concerns about the cleanliness of reusable bags amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.Last week, the Massachusetts Food Administration asked Governor Charlie Baker to rescind bans on plastic bags in several towns over concerns that handling the reusable bags poses a threat to grocery store workers. While some viruses are known to survive in reusable shopping bags for up to nine days, there is no evidence so far that the novel coronavirus does, according to Patch. Massachusetts’ neighbors seem to be following a similar trajectory. New York State, which implemented its plastic bag ban on March 1, has decided to hold off enforcement until at least May 15, according to the state’sDepartment of Conservation (DEC).Despite the delay in enforcement, New York State still encourages shoppers to use reusable bags when shopping for their essentials.DEC continues to encourage New Yorkers to transition to reusable bags whenever and wherever they shop and to use common sense precautions to keep their reusable bags clean,” said Erica Ringewald, spokeswoman for DEC, as the Brooklyn Eagle reported. “New York’s ban on single-use plastic bags went into effect as planned on March 1. Retailers across the state are complying.” “Folks, if you are concerned about the cleanliness of your reusable bag, please consider washing it – as you wash clothes or hands. It’s good hygiene anyway,” tweeted DEC Commissioner Basil Seggos, as the New York Post reported. “New Yorkers are pleased with the bag ban and have no interest in a return to polluting ways.” New Hampshire went in another direction. Out of an abundance of caution, the governor issued an emergency order banning reusable bags, requiring stores to use plastic or paper instead, according to the Boston Herald. “Our grocery store workers are on the front lines of COVID-19, working around the clock to keep New Hampshire families fed,” said Gov. Chris Sununu in a statement. “With identified community transmission, it is important that shoppers keep their reusable bags at home given the potential risk to baggers, grocers and customers.”
Group to study removing dam on Cheat River (AP) – A West Virginia group plans to study removal of the only dam on the Cheat River. The DTE Foundation awarded Friends of the Cheat $100,000 to study removing the Albright Power Station dam, which created a pool that fed the cooling towers of the now decommissioned coal-fired plant, The Dominion Post reported. “Preserving our environment – land, air and water – is a priority for the DTE Energy Foundation,” said Lynette Dowler, president of the foundation. “We’re proud to support Friends of the Cheat in their work to remove a dam that will improve aquatic life and enhance fishing along this beautiful waterway.” A consulting firm will do a study to determine information such as the structural integrity of the dam, details about sediment behind it and potential options for removal. Removal of the dam is endorsed by the state Division of Natural Resources, the foundation said.
Great Barrier Reef Has Third Major Bleaching Event in Five Years – The Great Barrier Reef, a natural wonder that once teemed with life, just experienced a major coral bleaching event, according to scientists who conducted aerial surveys over hundreds of individual reefs, as The Guardian reported.According to NBC News, the entire Great Barrier Reef is suffering a period of unprecedented heat stress. This bleaching event is the third one in five years and questions remain about the corals’ ability to recover from the constant onslaught from changing marine conditions.”This has never happened before,” Mark Eakin, coordinator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Coral Reef Watch program in College Park, Maryland, said as the NBC News reported. “We’re in completely uncharted territory.”Bleachings don’t necessarily kill the corals, but it does leave them extremely vulnerable to disease from bacteria or viruses. Bleaching, which occurs in response to abnormal conditions like heat or increased acidity in the water, forces the corals to release the tiny photosynthetic algae that live in their tissue and are responsible for their color, according to NBC News. The previous two heat stress related bleaching events were in 2016 and 2017. Scientists say the frequency of the heat-induced bleaching is a direct result of the climate crisis, which spells trouble for the vitality of the reef since the corals do not have enough time to recover and to grow back, according to NBC News.
Climate change: Earth’s deepest ice canyon vulnerable to melting – East Antarctic’s Denman Canyon is the deepest land gorge on Earth, reaching 3,500m below sea-level. It’s also filled top to bottom with ice, which US space agency (Nasa) scientists reveal in a new report has a significant vulnerability to melting. Retreating and thinning sections of the glacier suggest it is being eroded by encroaching warm ocean water. Denman is one to watch for the future. If its ice were hollowed out, it would raise the global sea surface by 1.5m. “How fast this can happen? Hard to say, since there are many factors coming into play, for example the narrowness of the channel along which Denman is retreating may slow down the retreat,” explained Dr Virginia Brancato, from Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and a former scholar at the University of California at Irvine (UCI). “At present, it is critical to collect more data, and closely and more frequently monitor the future evolution of the glacier,” she told BBC News. Deepest point on land found in Antarctica East Antarctica’s glaciers are stirring Journey to the ‘doomsday glacier’ Denman Canyon (vertical exaggeration x 5)Image copyrightSOURCE:NASA Image caption The shape of the bedrock under Denman can explain the asymmetric retreat Most people recognise the shores around the Dead Sea in the Middle East to have the lowest visible land surface elevation on Earth, at some 430m below sea level. But the base of the gorge occupied by Denman Glacier on the edge of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) actually reaches eight times as deep.
Retreating Antarctic Glacier Could Raise Sea Levels 5 Feet – Antarctica’s Denman Canyon is the deepest gorge on the Earth’s surface, and, if the ice inside it melted, it could raise sea levels by almost five feet. Now, research published in Geophysical Research Letters Monday looked at how close that might be to happening and found that the glacier had retreated five kilometers (approximately three miles) in the last 22 years, according to a University of California Irvine (UCI) press release. “If warm water continues to induce high rates of ice melt near the glacier grounding zone, the potential exists for Denman Glacier to undergo a rapid and irreversible retreat, with major consequences for sea level rise,” the researchers concluded. The study, carried out by scientists at UCI and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Jet Propulsion Laboratory, is the most detailed of the glacier to date. It found that it has lost 268 billion tons of ice between 1979 and 2017. It also noticed that the glacier’s grounding line ― the point where the ice begins to flow into the ocean ― had retreated asymmetrically, falling back mostly on the Western side. BBC News explained why:The reason, the scientists can now determine, is a buried ridge under the eastern flank which is pinning and protecting that side of the glacier. In contrast, the western flank features a narrow but sizeable trough that would allow warm ocean water to erode the grounding line and push it backwards. This potentially is an Achilles heel. The further inland the glacier reaches, the deeper its bed – which is a geometry that has been demonstrated to favour more and more melting. If a lot of warm ocean water can find its way to the front of Denman, the opportunity is there to melt out its ice in a significant way.
Progressive advocates propose $2T ‘green stimulus’ plan – Progressive activists are proposing a “green stimulus” plan that would aim to boost the economy through the implementation of environmental reforms in various sectors. The advocates and academics behind the plan outlined their at least $2 trillion proposal that aims to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels and create “green jobs” in an open letter to Congress posted Sunday. The proposal includes certain elements of the Green New Deal, a broad policy framework that seeks to mobilize the U.S. economy to fight climate change. It comes amid projections that the U.S. has fallen into a recession and that unemployment may increase dramatically as businesses shutter during the coronavirus pandemic. It also comes as senators are in tense negotiations over a stimulus package. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) criticized Democrats on Monday over their demands for the stimulus, describing their proposals as a political “wish list” that he said includes tax deductions for solar and wind energy, measures for organized labor and emissions standards for airlines. The activist proposal aims to make changes to areas including housing, transportation, manufacturing, energy and farming. Specifically, it would seek to create jobs in clean energy expansion, making modifications to buildings to make them more efficient and building electric vehicles, among other areas.
House stimulus includes controversial effort to stem airline pollution -The stimulus package to battle the economic effects of the coronavirus proposed by House Democrats includes provisions to crack down on pollution from the airline industry. The bill also includes more than $50 billion in relief for the industry, but it would require airlines to go carbon neutral for domestic flights by 2025. It also promotes cleaner jet fuels and would greenlight the government to buy older, less efficient planes from airlines. Environmentalists have pushed the party not just to crack down on airlines but to offer tax incentives to the renewable energy sector. But Democrats’ efforts to include environmental language have in part stalled similar legislation in the Senate, where a vote on a stimulus package has once again been delayed. “Airlines that want public support should live public values,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) tweeted when pushing the concept in the Senate last week. The House package tasks the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) with overseeing most of the required emissions reductions. Beyond the carbon neutrality provisions, airlines who take assistance would also be required to set binding targets to reduce their own emissions to 50 percent below 2005 levels by 2050. Airlines would have to start posting about the emissions levels for flights alongside their ticket prices starting in 2023. The government would also purchase $1 billion worth of older, more-polluting planes with the expectation airlines would replace them with more fuel-efficient models. The U.S. would be able to recoup some of those costs by selling airplane parts back to various carriers.
A Plant in Florida Emits Vast Quantities of a Greenhouse Gas Nearly 300 Times More Potent Than Carbon Dioxide –Ten miles north of Pensacola, Florida, on the west bank of the Escambia River, an aging chemical plant, its tanks, smokestacks and stainless steel pipes sprawling across hundreds of acres, is a climate killer hiding in plain sight.The plant, owned by Houston-based Ascend Performance Materials, makes adipic acid, one of two main ingredients for nylon 6,6, a strong, durable plastic used in everything from stockings to carpeting, seat belts and air bags. The plant also emits vast quantities of an unwanted byproduct, nitrous oxide, more colloquially known as “laughing gas.” From a climate perspective, the plant’s emissions are no joke. Nitrous oxide, or N2O, is nearly 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas. N2O emissions totaling 33,046 metric tons from the plant in 2018, the most recent year for which data is available, equal the annual greenhouse gas emissions of 2.1 million automobiles, according tocompany data reported to the Environmental Protection Agency and the agency’s greenhouse gas equivalencies calculator. That is more than all the registered vehicles in Miami and nearly one-third of all cars in Florida. But unlike the carbon dioxide that spews from automobiles or smokestacks, nitrous oxide emissions from chemical plants can be abated using existing technology at relatively modest cost. The plant, a subsidiary of SK Capital Partners, a private equity firm that says it generates $9 billion in annual revenue, is the largest point source of nitrous oxide emissions in the country. Its number one ranking as a nitrous oxide polluter illustrates how companies often choose to leave untouched greenhouse gas emissions they aren’t required by law to abate, even when proven systems exist to eliminate those emissions. In the case of nitrous oxide emissions, DuPont and its global competitors, alarmed by N2O’s potency as a greenhouse gas, joined forces almost 30 years ago and developed technologies to abate virtually all of their pollution.
RENEWABLES: ‘Devastating.’ 62% of energy storage firms hit with delays — Tuesday, March 24, 2020 — Almost two-thirds of energy storage businesses are seeing delays related to the new coronavirus that could lead to an “immediate and potentially devastating” impact, according to a trade group survey.
California regulators back major increase in renewables, ban on new natural gas plants – California on Thursday adopted a new emissions target for its electric sector that would double the state’s clean energy capacity over the next decade and close the door to development of new natural gas plants, but green groups said the goal was not aggressive enough. The state’s Public Utilities Commission set a target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 46 million metric tons by 2030, 56% below 1990 levels. The goal outpaces the state’s overall goal of slashing emissions to 40% below 1990 levels by 2030. California electricity providers will need to develop nearly 25 gigawatts of renewable energy and battery storage to achieve the goal, nearly double the amount the state has currently, CPUC Commissioner Liane Randolph said in a statement. The agency anticipates 8,900 MW of energy storage will be included in that total, or about eight times more than existed in the entire United States at the end of 2018. Environmental groups had pressed for a more aggressive target of 30 MMT that would get the state closer to its 2045 goal of sourcing electricity exclusively from carbon-free sources. They favor a rapid shift away from fossil fuels to fight global climate change. In a win for green groups, the CPUC closed a loophole that would allowed development of new natural gas plants if paired with energy storage. Expansion of existing natural gas plants is allowed if paired with energy storage, however. New gas plants are allowed if they use biomethane, which comes from manure, landfills or wastewater and is interchangeable with gas drilled out of the ground. It cuts greenhouse gas emissions by ensuring significant volumes of methane, that would have been produced anyway, never reach the atmosphere.
First-of-its kind wood pellet plant leaves North Carolina community wondering – A new kind of wood pellet plant is raising questions in North Carolina’s Robeson County – from how it will impact public health to whether it’s in line with Gov. Roy Cooper’s goals on climate pollution. But with a public hearing on the proposed factory canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic and a comment period ending soon, community members and advocates worry they are running out of time to get answers. The proposed facility would be the first in the world to produce shiny capsules of wood called black pellets, which are denser than traditional, blond-colored pellets and can burn in electric coal plants without any modifications. Critics worry the plant may cause excess water pollution in addition to air pollution, creating an additional burden for a community already laden with numerous sources of environmental harm. “There must be a bullseye in Robeson County,” said Jeff Currie, riverkeeper for the Lumber River. Trees store carbon and pellets contain relatively high amounts of water, so burning pellets causes more carbon dioxide than coal per unit of electricity produced. Yet biomass is considered carbon neutral by many governments that assume these smokestack emissions are counted and regulated by the countries making the pellets – though that’s rarely the case. Europe, in particular, has seized on this rationale to meet global warming pollution reduction goals, with many nations offering subsidies to power companies that burn wood pellets in their plants instead of coal. While the United Kingdom is phasing out its incentives, the fuel now makes up most of what’s considered renewable energy across the European Union, and analysts say Asia is not far behind.
Duke Energy rewards, punishes N.C. lawmakers over ratemaking bill – It was August of last year, and North Carolina Rep. Elmer Floyd was the last to defend a controversial ratemaking bill backed by Duke Energy. An amendment gutting the measure’s most contentious section was on the verge of passage on the House floor. Floyd rose to argue it should have been offered in the public utilities committee first. “I can’t support this amendment when it had the opportunity to be [run] in utility,” the sixth-term lawmaker told his colleagues. With four other members of the Legislative Black Caucus, one other Democrat, and 45 Republicans, Floyd pressed the red button. It was a faint attempt to salvage the widely panned legislation that permitted Duke to seek upfront, multi-year rate increases. It failed: The amendment passed, and lawmakers later approved just the first section of Senate Bill 559, which allowed Duke to recoup storm-repair costs with bonds backed by ratepayers, a mechanism called securitization. But Floyd’s actions appeared to be enough to draw Duke’s backing in his March 3 primary, where he ran in a newly drawn district against political newcomer Kimberly Hardy. Duke’s political action committee gave him $5,400 in the run-up to Super Tuesday. A separate political committee called a 527, run by former longtime Duke employees, poured at least $13,940 into television ads promoting the Fayetteville lawmaker. Floyd wasn’t alone. The same 527 group ran ads supporting another lawmaker, Republican Steve Jarvis, who also ran in a tight primary. Filings with election officials show the company’s PAC spent over $300,000 on 77 legislative candidates this year, including 13 Democrats.
Utilities beginning to see the load impacts of COVID-19 as economic shutdown widens – It has been less than a week since states and major cities began instituting quarantines along with stay-home and shelter-in-place directives to reduce the spread of COVID-19. The full impacts on electricity usage are not yet known, but grid operators say demand is both shifting and falling. Data from overseas may give an indication of just how steep the declines could become. Italy instituted lockdowns and closed essential businesses earlier this month, in response to a spike in novel coronavirus infections. According to the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), the country has since witnessed a significant decline in electricity demand. Five to seven days after Italy’s lockdown began, the country saw an 18% to 21% reduction in peak demand and energy use on a year-over-year basis, according to EPRI data. The demand decline began with a more modest 10% reduction in peak demand in the first two days after beginning its lockdown on March 12 and 13. In the United States, grid operators say it is too soon to get a firm handle on the impacts of coronavirus shutdowns, but some are already seeing usage declines. Propelling those declines, S&P Global is predicting a global recession this year, and estimates the United States economy will see a 6% seasonally adjusted second quarter contraction before beginning to recover in the second half of the year. “In the near term, utilities will likely see some reduced sales volumes as major sporting events, concerts and businesses scale back drastically, compounded even further by social distancing requirements being mandated or recommended by federal and local governments across North America,” S&P said in a March 19 report. While the firm believes “the majority of North American regulated utilities are well positioned to handle the immediate impact of COVID-19,” the report also warned a few with “disproportionate exposure to [the] commercial and industrial class of customers could be vulnerable to reduced sales volumes.”
PANDEMIC: Coronavirus slowdown ripples across U.S. grid — Monday, March 23, 2020 — Downtowns are ghost towns. Restaurants, bars, stores, schools and offices are closed. Factories are idled. Economists say a U.S. recession is coming. Like the coronavirus, economic turmoil is spreading everywhere, including to electricity demand. And the implications are only starting to be realized. “We’re on day three or four of this, but we’ve already seen impacts,” Adam Jordan, director of power analytics at Genscape, an energy research company that tracks electricity markets, said in an interview. Jordan and his team are among the analysts, traders and economists monitoring the effects of an economic slowdown fueled by the virus and how it ripples through the nation’s electric industry. For now, speculation about a prolonged drop in power demand and prices is just that. But if demand weakens further and the economic slump lingers into summer or beyond, it could force companies to dial back on grid investments, delay new power plant projects and put more pressure on aging power plants already struggling to compete in markets flush with supply. A plunge in electricity demand also could affect greenhouse gas emissions. According to EPA, more than a quarter of U.S. emissions come from the electricity sector. The country’s largest bulk power market, PJM Interconnection LLC, which spans 13 Mid-Atlantic and Midwestern states, on March 16 revised its daily forecast of about 100,000 megawatts of load given the time of year and weather to 94,500. Actual demand came in at 95,500 MW, spokesman Jeff Shields said. “We saw some reduction that day and will continue to consider coronavirus-inspired changes in human behavior in the load forecast,” he said. A prolonged slump in demand for electricity in a market like PJM, where there’s already a supply cushion that exceeds reserve margin requirements, could put even more pressure on power plants already struggling to compete, including older, less efficient coal units, said Travis Miller, an analyst at Morningstar. “This is just another hit on coal,”
Electricity Consumption In Italy Plummets Amid Countrywide Quarantine – Italy has gone full “Wuhan” with a massive lockdown across the country amid a virus crisis that has paralyzed its economy. So far, 63,927 confirmed cases of COVID-19 had been reported, with 6,077 deaths. The Italian economy is being dragged into a depression as the fast-spreading virus cripples its northern regions, forcing the government to ban travel and close all industrial production across the country. The impact of the virus on Italy’s economy led to the collapse of electricity consumption last week. Electricity usage fell 16% YoY for March 16-22, according to Bloomberg calculations based on Terna SpA data. Diego Marquina, an analyst covering European power markets at BloombergNEF, noted on Monday that electricity demand in every European country has declined due to the impact of quarantine measures to mitigate the virus spread. Marquina said if declining electricity consumption is “sustained…weekday power demand would most likely fall to Sunday levels – a 10-26% reduction, depending on the country.” He estimates that power prices could drop between 6-18 EUR/MWh. Last week, power demand in Italy fell 17% below the average for the week. The average reduction in demand was -11% in France, -9% in Belgium, and -7% in Spain.
BPU Takes Appeal Over Multistate $1.2B Transmission Upgrade to Federal Court – In the latest twist in a long-running dispute, the state of New Jersey is asking a federal appeals court to review a multistate debate over who gets stuck with funding the costs of a $1.2 billion transmission upgrade. In this instance, it was ratepayers in New Jersey in a decision challenged by the state Board of Public Utilities (BPU), which objected to a ruling by the regional grid operator, PJM Interconnection. The case involved cost allocations regarding the Bergen-Linden transmission line, which left New Jersey customers footing the bill. The BPU and Public Service Electric & Gas (PSE&G), which built the line at PJM’s direction, unreasonably left ratepayers bearing the full cost of the upgrades, even though the project allowed some electricity to be wheeled to the New York power grid. The lawsuit, filed on Monday in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, follows a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) decision early this month to deny a rehearing of its decision in the cost allocation dispute.
Ohio Valley Coal Industry Braces As COVID-19 Impacts Electricity Demand, International Exports –As states across the Ohio Valley order the closure of non-essential businesses to help slow the spread of the coronavirus, coal mines will remain open. But as with many industries, the global pandemic is straining the coal sector, and some experts say the already struggling industry could face intense challenges in the months ahead as electricity demand flags and international exports stall. “What we’re going to see is a big drop in Q2, that is without question,” said Brian Lego, referencing the coming second quarter reports, which will reflect the stark new economic reality. Lego is an economic forecaster who studies the coal industry with the Bureau of Business and Economic Research at West Virginia University. As the economy grinds to a halt, Lego said, demand for electricity is falling. While the use of coal for electricity has fallen in recent years, 23.5 percent of all utility generation came from burning coal in 2019, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That could be a challenge for a state like West Virginia, where a significant portion of its coal is burned by utilities. The industry is also facing challenges in exporting coal overseas, including to China, which was hit hard by COVID-19. “Export markets are crippled right now,” Lego said. Similar grim economics apply to metallurgical, or steel coal. As factories, including car manufacturers pause production, demand for parts is also impacted. While Lego cautioned much remains unknown in this fast-moving situation, so far, the calculus doesn’t look great. “So both here and abroad it’s a really complicated situation, and it’s not what I would consider positive in any way shape or form,” he said.
Iconic plant’s end spells doom for struggling coal industry (AP) – President Donald Trump tried to stop it from happening. The top Republican in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, did too. Despite their best efforts to make good on Trump’s campaign promise to save the beleaguered coal industry, including an eleventh-hour pressure campaign, the Tennessee Valley Authority power plant at Paradise burned its last load of coal last month. The plant’s closure – in a county that once mined more coal than any other in the nation – is emblematic of the industry’s decadeslong decline due to tougher environmental regulations, a major push toward renewable energy and a rise in the extraction of natural gas. The shuttering of businesses nationwide and a reduced need for energy amid the global coronavirus pandemic threatens to deal coal yet another devastating blow. “It’s not just one 1,000-megawatt unit closing; they’re going down all over the place,” said John Rogers, a former mine owner who lives in western Kentucky near the Paradise plant, located in Muhlenberg County. Since 2010, 500 coal-burning units, or boilers, at power plants have been shut down and nearly half the nation’s coal mines have closed. No U.S. energy company, big or small, is building a new coal-burning plant. Employment in the U.S. coal industry is the lowest in decades. Coal mine jobs have dropped by nearly 50 percent in the past decade to about 50,000 – a far cry from the 900,000 workers who were digging in coal mines when the industry hit its peak in the 1920s. Electric utilities are telling investors and customers that coal costs too much, mostly because of the money it costs to offset environmental effects, such as the release of carbon dioxide. Blackrock, the world’s largest asset manager, informed its clients in January that it would no longer invest in companies that get more than 25% of their revenue from burning coal. Electric utilities – and their customers – have instead embraced renewable energy and cleaner-burning gas burned in combined cycle plants, which have a smaller footprint and about a tenth of the workers of a coal plant. One such plant opened in the Paradise plant complex in 2017.
Murray Energy receives no bids for its coal assets, cancels bankruptcy auction – Murray Energy Corp. received no qualified offers competing against an initial stalking horse bid for substantially all of the company’s assets, according to a court filing. The final deadline for bids on the assets was March 16, but with no qualified bidders, the company canceled a bankruptcy auction scheduled for March 26. Given there were no higher bids, Murray Energy designated a stalking horse offer from a new group formed by its superpriority lenders as the winning bid. The company owns coal mines across Appalachia and in the Uinta Basin, Illinois Basin and Colombia. Previous bankruptcy filings show that Murray Energy engaged an investment bank advising firm in the summer of 2019 to explore financial options for the company, including potential asset sales. Those efforts were unsuccessful. Under the company’s restructuring support agreement announced in October 2019, the lenders would credit bid the company’s debt, and substantially all of the company’s prepetition funded debt would be eliminated. The agreement also provides that Murray Energy founder Robert Murray would be named chairman of the board of the new company. Murray President and CEO Robert Moore would maintain his current role in the new organization. The approved bidding procedures included a provision requiring a bid increment of at least $1.0 million. The bidding procedures also required that any proposals to purchase the assets provide cash consideration sufficient to pay the unpaid principal, interest, fees, expenses and other costs under or on account of the company’s debtor-in-possession financing facility. Murray Energy, which primarily produces thermal coal for U.S. power generators, is restructuring its business through proceedings in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Ohio. There is a May 26 deadline for interested parties to object to the sale. Murray Energy’s metallurgical coal subsidiary is undergoing a separate bankruptcy auction process. The subsidiary was not part of the parent company’s late-2019 bankruptcy petition but filed its own in February.
Miners Fear the Impacts Covid-19 Could Have in Coal Country — Jimmy Moore barely leaves the house. When he does, the 74-year-old is usually parked outside his local pharmacy in Dorton, Kentucky, until someone brings out his regular meds. As soon as Moore arrives home, he changes his clothes and washes his hands. Religiously. This wasn’t his routine before, but Moore can’t take any chances with the coronavirus. Moore mined the coalfields of Appalachia for 22 years. He suffers from diabetes and black lung, which covers a range of lung diseases that makes breathing difficult and damages the lungs. His 51-year-old son who followed him into the mines is also dealing with black lung, which is a common malady for patients exposed to coal and silica dust. That’s why black lung is formally known as coal workers’ pneumoconiosis. Physicians and researchers are warning that these former coal miners are at particular risk during this pandemic. As president of the Southeastern Kentucky Black Lung Association, Moore is also telling members to stay home and stay safe. “It’s a scary time right now,” Moore told Earther. “We try to be extra careful, [but] I don’t know how careful you can be with this virus. I’m just praying it don’t come into eastern Kentucky.” Covid-19 is especially deadly to those above the age of 60 and to those already suffering from heart disease, lung disease, and diabetes. Once the virus infects someone, it attacks the respiratory system. For those with an already weakened system, that damage can prove deadly. Unfortunately, many individuals suffering from black lung are in a dangerous demographic as they tend to be older in addition to having respiratory issues. Deaths from the disease were already on the rise pre-coronavirus. Adding in a new, dangerous disease will only raise the risks of more deaths.
Coal mining continues during coronavirus pandemic. Experts say that puts miners’ health at risk. – The Washington Post – When Pennsylvania ordered coal mines closed because of the coronavirus, then reversed course and declared them to be “essential,” West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice, who made a fortune in coal, was quick to mock his neighbors.“Coal is so essential it is unbelievable,” said Justice, a Republican. “We have to have good electricity flowing into our homes.”The mine workers union agrees with him. So does President Trump, who has spent the past three years talking up the coal business.But in the face of the pandemic, is coal mining actually so essential? Because of the nature of the work – a lot of crowding, coughing and spitting – and the significant incidence of lung damage from years of exposure to coal dust, silica and diesel exhaust, coal miners may be especially vulnerable to the coronavirus, medical researchers say. And coal provides less than a quarter of America’s electricity, at a moment when demand for power is falling and there are already large stockpiles of coal nationwide because of the warm winter, as well as a glut of cheap natural gas. In fact, last week, as oil prices collapsed and gas continued its downward slide, coal for the first time became the most expensive fossil fuel. There are about 51,000 miners employed in surface and underground mining in the United States, according to the U.S. Department Bureau of Labor Statistics. But there’s more than economics at stake. Though black lung disease sharply fell among miners from the 1970s to the 1990s, it has been on the rise since then. A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study found that more than 10 percent of the longest-tenured miners are still working even as they have the disease, and it afflicts a smaller portion of younger miners, as well. “Adding an infection to a coexisting lung disease can make things worse,” said Anna Allen, a doctor who studies black lung disease at West Virginia University. “It’s not unusual for us to find coal miners who have early-stage disease, feel fine, think they’re okay.” But, she said, they’ve already lost a portion of their reserve lung capacity. The complications from the coronavirus occur when the virus settles in the lungs and results in pneumonia. With black lung disease and silicosis, said Robert Cohen, a doctor who is the principal investigator at the Black Lung Clinic Program at the University of Illinois at Chicago, “you damage the lung’s ability to heal itself and to resist further damage.”
Coal mines emit more methane than oil-and-gas sector, study finds -Methane emissions from coal mines could be more than double previous estimates, according to a new study.The fossil-fuel industry is understood to be one of the biggest sources of atmospheric methane, primarily due to leaks from the production of oil and gas.However, a new paper published in the Journal of Cleaner Production suggests that coal mining may actually be a bigger contributor to levels of the greenhouse gas, with emissions set to grow considerably in the coming years.This is even more pronounced when accounting for the impact of old coal mines that continue to seep methane long after they have been abandoned. To date, attempts to curb methane emissions from mines have been limited.The authors of the new study say there are considerable gaps in the available data, and their results are based on extrapolations from the only nations for which sufficient information was available.Nevertheless, their findings are the latest in a string of papers to suggest methane emissions from the fossil-fuel industry have been “severely underestimated“. Methane is produced by natural sources, such as wetlands, as well as human activities, such as agriculture and fossil-fuel production.While there is considerable uncertainty around the contribution from fossil fuels, which makes up around a fifth of the total, previous work has suggested oil-and-gas production is the biggest contributor. Meanwhile, coal, which releases 75% more CO2 than gas per unit of energy, has been relatively overlooked when it comes to methane, a far more potent greenhouse gas.
Amid pandemic, US coal industry seeks lower taxes, royalties (AP) – The lobbying arm of the U.S. coal industry is asking for hundreds of millions of dollars in royalty relief, tax cuts and other breaks to help companies ride out the financial crisis brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. National Mining Association President Rich Nolan made the request in a letter sent this week to the White House and the leaders of the House and Senate. The benefits that Nolan asked Congress to provide could total more than $800 million a year for coal companies, based on last year’s payments by the industry to the federal government. The request includes a $220 million cut to a tax aimed at covering beneficiary payments for black lung disease in miners, a 50% cut in mine reclamation fees that would be worth $75 million, and suspending or eliminating royalty payments that totaled $527 million last year, according to the association. Even before the current economic upheaval, the coal mining industry was in sharp decline as utilities across the nation switch to cleaner-burning natural gas and renewable energy sources. With financial institutions under pressure from environmentalists to divest from coal, Nolan also said more access to credit was needed to help companies keep mines open. He described it as a matter of national security and said that without easier access to credit, operations at hundreds of mines employing tens of thousands of miners could be threatened. “The coal industry is absolutely critical to securing a domestic, secure supply of affordable energy,” he said. “As global supply chains are disrupted…American-mined coal is here when it is needed.” The request was blasted by conservationists who said it amounted to a corporate giveaway and would sharply reduce revenue for coal mining states that get a share of all royalty payments.
North Dakota’s Carbon Capture Project Tundra Another “Expensive Greenwashing” Attempt to Bail Out Coal Power | DeSmog -Carbon capture technology has generated a lot of controversy – but little private investment – due to its lack of profitability and efficiency. So why is a proposal to retrofit an aging coal-powered plant in North Dakota with smokestack scrubbers receiving millions of federal taxpayer dollars? Ask Senator John Hoeven (R-ND), who has directed more than $30 million in Department of Energy funding to Project Tundra.The project would install a carbon capture system at the Milton R. Young Station, a two-unit plant that has run on lignite coal from the nearby Center Mine since it began operating in 1970. The captured carbon would then be piped to the Bakken region for injection into oil wells in a process known as Enhanced Oil Recovery.Hoeven recently secured a $10 million DOE grant that will go toward a preliminary engineering study for Project Tundra. State and coal industry sources have also contributed, with the aim of keeping the coal industry alive in North Dakota. Other help will come from tax incentives for carbon capture projects that Congress passed in 2018.Project Tundra already enjoys tax benefits at the state level. A bill eliminating taxes for oil extracted by carbon dioxide derived from lignite coal combustion was passed into law last year.Yet all that money may be for naught, given the track record of similar projects.Project Tundra was pushed by the Lignite Energy Council, which Hoeven is close to – the Council donated $21,000 to his reelection campaigns since he first ran for the Senate in 2010.That may not sound like much these days, but he’s one of their top recipients, and he has spoken at their annual meetings. Other partners in the project include the Minnkota Power Cooperative, which operates the plant; the University of North Dakota’s Energy and Environmental Research Center, originally founded as a lignite research laboratory under the U.S.Bureau of Mines; and the North Dakota Industrial Commission, which authorized a $15 million grant from its Lignite Research Fund. Minnkota external affairs manager Stacy Dahl estimated the total cost of the project at $1.3 and $1.6 billion.
TVA delays two spring reactor refueling outages by two weeks due to pandemic – Tennessee Valley Authority took the “precautionary step” of delaying planned outages at the Sequoyah-2 and Watts Bar-1 nuclear reactors this spring by two weeks due to the coronavirus pandemic, TVA spokesman Jim Hopson said Wednesday. It is the first announced delay to a US outage. “For competitive reasons, we don’t provide specifics on our outage dates,” Hopson said, adding: “However, both of the outages were previously planned for this spring and will begin two weeks later than originally scheduled,” A refueling outage for the 1,181-MW Sequoyah-2 reactor in Soddy-Daisy, Tennessee, was originally scheduled to start in late March while the Watts Bar-1 unit in Spring City, Tennessee, was set to begin an outage in the middle of April, according to a March 20 letter from the Nuclear Energy Institute to the US Department of Energy. The average duration of refueling outages at US nuclear units in 2019 was 36.2 days, according to S&P Global Platts data. “The delays allow us to get the necessary medical screening processes in place, as well as providing a measure of increased social distancing during the increasing outbreak,” Hopson said, adding: “Nuclear refueling and maintenance outages create significant logistical challenges in terms of fuel loads and specialized personnel availability. As a result, our ability to reschedule them is limited.” Hopson said: “TVA and other nuclear utilities have plans in place to ensure the continued safe and reliable operation of our nuclear generating units through this difficult time.” “Critical employees can be sequestered at the site for extended periods to maintain safe operations. Additional employees would be held in reserve to relieve the initial group, if necessary,” he added. Around 3,000 TVA employees work with TVA’s nuclear fleet, as well as contract personnel, Hopson said. Several hundred support personnel staff TVA’s nuclear operations functions in Chattanooga, he added.
Federal appeals court to hear arguments in Savannah River Site plutonium fines case – South Carolina’s years-long legal battle to reap millions of dollars in plutonium fines from the federal government will be reviewed by an appeals court in early May. Oral arguments before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit are scheduled for May 5, records show. The judges assigned to the case will be announced that morning. The upcoming hearing in Washington, D.C., is the latest development in a long line of legal back-and-forth as well as judicial maneuvering by the Palmetto State. South Carolina first sued the federal government, namely the U.S. Department of Energy, in early 2018, seeking $100 million. Months later, the state’s legal team amended its complaint and began pursuing $200 million. The sum demanded by the state represents two years, 2016 and 2017, of fines levied against the Energy Department for failing to remove plutonium from the Savannah River Site south of Aiken. Federal law mandated beginning in 2016 that the DOE pay South Carolina $1 million for each day – up to 100 days per year – the department did not process plutonium at the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility or get 1 metric ton of the material out of the state. SRS update: 67 workers monitored for coronavirus; furloughs not planned SRS update: 67 workers monitored for coronavirus; furloughs not planned Colin Demarest The Energy Department’s weapons-and-nonproliferation agency, the National Nuclear Security Administration, axed the never-completed, multibillion-dollar MOX project in October 2018. The flagging project at the Savannah River Site was more than a decade in the making and a favorite of Palmetto State politicians. Federal Claims Judge Margaret M. Sweeney tossed South Carolina’s case in August 2019. The judge ruled the courts were not the right avenue to pursue the plutonium payout and that the fines could only be paid if Congress set aside money for them. “DOE does not have unfettered, unrestricted funds available,” the federal government argued late last year.
Nuclear plant shut down after coolant pumps experience issue – Davis-Besse nuclear power plant resumed a startup Thursday after experiencing a problem Wednesday with two of its four reactor coolant pumps, a spokesman for the plant’s operator said. A news release from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said that while the unit was operating at zero percent power while starting up from a refueling outage at 12:40 p.m. Wednesday, the reactor was “manually tripped due to a trip of two of four Reactor Coolant Pumps.” The incident was characterized as nonemergency and as having no impact on the safety of the public or plant personnel. The plant, which is owned by Energy Harbor Corp., is along the Lake Erie shoreline, in Ottawa County about 30 miles from downtown Toledo. The release said all systems responded normally and the plant was stabilized. Decay heat was being removed by discharging steam to the main condenser, and the cause of the reactor coolant pump trips was under investigation, the NRC said.
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