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:
A Google Plan To Wipe Out Mosquitoes Appears to Be Working – An experimental program led by Google parent Alphabet Inc. to wipe out disease-causing mosquitoes succeeded in nearly eliminating them from three test sites in California’s Central Valley. Stamping out illness caused by mosquitoes is one of Alphabet unit Verily’smost ambitious public-health projects. The effort appears to be paying off, according to a paper published in the journal Nature Biotechnology on Monday. Verily is also running coronavirus triage and testing in parts of California. Bradley White, the lead scientist on the Debug initiative, said mosquito-suppression is even more important during the pandemic, so that outbreaks of mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue fever don’t further overwhelm hospitals.Since 2017, the company has released millions of lab-bred Aedes aegypti male mosquitoes into several Fresno County neighborhoods during mosquito season. The insects are bred in Verily labs to be infected with a common bacterium called Wolbachia. When these male mosquitoes mate with females in the wild, the offspring never hatch. In results of the trial published on Monday, Verily revealed that throughout the peak of the 2018 mosquito season, from July to October, Wolbachia-infected males successfully suppressed more than 93% of the female mosquito population at field test sites. Only female mosquitoes bite. Working with the local mosquito abatement district and MosquitoMate, which developed the mosquitoes originally, Verily released as many as 80,000 mosquitoes each day in three neighborhoods from April 2018 through October 2018. In most collections, per night Verily found one or zero female mosquitoes in each trap designed to monitor the population. At other sites without the lab-bred bugs, there were as many as 16 females per trap. “We had a vision of what this should look like and we managed to do that pretty perfectly,” said Jacob Crawford, a senior scientist on the Debug project.
Africa faces ‘unprecedented threat’ from locust outbreak 20 times larger than one earlier this year which was the biggest in seven decades – Africa is facing an ‘unprecedented threat’ from a second wave of locusts this year, 20 times larger than the first – which was already the worst in 70 years in some nations. Billions of the young locusts are coming in from breeding grounds in Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia, threatening ‘total destruction’ of crops and farmland and putting millions of people at risk. Some communities in Africa regard the desert insects as a greater threat than the coronavirus pandemic, which has so far spread less rapidly than in Asia or the West. But the virus outbreak is also making matters worse because frustrated farmers are prevented from leaving their homes and gathering to fend off the insects. A motorcyclist rides through a swarm of desert locusts in Kipsing, Kenya, during an outbreak which some believe is more dangerous than coronavirus.It is the locusts that ‘everyone is talking about,’ said Yoweri Aboket, a farmer in Uganda. ‘Once they land in your garden they do total destruction. Some people will even tell you that the locusts are more destructive than the coronavirus. There are even some who don’t believe that the virus will reach here.’ Some farmers in Aboket’s village near the Kenyan border bang metal pans, whistle or throw stones in an effort to drive the locusts away. However, they are largely barred by the coronavirus lockdown from gathering outside their homes. A failed crop of cassava, a local staple, means hunger. The same worries are reflected across a large part of East Africa, including Kenya, Ethiopia and South Sudan. The locust swarms also have been sighted in Djibouti, Eritrea, Tanzania and Congo. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization has called the locust outbreak, caused in part by climate change, ‘an unprecedented threat’ to food security and livelihoods. Officials have called this new wave some 20 times the size of the first.
European Union Approves Bugs For Human Consumption – The European Union’s Food Safety Authority has approved the sale of bugs as “novel food,” meaning that they are likely to be mass produced for human consumption throughout the continent by the end of the year. Can’t wait. “These have a good chance of being given the green light in the coming few weeks,” the secretary-general of the International Platform of Insects for Food and Feed, Christophe Derrien, told The Guardian. Since 1997, the EU has required a “novel food” classification to allow the sale of products that had no history of being consumed by humans, meaning that the sale of bugs has been banned in countries like Spain, France and Italy for over two decades. However, with the new approval, mass production of bug-based food is set to ramp up later this year. This means that locusts, crickets, grasshoppers, and mealworms may all appear on supermarket shelves by the autumn. Christophe Derrien is looking forward to the sale of bugs as both a stand alone food and incorporated into existing products, arguing that they are a great source of protein and the production of bug food doesn’t harm the planet.
Thousands of Migrating Birds Found Dead or Injured in Greece – Thousands of swallows and other migratory birds have died in Greece trying to cross from Africa to Europe this spring. The group wrote that the night of April fifth to sixth was especially perilous for the birds. A combination of cold weather, strong winds and few insects exhausted birds that had already crossed the Sahara and the Mediterranean. South-blowing winds pushed the birds to North Africa, where they then faced the north-blowing winds of the Aegean and flew towards eastern Greece for rest. The group described what happened next: On April 6th, the morning light revealed a shocking sight: tens of thousands of birds, chilly and exhausted, were unable to move. Swallows and martins had to rest on the ground, on the blacktop, on balconies, on rooftops and any other surface available. Swifts – a purely airborne species that can not rest on the ground or on a wire – found a temporary shelter by grabbing a wall or by hiding in scuppers or air ducts. Flycatchers filled parks and gardens in Athens and other cities. All this happened throughout Eastern Greece, from southernmost Crete to northernmost Macedonia.Greece is in the flight path of hundreds of thousands of migratory birds, AFP reported, and storms are a major danger for all migrating birds, according to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. Some deaths are sadly to be expected, and birds have evolved to weather harsh conditions to a certain degree, the Hellenic Ornithological Society explained. “However, this specific weather combination was unprecedented and pushed entire populations to their limits,” the group wrote. “If we take into account all the hardships that human activity brings about during their journey – habitat loss, desertification, illegal killing etc. – these losses could prove devastating.”
The link between virus spillover, wildlife extinction and the environment – As COVID-19 spreads across the globe, a common question is, can infectious diseases be connected to environmental change? Yes, indicates a study published today from the University of California, Davis’ One Health Institute. Exploitation of wildlife by humans through hunting, trade, habitat degradation and urbanization facilitates close contact between wildlife and humans, which increases the risk of virus spillover, found a study published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Many of these same activities also drive wildlife population declines and the risk of extinction. The study provides new evidence for assessing spillover risk in animal species and highlights how the processes that create wildlife population declines also enable the transmission of animal viruses to humans.”Spillover of viruses from animals is a direct result of our actions involving wildlife and their habitat,” . “The consequence is they’re sharing their viruses with us. These actions simultaneously threaten species survival and increase the risk of spillover. In an unfortunate convergence of many factors, this brings about the kind of mess we’re in now.” The data show clear trends in spillover risk that highlight how people have interacted with animals throughout history. Among the findings:
- Domesticated animals, including livestock, have shared the highest number of viruses with humans, with eight times more zoonotic viruses compared to wild mammalian species. This is likely a result of our frequent close interactions with these species for centuries.
- Wild animals that have increased in abundance and adapted well to human-dominated environments also share more viruses with people. These include some rodent, bat and primate species that live among people, near our homes, and around our farms and crops, making them high-risk for ongoing transmission of viruses to people.
- At the other end of the spectrum are threatened and endangered species. These are animals whose population declines were connected to hunting, wildlife trade and decreases in habitat quality. These species were predicted to host twice as many zoonotic viruses compared to threatened species that had populations decreasing for other reasons.
Threatened and endangered species also tend to be highly managed and directly monitored by humans trying to bring about their population recovery, which also puts them into greater contact with people. Bats repeatedly have been implicated as a source of “high consequence” pathogens, including SARS, Nipah virus, Marburg virus and ebolaviruses, the study notes.
Animal Viruses Are Jumping to Humans. Forest Loss Makes It Easier. – NYTimes – The destruction of forests into fragmented patches is increasing the likelihood that viruses and other pathogens will jump from wild animals to humans, according to a study from Stanford University published this month.The research, which focused on contact between humans and primates in western Uganda, holds lessons for a world reeling from the coronavirus outbreak and searching for strategies to prevent the next global pandemic.“Covid has taught us that once a pandemic starts, it’s very hard to control,” said Laura Bloomfield, a doctoral candidate at Stanford and the study’s lead author. “If we can decrease the potential for people to come into contact with wild animals, that is one way to decrease the likelihood of having recurrent pandemics.”In Uganda, a rapidly growing population means more people are carving out patches of forest land to feed their families.Humans have already claimed more than a third of the Earth’s landfor agricultural use. Tropical forests are being destroyed at record or near-record rates every year. In places like the Amazon and Indonesia, for instance, virgin rain forest is being burned to farm commodities like soy, palm oil and cattle. Recently, deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has risen sharply under the government of President Jair Bolsonaro.In Uganda, researchers combined satellite data with face-to-face surveys of more than 900 people near Kibale National Park, analyzing the geographic factors and behavioral traits that led to increased physical interactions between humans and wild primates. Among the human-primate contacts recorded: A boy digging in his family’s garden was bitten by a black-and-white colobus monkey. A young man foraging for timber in the forest tried to free a l’Hoest’s monkey from his dog’s jaws. A woman found a dead vervet monkey in her corn crops and cleared its body away. Each of these interactions offered viruses an invitation to jump from wild primates to humans. Eric Lambin, a professor of Earth system science at Stanford and one of the study’s co-authors, said that the United States has its own example of an animal-borne disease linked to patchwork woodlands close to suburban and rural communities: Lyme disease, which spreads from wildlife to humans by ticks. “We see the animals as infecting us, but the picture that’s coming from the study and other studies is we really go to the animals,” said Dr. Lambin. “We intrude on their habitats.”
Tiger at US zoo tests positive for coronavirus – A four-year-old female Malayan tiger at the Bronx Zoo has tested positive for the coronavirus. The tiger, named Nadia, is believed to be the first known case of an animal infected by a human with Covid-19. The Bronx Zoo, in New York City, says the test result was confirmed by the National Veterinary Services Laboratory in Iowa. Nadia, along with six other big cats, is thought to have been infected by an asymptomatic zoo keeper. The cats started showing symptoms, including a dry cough, late last month after exposure to the employee, who has not been identified. “This is the first time that any of us know of anywhere in the world that a person infected the animal and the animal got sick,” Paul Calle, the chief veterinarian at the zoo, told Reuters news agency on Sunday. He said he intends to share the findings with other zoos and institutions researching the transmission of Covid-19. “We tested the cat [Nadia] out of an abundance of caution and will ensure any knowledge we gain about Covid-19 will contribute to the world’s continuing understanding of this novel coronavirus,” the zoo said in a statement. Nadia, her sister Azul, as well as two Amur tigers and three African lions who showed symptoms, are all expected to make a full recovery, the zoo said. The big cats did have some decrease in appetite but “are otherwise doing well under veterinary care and are bright, alert, and interactive with their keepers”, it said. The zoo said it is not known how the virus will develop in animals like tigers and lions since various species can react differently to new infections, but all the animals will be closely monitored.
It’s not surprising tigers and lions at the Bronx Zoo got coronavirus – On Sunday, the Bronx Zoo announced that one of its majestic Malayan tigers tested positive for COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the new coronavirus. Meanwhile, three other tigers and three lions (who were not tested) were also sick and hacking. The zoo said an infected zookeeper transmitted the virus to the exotic cats, which became a well-publicized instance of the insidious microbe jumping between animal species. Though it might sound strange that large, dominant cats have fallen ill to the same parasite that has severely sickened and killed people around the globe, infectious disease experts aren’t surprised. Animals often pass diseases to other animals. And some 75 percent of emerging infectious diseases in humans come from other animals species, known as “zoonotic diseases.” For example, the SARS outbreak in 2003 (also a coronavirus) spread from bats, to another animal, to humans. MERS jumped from camels to humans. The dog flu that swept through greyhounds in 2004 came from horses. This latest coronavirus likely originated in bats. There are untold numbers of viruses living in wild animals that could potentially jump from species to species. It’s just a matter of time.”Jumps between species are often the reason why we get pandemics,” said Rebecca Dutch, a virologist and chair of the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine. (The grim Bubonic Plague, for instance, comes from a bacterial pathogen transferred by fleas).”The next ones are out there,” Dutch added, noting that we already know of many bat coronaviruses. Another one, at some unknown point, may again jump to another species, perhaps eventually to humans.
Multiple Cougars Seen Wandering the Streets of Santiago Amid Coronavirus Lockdown – A third cougar has been sighted wandering through a residential neighborhood in the Chilean capital of Santiago as millions of the city’s residents are under lockdown measures in response to the coronavirus outbreak. A video shared by the National Zoo of Chile shows the big cat being released at “dusk under strict security measures” darting from an enclosure back into its mountain landscape. The zoo adds that the big cat was captured in a private home on Monday and was in deemed in good enough health to release it the same day, according to a Facebook post. Two other cougars have also been captured in the city as a majority of its six million residents are practicing quarantine and self-isolation measures amid the coronavirus outbreak. As people have moved inside for the last two weeks, wild animals often pushed to urban outskirts have been making their way into city centers. “They sense less noise and are also looking for new places to find food and some get lost and appear in the cities,” Horacio Bórquez, Chile’s national director of livestock and agriculture service, said of the animals in a report by the BBC. The foothills surrounding Santiago have also been experiencing a severe drought, which Reuters adds may be further pushing the thirsty felines toward urban centers in search of water. Central Chile has received 30 percent lass rainfall that normal over the last decade in what scientists have nicknamed a “megadrought.” Last year was particularly dry with rainfall deficits of 80 to 90 percent, according to NASA. “An 80 percent deficit means that the semi-arid region north of Santiago has seen almost no water, as seen in the marked browning of the vegetation,” said René D. Garreaud, a scientist at the University of Chile. “South of Santiago has received some rain – 100 to 300 millimeters (4 to 12 inches). That is still not much, but it has been enough to keep the vegetation green.”
Coronavirus: Air Pollution Might Raise Risk of Fatality – Two main risk factors are currently known to raise the chance of dying from the novel coronavirus that has brought the world to a halt: being old and having a weak immune system.Air pollution makes the second of those more likely. “If you live in a polluted area, your lungs are compromised like somebody who smokes, so you’re more susceptible to the coronavirus,” said Kofi Amegah, an epidemiologist and air pollution expert at the University of Cape Coast in Ghana.Dirty air, which claims more than 7 million lives a year, could make Covid-19 more deadly by contributing to chronic health conditions that leave patients weak in the face of infection.The European Public Health Alliance said last week that air pollution is likely to cut survival chances from Covid-19.Research on previous outbreaks has also suggested bad air makes viruses more deadly and spread further. A study of SARS-CoV-1 victims in 2003 found that patients were twice as likely to die in regions where air pollution was high rather than low. Even in regions that were only moderately polluted, the risk of dying was 84% higher.If a similar dynamic exists for Covid-19, it could add pressure on the critical care units of hospitals in smoggy cities with rapidly rising cases, such as Madrid, London and New York. It could also spell trouble for countries in the global south where most people burn wood, dung, kerosene or coal indoors to cook and heat their homes. In northern Italy and the Chinese city of Wuhan, home to high levels of pollution and some of the most severe outbreaks to date, preliminary data suggests that particulate matter may already have played a role in overwhelming health care systems.
Exposure to air pollution and COVID-19 mortality in the United States – Abstract: United States government scientists estimate that COVID-19 may kill between 100,000 and 240,000 Americans. The majority of the pre-existing conditions that increase the risk of death for COVID-19 are the same diseases that are affected by long-term exposure to air pollution. We investigate whether long-term average exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) increases the risk of COVID-19 deaths in the United States. Methods: Data was collected for approximately 3,000 counties in the United States (98% of the population) up to April 04, 2020. We fit zero-inflated negative binomial mixed models using county-level COVID-19 deaths as the outcome and county level long-term average of PM2.5 as the exposure. We adjust by population size, hospital beds, number of individuals tested, weather, and socioeconomic and behavioral variables including, but not limited to obesity and smoking. We include a random intercept by state to account for potential correlation in counties within the same state. Results: We found that an increase of only 1 μg/m3 in PM2.5 is associated with a 15% increase in the COVID-19 death rate, 95% confidence interval (CI) (5%, 25%). Results are statistically significant and robust to secondary and sensitivity analyses. Conclusions: A small increase in long-term exposure to PM2.5 leads to a large increase in COVID-19 death rate, with the magnitude of increase 20 times that observed for PM2.5 and all-cause mortality. The study results underscore the importance of continuing to enforce existing air pollution regulations to protect human health both during and after the COVID-19 crisis.
Lawsuit Prompts Review of Plastic Pollution on Hawaiʻi Beaches – Responding to a lawsuit from environmental groups, the Trump administration has ordered Hawaiʻi officials to examine the impact of plastic pollution on its waters, beaches and wildlife. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency this week notified state officials that it is withdrawing its 2018 approval of the “list of impaired waters” required under the Clean Water Act “specifically with respect to the consideration of plastics in Hawaiʻi waterbodies for which Hawaiʻi received data and information.” Hawaiʻi now has until May 29 to evaluate whether plastic pollution is impairing any of the state’s water bodies, including threats to wildlife and people. The Center for Biological Diversity, Sustainable Coastlines Hawaii and Surfrider Foundation sued the EPA in February for failing to protect 17 coastal water bodies around Hawaiʻi from widescale plastic pollution that covers beaches, degrades coral reefs and threatens birds, fish, sea turtles and other wildlife. “This is great news for Hawaiʻi, which has been hit hard by plastic pollution,” said Maxx Phillips, the Center’s Hawaii director. “The ocean plastic pollution crisis is a public health crisis. Plastic permeates our waters, chokes wildlife and carries toxins onto our beaches, through our food web, and eventually onto our tables. It’s time for Hawaii to finally address this threat.” Plastic pollution in Hawaiʻi ranges from microplastics that contaminate coastal waters and harm marine life to massive piles of plastic waste along Kamilo Beach, nicknamed “Plastic Beach.” Studies indicate that 17 water bodies around the Hawaiian islands are impaired by plastic pollution. “This is a critical first step to address marine plastic pollution through our nation’s water quality protection laws and to help prevent future degradation of beaches, coral and marine life.” The Clean Water Act requires the EPA to designate as “impaired” all water bodies that fail to meet state water-quality standards. Once a water body is designated as impaired, officials must take action to reduce the pollution.
Fossil Fuels Add to World’s Marine Dead Zones – Cutting out coal-burning and other sources of nitrogen oxides (NOx) from heavy industry, electricity production and traffic will reduce the size of the world’s dead zones along coasts where all fish life is vanishing because of a lack of oxygen.Researchers in Hong Kong report in the journal Environmental Science & Technology that cutting fossil fuel use in China would benefit not only the climate but also the fisheries along all the country’s coasts.The finding is significant because many countries concerned about the loss of their coastal and lake fisheries caused by dead zones have been concentrating only on reducing agricultural fertilizer run-off from fields and sewage discharges, which are known to load the rivers with nutrients.When the nutrients reach lakes or the open sea they feed algae, which rapidly grow into huge green masses. When these so-called algal blooms die they sink to the bottom and decompose, using up nearly all the oxygen in the water.This process, known as eutrophication, leads to hypoxia, a level of oxygen that is too low for most organisms to survive. Fish usually swim away to healthier waters, but life forms which cannot easily move simply die.NOx emissions from fossil fuel burning and fertiliser manufacture lead to the formation of ground-level ozone, smog and acid rain, and contribute to global warming through the greenhouse effect.What the new research shows is that while fertiliser and sewage are very important in creating dead zones, the aerial input of NOx makes a bad situation far worse.The report’s lead author, Yu Yan Yau, an MPhil student at the University of Hong Kong’s Swire Institute of Marine Science (SWIMS), and her colleagues studied the South China, East China, Yellow and Bohai Seas.They found that the atmospheric deposition of nutrients from fossil fuel burning on the mainland increased the amount of organic matter decomposing at the bottom of the sea by 15%, and increased the dead zones by 5%. The South China Sea was the most sensitive to fossil fuel burning.
2020 Great Barrier Reef Bleaching Event Is Most Widespread to Date – The Great Barrier Reef‘s third mass bleaching event in five years is also its most widespread, according to new data released Tuesday.Professor Terry Hughes, director of the Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University, spent nine days in a plane surveying 1,036 reefs from the air, The Guardian reported. He found that 25 percent of the overall reef was severely bleached. What’s more, he observed bleaching in the north, center and south of the reef for the first time.”It’s the first time we’ve seen severely bleached reefs along the whole length of the reef, in particular, the coastal reefs,” Hughes told The New York Times.The Great Barrier Reef has suffered six mass bleaching events due to warmer than normal ocean temperatures: in 1998, 2002, 2006, 2016, 2017 and now 2020. While the 1998 and 2016 bleachings occurred during El Niño events, a natural climate variation that brings warmer than average ocean temperatures to the region, the 2002 and 2017 events did not, The Washington Post pointed out. Neither did this year’s, but it is the second most intense after 2016’s. This suggests warmer temperatures caused by the climate crisis are ultimately driving these events. “It’s now clear that we can have major bleaching events caused by global climate change alone with no tropical forcing,” Mark Eakin, coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Coral Reef Watch program, told The Washington Post. 2016 and 2017’s bleachings together killed around half of the corals in the reef. But Hughes told Australia’s ABC News that he didn’t know how deadly this year’s bleaching would be. He told The Guardian that the north and central portions of the reef would probably see less death because the less heat-resistant corals had already died off in 2016 and 2017. But the south, which remained relatively untouched in previous years, was a different story. “They hadn’t bleached before, which means there are more corals and more of the corals that are particularly susceptible to heat stress,” he told ABC News.
Great Barrier Reef’s third mass bleaching in five years is the most widespread ever – The government’s top Great Barrier Reef scientist says a third mass bleaching event in five years is a clear signal the marine wonder is “calling for urgent help” on climate change. One quarter of the Great Barrier Reef suffered severe bleaching this summer in the most widespread outbreak ever witnessed, according to analysis of aerial surveys of more than 1,000 individual reefs released on Tuesday. Dr David Wachenfeld, chief scientist at the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, told Guardian Australia: “My greatest fear is that people will lose hope for the reef. Without hope there’s no action. “People need to see these [bleaching] events not as depressing bits of news that adds to other depressing bits of news. They are clear signals the Great Barrier Reef is calling for urgent help and for us to do everything we can.” Prof Terry Hughes, director of the Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University, surveyed 1,036 reefs from a plane over nine days in late March. The marine park authority also had an observer on the flights. Hughes has released maps showing severe levels of bleaching occurred in 2020 in all three sections of the reef – northern, central and southern – the first time this has happened since mass bleaching was first seen in 1998. Some 25% of the reefs were severely bleached – meaning that more than 60% of the corals on each reef had bleached. Hughes said previous observations had shown that bleaching at that extent leads to “high levels of mortality” of corals. Rescuing the Great Barrier Reef: how much can be saved, and how can we do it? Read more The Great Barrier Reef has experienced five mass bleaching events – 1998, 2002, 2016, 2017 and 2020 – all caused by rising ocean temperatures driven by global heating. Hughes said there probably would not be the same level of coral death in the north and central regions in 2020 as in previous years, but this was partly because previous bleaching outbreaks had already killed off the less heat-tolerant species.
Category 5 Cyclone Harold Slams Vanuatu – The most powerful extreme weather event of 2020 lashed the Pacific nation of Vanuatu Monday as it tries to protect itself from the new coronavirus. Cyclone Harold made landfall as a Category 5 storm on the island nation’s north and west after strengthening off the coast on Sunday, The Guardian reported.”For those in Vanuatu it doesn’t get much worse than this,” WeatherWatch.co.nz head forecaster Philip Duncan said.The storm moved slowly over very warm ocean waters as it approached Vanuatu, Duncan said. The climate crisis is expected to make tropical cyclones stronger and more intense as they are fueled by warmer waters. It also makes them more devastating to islands like Vanuatu already battling sea level rise.”As the Pacific battles to contain the spread of Covid-19, Tropical Cyclone Harold is a reminder that climate change represents yet another existential threat to nations like Vanuatu, that is not of their making,”Greenpeace Australia Pacific head of Pacific Joseph Moeono-Kolio said in a statement.Harold made landfall with winds of up to 133 miles per hour around 1 p.m. local time in Sanma province, located on the country’s largest island and home to its second-most populated city, Luganville, Reuters reported.While there are no reports of injuries, images shared on social media show buildings flattened by the storm.”Communications to Santo and Malekula [Vanuatu’s two largest islands] are cut now, so we don’t know what’s happening,” Eric Durpaire, the chief of UNICEF Pacific’s Vanuatu’s field office, told The Guardian. “The latest information we had was that the roof of the municipality building of Santo has collapsed and there is flooding.” The Vanuatu meteorology department recorded wind speeds of 135 miles per hour in Sanma and gusts of up to 145 miles per hour, according to BBC News.
Cyclone Harold Batters Fiji, Tonga Could Be Next — After flattening buildings and cutting communications on the Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu Monday and Tuesday, Cyclone Harold moved on to batter Fiji Wednesday.The storm is also expected to reach the island nation of Tonga within days, in a reminder of how vulnerable Pacific nations are to extreme weather events supercharged by the climate crisis and made more dangerous by sea level rise.”It is unfair that countries on the frontlines of the crisis, like those in the Pacific, are constantly having to bear the brunt of the economic impacts of extreme weather events, that are made worse by carbon pollution in places like Australia,” Greenpeace Australia Pacific Head of Pacific Joseph Moeono-Kolio said in a statement.In Fiji, the storm struck the largest and most populous island of Viti Levu, home to its capital of Suva. It flattened buildings and caused flooding, The Guardian reported.”The worst of TC Harold will strike Fiji through this afternoon … Flying debris and floodwaters can be deadly. All Fijians should stay indoors unless directed to evacuate,” Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama warned early Wednesday.Injuries were reported in Suva, according to Reuters, but the storm also cut communication lines. “We’ve seen reports of injuries,” Vasiti Soko, the director of the National Disaster Management Office, told Reuters by telephone. “As to the number, as well as the intensity, of the injuries, that’s yet to be ascertained.”
Op-Ed: Remember PG&E’s planned wildfire blackouts in October? They cost California millions, and the benefits don’t add up – Los Angeles Times – A federal judge took Pacific Gas & Electric on a fiery trip to the woodshed in mid-February, accusing the utility of failing to follow through on risk-reduction efforts, such as trimming trees near power lines. “I’m going to do everything I can to protect the people of California from more death and destruction from this convicted felon,” thundered U.S. District Judge William Alsup, who is overseeing the utility’s criminal probation related to the 2010 gas pipeline explosion in San Bruno.The judge could have added that Californians’ wallets as well as their lives need protection. Rather than assuming the costs of safely delivering electricity itself, PG&E imposes the burden on its customers – in the form of blackouts.Last fall, PG&E preemptively shut off power to millions of its customers to reduce the risk of its equipment sparking a fire in hot, dry, windy conditions. It cut power nine different times, leaving some of its customers without electricity for as long as one week. (Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric also preemptively cut power last fall, but those shutoffs affected far fewer customers.) This year, in its 2020 wildfire mitigation plan, PG&E anticipates “smarter, smaller and shorter” blackouts for the coming fire season. But, as Alsup pointed out, the company’s record on fulfilling its promises is “not even close to perfect.” And smarter, shorter blackouts would still be costly for Californians. Exactly how costly? The utility has not made public any analysis showing that the benefits of last year’s shutoffs were worth the costs imposed on its customers (some of which are not unlike the effects of the coronavirus crisis): shuttered businesses, refrigerators full of rotted food, disrupted work and personal lives, and even health risks to individuals who rely on equipment such as dialysis machines. In a just-published Manhattan Institute report, we fill the analysis gap. Our research shows that the costs of PG&E’s preemptive shutdowns have far exceeded the benefits of reduced wildfire risk. For example, based on the economic value of electricity to Californians, we estimate that the Oct. 9-12, 2019, shutoff imposed costs of about $850 million to $1.7 billion on the 750,000 customers, mostly in Northern California, who were affected. As for the benefits, even if we consider all of PG&E’s service territory and not just the 35 counties where the power was shut off, the expected benefits were just over $500 million. Looking just at the affected counties reduced those expected benefits to just over $100 million. By our calculations, the low end of the range of costs PG&E imposed on its customers was eight times larger than the expected benefits from reduced wildfire risk. In fact, had PG&E not preemptively shut off power and had the company’s equipment caused a wildfire, the expected costs of that wildfire would still be less than the costs imposed on those 750,000 customers.
Climate crisis: in coronavirus lockdown, nature bounces back – but for how long? – The environmental changes wrought by the coronavirus were first visible from space. Then, as the disease and the lockdown spread, they could be sensed in the sky above our heads, the air in our lungs and even the ground beneath our feet.While the human toll mounted horrendously from a single case in Wuhan to a global pandemic that has so far killed more than 88,000 people, nature, it seemed, was increasingly able to breathe more easily.As motorways cleared and factories closed, dirty brown pollution belts shrunk over cities and industrial centres in country after country within days of lockdown. First China, then Italy, now the UK, Germany and dozens of other countries are experiencing temporary falls in carbon dioxide and nitrogen dioxide of as much as 40%, greatly improving air quality and reducing the risks of asthma, heart attacks and lung disease.For many experts, it is a glimpse ofwhat the world might look like without fossil fuels. But hopes that humanity could emerge from this horror into a healthier, cleaner world will depend not on the short-term impact of the virus, but on the long-term political decisions made about what follows.After decades of relentlessly increasing pressure, the human footprint on the earth has suddenly lightened. Air traffic halved by mid-March compared with the same time last year. Last month, road traffic fell in the UK by more than 70%, to levels last seen when the Beatles were in shorts. With less human movement, the planet has literally calmed: seismologists report lower vibrations from “cultural noise”than before the pandemic. Key environmental indices, which have steadily deteriorated for more than half a century, have paused or improved. In China, the world’s biggest source of carbon, emissions were down about 18% between early February and mid-March – a cut of 250m tonnes, equivalent to more than half the UK’s annual output. Europe is forecast to see a reduction of around 390m tonnes. Significant falls can also be expected in the US, where passenger vehicle traffic – its major source of CO2 – has fallen by nearly 40%. Even assuming a bounceback once the lockdown is lifted, the planet is expected to see its first fall in global emissions since the 2008-9 financial crisis.
Heartland Institute accuses ‘climate alarmists’ of exploiting COVID-19 pandemic to advance agenda – The conservative Heartland Institute released a report on Tuesday in which it criticized leading politicians, activists, and media outlets for using the coronavirus to push theirenvironmental agenda.”Not surprisingly coronavirus alarm has pushed most other issues and concerns out of the news ⎯ much to the dismay of climate alarmists,” said Steve Milloy of the Heartland Institute. “But the alarmists aren’t taking displacement by coronavirus lying down. In fact, many climate alarmists are trying to use coronavirus as a means of advancing their agenda. They are trying to surf it.” The report, published on ClimateRealism.com and Heartland.org, comes amid complaints that Democrats have been trying to shoehorn some of their agenda, like emissions reductions, into legislation designed to relieve the virus’ economic burden. Titled “Never Waste a Crisis,” it focuses on tweets, which range from asserting the coronavirus had a “silver lining” to others in which people attribute clearing skies or water to the lack of economic activity resulting from the virus’ spread. Prominent figures also suggested Trump treated the coronavirus like he did climate change, that the pandemic was an opportunity to pursue “sustainable” growth, and that the pandemic was revealing the weaknesses of the world’s economy.In one example, Sky News’ Ed Conway suggested that the coronavirus was “the ultimate weapon” against climate change. “Don’t take this the wrong way but if you were a young, hardline environmentalist looking for the ultimate weapon against climate change, you could hardly design anything better than coronavirus,” he said in an op-ed posted by the Times. The paper argued that Conway was highlighting the virus’ “silver lining.” According to CBS Los Angeles, clearing canals and emissions reductions were part of the “silver lining” of the pandemic as well.Greenhouse gas emissions are in the spotlight amid the coronavirus pandemic. In early March, satellite images from NASA and the European Space Agency spotted an enormous decline in airborne pollutants, specifically nitrogen dioxide (NO2), in large areas of China. In the U.K., a recent report by solar power specialists The Eco Experts estimates that the country’s CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent) emissions are set to drop by 28.22 million tonnes over the 12-week period following the implementation of social distancing measures on March 19. NASA also tweeted on Monday that California saw decreased nitrogen dioxide concentration.
Climate-Driven Biodiversity Loss Will Be Sudden, Study Warns – The biodiversity loss caused by the climate crisis will be sudden and swift, and could begin before 2030.That’s the warning from a new study published in Nature Wednesday, which set out to determine how a variety of species and ecosystems would respond to rising temperatures over the course of the 21st century.”We found that climate change risks to biodiversity don’t increase gradually. Instead, as the climate warms, within a certain area most species will be able to cope for a while, before crossing a temperature threshold, when a large proportion of the species will suddenly face conditions they’ve never experienced before,” lead author Dr. Alex Pigot of University College London’s Centre for Biodiversity & Environment Research said in apress release. “It’s not a slippery slope, but a series of cliff edges, hitting different areas at different times.”The researchers divided the globe into 100 by 100 kilometer (approximately 62 mile) grids and looked at the ranges of 30,652 species along with climate models from 1850 to 2005. They then used models to determine when the species in each grid would experience temperatures beyond their historic ranges for five years or more. The results showed that many species in an ecosystem would cross that temperature threshold at the same time, and 73 percent of species around the world facing temperature shocks would do so in the same decade.Jennifer Sunday, a McGill University biologist who was not involved with the study, told InsideClimate Newsthat its novel approach allowed for new insight into the timeline for climate-driven biodiversity loss.”We did not know about the time-course of events. We have lots of models that compare species ranges today to those at a future date, but we did not know when most of the changes were going to happen,” she said. “The research also makes it clear that global warming’s impacts on ecosystems could arrive very suddenly.” Just how sudden and how devastating those impacts will be depends entirely on how swiftly greenhouse gas emissions are lowered to reduce global warming. The study found that, in a high-emissions scenario that allows more than four degrees Celsius of warming by 2100, at least 15 percent of ecosystems would suffer an event in which more than 20 percent of their key species hit their temperature limits in the same decade. This could happen before 2030 for tropical oceans and by 2050 for the far North and tropical forests.
Satellite spots new ozone layer hole opening up over the Arctic – Although a hole in the ozone layer might sound like a decidedly retro environmental issue, it’s still a problem today. Most eyes are fixed on the skies over Antarctica, but now scientists have spotted the biggest ozone layer hole in at least 25 years forming over the Arctic. The ozone layer protects Earth from the worst of the Sun’s ultraviolet radiation, but in the 1980s a hole in this layer was discovered over Antarctica. The main culprit was found to be chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), chemicals that were common in aerosols and refrigerants at the time. In response, the Montreal Protocol required countries to phase out CFCs, and the hole has been steadily shrinking for decades. It’s not just a static hole, though – its size fluctuates with the seasons. It peaks in October, as Antarctica comes out of its winter and starts to warm up. The extra sunlight means more UV radiation, which combines with extremely cold temperatures, certain wind field patterns and lingering CFCs to kick off the depletion process once again. The Arctic goes through a similar cycle, with ozone levels that fluctuate over the course of a year. But because temperatures don’t get quite as cold there as they do in Antarctica, there was never that serious a hole in the ozone layer around the North Pole. Until now, anyway. Scientists from the German Aerospace Center have recently spotted an unusually strong drop in ozone levels over the Arctic. Since March 14, levels have plummeted to less than 220 Dobson Units, which constitutes an “ozone hole.” The discovery was made using data gathered by the Tropomi instrument onboard ESA’s Copernicus Sentinel-5P satellite. At its largest, this Arctic ozone hole extends over an area of almost one million km2 (400,000 mi2). That makes it the biggest seen there since continuous records began in 1995. That said, it’s still very small compared to the Antarctic ozone hole, which can reach sizes of 20 to 25 million km2 (7.7 to 9.7 million mi2).
Trump Signs Executive Order to Mine the Moon for Minerals — In the midst of a global pandemic, President Donald Trump found time earlier this week to sign an executive order for U.S. companies to mine the moon’s mineral resources, according to Newsweek.The executive order makes it clear that the administration does not view space and celestial bodies as global commons, allowing for mining operations without any international treaties, as The Guardian reported.”Outer space is a legally and physically unique domain of human activity, and the United States does not view space as a global commons,” the order, called Encouraging International Support for the Recovery and Use of Space Resources, states.According to Mining Technology, the order states that commercial partners participate in an “innovative and sustainable program” headed by the U.S. to “lead the return of humans to the Moon for long-term exploration and utilization, followed by human missions to Mars and other destinations.” The document adds that successful long-term exploration of space will require commercial entities to recover and use resources, including certain minerals, in outer space.While the order specifically noted that a return to the moon would allow the country to explore and exploit lunar minerals, it implied a future commercialization of the solar system would apply to “the Moon, Mars, and other celestial bodies,” as The Palm Springs Desert Sun reported.The U.S. never signed the 1979 moon treaty, which states that non-scientific use of space resources must be governed by international regulations. Then in 2015, Congress passed a law to allow American companies and citizens to use resources from the moon and asteroids, as Newsweek reported.As The Guardian points out, the willingness to plunder natural resources is part and parcel with the administration’s policies on Earth. The Trump administration has opened up wide swaths of public land to mining and rolled back environmental regulations in an attempt to prop up the coal industry. The federal government has routinely ignored requests to update the main law governing hardrock mining, even as the planet careens towards a climate crisis. The law has been effectively untouched since its inception in 1872, according to The Palm Springs Desert Sun.
We Have No Reason to Believe 5G Is Safe – Scientific American The telecommunications industry and their experts have accused many scientists who have researched the effects of cell phone radiation of “fear mongering” over the advent of wireless technology’s 5G. Since much of our research is publicly-funded, we believe it is our ethical responsibility to inform the public about what the peer-reviewed scientific literature tells us about the health risks from wireless radiation. The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently announced through a press release that the commission will soon reaffirm the radio frequency radiation (RFR) exposure limits that the FCC adopted in the late 1990s. These limits are based upon abehavioral change in rats exposed to microwave radiation and were designed to protect us from short-term heating risks due to RFR exposure. Yet, since the FCC adopted these limits based largely on research from the 1980s, the preponderance of peer-reviewed research, more than 500 studies, have found harmful biologic or health effects from exposure to RFR at intensities too low to cause significant heating.Citing this large body of research, more than 240 scientists who have published peer-reviewed research on the biologic and health effects of nonionizing electromagnetic fields (EMF) signed the International EMF Scientist Appeal, which calls for stronger exposure limits. The appeal makes the following assertions:“Numerous recent scientific publications have shown that EMF affects living organisms at levels well below most international and national guidelines. Effects include increased cancer risk, cellular stress, increase in harmful free radicals, genetic damages, structural and functional changes of the reproductive system, learning and memory deficits, neurological disorders, and negative impacts on general well-being in humans. Damage goes well beyond the human race, as there is growing evidence of harmful effects to both plant and animal life.” The scientists who signed this appeal arguably constitute the majority of experts on the effects of nonionizing radiation. They have published more than 2,000 papers and letters on EMF in professional journals.
New Renewable Energy Capacity Hit Record Levels In 2019 – Almost three-quarters of new electricity generation capacity built in 2019 uses renewable energy, representing an all-time record. New data from theInternational Renewable Energy Agency (Irena) shows solar, wind and other green technologies now provide more than one-third of the world’s power, marking another record. Fossil fuel power plants are in decline in Europe and the US, with more decommissioned than built in 2019. But the number of coal and gas plants grew in Asia, the Middle East and Africa. In the Middle East, which owns half the world’s oil reserves, just 26% of new electricity generation capacity built in 2019 was renewable. The world has invested about $3tn in renewables over the past decade, according to Irena, but annual investments must double by 2030 to tackle the climate emergency. “While the trajectory is positive, more is required to put global energy on a path with sustainable development and climate mitigation,” said Francesco La Camera, director general of Irena. “At this challenging time, we are reminded of the importance of building resilience into our economies.” La Camera said the huge spending planned by governments in response to the coronavirus pandemic must support green initiatives rather than fossil fuels. “In responding to today’s crisis, governments may be tempted to focus on short-term solutions,” he said. “Yet distinctions between short-, medium- and long-term challenges may be deceptive. The pandemic shows that delayed action brings significant economic consequences.” The global oil market is in turmoil, hit by collapsing demand due to Covid-19 lockdowns and a savage price war between Saudi Arabia, Russia and the US. La Camera said: “Renewable energy is a cost-effective source of new power that insulates power markets and consumers from volatility.” Solar and wind power are now the cheapest form of electricity in two-thirds of the world. New solar power provided 55% of the new capacity, most of which was installed in Asia, with China, India, Japan, South Korea and Vietnam leading the way. Other major increases were seen in the US, Australia, Spain, Germany and Ukraine. Wind power made up 34% of the total, with almost half in China and significant additions in the US. Global wind power capacity remains just ahead of solar, with 95% being onshore turbines.
Renewable Sources Made up 72% of New Energy Added in 2019 — Renewable energy made up almost three quarters of all new energy capacity added in 2019, data released Monday by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) shows.That’s a record breaking figure, The Guardian reported. As is the fact that more than one third of global power is now provided by renewable sources like wind and solar. But IRENA Director General Francesco La Camera warned that governments must not backtrack on this progress as they work to jump start their economies in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.”In responding to today’s crisis, governments may be tempted to focus on short-term solutions,” he said, according to The Guardian. “Yet distinctions between short-, medium- and long-term challenges may be deceptive. The pandemic shows that delayed action brings significant economic consequences.” Overall, the report found that renewable energy added slightly less overall capacity in 2019 compared to 2018, at 176 gigawatts (GW) compared to 179. However, the amount of new fossil fuel power added also declined, The Guardian pointed out. Renewables also grew 2.6 times more than fossil fuels and made up 72 percent of new energy capacity added, the report found. Renewable energy grew by 7.6 percent in 2019. On a regional level, 54 percent of that growth occurred in Asia. When it comes to power sources, 90 percent of the growth was driven by solar and wind, which increased by 98 GW and around 60 GW respectively.
The coronavirus is hitting renewable energy supply chains and could hurt global energy transition – Global renewable energy capacity hit 2,537 gigawatts (GW) at the end of last year, an increase of 176 GW compared to 2018, but the coronavirus continues to cast a shadow over the sector’s prospects for 2020, impacting both supply chains and manufacturing facilities. According to figures from the International Renewable Energy Agency’s (IRENA) “Renewable Capacity Statistics 2020″ report, new additions last year were slightly lower than the revised total of 179 GW added in 2018. Looking at the bigger picture, however, the organization said Monday that renewables “accounted for 72 per cent of all power expansion” in 2019, with solar and wind growing by 98 GW and almost 60 GW respectively. Together, these two technologies were responsible for 90% of renewable additions in 2019. In terms of other sources, hydropower growth was described as being “unusually low” last year. In a foreword to the report, IRENA’s Director-General Francesco La Camera explained that a number of large projects had “missed expected completion deadlines.” Breaking things down geographically, the report shows that Asia was responsible for 54% of renewable capacity additions last year. While the additions reported by IRENA may appear promising overall, this year looks set to pose a number of challenges for the renewables sector, many of them connected to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has caused issues with supply chains and forced some factories to shut. There are also fears that the pandemic could negatively affect investments in clean energy, while the steep drop in oil prices is another factor that could potentially make renewables less attractive to some markets.
Social cost of carbon could further sway Virginia from fossil fuel power plants – Virginia utility regulators will consider broader impacts of building fossil fuel-fired power plants under pending legislation on the governor’s desk. The concept is known as the social cost of carbon. Agencies tasked with measuring the costs and benefits of climate regulations use such a figure to estimate the harm caused by releasing more heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere. Environmental and social justice organizations rallied to include the figure in the mammoth Virginia Clean Economy Act as a way to protect the health of long-ignored, disadvantaged communities. Harrison Wallace, the Virginia director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, said assigning a cost to each metric ton of carbon emissions will create incentive enough for electricity generators to trade fossil fuels for renewable energy. “People see natural gas as being inexpensive,” he said. “Now, this legislation includes the true cost to the public of fossil fuels as opposed to just the fuel cost we see on our bill.” Initially, Wallace and other proponents supported a measure that called for the State Corporation Commission to use its own judgment to define the social cost of carbon. “They said they may not know what to look for if we were giving them full discretion,” he said. “They told us, ‘We’re accountants and we’re not thinking about how this affects public health.’” That prompted Wallace’s coalition to offer commissioners guidance in the form of Executive Order 12866, published in August 2016 when Barack Obama was president. A dozen federal entities created the backbone of that order as the Interagency Working Group on Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases.
New England fishing groups wary of rapid offshore wind development plans -As offshore wind moves up the coast of New England, efforts are underway to make sure the region’s fishing interests have a seat at the table early in project development.An alliance of industry and academic stakeholders is promoting the need for research and best practices as offshore wind takes hold in waters where fishing has long been an economic anchor.Fishing groups have several concerns about the potential for boating obstacles and ecological impacts. A dearth of research makes the industry hesitant as it prepares for a slew of projects that could overwhelm their operations.Above all, fishing stakeholders want to be included from the start of wind project development.Wind and fishing advocates say they don’t want another kind of dispute like the one that led federal authorities to delay the permitting process for the Vineyard Wind offshore project in federal waters off Massachusetts. An ongoing environmental review by the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has raised uncertainty for 14 other projects in the region. Those types of disputes are “what we’re trying to avoid happening now,” said Annie Hawkins, executive director of the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance, or RODA. The coalition of fishing stakeholders aims to get the industry on the same page as researchers and wind developers across the region.
Con Edison reaches 170 confirmed COVID-19 cases, 3 deaths, as risks rise for utility workers – Consolidated Edison has 170 employees who have tested positive for COVID-19 – 11 have recovered and returned to work as of Friday morning, and three have died, spokesperson Allan Drury told Utility Dive. These are the first utility worker deaths connected to COVID-19 confirmed by Utility Dive. It is unclear whether the three ConEd employees who died were working remotely or not, but union leaders representing utility workers in New York and other states are raising the alarm about the risks posed to their members from customer interactions. New York has been impacted by the novel coronavirus pandemic more than any other state. According to Johns Hopkins University’s coronavirus tracker of global cases, the state has 92,743 confirmed cases, as of Friday morning. The U.S. has a total of 245,573 confirmed cases. ConEd has seen that reflected in its own staff. Nearly half of ConEd’s employees are working remotely, but the transition happened unevenly and it is difficult to pinpoint which infections came from the work environment or outside of that, according to Drury. The company is not distinguishing in its statistics which affected employees are remote or which are field workers at this time, but the workers who contracted COVID-19 come from throughout NYC’s five boroughs and Westchester County, including field workers, control rooms, substations and other facilities across ConEd’s electric, gas and steam sections. Essential employees, including utility workers, come into contact with the public in a variety of ways when restoring power or providing essential services. When New York has such high confirmed cases, the ConEdnumbers don’t seem that shocking, according to Jim Slevin, president of the Utility Workers Union of America (UWUA).
Clearer picture of coronavirus-driven grid load declines emerges in US after weeks of lockdowns —North American power markets will see disruptions lasting at least 18 months due to the spread of COVID-19 and the economic impacts of a shuttered economy, according to a new report from Wood Mackenzie. Demand has fallen in all markets as stay-home orders have closed businesses and likely forced a global recession. Loads have declined 5% to 15% with significant regional variation, according to the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI). Fossil fuel generators are running less due to lower demand, based on preliminary data from March and April, RMI experts told Utility Dive. That could potentially set off a new batch of coal retirements, though experts say it may also slow investment in energy efficiency and clean energy projects.It has now been almost three weeks since the first U.S. lockdowns related to the spread of the novel coronavirus began and grid operators are beginning to get a clearer sense of how that is impacting load. However, there is significant regional variation and figures are complicated by changing weather patterns.”American power markets are entering uncharted territory,” Wood Mackenzie said in a research note this week. The firm said its baseline view “yields lower power demand and power prices across North American power markets” and includes a recession for the remainder of 2020 with a rebound beginning in the first quarter of 2021.In addition to changes in load and energy usage, operators are also seeing shifts in the timing of demand. “One of [the] clearer signals from the past few weeks is a changing load shape as people stay home and office buildings, whose lighting and HVAC loads are a big driver of afternoon peaks, have seen their occupancy fall,” RMI principal Mark Dyson told Utility Dive in an email. “This has caused an observable flattening of the load curve in many regions, from one with a twice-daily peak (characteristic of normal springtime shapes) to a flatter, lower peak.” The New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) is observing daily peak loads trending about 4% lower than typical for this time of year, officials said. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) said that while it has seen little impact to daily peaks, morning loads are currently 6% to 10% lower than what forecast models would typically predict. In the Midcontinent Independent System Operator territory, the grid operator says its load shape “continued to shift during the last half of March as more states implemented stay-at-home orders. Morning and evening load levels are lower than normal and morning peaks have moved closer to noon compared to 9 a.m. in previous weeks.”
PJM Ramps Up Preparations as COVID-19 Hotspots Emerge in Its Footprint – PJM Interconnection, the nation’s largest regional transmission organization (RTO), is intensifying its response to the COVID-19 pandemic, preparing campuses for worker sequestration and closely coordinating with generators and transmission owners across its system as they grapple with workforce and supply impacts. Although most of PJM’s employees – with the exception of system operators and other essential personnel – are working from home and will continue to do so until May 4, the grid operator said in an April 6 update it is equipping its campuses for sequestration if needed and readying logistics as they pertain to extended stay. It is also readying its control room simulator to serve as a third control room if needed, determining what would be the best use of that facility. PJM said that the pandemic has not yet had a “major impact” on generator maintenance. However, some generators have reported contractor crew shortages due to travel restrictions, and parts shortages owing to COVID-19 supply chain issues. Several generators have also deferred or reduced the scope of longer, planned outages, and/or shifted work to shorter periods during off-peak hours. Transmission owners, meanwhile, have not reported significant impacts to maintenance schedules, but the entity is urging transmission owners to inform PJM as soon as possible if COVID-19 – related delays will require advanced rescheduling of affected outages. Like other major RTOs/ISOs, PJM has also reported a drop in power demand – of between 5% and 7% lower than historical trends – but the entity is still exploring how much of that decline can be attributed to the COVID-19 fallout. It noted: “PJM expects that to increase and continues to analyze numbers to isolate weather impact [versus] COVID-19 impact on load,” it said.
Virus May Nix 39% of Projects to Build New U.S. Power Plants – More than a third of new U.S. electricity generation expected to come online over the next six months could hit roadblocks as the coronavirus pandemic curbs power consumption and disrupts supply chains. About 4.9 gigawatts, or 39%, of new utility-scale capacity will be “either canceled or indefinitely postponed” from April through September, said Energy Information Administration economist Tyler Hodge. Wind, solar and natural gas projects will be affected relatively evenly. States with the largest slated additions during the period are Texas, California and Pennsylvania, he said. “Supply chains, including both international and domestic, have been disrupted to some extent,” said Hodge. The potential slowdown of new power supplies is a blow to the renewables industry that has become more competitive against low-cost gas. The broader U.S. electricity sector is bracing for demand to plunge as businesses and industrial facilities remain shuttered amid widespread lockdowns to contain the virus. Total power consumption is expected to fall 3% this year compared with 2019, the EIA said in its monthly Short-Term Energy Outlook. “The impact of the pandemic on the real economy is going to be severe, at least in the short term, and will put a damper on capital expenditures throughout the economy, including on solar, wind, and battery power,” John Tobin, a Cornell University professor who focuses on corporate sustainability, said in an email.
Trump wants to cut pay for TVA’s CEO ‘by a lot’ under COVID-19 infrastructure package — President Donald Trump wants to cut the pay of TVA’s chief executive, who Trump said “is paid a lot of money” to run agency that “when we want them to do something for us they are not there for us.” During a news conference at the White House on Wednesday night, Trump questioned the $8.12 million compensation package give to TVA President Jeff Lyash, a former Ontario Power Co. CEO who was hired to head the nations biggest government utility a year ago. Trump said he wants to “reduce by a lot” the executive pay for Lyash, who is the the highest paid federal employee in America, as part of an infrastructure package being negotiated to spur the U.S. economy. “I don’t know the gentleman, but he’s got a heck of a job,” Trump said about Lyash when asked about proposals to require TVA to cut executive pay. “He gets paid a lot of money, which is an amazing thing.”Trump appoints the directors of the board that governs TVA, but the president was critical of the federal utility which last year ignored his appeal to keep running an aging coal plant in Kentucky. Despite appeals by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Trump, TVA shut down the last unit at its Paradise coal plant in western Kentucky in February.Trump is an ardent supporter of what he calls “beautiful coal” and asked TVA to consider keeping the plant open even though TVA estimated it would be cheaper to idle the 57-year-old plant. “When we want them to do something for us, they are not there for us, and that’s not good,” Trump said. Lyash’s $920,000 base salary is more than twice the $400,000 salary for the president, and his compensation exceeds all other federal employees.
BIOFUELS: 10th Circuit won’t rehear refinery exemption case — Wednesday, April 8, 2020 — Petroleum refiners won’t get a second chance to convince a federal court to save EPA’s small-refinery exemptions under biofuel blending mandates.
POET to idle ethanol production at Ashton, Iowa, plant and others in Midwest — POET, one of the largest producers of ethanol in the U.S., announced Tuesday a decision to idle production at three plants in Iowa and South Dakota, including one in Ashton. According to the announcement, POET bioprocessing units in Chancellor, South Dakota, Ashton, Iowa, and Coon Rapids, Iowa, will be idled, while the startup of a new plant in Shelbyville, Indiana, will be delayed. The status of the plants’ employees is not known. The closures will reduce corn demand by 110 million bushels, according to POET, while ethanol production will drop by 330 million gallons between the output of the four facilities, including the Shelbyville plant which has not yet opened. “Across the board, biofuel producers and our partners in the farm community face an unprecedented challenge,” POET founder and CEO Jeff Broin said in the statement. “From day one of this crisis, we have placed the highest priority on protecting the health and welfare of our workers, partners and farm suppliers. At the same time, we are working hard to ensure that every biorefinery remains well-positioned to support a strong and swift recovery once daily life returns to normal. That means responding dynamically to shifting conditions and optimizing production, market by market, as the situation evolves over the next few months.” Ethanol producers have been battered by a price crash blamed, at least in part, on the COVID-19 pandemic. As of Wednesday, ethanol prices hovered around 87 cents per gallon on the NASDAQ exchange. As recently as February, prices had been as high as $1.37, and last June prices were as high as $1.61.
COAL: EPA relaxes emissions rule for 4 power plants — Thursday, April 9, 2020 — EPA today finalized a rule lowering emissions standards for six units at four coal-fired power plants in Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
Stream pollution from mountaintop mining doesn’t stay put in the water – Since the 1980s, a sprawling mountaintop removal mining complex in southern West Virginia has been leaching pollutants – such as selenium – into nearby streams at levels deemed unsafe for aquatic life.Now, even though the mine is closed, researchers have also found high concentrations ofselenium in stream insects when they fly out of the waterand the spiders that eat them along the banks, an indication that the contaminant moves from water to land as it makes its way up the food chain.The study shows how “a lot of stream contaminants get out of the water and defy gravity,” said co-author Emily Bernhardt, a biologist at Duke University who has been studying the impacts of mountaintop mining on the region for 10 years.The researchers looked at 23 streams in the Mud River watershed, a network of creeks and streams meandering through the steep forested terrain in Lincoln County, West Virginia. The watershed also happens to drain the 9,900-acre Hobet 21 coal mine, one of the largest mountaintop removal mining operations in Appalachia.For three decades until its closure in 2015, the mining operation blasted the tops off mountains to get at the coal beneath and pushed the leftover rock into neighboring valleys, burying streams under hundreds of feet of rubble.The water runoff from this mining waste contains naturally occurring trace elements such as selenium and other dissolved substances.In a previous study, Bernhardt and colleagues found an uptick in selenium and other trace elements in water samples taken immediately downstream of mining sites in the Mud River watershed.The new study, published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, looked at how selenium moves through food webs once it gets in the water.
Experts: W.Va. coal mines may be spreading ground for COVID-19 – Home to just under 1,000 residents, Rivesville sits on the northwest bank of the Monongahela River, smack dab in the middle of the Fairmont coal fields, a coal-plush region concentrated in the county. That is where West Virginia House of Delegates Democrat and minority whip Mike Caputo calls home.The geographical location of Rivesville made it quite significant in the 20th century – nearly the only area in and around Rivesville where the coal has not been mined out is directly under the older portion of the town and under the riverbed. The town was a coal mining hotbed.Thus, Caputo, among many others raised in the town over the last century, grew up in a coal-mining family and was raised around the culture. He followed in his father’s footsteps and became a coal miner for 20-plus years, and served on the Rivesville Town Council in the 1980s. In the 90s, he took the step toward state politics, where he has remained since.When the global COVID-19 pandemic became recognized in the United States, and subsequently West Virginia, Gov. Jim Justice was quicker than many states with numerous confirmed cases of the virus to shut down non-essential businesses.One industry that remained open was coal mining. However, many experts in mining and public health are beginning to raise alarms that keeping mines open during the pandemic could be extremely dangerous for both those who work in mines, as well as the general public. And some of the same folks are wondering why Justice was so quick to call mining an essential business and is so far hesitant to take steps toward ensuring mines run safely during a public health crisis. “I gotta tell you, being totally honest with you, I’m very concerned about the risk that coal miners face with the pandemic right now. MSHA (Mine Safety and Health Administration), that’s the federal administration mandated to make the coal companies provide us with a safe place to work … those inspectors are mandated to make sure the operators provide us with a safe place to work,” Caputo said.
Weak lungs and small spaces: Coal miners face heightened risk as essential workers during COVID-19 – Kristin Collett’s husband works third shift at a Blackhawk Mine in Leslie County. Her husband Kenny has worked in the mines since he was about 20 years old, he’s now 49. About three weeks ago, the men were furloughed for two weeks amid the COVID-19 outbreak. They returned to work at the beginning of this week. Homeland Security says coal mining is an essential business. On their website identifying “critical infrastructure workers,” it says “workers supporting the energy sector, regardless of the energy source” count as essential. “The first night he went back to work I didn’t sleep,” said Kristin. “I feel like it’s a risk for all of our miners to be going back to work right now.” She and other miners and their families are worried about the coronavirus getting into the mines. During normal flu season, Collett says if one man gets sick, it spreads incredibly quickly from miner to miner underground. There are a couple of factors that go into why a virus spreads so rapidly. The first is the sheer proximity of the miners. Many go in underground together in large groups and when they are underground together, staying six feet apart is very difficult if not impossible to do. “If one of them gets sick, due to the very nature of the mines it gets passed around to man to man to man,” Collett added. The second reason is that the machinery is not usually sanitized. If anything it’s washed, but not thoroughly. One of the biggest factors though is the airflow underground.
Coal Miners With Black Lung Brace for COVID-19 – In some states like West Virginia, coal mines have been classified as essential services and are staying open during the COVID-19 pandemic, even though the close quarters miners work in and the known risks to respiratory health put miners in harm’s way during the spread of the coronavirus. In Appalachia, miners with pneumoconiosis, or black lung disease, are at particularly high risk of coronavirus, according to HuffPost. Official statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) put the number of underground coal miners with black lung disease at one in 10, though experts estimate the number could be 20 percent or higher.When someone has black lung disease, scarring in the respiratory tract makes breathing labored. The notion of adding exposure to a severe respiratory illness like COVID-19 has some workers terrified, according toHuffPost. Furthermore, the communities where coal miners live tend to have higher than average comorbidities like obesity and diabetes.Appalachians, for example are more likely than other Americans to have ailments such as cancer, heart disease and diabetes, due in part to smoking and a more sedentary lifestyle, according to the Appalachian Regional Commission, all of which could complicate the effects of COVID-19. “Nobody knows what this virus is going to do when it gets to this area,” said Jimmy Moore, a 74-year-old black lung patient in Shelby Gap, Kentucky, to HuffPost. “It’s probably just going to wipe us out.” The age of many black lung sufferers also complicates exposure to the coronavirus, according to Anna Allen, a West Virginia doctor who cares for black lung patients, as Bloomberg reported. In Australia, which has a robust coal mining industry and a significant portion of GDP derived from exporting coal to China and India, there have been drastic improvements since 2015 to improve working conditions for miners. However, miners with long-term exposure have most likely already had their lungs damaged but may not know it yet.”The disease usually takes a minimum of five years to 10 years in very heavy exposure to develop, and a bit longer if the exposures are not so heavy,”
“They’re Crooks”: Coal Industry Aims to Exploit Coronavirus Crisis to Cut Payments to Miners With Black Lung -Some of the largest coal companies in the United States are using the coronavirus crisis to pressure Congress to slash the tax that finances the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund, a lifeline for more than 20,000 miners whose lung disease makes them more vulnerable to COVID-19.The Washington Post reported this week that the National Mining Association (NMA), a trade group that represents the biggest U.S. coal operators still standing, “asked Congress last month for a 55 percent cut in the excise tax for the trust fund, and a suspension of another fee that pays to clean up abandoned mines. Altogether the operators say they could save about $220 million.””While the level of taxation to back the fund has fluctuated sharply over the past two years,” the Post noted, “it currently stands at $1.10 for every ton of coal mined underground and 55 cents for surface coal.” Harold Sturgill, a 60-year-old retired miner who was diagnosed with black lung in 1998, said in an interview with the Post that coal companies are “going to try to use this virus thing to stop paying benefits.” “They’re crooks,” Sturgill said. The NMA explicitly pointed to the coronavirus crisis in its tax cut request to Congress – which was not included in the stimulus package that Congress passed last month – and labeled the coal industry “essential” to energy production in the United States. A group of Republican senators is currently pressuring the Federal Reserve to allow coal companies to benefit from the multi-trillion-dollar CARES Act. As EcoWatch reported earlier this week, “in some states like West Virginia, coal mines have been classified as essential services and are staying open during the COVID-19 pandemic, even though the close quarters miners work in and the known risks to respiratory health put miners in harm’s way during the spread of the coronavirus.” “
Federal safety officials say they do not have data on COVID-19 cases in US mines U.S. mine safety officials said they could not identify mines closed for COVID-19 related causes nor offer figures on the number of cases of the disease reported by mine employees. U.S. Department of Labor spokesperson Laura McGinnis said the agency does not actively collect data on the reasons for mine status changes and does not have access to comprehensive data on COVID-19 cases reported by mining employees. However, there have been multiple cases in the U.S. of miners testing positive for the novel coronavirus.McGinnis did say that if a mine operator alerts the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration to changes in production, the agency would “to the extent possible, limit the number of inspectors sent to that mine for a regular inspection proportional with the mine’s continuing operations.””MSHA is committed to protecting the health and safety of America’s miners, and we will continue to perform our essential functions, including mandatory inspections, serious accident investigations, and investigations of hazard complaints (imminent danger or serious in nature),” McGinnis wrote in an email.The United Mine Workers of America, or UMWA, said it is tracking cases at mines with union-represented employees. There were three positive tests at Peabody Energy Corp.’s Shoal Creek coal mine and two more at Warrior Met Coal Inc.’s No. 7 mine as of April 8, according to Phil Smith, the union’s director of communications and governmental affairs.Both metallurgical coal mines are in Alabama, and incidences of the disease had not been reported in news releases or securities filings by either company as of April 8. A Warrior spokesperson declined to comment. Julie Gates, Peabody’s vice president of investor relations and communications, said the company expects some of its employees to be among those affected as community-spread cases continue to rise, as is the case at Shoal Creek.
Murray Energy warns of possible layoffs as it tries to sell assets – Coal-mining company Murray Energy is warning that it might lay off 508 workers at operations throughout eastern Ohio. The company, which filed for bankruptcy protection this past October, said in letters to the state on Thursday that it is trying to sell assets as part of its bankruptcy case. “At this time, the company does not know exactly when the sale will occur or exactly when employees will be offer employment,” the company said. Murray issued six notices to the state for affiliated companies. The biggest notice was for American Energy in Beallsville, where 358 workers have been notified of possible layoffs. The layoffs could take place as soon as June. Other layoffs could occur in Saint Clairsville, Clarington, Alledonia and Powhatan Point. All are in Belmont or Monroe counties. Last week, the company said it could be forced to liquidate unless a federal judge lets it cut health-care payments to retirees. It has asked the judge overseeing its Chapter 11 filing to let it cut some of those obligations to stave off a default under its bankruptcy loan and conserve cash.
Murray Energy’s Bankruptcy Plan Releases Face Challenge by U.S.– Murray Energy Corp. shouldn’t send its reorganization plan to a creditor vote without amending provisions that would shield others tied to the bankrupt coal giant from litigation, the Justice Department said.Murray hasn’t justified the inclusion of the releases in its Chapter 11 plan, the U.S. Trustee’s office said in a filing Wednesday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Ohio. The materials explaining the plan also don’t provide a basis to bind creditors to those releases if they reject the plan or abstain from voting, the DOJ’s bankruptcy watchdog said.Creditors only should be bound to…
Nearly half of global coal plants will be unprofitable this year: Carbon Tracker – (Reuters) – China and other countries could be planning to build more coal plants to stimulate their economies in the wake of the novel coronavirus pandemic but nearly half of global coal plants will run at a loss this year, research showed on Wednesday. China has over 1,000 gigawatts (GW) of coal-fired power, accounting for about 60% of the country’s total installed generation capacity and around 100 GW under construction. London-based environmental think tank Carbon Tracker analysed the profitability of 95% of coal plants in operation or planned around the world. It looked at 6,696 operational plants and 1,046 in the pipeline and found that 46% will be unprofitable this year, up from 41% in 2019, based on estimated revenues from wholesale power markets, ancillary and balancing services and capital markets, as well as running costs, carbon pricing and pollution policies. That will rise to 52% by 2030 as renewables and cheaper gas outcompete coal, the think tank said. China, which produces and consumes about half the world’s coal, might be considering building more coal plants to stimulate its economy in the wake of COVID-19, after the National Energy Administration announced it was ready to relax rules on coal power investment, the report said. Nearly 60% of China’s existing coal plant fleet is running at an underlying loss, it said. China has 99.7 GW of coal under construction and another 106.1 GW in various stages of the planning process but 61% of that would enter the market with negative cashflow, it added. “China and other governments may be tempted to invest in coal power to help their economies recover after the COVID-19 pandemic, but this risks locking in high-cost coal power that will undermine global climate targets,” said Matt Gray, co-head of power and utilities at Carbon Tracker. Governments and investors building new coal may never recoup their investment because coal plants typically take 15 to 20 years to cover their costs, the report said.
NUCLEAR: Plant Vogtle worker tests positive for coronavirus — Monday, April 6, 2020 — A worker at the nation’s lone nuclear construction project tested positive for the novel coronavirus, Georgia Power said this weekend.
Three coronavirus cases confirmed at Plant Vogtle – Three cases of COVID-19 have been logged at the Plant Vogtle Units 3 and 4 construction site near Waynesboro, Georgia, as of late Wednesday night. Test results are pending for 14 other workers, a Georgia Power spokesperson said. Seventy-one workers there have tested negative for the respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus. Georgia Power is one of four joint owners of Plant Vogtle, a nuclear power plant south of Aiken and Augusta that is home to two operating reactors, Units 1 and 2, as well as two in the works, Units 3 and 4. The Units 3 and 4 workforce comprises roughly 9,000 people. The first case of COVID-19 at the plant was disclosed April 4. Those who have worked closely with the people who ultimately tested positive were sent home and are now self-quarantined, the Georgia Power spokesperson said. Construction work continues, but with rules meant to reduce worker-to-worker contact and keep well-traveled and heavily trafficked areas cleaned. Tools are being sanitized. The on-site cafeteria is closed. Mass-transit tram and bus services are suspended. And large, in-person meetings are avoided, according to the company.
Limerick nuclear plant worker tests positive, raising coronavirus fears during refueling outage –One of about 1,400 contract workers involved with the refueling outage at the Limerick nuclear power plant in Montgomery County has tested positive for COVID-19, which is likely to further raise concerns of local officials who have protested Exelon Generation’s decision to proceed with the annual maintenance event.Exelon notified county health officials that a contract worker at the Limerick Generating Station tested positive for the coronavirus on Thursday night. The worker, who is from central Pennsylvania, was last on site on Monday. The areas that the worker used have been decontaminated and plant employees were notified, the company said in a statement.Two other full-time Limerick workers were diagnosed recently with COVID-19 at the plant, but they have not been on site since March 20, Lacy Dean, director of communications for Exelon Generation, said in a statement.The refueling outage, which involves the influx of about 1,400 workers, began on March 27.“The health and safety of our employees and contractors, and limiting the spread of the virus, are our utmost priorities, and we have strict protocols in place to address each case as it occurs,” the company said in a statement Friday. “Any employees who came in close contact with the affected persons or work at that reporting location are notified, and we perform an additional deep cleaning of all areas that have potentially been exposed.” Of the 1,400 workers, Exelon said about half are local and half come from out of state. But nobody who has traveled recently overseas, or is coming in from hard-hit New York City, is permitted to work on site. News of the infected worker is likely to heighten concern among Montgomery County officials, who have raised protests in recent days about Exelon’s decision to proceed with the refueling.
Workers ‘terrified’ at Limerick nuclear plant amid coronavirus – – Contractors working during a refueling project at the Limerick Generating Station are “terrified” they’re working in a “breeding ground” for COVID-19 and expressed concerns about the company’s safety practices during the pandemic.“I’m in a constant state of paranoia. In my opinion, it’s just a complete breeding ground, a cesspool for this,” said one man, who spoke on condition of anonymity to MediaNews Group out of fear of losing his job.The contractor said supplemental workers began showing up at the plant days before a Unit 1 refueling outage began on March 27. Montgomery County officials have said they were informed that up to 1,400 contractors may have been summoned to work on the project as a coronavirus outbreak was taking shape in the county.The first cases of coronavirus were reported in the county on March 7.The workers interviewed claimed that social distancing measures of standing at least six feet apart, which have repeatedly been recommended by health officials during the outbreak, were not in place at the plant as they initially reported for their jobs.“From the first day I got there, there were no less than 100 people in the training room being processed. I have pictures from that day of people literally sitting on top of each other, no one enforcing social distancing,” the man said on Friday. “There were computer labs for people to take the tests they need to get into the plant, people sitting at every computer elbow to elbow. So, I’ve been concerned since the minute I walked in there.” During shift changes, he said, people from both shifts congregated in the break room “standing room only, just packed in there.” “They did not enforce any social distancing whatsoever until this past Wednesday (April 1) when the news got to the media. That’s when they started enforcing some social distancing,” the man claimed. “Being put at risk like this makes us mad.”The contractor described the current social distancing at the plant as “a half-assed thing.” “They made us sit further apart in the break room. But that first week and a half we were elbow to elbow with 40 people in the break room at any given time,” he claimed.Those interviewed said social distancing is now being practiced somewhat outside the plant but inside is a different story.“There’s groups of people just working on top of each other, still to this day,” the contractor claimed on Friday, adding there are jobs in the plant where social distancing cannot be adhered to, “because you need multiple pairs of hands to accomplish the jobs.”
5 coronavirus cases confirmed at Limerick nuclear plant; 38 employees quarantined – – Exelon officials confirmed there have been five cases of COVID-19 among the more than 1,000 employees and contractors at the Limerick Generating Station, which is currently conducting a refueling outage.“We can confirm that we have five cases of COVID-19 among our workforce. Two were last on-site prior to the outage and three have recently tested positive. All are receiving care, and we are thinking about our colleagues and wishing them a quick recovery,” Dave Marcheskie, communications manager at the Limerick Generating Station, confirmed for MediaNews Group.Company officials previously said the first two cases of COVID-19 among the workforce at the plant had not been at the worksite since March 20. The refueling outage on Limerick Unit 1 began on March 27 and was scheduled to last 18 days, according to company officials.“The outage is nearing the halfway point and the number of positive cases of COVID-19 at Limerick remain very low,” Marcheskie said.Outage workers and contractors arrived anywhere from a few days to a week prior to the outage to prepare, according to officials.“Limerick Generating Station’s refueling outage requires significant additions to our workforce in order to execute the work safely. About 1,500 people from local union halls, other Exelon locations, and specialty contractors are needed to supplement the approximately 750 year-around Limerick employees in order to execute the outage,” Marcheskie explained. “While the total number of additional workers required is approximately 1,500, no more than 750 or so are onsite at the same time due to shift schedules,” Marcheskie told MediaNews Group.Company officials said that as of April 6 there were 38 employees or contractors quarantined after the positive COVID-19 cases were identified.Some elected officials, like state Senator Katie Muth (D-44th), had called on Exelon to work with federal, state, and county officials to create and implement a 14-day, controlled quarantine protocol for all contracted employees who participate in the outage work. Muth also called on Exelon to continue to fully compensate workers during that time and to cover all costs incurred by workers during the quarantine.In a letter sent to Exelon last week, Muth expressed concern that many of the workers would move on to additional refueling projects, such as the scheduled Beaver Valley refueling project in western Pennsylvania, as well as at other nuclear facilities across the country, and that without proper safety and quarantine measures, officials were risking “a massive spread of Covid-19 across this state and nation.”
Coronavirus strikes Fermi 2 nuclear plant during refueling; utility keeps working – An undisclosed number of coronavirus cases have been documented inside Fermi 2 during the nuclear plant’s latest refueling outage. But owner-operator DTE Energy said it believes it has enough precautions in place now to complete the work and get the plant restarted in the coming weeks. In a statement, DTE spokesman Stephen R. Tait said the company “can confirm that we have had employees test positive, but are not giving out numbers, locations or names at this time.” Media reports showed the first worker tested positive about the same time the refueling outage began on March 21. A Detroit television station reported at least two more positive cases were documented within days of that. But many similar operations – which once took six weeks or longer – have been shortened to about a month in recent years. Utilities lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in potential electricity sales each day nuclear plants sit idle. Nuclear plants are refueled every 18 to 24 months, depending on the type of uranium used in their reactor cores. Fermi 2, located along western Lake Erie in northern Monroe County’s Frenchtown Township, is one of many nuclear plants across the United States scheduled to be refueled during the spring or fall of 2020, the two seasons when demand for electricity is lowest. Energy Harbor’s Davis-Besse nuclear plant along the Lake Erie shoreline in rural Ottawa County recently completed its latest refueling. Both plants are about 30 miles from downtown Toledo. The coronavirus pandemic has, of course, complicated those efforts this year.
Chernobyl Radiation Levels Suddenly Surge 17x –Radiation across the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone spiked 17x as firefighters over the weekend battled a 250-acre forest fire, reported NBC News. More than 100 firefighters, several Antonov AN-32P Firekiller air tankers, and a Mil Mi-8 helicopter were dispatched near the village of Vladimirovka to fight the fire. Ukrainian emergency services said firefighters battled the blaze over the weekend and wrapped up operations by Monday.VIDEO: A forest fire is underway in the restricted zone around Chernobyl, scene of the world’s worst nuclear accident, but Ukrainian government agencies have denied an official’s claim that the fire caused a spike in radiation levels pic.twitter.com/EOyG0XG4QD – AFP news agency (@AFP) April 7, 2020“There is bad news – radiation is above normal in the center of the fire,” ecological inspection chief Yegor Firsov wrote in a Facebook post alongside a video of a Geiger counter. “As you see on the video, the appliance indicators are 2,3 at ok 0,14. But such a situation is only in the fire.”Firsov said the spike in radioactivity was observed in the proximity of the fire. He wrote in a Sunday post that nuclear experts recorded no increase of radiation levels in the capital, Kyiv, about 60 miles from the exclusive zone.Vladimirovka is part of a 1,000-square-mile exclusion zone, which was deserted in 1986 after the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant explosion, which exposed millions of people to radioactive materials across Europe. The region is the most radioactively contaminated area in the world.
Chernobyl radiation levels spike dramatically as forest fires burn in exclusion zone – Radiation levels in the Chernobyl exclusion zone spiked 17 times over the normal background reading Sunday, the head of Ukraine’s ecological watchdog said Sunday, as forest fires blazed about 12 miles into the Chernobyl disaster area. “There is bad news,” ecological inspection chief Yegor Firsov wrote in a Facebook post from the closed Chernobyl region. “At the center of the fire, radiation levels are high … readings are 2.3, when the normal level is 0.14.” Firsov’s post included a video of a Geiger counter, a device used to measure radiation levels. Image: A Geiger counterA Geiger counter measures a radiation level at a site of fire burning in the exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant outside the village of Rahivka, Ukraine, on Sunday, April 5, 2020.Yaroslav Yemelianenko / Reuters According to Firsov, the alarming jump in radioactivity was found only in the center of the fire. In a later post Sunday, he wrote that nuclear specialists had charted no increase in radiation levels in the capital, Kyiv, only about 60 miles from the Chernobyl exclusion zone. Ukrainian authorities said the fire, which engulfed an area of more than 250 acres over the weekend, was most likely caused by human negligence. Firsov said the blaze was likely the result of someone’s setting fire to grass, which then spread to trees. The Ukrainian Emergency Services Ministry said the fire had been extinguished. Radiation levels in the zone are within normal limits, the statement said. Ukraine sees spikes in human-sparked forest fires annually, typically in the spring and the fall, according to the Emergency Services Ministry. Such fires are more dangerous around Chernobyl, as the trees and plant life are still irradiated from the 1986 nuclear disaster. Firsov used the radiation spike to call for increasing fines for sparking forest fires. Currently, the fine is about $6.50 for committing arson. “This can’t continue. The fine must go up 50-100 times,” he wrote on Facebook.
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