Environmental News For The Week Ending 16 August 2019

Written by rjs, MarketWatch 666

This is a collection of interesting news articles about the environment and related topics published last week. This is usually a Tuesday evening regular post at GEI (but can be posted at other times). This week it appears on Wednesday.

Please share this article – Go to very top of page, right hand side, for social media buttons.

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

• 16 Aug 2020 – Coronavirus Disease Weekly News 16August 2020

• 16 Aug 2020 – Coronavirus Economic Weekly News 16August 2020

Summary:

New US cases were down again, but not by much – less than 5%. There wasn’t much change in the death toll for the entire week, but August 11 reports showed the most virus deaths since May.

The onion salmonella outbreak grows. More recalls from Walmart, Kroger, Publix, H-E-B — The Salmonella Newport outbreak linked to onions has expanded into one of the largest in recent years, with 640 people sickened in 43 states, as of the most recent CDC update.As the outbreak has expanded, so have the associated food recalls.Once Bakersfield, California-based Thomson International initiated a 50-state recall of white, red, yellow and sweet yellow onions last week, the next wave of recalls would be of all the products that included those onions. That wave washed out products sold at Walmart, Kroger and Giant Eagle, all of which were recalled this week.Also recalled were red onions packaged by Del Monte Fresh Produce and sold via bulk displays at Publix stores in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, and Virginia. The Lakeland-based chain says no Florida stores were involved in this recall of red onions shipped to Publix in July with product lookup number 4082. The USDA put out a Public Health Alert about these onion-containing food products from Taylor Farms, the producer in the earlier Walmart and Kroger recalls. Consumers with any of the below products should return them to the store for a full refund. (list with pictures)

Salmonella Outbreak Linked to Onions Spreads to 43 States and Canada -Nearly 900 people across the U.S. and Canada have been sickened by salmonella linked to onions distributed by Thomson International, the The New York Times reported. The outbreak reached 43 states and 7 provinces in Canada by the end of Sunday, forcing major retailers, including Trader Joe’s, Giant Eagle and Publix, to remove onions from their shelves. The outbreak is likely to continue spreading as onions were shipped to all 50 states from the Bakersfield, California-based food distributor, according to Ars Technica. It is possible that an increasing number of cases will be reported over the next few weeks due to the lag between when a person gets sick and gets tested, then having an agency report the illness, Martin Wiedmann, a food safety professor at Cornell University, told The New York Times. A CDC map of the outbreak identifies 640 cases across the country, with Utah, Oregon and California showing the largest number of cases. The recalled list includes red, yellow, white and sweet yellow onions. The major chains that carried the onions also include Walmart, Kroger, Fred Meyer, Food Lion and H-E-B. According to a statement Friday from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the onions were sold under the following brand names: Thomson Premium, TLC Thomson International, Tender Loving Care, El Competitor, Hartley’s Best, Onions 52, Majestic, Imperial Fresh, Kroger, Utah Onions and Food Lion. The CDC asked people to proceed with extreme caution. “If you used onions to make any other food and don’t know where the onions were from, don’t eat the food. Throw it away, even if some of it was eaten and no one got sick,” the CDC said. It added, “Wash and sanitize any surfaces that may have come in contact with onions or their packaging, such as countertops, storage bins, refrigerator drawers, knives, and cutting boards.” “People who believe they’ve gotten diarrhea from consuming red onions might want to contact a health care provider,” Emilio DeBess, an epidemiologist at the Oregon Public Health Division Acute and Communicable Disease Prevention Section, told KDRV. “However, most people with salmonellosis will recover without antibiotics.” According to the CDC, salmonella is a bacteria that can cause salmonellosis, and most human infections are caused by eating food contaminated with it. Salmonellosis can lead to diarrhea, fever and abdominal cramps. These symptoms usually appear within three days after becoming infected and usually resolve within four to seven days. In some cases, the infection may spread to the bloodstream and other parts of the body. These cases are associated with more severe diarrhea, which can lead to hospitalization. Severe cases can be deadly if not treated promptly with antibiotics.

Kroger and Fred Meyer are recalling cheese dips due to salmonella – Grocery stores across the United States are recalling a tub-load of cheese dips after a salmonella outbreak tainted an onion crop and sickened hundreds. The United States Food and Drug Administration posted six new food recalls on its website Wednesday. The recalls affect dozens of cheese dips and spreads sold between May 15 and August 6 at Kroger, Fred Meyer, Fry’s Food Stores, and Smith’s Food and Drug. Each grocer said in its recall notice that they were informed of a salmonella-outbreak among the red, yellow, and white onions from Thomson International, Inc. on July 31. The recall notices also said that after the various grocery stores removed the potentially-tainted Thomson International onions, they found that “several in-store made cheese dips may have used red onions from the produce department as an ingredient.” Murray’s, Jarslberg, and deli cheese dips and spreads dominate the recall lists. Acquired by Kroger in 2017, Murray’s Cheese is a New York City-based cheese retailer. The salmonella outbreak that triggered the initial onion recall has sickened 879 people so far. The recalled onions were shipped to all 50 states and sold at grocery retailers like Kroger, Walmart, and Trader Joe’s. Anyone who bought a recalled cheese dip or spread product from is advised to not eat the product, as it may contain salmonella.

Seafood study finds plastic in all samples – A study of five different seafoods has found traces of plastic in every sample tested. Researchers bought oysters, prawns, squid, crabs and sardines from a market in Australia and analysed them using a newly developed method that identifies and measures five different plastic types simultaneously. The study – by the University of Exeter and the University of Queensland – found plastic levels of 0.04 milligrams (mg) per gram of tissue in squid, 0.07mg in prawns, 0.1mg in oysters, 0.3mg in crabs and 2.9mg in sardines. “Considering an average serving, a seafood eater could be exposed to approximately 0.7mg of plastic when ingesting an average serving of oysters or squid, and up to 30mg of plastic when eating sardines, respectively,” “For comparison, 30mg is the average weight of a grain of rice. “Our findings show that the amount of plastics present varies greatly among species, and differs between individuals of the same species. “From the seafood species tested, sardines had the highest plastic content, which was a surprising result.” “We do not fully understand the risks to human health of ingesting plastic, but this new method will make it easier for us to find out.” The researchers bought raw seafood – five wild blue crabs, ten oysters, ten farmed tiger prawns, ten wild squid and ten wild sardines. They then analysed them for the five different kinds of plastics that can be identified by the new method. All of the plastics are commonly used in plastic packaging and synthetic textiles and are frequently found in marine litter: polystyrene, polyethylene, polyvinyl chloride, polypropylene and poly(methyl methacrylate). Polyvinyl chloride was found in all samples, while the plastic found in highest concentrations was polyethylene.

Seafood Study Finds Plastic in 100% of Samples — A new study of five different kinds of seafood revealed traces of plastic in every sample tested. Researchers bought raw samples of popular seafood from a market in Australia, including 10 oysters, 10 farmed tiger prawns, 10 wild squid, five wild blue crab and 10 wild sardines, reported Daily Mail. At least trace levels of plastic contamination were found in each, with the highest content found in sardines, according to the research. The scientists used a new technique to identify and measure five different types of plastics contained within the tissues of each sample of seafood simultaneously, reported Intrafish. They did so in order to better understand the potential harm microplastics in seafood could have on human health, lead author Francisca Ribeiro said in a University of Queensland press release. The study found greatly varying amounts of plastic in each of the different types of seafood tested as well as in the individual species, said a University of Exeter press release. “Another interesting aspect was the diversity of microplastic types found among species, with polyethylene predominant in fish and polyvinyl chloride the only plastic detected in oysters.” “Considering an average serving, a seafood eater could be exposed to approximately 0.7mg of plastic when ingesting an average serving of oysters or squid, and up to 30mg of plastic when eating sardines, respectively …. For comparison, 30mg is the average weight of a grain of rice.” The plastics found by the scientists are commonly used in plastic packaging and synthetic textiles, including polystyrene, polyethylene, polyvinyl chloride, polypropylene and poly (methyl methacrylate), reported Intrafish. Polyvinyl chloride was found in all samples, while the plastic found in highest concentrations was polyethylene, the world’s most popular plastic, reported Daily Mail. These plastics frequently end up in waterways and oceans, where they continue to break down into microplastics, very small pieces of plastics that are often eaten by marine creatures of all sizes and types. Microplastics are absorbed by plankton, bioaccumulate as they are carried up the food chain and eventually end up on our plates, reported Energy Live News. Humans are exposed to microplastics not only in the seafood we eat, but also through bottled water, sea salt, beer, honey, and even dust that settles on our meals, the University of Exeter release said.

Coronavirus wasn’t bad enough, so now there’s a new virus outbreak in China — While the world is still reeling from the novel coronavirus pandemic, a previously-known virus has popped up again in China and has already claimed at least seven lives and infected dozens of others. Chinese state media reports that the virus originates in ticks, and that being bitten by the tiny bugs is the primary route of transmission.However, researchers in China say that it may be possible to spread the viral infection from person to person under certain circumstances. The virus could be passed through either blood or mucous, health experts say, but ticks are still the biggest danger. The virus, which has been slowly spreading throughout the first half of the year, is known as the SFTS Virus. It’s not a new virus, and researchers first detected and identified it almost a decade ago. Still, an outbreak of the virus is not to be taken lightly, as it has proven to cause serious health issues and can be lethal. Right now, the virus is most prevalent in East China, where at least 60 people have been infected. Some of the patients have recovered from their infections, but the virus has also claimed lives. Symptoms include fever and coughing, which are very non-specific and could suggest that more people are infected and simply don’t know it yet.Transmission of the virus between humans is considered possible, but it would likely be under very rare circumstances. Health officials in the region say there’s little chance that this virus could become an epidemic or pandemic due to its origins and the fact that ticks are the primary route of transmission.Ticks are a common route of transmission for various illnesses all over the world. They dig in and feed on blood, making them the perfect carriers for disease. In the United States, those traveling on foot through wooded areas or camping are often told to check themselves and their pets for ticks on a regular basis. The primary danger of ticks in the United States and many other areas is Lyme disease, which is characterized by fever, headache, fatigue, and sometimes a bright red rash on the skin, though this isn’t always present.

Navajo Nation’s Shortage of Clean Water Is Impeding Efforts to Control COVID – Sunny Dooley learned from an early age that safe, clean water was as precious as a rare mineral, and just as hard to find. Because of naturally occurring uranium and arsenic in the groundwater, the nearest clean well was two miles away. Dooley and her family used to make the trip on foot with steel buckets they would drop down the well before lugging them back, a trail of splashes in the dirt marking the route behind. Later, when a manual water pump was installed at the well, the water flowed more freely. “We acclimated to live sparingly with water,” said Dooley, now a distinguished storyteller, who still doesn’t have running water or indoor plumbing in her home. Dooley’s story, however, isn’t an oddity in this great 27,000 square mile swath of land in the Four Corners region of Southwestern U.S. Of the Navajo Nation’s 200,000 plus residents, between 30 and 40 percent have no direct access to running water. Some residents speculate that number is even higher. Half of the Navajo population within the Utah portion of the Nation alone lack indoor plumbing. In a region where the median household income is about half that for the U.S. as a whole, these long, routine treks to find clean water can cost some households hundreds of dollars a month in gas. The reasons underpinning the Nation’s current clean water crisis date back more than 100 years to a federal Supreme Court ruling that was supposed to favor reservations, but in its application has led to a complex tangle of water rights that impede the Nation’s efforts to provide for its members. “There’s a bureaucracy of water here,” said Dooley. “Tribal government bureaucracy. New Mexico state bureaucracy. United States government bureaucracy.” Added to that is a disastrous environmental legacy from drilling and mining projects on the Nation that have destroyed precious water resources, along with climate change’s growing environmental footprint in an area already prone to drought.In terms of the latest crisis, the coronavirus has hit the Navajo Nation harder than any other region of the U.S. Universal access to clean water would be a “gamechanger” for the Nation, said Sriram Shamasunder, an associate professor with the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), who recently spent a month helping the Nation through a UCSFprogram designed to funnel health care workers toward disadvantaged communities. “My recommendations for COVID are so much of a flat-tax,” said Shamasunder, pointing to good hand hygiene and being able to shelter in place. “It doesn’t work for poor people that don’t have running water.”

PA announces $4.3M grant to reduce lead in drinking water at schools in tribal communities – On Thursday, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a new grant program to help protect children in tribal communities from lead in drinking water at schools and childcare facilities.With this action, the agency is continuing to make meaningful progress under the Trump Administration’s Federal Action Plan to Reduce Childhood Lead Exposures by engaging with tribes and working to protect childrens’ health in these underserved communities.“Protecting children in tribal communities from lead in drinking water is a priority for the Trump Administration and EPA,” said U.S. EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler. “This new funding helps tribes further reduce lead in drinking water by boosting testing for lead in schools and childcare centers. This, in turn, will increase the health and wellbeing of the coming generation.”Authorized by the Water Infrastructure Improvements of the Nation (WIIN) Act, EPA is making $4.3 million available to support the Lead Testing in School and Child Care Program Drinking Water Tribal Grant Program.Grantees will use the EPA’s 3Ts for Reducing Lead in Drinking Water guidance to implement lead testing programs and develop monitoring, maintenance and/or sampling plans that protect children from lead exposure now and in the future. Beneficiaries of the program must be members of a federally-recognized tribe.

Americans Are Continuing To Die From Drinking Hand Sanitizer – US health officials are still having to verbalize what most would think is only too obvious: don’t drink hand sanitizer.During the past two summer months as lockdowns have endured in a number of states, and as large states like Texas and Arizona saw a severe coronavirus resurgence, health officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CD) said this week four people have died from consuming hand sanitizers.At least 15 adults had also been poisoned in Arizona and New Mexico after ingesting it, with some continuing to have vision problems and other devastating lingering effects.Of note is that in all cases of fatalities, the hand sanitizers contained methanol, or wood alcohol, which is a dangerous substitute for the legitimate germ killing ingredient of ethyl alcohol. Methanol is actually a key ingredient in antifreeze.Somehow they thought this was a extra precaution toward disinfecting themselves, apparently. Last week the US Food and Drug Administration greatly expanded its list of potentially harmful and danterous hand sanitizers, which is at a whopping 100+. Warnings first surfaced in June, at which point less than a dozen were named. This after an explosion of new, cheap sanitizers hit the market following an initial run on alcohol-based sanitizing cleaning products in March, when coronavirus lockdowns took effect.Initially the FDA’s warnings were focused on products that are potentially toxic when absorbed through the skin, given some contained methanol.This makes the sanitizers deadly if swallowed as well, as is tragically being demonstrated in the case of some people actually consuming the products.

Wildlife deaths from coronavirus disinfectant use alarm scientists -In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, public health officials believed that one of the most effective ways to fight the spread of the virus was to disinfect highly touched surfaces.That led China, South Korea, France, Spain, and several other countries to spray copious amounts of disinfectant throughout densely populated urban areas. Fleets of trucks, drones, and even robots doused streets, parks, playgrounds, and other outdoor public spaces with virus-killing chemicals.In Indonesia, drones drenched homes in disinfectant from above. And in one village in Spain, tractors dumped hundreds of gallons of bleach onto a public beach. Infectious-disease experts, including the World Health Organization, have since denounced the practice as both ineffective and a potential health hazard to people, in particular respiratory irritation from inhaling the chemicals. Combining disinfectants, such as bleach and ammonia, could also release potentially fatal gases, WHO warned. And this month, biologists joined in, claiming in a new commentary in the journal Environmental Research that the indiscriminate use of such substances in urban settings poses a significant danger to wildlife. China was the first country, in January 2020, to start sanitizing its cities – and as soon as it did, reports of poisoned animals started coming in. In February, an investigation by the Chongqing Forestry Bureau in Chongqing, a huge city in southwestern China, found that at least 135 animals across 17 species – including wild boars, Siberian weasels, and blackbirds – had died after exposure to disinfectants, according to Chinese news agency Xinhua. Disinfectant ingredients, mostly sodium hypochlorite, chlorine, and bleach, are “acutely toxic to both terrestrial and aquatic animals,” says Dongming Li, professor of ecology at Hebei Normal University and co-author of theEnvironmental Research analysis, which was based solely on the Chongqing Forestry Bureau’s investigation. Li and his colleagues did not personally examine the dead animals to confirm what had killed them. Even so, the animals’ deaths are concerning evidence, Li believes, that “the overuse of disinfectants may contaminate the habitats of urban wildlife.” Li’s team is now calling on world leaders to regulate the dispersal of disinfectants in urban areas, which they say is being done without input from the scientific community.

Federal Judge Strikes Down Trump Admin Rollback of Law Protecting Migratory Birds – Environmentalists and ornithologists found a friend in a federal court on Tuesday when a judge struck down aTrump administration attempt to allow polluters to kill birds without repercussions through rewriting the Migratory Treaty Bird Act (MBTA).The issue at the heart of the case is that the Trump administration intended to change decades of established policy to allow the incidental slaughter of migratory birds as long as an individual or corporation could prove they did not intend to intentionally kill the bird, according to The Washington Post.In a scathing decision, U.S. District Court Judge Valerie Caproni questioned the humanity of an administration that would interpret the “taking” and “killing” of birds in the Migratory Bird Treaty Act as only applying to actions that specifically targeted birds.In upholding the longstanding interpretation of the century-old Migratory Bird Treaty Act that energy companies and other businesses have opposed as too broad, she quoted the iconic American novel To Kill a Mocking Bird, as Reuters reported.”It is not only a sin to kill a mockingbird, it is also a crime,” the judge wrote, according to Reuters.”That has been the letter of the law for the past century. But if the Department of the Interior has its way, many mockingbirds and other migratory birds that delight people and support ecosystems throughout the country will be killed without legal consequence.”As The Hill noted, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) has for over 100 years offered protections to 1,000 different types of birds, instigating penalties for companies whose projects or infrastructure harm them. Yet, in 2017, the Interior Department’s Solicitor Daniel Jorjani, a former Koch Industries employee, advised punishing the oil and gas industry, construction companies, and others only if their work intentionally kills birds, effectively ending the spirit of the law that asks for the migratory patterns of birds to be considered when developing a project.”The opinion freezes the MBTA in time as a hunting-regulation statute, preventing it from addressing modern threats to migrating bird populations,” Caproni wrote in a decision vacating the opinion, calling it “an unpersuasive interpretation of the MBTA’s unambiguous prohibition on killing protected birds,” according to The Hill.

Bald Eagle Takes Out Government Drone — A Michigan bald eagle proved that nature can still triumph over machines when it attacked and drowned a nearly $1,000 government drone.The rogue eagle tussled with a drone operated by the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) July 21, the department announced Thursday. EGLE asked the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR) if it could issue a citation against the eagle, but the department said it had no authority over non-human wildlife.”Unfortunately, there’s nothing we can do,” a DNR spokesman said. “Nature is a cruel and unforgiving mistress.” The drone, a $950 Phantom 4 Pro Advanced, was helping to map the Lake Michigan shoreline for erosion when the eagle struck.EGLE environmental quality analyst and drone pilot Hunter King said he had commanded the drone to return from a mapping expedition near Escanaba in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula because of weak satellite reception. He was watching it head back through a video screen when the image began to rotate violently. “It was like a really bad rollercoaster ride,” King said. When he looked up, the drone had disappeared, and an eagle was racing away. A couple who had been birdwatching nearby said they had seen an eagle attack something, but did not know it was a drone. The eagle appeared to fly away from the incident unharmed. After the eagle struck, the drone took 3.5 seconds to plummet into the water, The Associated Press reported. During that time, it sent 27 warning notifications, including one indicating one of its propellers was missing, likely torn off by the bird. King and the couple tried and failed to find the fallen drone, EGLE said. Later attempts to recover the drone based on data pinpointing its location in the water also proved unsuccessful due to poor visibility.

A Plastics Spill on the Mississippi River But No Accountability in Sight – When I arrived on Sunday, August 9, scores of tiny plastic pellets lined the sandy bank of the Mississippi River downstream from New Orleans, Louisiana, where they glistened in the sun, not far from a War of 1812 battlefield. These precursors of everyday plastic products, also known as nurdles, spilled from a shipping container that fell off a cargo ship at a port in New Orleans the previous Sunday, August 2. After seeing photographs by New Orleans artist Michael Pajon published on NOLA.com, I went to see if a cleanup of the spilled plastic was underway. A week after the spill, I saw no signs of a cleanup when I arrived in the early afternoon, but I did watch a group of tourists disembark from a riverboat that docked along the plastic-covered riverbank. By most accounts, the translucent plastic pellets are considered pollution, but government bureaucracy and regulatory technicalities are making accountability for removing these bits of plastic from the river’s banks and waters surprisingly challenging. “The petrochemicals present will pollute fish and wildlife for years as they degrade in the sun,” Scott Eustis with Healthy Gulf, an environmental advocacy group, wrote of the pellets in an email. “This is ominous for the August 2nd event,” he added, after learning that the nurdles still remain along the river. Along with the National Transportation Safety Board, the U.S. Coast Guard is conducting a joint investigation of what happened but has yet to determine who is responsible for the incident at the Ports America facility in New Orleans that knocked four containers off the CMA CGM Bianca, a container ship, according to Sydney Phoenix, a Coast Guard spokesperson.As for a cleanup of the plastic pellets, Phoenix explained on a call, that because nurdles are not categorized as a hazardous material, the Coast Guard does not have the authority to call for a cleanup. Later by email she wrote, “Three of the containers were recovered immediately but one was not, containing the plastic resin pellets. It was recovered earlier this week.” She added that the “Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ) has been notified.”

Sharks Are Polluted With Plastic, New Study Shows -There are trillions of microplastics in the ocean – they bob on the surface, float through the water column, and accumulate in clusters on the seafloor. With plastic being so ubiquitous, it’s inevitable that marine organisms, such as sharks, will ingest them.A new study in Scientific Reports investigated microplastic ingestion in four species of demersal sharks found in the North Atlantic Ocean, which were captured as bycatch by a local fishery in Penzance, U.K. A team of six researchers, from the University of Exeter and the University of Leeds, examined the stomachs and digestive tracts of 46 sharks, and found that 67% contained microplastics. A total of 379 microplastics – plastic particles or fibers smaller than 5 millimeters, or a fifth of an inch – were found in the sampled sharks. Many of the plastic fibers were synthetic cellulose, the material found in polyester clothing and hygiene products such as face masks, which have become increasingly prevalent during the COVID-19 pandemic. “Although many of the particles ingested by these sharks will be excreted eventually, they potentially remain inside the body long enough for inorganic pollutants and chemicals (attached to the particles), to enter into the bodies of these sharks.” Parton said he found it surprising that sharks living off the coast of Penzance in Cornwall, on the southwestern tip of Britain, would contain so many plastic particles. “I actually didn’t expect to find as many as we did in these sharks,” he said. “The waters around Cornwall are thought to be some of the most beautiful in the U.K., and so I didn’t think there would be much pollution.” Parton’s co-author, Tamara Galloway, holds a similar view. “We were not expecting to find microfibers from textiles in so many of our native shark species,” Galloway, a marine biologist and professor of ecotoxicology at the University of Exeter, said in a statement. “Our study highlights how important it is to think before we throw things away.” Demersal sharks can be found at depths of 5 to 900 meters (16 to 3,000 feet), although they tend to live and feed in the demersal zone of the ocean, which is near the seafloor. The four species of demersal sharks used in this study included the small-spotted catshark (Scyliorhinus canicula), starry smooth-hound (Mustelus asterias), spiny dogfish (Squalus acanthias) and bull huss (Scyliorhinus stellaris).

As acid rain is curtailed, wheat gets less sulfur needed for tasty bread – Less acid rain is good for the environment, but potentially bad for bread, cereals and pasta. A decline in U.S. power-plant emissions over the last 30 years means the air has less sulfur, a critical nutrient for wheat and many other crops that researchers are now working to replace with fertilizer applications. For decades sulfur seeped into the soil via acid rain, a toxic precipitation that is harmful to human health but helped crops and made for tastier bread. Bread’s delicious structure is mainly thanks to the gluten in wheat. Gluten gives bread its elastic nature and allows pizza dough to be stretched and tossed in the air. But gluten is held together by sulfur-to-sulfur bonds. Without enough sulfur, bread has a harder crust and poor crumb structure – resulting in something more like a brick than a baguette. In Kansas, the sulfur deficit is plainly visible each spring as wheat plants in some areas emerge from their winter dormancy and resume growing. Most wheat fields are green, but some have a distinctive yellowish tint, the result of new leaves emerging from the tops of wheat plants low on sulfur. European farmers have been applying sulfur for years, after research in the mid-2000s showed sulfur-deficient wheat when combined with other ingredients in baking can form acrylamide, a chemical linked to cancer. In the United States, sulfur deficiency “is more of an emerging problem,” said Mary Guttieri, a U.S. Department of Agriculture researcher who is studying sulfur and Kansas wheat. “It’s not been something that these farmers’ grandparents or even their parents needed to worry about.” Adding sulfur on top of the common nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium fertilizers that U.S. farmers have applied for years, is a boon to fertilizer companies, but raises costs for growers at a time commodity prices have slumped due to trade tensions with China and years of overproduction.

China Faces Food Shortage As Droughts, Flooding, And Pests Ruin Harvest – Chinese Vice Premier Hu Chunhua recently asked the governors of each province in China to make sure the sown areas of agricultural crops would not shrink and crop yield won’t be reduced this year. At a food security meeting held in Beijing on July 27, he warned that governors would be punished if they failed to uphold the promise, including with dismissals.And when Chinese leader Xi Jinping visited northeastern Jilin Province on July 22, he told the local government to treat grain production as a priority task. The top officials’ emphasis on food supplies raised questions about whether China is facing a severe food shortage this year.In early July, the government organ China National Grain and Oils Information Center released its estimates that the corn supply gap in the 2020-2021 fiscal year would be 25 million metric tons – more than double the previous estimated 12 million metric tons.On Aug. 5, the Center estimated that China would import six million metric tons of wheat in the 12 months from June 2020 to May 2021, which would be the highest amount in the past seven years. The Center said the wheat would likely come from France, Russia, Lithuania, and Kazakhstan. In late January, Chinese authorities mandated that people stay at home to prevent the spread of COVID-19, farmers among them. Around March, restrictions eased and most farmers were allowed to go out again. But not long after, extreme weather across large swathes of China led to the destruction of crops. Since early June, heavy rain has befallen the country’s south, center, and east. Meanwhile, parts of the northwest and northeast are suffering from droughts. Pests such as locusts and fall armyworms have also invaded crops. Farmers told The Epoch Times that they suspected that they would lose their harvest this year.Chinese farmers plant rice in 13 provinces, including Hunan, Hubei, Jiangxi, Anhui, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Sichuan, Chongqing, Guizhou, Guangdong, Guangxi, Yunnan, and Fujian. All these provinces were impacted by flooding in June and July. Farmers plant rice at three different times of the year. The early season is planted in late March, and harvested in late June. The middle season is planted in early May and harvested in late September. The late season is planted in late June and harvested in mid-October. The flooding in June and July impacted all three seasons of rice planting.

Powerful Midwest Derecho Slams Trees and Buildings, Knocks Out Power to More Than a Million -A powerful series of thunderstorms roared across the Midwest on Monday, downing trees, damaging structures and knocking out power to more than a million people.The storms, which produced winds of more than 100 miles per hour, formed a phenomenon known as a derecho, a long-lasting, far-spreading windstorm caused by a series of thunderstorms, according to the Storm Prediction Center (SPC).”This is our version of a hurricane,” Northern Illinois University meteorology professor Victor Gensini told The Associated Press. While derechos usually occur one to two times a year, they do not usually blow as hard as Monday’s storm, National Weather Service (NWS) scientist Patrick Marsh told The New York Times. He compared it to the “Super Derecho” of 2009. Gensini, meanwhile, said it would emerge as one of the strongest in recent history and one of the most extreme weather events of 2020.The storm system began in southeast South Dakota and eastern Nebraska Monday morning before blasting through Iowa, northern and central Illinois, southern Wisconsin, southwest Michigan, Indiana and northwest Ohio, The Weather Channel reported.Winds of up to 100 miles per hour ripped through Marshall County, Iowa, leading to several injuries and extensive property damage, the county’s homeland security coordinator Kim Elder told The Associated Press. Elder said the storm blew over trees and cars, downed power lines, ripped the roofs off of buildings and started fires. All told, a third of customers in Iowa were without power, according to CNN.

Powerful windstorm leaves 4 dead, 1.5 million without power across US Midwest -On Monday, a large swath of the US Midwest, including portions of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Nebraska and Wisconsin, was hit with a powerful derecho storm that claimed four lives and left over 1.5 million residents without power in its aftermath.A derecho is a long-lived, straight-line, widespread windstorm. The name of the storm is derived from the Spanish word for “straight,” which describes the direction of its wind path, in contrast to the spinning wind path of a tornado. However, the storm itself causes other destructive weather events in its orbit, including tornadoes, flash floods, and hurricane-force winds. Derechos develop into mesoscale convective systems – similar to a small scale tropical storm – and excessive heat in an area especially fuels their formation due to the convective currents which are more likely to form under these conditions, measured as convective available potential energy (CAPE). Wind gusts peaked at over 110 mph in parts of Iowa, higher than some Category 1 hurricanes, indicating that it could be one of the strongest such storms in recent history. A devastating derecho in 2012, which swept from Iowa to the East Coast of the US, reached peak wind gusts of 91 mph, leaving 22 dead, 4.2 million without power and causing $2.9 billion worth of damage. From Nebraska to Indiana 1.5 million residents were left without power in the aftermath of Monday’s storm, including 360,000 in the Chicago metropolitan area, and thousands still may not have power restored until early next week. On Thursday, over 250,000 residents in Iowa still did not have power. Restoring power has been complicated by the extensive damage of the storm, which wiped out homes, flipped vehicles, and downed large trees in both rural and metropolitan areas in the storm’s path.Many tornadoes developed out of the storm, with 25 counted across the state of Illinois alone, including one which touched down at the far north end of the city of Chicago before turning into a waterspout in Lake Michigan. A total of four deaths have been reported so far, and the total extent of injuries and deaths is emerging as residents have been trapped in vehicles and buildings damaged by the storm. In Iowa, two volunteer firefighters were killed, a 41-year-old man who was attempting to restore power and a 41-year-old woman who was struck by a tree. A 63-year-old cyclist was killed after a tree struck him during the storm. In Indiana, a 73-year-old woman died in Fort Wayne after the high winds destroyed her trailer home. She was found by firefighters under debris clinging to a five-year-old boy, who survived.

Tropical Storm Kyle Forms, Unlikely to Affect Land — Jeff Masters – The record-busy 2020 Atlantic hurricane season brought another addition to its bevy of early-season storms at 5 p.m. EDT August 14, when Tropical Storm Kyle formed off the coast of Maryland.Kyle arrived well ahead of the previous earliest appearance by the Atlantic season’s eleventh named storm – Katrina on August 24, 2005. Seven other Atlantic storms have set similar records during this already-hyperactive 2020 season. However, the majority of 2020’s impressive herd of early-season storms have been short-lived; only two made it to category 1 hurricane strength. As a result, the Accumulated Cyclone Energy, or ACE – a measure of the total destructive power of a hurricane season – has been unusually low for the first 10 storms of a season, according to statistics tweeted by Sam Lillo: Notwithstanding its historic timing, Kyle is not expected to bring major impacts to land. As of 5 a.m. EDT Saturday, Kyle was located 280 miles southeast of Providence, Rhode Island, moving east-northeast at 21 mph with top sustained winds at 45 mph. Kyle was over the Gulf Stream, where waters were a record-warm 27-28 degrees Celsius (81-82°F), which is about 2 degrees Celsius (3.6°F) above average. Satellite images showed that high wind shear resulting from strong upper-level winds out of the southwest were keeping the low-level center exposed to view, and all of Kyle’s heavy thunderstorms were confined to the east side of the center. High wind shear will affect Kyle throughout the weekend, and it is unlikely that the storm will become a hurricane. Meanwhile, the season’s record-earliest tenth named storm, Tropical Storm Josephine, was also struggling with high wind shear as it traced out a path over the open ocean. At 5 a.m. EDT Saturday, Josephine was located about 310 miles east of the northern Leeward Islands, moving west-northwest at 15 mph with top sustained winds at 45 mph. Josephine is expected to bring one to three inches of rain over portions of the northern Leeward Islands, the Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico over the weekend. Josephine will encounter steadily rising wind shear through Monday, peaking at a very high 30 – 35 knots. This high shear is likely to destroy Josephine’s circulation by Monday, before the storm can affect any other land areas.

New York Prepared for Another Sandy, But It Got Isaias Instead — After Hurricane Sandy plunged much of the New York region into darkness in 2012, local electric utilities spent more than $3.5 billion to ensure it wouldn’t happen again. And yet, one week after Isaias roared through, more than 40,000 New York-area customers remain without power. Over 1 million homes and businesses were still in the dark as late as five days after the storm. Why? The short answer: Utilities girded for another Sandy. They got Isaias instead. While New York-area power providers have funneled billions into protecting their infrastructure from the storm surge and flooding of a Sandy, they say there’s only so much they can do against the wind gusts of an Isaias, which can tear down mature trees and snap utility poles. That means occasional, lengthy blackouts could become the new normal for New Yorkers, particularly as storms grow both more frequent and more severe due to the warming climate. “These major storms slamming trees and limbs and other debris into pieces of infrastructure are going to cause outages,” said Jon Wellinghoff, former chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the founder of GridPolicy Consulting. “There’s no way to avoid that.” Isaias’s rampage through the Northeast initially left more than 2 million homes and businesses without power, becoming one of the worst storm-related outages since Sandy, which blacked out almost 5 million customers in New York State and New Jersey. As of Tuesday, lingering outages mostly affected Westchester, Nassau and Suffolk counties in New York State and Fairfield and Litchfield counties in Connecticut. The utilities maintain the money they’ve spent strengthening the grid in recent years helped them restore service faster than they could have otherwise. But public officials — and a few utility executives — say the companies underestimated Isaias, failing to have enough workers on hand to launch into repairs once the fast-moving storm cleared the region. In Connecticut, Eversource Energy has been allowed to spend over $660 million under a infrastructure hardening plan that was approved in 2013. In July, the company said it’s spending $83 million this year trimming branches and cutting trees along 4,200 miles of roads — work that can pay dividends during storms like Isaias. Yet, some of its customers were still in the dark seven days after the storm hit.

Phoenix breaks its record for most 110-degree days in a year – Phoenix, Ariz., has in the past few days twice broken its record for the most days in a year with temperatures of at least 110 degrees, according to data from the National Weather Service. Sunday marked the 34th day in 2020 at or above that temperature, beating a record from 2011. “We did 33 this year, which was set yesterday, and today we’re probably going to have day 34, which is a record nobody really wants,” meteorologist Andrew Deemer had told the Arizona Republic. The record lasted only a day, with Phoenix reaching 111 degrees on Monday, making 35 days. “Most likely it’ll be over 40 days and counting by this time or earlier next week, and who knows when it’s going to end,” meteorologist Chris Breckenridge told the Republic. Federal deficit at $2.8T breaks annual record with 2 months to spare Stocks surge, putting S&P in striking distance of record Another meteorologist, Matthew Hirsch, told the newspaper that Tuesday, with a predicted high of below 110, was likely to be the coolest day this week. Hirsch said arid conditions were the primary driver of the heat. “The main reason it’s been so hot is because it’s been so dry,” he said. “Normally when you get moisture it keeps things a little bit cooler but the pattern has been really persistent in such a way that we really haven’t been able to import much moisture into the area so we’ve had this persistent dryness and then heat comes along with that.” An excessive heat watch for the area is in place Wednesday through Sunday and may yet be upgraded to a heat warning.

‘Explosive’ Southern California Lake Fire Spreads to 10,000 Acres Within Hours -An “explosive” wildfire ignited in Los Angeles county Wednesday, growing to 10,000 acres in a little less than three hours.The so-called Lake Fire, which prompted evacuations and road closures, is remarkable for spreading so fast so early in the fire season without strong winds to drive it.”It’s pretty explosive fire behavior,” Angeles National Forest Fire Chief Robert Garcia told CBS Los Angeles. “It’s typically what we see a little bit later in the season and often driven by wind. The fuel, moisture conditions and the fire at this particular location with the slope, it really created the recipe for rapid fire growth.”The fire ignited around 3:40 p.m. Wednesday and is still zero percent contained, according to the most recent information from the U.S. Forest Service’s InciWeb. It is burning about 65 miles northeast of Los Angeles in the Angeles National Forest, between Lake Hughes and Lake Castaic, USA TODAY reported.Evacuations were ordered for the entire Lake Hughes area Wednesday night. All told, residents of around 100 homes and buildings were told to flee.Evacuees were directed to the Highland High School, but, because of the coronavirus pandemic, will have to remain in their cars, CBS LA reported.In addition to its early start and rapid spread, the fire is notable because it is burning vegetation that hasn’t been set ablaze since 1968. “Portions of the forest [haven’t] had a significant amount of fire in a very long time, 1968, for a large portion of that area, it hasn’t burned since then,” Garcia told ABC 7. There have been no reports of injuries and no official tally of structural damage, according to ABC 7. However, the fire was seen burning several homes. Reporter Veronica Miracle tweeted that she had spoken to a man who had fled his home as a wall of flames approached. “He thinks his house is gone,” she said. Television footage early Thursday showed buildings burned to the ground, The Associated Press reported, but it was not clear if they were homes or not. Los Angeles County Deputy Fire Chief David Richardson said Wednesday night the flames might have burned some outbuildings. More than 500 firefighters are combating the blaze, according to InciWeb. The area is expected to record temperatures in the 90s this afternoon. Smoke from the fire could be seen from as far as Venice Beach Wednesday.

Millions of Older Californians Live Where Wildfire Threatens. Mostly, They’re on Their Own – The fire refugees kept calling, all of them elderly, all of them newly homeless after Paradise burned in 2018. Some 70 miles to the south in Grass Valley, Katrina Hardin answered those calls. Hardin managed a senior apartment complex – none were available, so she begged her friends to open up their spare rooms. The demographics of the victims haunted her: About three-quarters of those who died in the Camp Fire were over the age of 65. Same with the fires that ravaged Sonoma and Napa the year before. Hardin fears for people in her own Nevada County, known as a haven for retirees, where 96% of the land is at heightened risk for wildfire. “We’ve got all these elderly people – their sons and daughters may be living in Southern California, in the Bay Area, in another state,” Hardin said. “The elderly are living by themselves here with just their neighbors.” Across the state, about 2 million people age 65 and older live in areas where wildfire is a serious threat, according to a KQED and CalMatters investigation. But at the state and county level, no public agency has legal responsibility for ensuring that these older adults are able to evacuate in a disaster. The county response involves alerting residents of immediate danger and providing evacuation shelter, but not the evacuation in between. “There is no regulatory mandate for us to check on individuals,” said Tamaran Cook, former head of adult services and in-home health services for Nevada County. “There’s nothing statutory that’s consistent across all the counties in the state.” The county has generally relied on aggressive outreach to help people with fire preparation – hosting informational meetings, sending newsletters. The county even produced a movie trailer that plays at the beginning of films in theaters, featuring people packing go bags and cleaning gutters. The county asks people not to overburden 911. Across formats the message is consistent: get yourself ready, because if a fire comes, you’re on your own.

California wildfires: Rolling blackouts for first time in decade as temperature hits 112F and blazes threaten LA – “Extreme heat” was driving demand for electricity, according to Anne Gonzales, a spokeswoman for the state’s grid operator told the Associated Press. The agency said that the heatwave throughout the region has impeded the state’s ability to rely on other power from outside the state. Temperatures could reach as high as 112 degrees (44.4 Celsius) across the state over the weekend, the National Weather Service has warned. The blackout order was lifted before 9pm on Friday and power was restored to affected households before midnight. But the heat wave is forecast to extend through next week, with the National Weather Service declaring excessive heat watches and warnings and heat advisories for much of the western US. More than 2 million people were affected by preemptive power shutoffs in 2019 as electrical malfunction and high winds with dry conditions threatened wildfires in northern California. “While temperatures in Texas will gradually moderate closer to normal during the next couple of days, the heat will expand and intensify across the interior Pacific Northwest into the Great Basin where widespread record high temperatures will be likely for the coming days,” the National Weather Service announced on Saturday. “Actual high temperatures are forecast to top 100 degrees at many locations, along with a heightened risk of wildfires.” Fires in Angeles National Lake Forest outside Los Angeles threatened thousands of homes and more than 27 miles (70 km) of brush and forestry as firefighters worked to contain the blaze in temperatures reaching 100 degrees (38 Celsius) on Friday, fire officials reported. The so-called Lake Fire forced hundreds of evacuations and damaged at least 21 structures, according to fire officials. It has spread to more than 17,000 acres after the blaze erupted on Wednesday. The US Forest Service believes it may have been caused by human activity. Firefighters are actively responding to several fires in the state, the largest of which is the Apple fire, which has burned more than 33,00 acres after it was sparked on 31 July. Law enforcement in Azusa, California are searching for a man who is believed to have intentionally started a 2,500-acre fire in Los Angeles County. Osmin Palencia, 36, is wanted for arson in connection with a blaze that erupted on Thursday. More than 80 million people were under heat alerts on Friday, extending from the central part of the US through the entire West Coast. Affected cities include Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Portland and Seattle, as well as most of California.

Ocean Warming Threatens Coral Reefs and Soon Could Make It Harder to Restore Them –I have studied how global stressors such as ocean warming and acidification affect marine invertebrates for more than a decade. In a recently published study, I worked with Gregory Asner to analyze the impacts of temperature on coral reef restoration projects. Our results showed that climate change has raised sea surface temperatures close to a point that will make it very hard for outplanted corals to survive. Coral reefs support over 25% of marine life by providing food, shelter and a place for fish and other organisms to reproduce and raise young. Today, ocean warming driven by climate change is stressing reefs worldwide.Rising ocean temperatures cause bleaching events – episodes in which corals expel the algae that live inside them and provide the corals with most of their food, as well as their vibrant colors. When corals lose their algae, they become less resistant to stressors such as disease and eventually may die. Outplanting coral is expensive: According to one recent study, the median cost is about US$160,000 per acre, or $400,000 per hectare. It also is time-consuming, with scuba divers placing each outplanted coral by hand. So it’s important to maximize coral survival by choosing the best locations.We used data from the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration’s Coral Reef Watch program, which collects daily satellite-derived measurements of sea surface temperature. We paired this information with survival rates from hundreds of coral outplanting projects worldwide.We found that coral survival was likely to drop below 50% if the maximum temperature experienced at the restoration site exceeded 86.9 degrees Fahrenheit (30.5 degrees Celsius). This temperature threshold mirrors the tolerance of natural coral reefs.

Bid to save Alaskan wild salmon receives surprise boost from Trump Jr – A surprise intervention from Donald Trump Jr has breathed life into efforts to protect the biggest remaining wild salmon run on the planet. Earlier this week, Trump Jr expressed his opposition to the controversial Pebble mine at the headwaters of Alaska’s Bristol Bay. The move breaks with the Trump administration’s efforts to advance the mine’s development. Trump Jr retweeted a tweet that called on his father and the Environmental Protection Agency to block the mine’s development. He added: “As a sportsman who has spent plenty of time in the area I agree 100%. The headwaters of Bristol Bay and the surrounding fishery are too unique and fragile to take any chances with.” Opponents of the mine are cheered. “Those of us who’ve been in the fight, fighting elbow to elbow for years, decided we’re going to have a moderate celebration,” said Nanci Morris Lyon, owner of the Bear Trail Lodge, who guided Trump Jr, his son, and his brother Eric Trump on their August 2014 fishing trip to Bristol Bay. “We all agreed that it’s the first glimmer of hope we’ve seen in some time.” The fishery – home to all five species of Pacific salmon – regularly supplies more than half of the world’s entire sockeye catch. It’s the backbone of a $1.5bn commercial and sport fishing industry that supports 14,000 workers every year, and is the foundation of the traditional ways of life of the indigenous people who represent 80% of the region’s population.

Canada’s Last Intact Ice Shelf the Size of Manhattan Collapses Due to Global Warming A 4,000-year-old ice shelf in the Canadian Arctic has collapsed into the sea, leaving Canada without any fully intact ice shelves, Reuters reported. The Milne Ice Shelf lost more than 40 percent of its area in just two days at the end of July, said researchers who monitored its collapse.Unlike glaciers, ice shelves are part of the ocean.The Milne Ice Shelf on Ellesmere Island in Canada’s Nunavut territory fell into the Arctic Sea and started to drift before breaking into two large chunks. The Copernicus Sentinel satellite captured the entire event, CNNreported.Time-lapse photos on Twitter show the satellite animation between July 30 and August 4, as the ice shelf lost approximately 43 percent of its area. When the fallen pieces split in two, the larger one formed an iceberg roughly the size of Manhattan, according to Business Insider. The massive break was first noticed by ice analyst Adrienne White of the Canadian Ice Service, the AP reported.”This is a huge, huge block of ice,” White told the AP. “If one of these is moving toward an oil rig, there’s nothing you can really do aside from move your oil rig.”The break resulted from polar amplification, which causes the Arctic to warm faster than the rest of the world, Business Insider reported. For example, today’s polar ice caps are melting six times faster than in the 1990s.”Above normal air temperatures, offshore winds and open water in front of the ice shelf are all part of the recipe for ice shelf break up,” the Canadian Ice Service said on Twitter, according to Reuters.

Arctic Sea Ice Melting by 2035 Is Possible, Study Finds -The temperature of the Arctic matters to the entire world: it helps to keep the global climate fairly cool. Scientists now say that by 2035 there could be an end to Arctic sea ice.The northern polar ocean’s sea ice is a crucial element in the Earth system: because it is highly reflective, it sends solar radiation back out into space. Once it’s melted, there’s no longer any protection for the darker water and rock beneath, and nothing to prevent them absorbing the incoming heat.High temperatures in the Arctic during the last interglacial – the warm period around 127,000 years ago – have puzzled scientists for decades.Now the UK Met Office’s Hadley Centre climate model has enabled an international research team to compare Arctic sea ice conditions during the last interglacial with the present day. Their findings are important for improving predictions of future sea ice change.What is striking about the latest research is the date it suggests for a possible total melt − 2035. Many studieshave thought a mid-century crisis likely, with another even carefully specifying 2044 as the year to watch. So a breathing space of only 15 years may surprise some experts.During spring and early summer shallow pools of water form on the surface of the Arctic sea ice. These “melt ponds” help to determine how much sunlight is absorbed by the ice and how much is reflected back into space. The new Hadley Centre model is the UK’s most advanced physical representation of the Earth’s climate and a critical tool for climate research, and it incorporates sea ice and melt ponds. The researchers report their findings in the journal Nature Climate Change. Using the model to look at Arctic sea ice during the last interglacial, they concluded that the impact of intense springtime sunshine created many melt ponds, which played a crucial role in sea ice melt. A simulation of the future using the same model indicates that the Arctic may become sea ice-free by 2035.

Global Warming Could Unlock Carbon From Tropical Soil – Humble dirt could pack an unexpected climate punch, according to a new study published Wednesday in the journal Nature. An experiment that heated soil underneath a tropical rainforest to mimic temperatures expected in the coming decades found that hotter soils released 55 percent more planet-warming carbon dioxide than did nearby unwarmed areas.If the results apply throughout the tropics, much of the carbon stored underground could be released as the planet heats up.“The loss rate is huge,” said Andrew Nottingham, an ecologist at the University of Edinburgh, who led the study. “It’s a bad news story.”The thin skin of soil that covers much of our planet’s land stores vast amounts of carbon – more, in total, than in all plants and the atmosphere combined. That carbon feeds hordes of bacteria and fungi, which build some of it into more microbes while respiring the rest into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. Many of these microbes grow more active at warmer temperatures, increasing their digestion and respiration rates.The finding “is another example of why we need to worry more” about how fast the globe is warming, In an attempt to forecast the future, ecologists began in the early 1990s building apparatuses to artificially heat soils. Such experiments in temperate and boreal forests have shown that carbon-rich soils almost always belch carbon dioxide when warmed. In 2016, a group of researchers estimated that, by 2050,soils could release so much of the planet-warming gas that it would be like adding the carbon emissions of a new country the size of the United States. But that study left out the perpetually warm, mega-biodiverse tropics, where a third of all soil carbon resides. Figuring out the fate of this carbon would require grappling with the many pitfalls of doing research in the tropics: humidity, storms and a multitude of hungry animals that can take a toll on research equipment – chewing through electrical wires or protective coverings, for example – and on researchers themselves.The results from Dr. Nottingham’s team are sobering: Over two years, warmed soils spewed out 55 percent more carbon than control plots. “This is a very large response,” said Dr. Torn, who runs a similar warming experiment in a California forest that reported a roughly 35 percent increase in carbon emissions after two years. “It’s one of the largest I’ve heard of.”If the entire tropics were to behave similarly, the researchers estimate that 65 billion metric tons of carbon would enter the atmosphere by 2100 – more than six times the annual emissions from all human-related sources.

Warming Tropical Soil Emits Unexpectedly Large Amounts of CO2, New Study Finds – One of the concerns about a warming planet is the feedback loop that will emerge. That is, as the planet warms, it will melt permafrost, which will release trapped carbon and lead to more warming and more melting. Now, a new study has shown that the feedback loop won’t only happen in the nether regions of the north and south, but in the tropics as well, according to a new paper in Nature.Scientists warmed tropical soil to a level that was consistent with projections for how much the planet will warm up by the end of the century. When they heated the soil 4 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, they found that the soil released 55 percent more carbon dioxide than the control soil, according to the paper, as Agence-France Presse (AFP) reported.The takeaway is that tropical soils are far more sensitive to global heating than researchers had previously thought. It turns out that experimental evidence to confirm that long-held belief was missing.”Soils form a living skin around the Earth,” said Andrew Nottingham, the paper’s lead author and a researcher at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, as Cosmos Magazine reported. “They contain vast amounts of organic matter – more carbon is held in soils than is held in plants and the atmosphere put together.”The complex carbon cycle has traditionally been held in balance by the earth’s soil, which contains a teeming ecosystem of microorganisms, bacteria, fungi and insects that counterbalance the carbon released by the dead leaves and decaying plants. However, at warmer temperatures, the microbes speed up their rate of digestion and respiration, which kicks more carbon into the atmosphere and away from the soil, according toThe New York Times.”The inputs of carbon to soils from plant detritus (dead wood, leaves and roots) roughly balance the losses to the atmosphere produced by the respiration of soil microorganisms that feed on that material,” wrote Eric Davidson, a researcher at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, in a comment in Nature accompanying the study. “However, just a 1 percent imbalance of global soil-carbon effluxes over influxes would equal about 10 percent of global anthropogenic carbon emissions.”The finding “is another example of why we need to worry more,” said Davidson, as The New York Times reported.

Air pollution is much worse than we thought. Climate change is far from the only problem with fossil fuels. – In the late 1960s, the US saw regular, choking smog descend over New York City and Los Angeles, 100,000 barrels of oil spilled off the coast of Santa Barbara, California, and, perhaps most famously, fires burning on the surface of the Cuyahoga River in Ohio. From the ’70s through the beginning of the 21st century, the fight against fossil fuels was a fight about pollution, especially air pollution. In the ensuing decades, the focus has shifted to global warming, and fossil fuels have largely been reframed as a climate problem. And that makes sense, given the enormous implications of climate change for long-term human well-being. But there’s an irony involved: The air pollution case against fossil fuels is still the best case!In fact, even as attention has shifted to climate change, the air pollution case has grown stronger and stronger, as the science on air pollution has advanced by leaps and bounds. Researchers are now much more able to pinpoint air pollution’s direct and indirect effects, and the news has been uniformly bad.The evidence is now clear enough that it can be stated unequivocally: It would be worth freeing ourselves from fossil fuels even if global warming didn’t exist. Especially now that clean energy has gotten so cheap, the air quality benefits alone are enough to pay for the energy transition.This conclusion has been reaffirmed by the latest air quality research, presented at a recent hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform by Drew Shindell, Nicholas professor of earth science at Duke University (and a lead author on both recent IPCC reports). Shindell’s testimony reveals that the effects of air pollution are roughly twice as bad as previously estimated. That is a bombshell – in a sane world, it would be front-page news across the country. “The air quality scientific community has hypothesized this for at least a decade, but research advances have let us quantify and confirm this notion, over and over,” says Rebecca Saari, an air quality expert who teaches in civil and environmental engineering at the University of Waterloo. “The air quality ‘co-benefits’ are generally so valuable that they exceed the cost of climate action, often many times over.”

AIR POLLUTION: EPA official shepherds rule shift of interest to ex-employer — Wednesday, August 12, 2020 — When EPA embarked on an overhaul of its regulatory cost-benefit forecasting requirements in 2018, a trade group for heating and cooling equipment makers was happy to offer four pages of written comments and suggestions.Two years later, the group’s then-top lobbyist is now at EPA, where she’s helping to shepherd the first installment of that overhaul to fruition.Kelley Raymond, previously government relations director at the Air-Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration Institute, joined EPA last November as a senior policy adviser in the air office (E&E News PM, Oct. 28, 2019).During a virtual public meeting yesterday, she took a lead role in walking an agency advisory panel through the draft rule to require cost-benefit analyses for all significant Clean Air Act proposals in the future.Given that EPA routinely faces court challenges to major air regulations, “the public might have a lack of beliefs that we are doing these rules in the right way,” Raymond told members of the Science Advisory Board who are reviewing the draft rule’s scientific and technical basis. Accordingly, she said, EPA wants to provide a “feeling of trust in the agency and the consistency and transparency in which we are promulgating” those regulations. Environmental and public health groups view the draft rule as a ploy designed to make it harder for EPA to pursue new air quality safeguards. Industry organizations, by contrast, are largely supportive. When EPA launched the overhaul in 2018 by collecting feedback through an advance notice of proposed rulemaking, comments from an air conditioning institute attorney included recommendations on state implementation of national air quality air standards and other programs that fall squarely within the air office’s bailiwick.

EPA Expected to Allow More Methane Emissions From Oil and Gas Industry -In the coming days, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is expected to use its power to roll back yet another Obama-era environmental protection meant to curb air pollution and slow the climate crisis.This new rollback concerns methane, a potent greenhouse gas destructive to the earth’s atmosphere. The EPA is expected to make the announcement on Friday that it is ending a stricture put in place by the previous administration that curbed the amount of methane that could be released in oil and gas exploration, as The Wall Street Journal reported.Since the rule is not official yet, anonymous officials at the agency told The Wall Street Journal that the rollback will scrap the new rules that required oil and gas producers to have systems, checks and processes in place to identify and address methane leaks on their rigs.The rollbacks do not end there. The Wall Street Journal also reported that the EPA will also end its oversight of ozone pollutants and emissions from pipelines and storage sites. Additionally, the agency will reduce its requirement for monitoring and reporting certain pollutants.The EPA’s decision to end its oversight and slacken regulation may result in an additional 5 million metric tons of methane pollution released into the atmosphere each year. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas that can be 25 times more impactful than carbon dioxide in equal quantities, as The Hill reported. In 2018, it accounted for nearly 10 percent of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions caused by human activity, mostly from the oil and gas industry, although commercial agriculture and the cattle industry are also large contributors to methane emissions.

EMISSIONS: White House sought to further weaken EPA methane rule — Wednesday, August 12, 2020 — The White House appears to have lost its bid to make an upcoming rule for oil and gas emissions less protective than EPA proposed. The EPA rule proposed for monitoring and repairing natural gas leaks, which is set to be final tomorrow alongside another rule that replaces Obama-era regulations for petroleum methane, was already weaker than the 2016 safeguards it replaces. Then the White House stepped in with its own request: Reduce the burden for oil and gas companies by requiring fewer inspections for leaks. But the White House’s determination to make it less stringent than EPA’s proposal appears to have succeeded only in delaying the rule’s rollout. It’s unclear whether additional questions from OMB led to the rules being finalized this week instead of in late July. But the substance of the disagreement has started to emerge: The White House wanted a lighter requirement for oil and gas producers to inspect their well sites and compressors for leaks. The Obama-era rule mandated that oil and gas producers inspect all well sites twice a year to ensure that they aren’t leaking methane – a powerful greenhouse gas that can contribute more than 80 times as much warming to the atmosphere than carbon dioxide over 20 years. The EPA proposal under Trump, released in 2018, created a two-tiered program that required owners of large wellheads to inspect their operations more frequently than those of smaller operations. EPA took comment on two options: annual or semiannual inspections for large sites and annual or biennial inspections for smaller sites. The agency indicated a preference for the more frequent inspection option. But months before EPA put out its proposal in autumn of 2018, political appointees at the Trump White House proposed weakening the rule beyond what EPA envisioned. EDF’s summary of the interagency dialogue between April and August of 2018 shows that the White House repeatedly advocated for less stringent options, matching those sought by industry groups including the American Petroleum Institute and Independent Petroleum Association of America. The Wall Street Journal first reported that White House political staff had pushed for a laxer monitoring and repair schedule, but was ultimately unsuccessful. EPA argued that such a rule wouldn’t be defensible in court because the analysis for the rule would show a pronounced increase in projected air pollution. Industry experts who follow the rule say they’re now hearing that wellheads of all sizes might be required to monitor their operations every six months. But most said they were still looking forward to seeing the rule finalized this week after advocating for it for three years.

Trump lifts Obama-era regulations on methane, a potent climate-warming gas – The Trump administration on Thursday weakened Obama-era regulations designed to reduce climate-warming methane gas emissions from oil and gas fields. The Environmental Protection Agency’s new rule, which has been in progress for over a year, would eliminate federal requirements for oil and gas companies to monitor and repair methane leaks from pipelines, storage facilities and wells. EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler announced the rollback to the 2016 rule at an event in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, home to the country’s booming natural gas reservoirs and a key battleground state for the November presidential election. “EPA has been working hard to fulfill President Trump’s promise to cut burdensome and ineffective regulations for our domestic energy industry,” Wheeler said. “Regulatory burdens put into place by the Obama-Biden Administration fell heavily on small and medium-sized energy businesses.” Environmental groups and lawmakers swiftly condemned the administration’s ruling and the Natural Resources Defense Council said Thursday that it will put up a legal fight. “The Trump EPA is giving the oil and gas industry a green light to keep leaking enormous amounts of climate pollution into the air,” said David Doniger, head of climate policy at the NRDC. “We will see EPA in court.” The methane pollution reversal is latest move by the administration to weaken a slew of environmental regulations, a longtime effort that has not been hindered by the coronavirus pandemic. In July, the administration finalized a rollback to the country’s landmark environmental law, the National Environmental Policy Act, in order to speed approval for federal projects like pipelines, highways and power plants. The administration has weakened more than 100 environmental rules and regulations since 2016. Scientists say that rising levels of methane, a greenhouse gas that is 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide, is a main driver of climate change. Methane accounts for 10% of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions. Globally, 60% of methane emissions are from human activity. “As with Covid-19, the Trump administration is ignoring science to gut oil and gas methane pollution safeguards,” said Lauren Pagel, policy director at Earthworks, which tracks methane leaks at oil and gas sites. “But as with Americans dying from the Covid crisis, optical gas imaging shows the oil and gas methane pollution that is fueling the climate crisis.” The sustained increase in methane, combined with other greenhouse gases, could heat up the atmosphere by 3 to 4 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, well above the Paris climate accord goal to keep global warming below 2 degrees. “The Trump administration’s rush to wreck even modest methane regulations is a transparent political move, a favor for some of his biggest political backers,” said Charlie Cray, a researcher at Greenpeace U.S.A., an environmental non-profit. The EPA will still require leak monitoring but not directly for methane gas. The agency will continue to require oil and gas companies monitor and reduce smog-forming compounds at some well sites and during processing, but not pipelines.

Trump calls Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez a ‘real beauty’ who knows nothing about economy as he slams Green New Deal – President Donald Trump on Thursday, August 6, slammed one of his political opponents, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, saying she is “a real beauty” who “knows nothing about the economy”. The president was speaking at an event in the battleground state of Ohio where he launched an attack against the Democratic Party, saying its leaders wanted to “inflict a socialist takeover of the US economy known as the horrendous Green New Deal”. In February last year, Democratic Senator Ed Markey and Cortez, a representative from New York, introduced the Green New Deal resolution which looks at addressing the dual issues of climate change and economic inequality. Taking a dig at AOC, who became the youngest member of the Congress in 2018, Trump said the package “was conceived by a young woman AOC – AOC plus three, I say – AOC, that’s a real beauty, isn’t it?” “She knows as much about the environment – do we have any young children here? – as that young child over there. I think he knows more. And she certainly knows nothing about the economy,” said the Republican leader, who doesn’t believe climate change is a real thing. The poll-bound President also said AOC’s policies could result in the American economy crumbling like that of Venezuela. “Venezuela was a very wealthy country 20 years ago – one of the wealthiest per capita, one of the wealthiest, tremendous oil reserves, everything. Now they don’t have food. They don’t have water. They don’t have medicine. They don’t have anything. Same thing could happen,” Trump said.He then slammed the Democrats for their opposition to fracking and connected it with Ohio’s economy. “They want to ban fracking, which will demolish your state. It will demolish Ohio oil and gas jobs. They want to rejoin the disastrous Paris Climate Accord, where you’ll pay billions and billions of dollars for the privilege of getting ripped off by other countries,” he said.

How Climate Alarmism Hijacked Environmentalism … -Like many others, Michael Shellenberger feared climate change was an existential threat to human civilization. He has devoted three decades of his life to environmental activism and improving the lives of people in poor or developing nations. At age 16, he threw a fundraiser for Rainforest Action Network. He’s fought to protect redwood trees in California, traveled to the Congo to study the impact of wood fuel use on gorillas, sought better working conditions for factory workers in Asia, and pushed the U.S. government to fund renewable energy.Now, he believes the climate movement is radical, alarmist, and causing anxiety and depression, especially among young people. One in five British children say they’ve had nightmares about it, according to a large national survey earlier this year.Although global temperatures are rising and humans are a major contributor, that doesn’t mean the world is ending, Shellenberger argues in his new book, “Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All.” Contrary to what media headlines would suggest, climate change hasn’t made natural disasters worse. Fires, for instance, have declined 25 percent around the world from 1998 to 2015. And in California and Australia, where fires have increased, the biggest contributing factors were humans allowing wood fuel to build up and constructing homes near forests – not climate change.Claims of crop failure are similarly exaggerated, in his view. Humans already grow enough food for 10 billion people, and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) predict crop yields will continue increasing.Global sea levels are rising, but Shellenberger believes humans can adapt in the decades to come. The Netherlands managed to become a wealthy nation while adapting to having one-third of its landmass below sea level. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates sea levels could rise 2.7 feet by 2100; some areas of the Netherlands are as low as 20 feet below sea level.To Shellenberger, climate alarmism is creating more problems than it solves. It’s excluding viable solutions such as nuclear energy, preventing desperately needed development in impoverished nations, and diverting attention away from serious environmental problems, like overfishing.

Wind Farms Built on Carbon-Rich Peat Bogs Lose Their Ability to Fight Climate Change – – In our recent study, we found that wind farms in Spain are being built on rare peat bogs that store vast quantities of planet-warming carbon. Because these habitats are so poorly mapped, there’s a good chance that this mistake is being replicated in many other places throughout Europe, including the UK. Peatlands are a natural carbon sink and, despite covering less than 3% of the Earth’s land surface, they contain 20% of all the carbon stored in soils worldwide. Because some peatlands aren’t mapped, they have often been ignored, despite their important role in slowing climate change. Blanket bogs are a rare and unique type of peatland that cover entire landscapes with a distinctive vegetation, often composed of cotton grass, heather, and Sphagnum mosses, which is a particularly effective species for locking up carbon. In the UK and Ireland, blanket bogs cover great expanses and are a key part of the landscape inFlow Country, a region of the north of Scotland, and in the north and south Pennines in England. In France or Spain, this habitat is rare, but our research uncovered 14 unrecorded and unprotected blanket bogs in northern Spain that represent the southernmost edge of this habitat’s range in Europe.Peatlands – and in particular blanket bogs – face a number of pressures across Europe. Overgrazing, drainage to plant crops and commercial forest, burning to improve grazing and support field sports and, more recently, wind farm developments, can change the natural function of peatlands so that they switch from slowing climate change as carbon sinks, to become carbon sources that leach greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.Although peat is naturally eroded by wind, rain and ice, blanket bogs grazed by livestock can losefour to six times more carbon than protected bogs. But the most serious risk to these habitats today is wind farms. Unprotected blanket bogs often cover mountain peaks, where there is also great potential for generating wind energy. During wind farm construction, vegetation that helps to trap the carbon is removed to create turbine bases and vehicle access tracks. These tracks create artificial streams that drain the peat and reshape the terrain. Recent research has shown that the drainage caused by building and maintaining wind turbinescan affect the whole peatland, not just the area next to the farm and its tracks. In our research, we encountered a track that divided the largest unrecognised blanket bog we found in the Cantabrian Mountains into two separate peatlands. The rupture is draining the bog and likely releasing carbon as the peat dries and breaks down.

Daimler to Settle U.S. Emissions Charges for $2.2 Billion – The New York Times -The German automaker Daimler said Thursday that it had agreed to pay $2.2 billion to settle accusations that Mercedes-Benz cars and vans sold in the United States were programmed to cheat on emissions tests.The sum, which covers federal fines and a class-action suit brought by owners of Mercedes vehicles, is a substantial financial hit to the company as it deals with plunging sales because of the coronavirus pandemic. It is also humbling for a company that has been a symbol of German luxury automaking. The penalty is only a fraction of the more than $20 billion that Volkswagen paid in the United States to settle criminal charges and civil suits by owners and state governments after it was caught using software to dupe regulators.The Volkswagen settlement involved about 600,000 diesel passenger cars, while the Daimler settlement covers about 250,000 passenger cars and vans. Daimler may have received more lenient treatment because it cooperated with the authorities after questions were raised about its emissions systems. Volkswagen misled American investigators for more than a year before it admitted that diesel vehicles sold in the United States were programmed to illegally cloak high emissions. The federal government and the State of California will receive $1.5 billion from the settlement, while owners in a federal class-action suit will receive $700 million, Daimler said. The agreement between the company and car owners and several government agencies, including the Department of Justice and the Environmental Protection Agency, still requires approval by U.S. courts.

Energy Department proposes showerhead standards rollback after Trump complains | TheHill — The Trump administration is moving to loosen environmental standards for showerheads following a string of public complaints from the president about low-flow fixtures designed to save water. A new proposal from the Department of Energy (DOE) would change the definition of a showerhead, essentially allowing different components within the device to count as individual fixtures, sidestepping requirements that allow no more than 2.5 gallons to flow through per minute.”If adopted, this rule would undo the action of the previous Administration and return to Congressional intent, allowing Americans-not Washington bureaucrats–to choose what kind of showerheads they have in their homes,” DOE spokeswoman Shaylyn Hynes said in an email to The Hill. The move drew swift criticism from consumer groups.”There is absolutely no need to change current showerhead standards,” David Friedman, vice president of advocacy at Consumer Reports and a former DOE official during the Obama administration, said in a statement.”Thanks to the standards, consumers have access to showerheads that not only score well on [Consumer Reports] tests and achieve high levels of customer satisfaction, but also save consumers money by reducing energy and water consumption,” Friedman added.President Trump has revealed his fixation on fixtures by repeatedly bringing up his distaste for showerheads, toilets, and even energy-efficient lightbulbs and dishwashers.“Showerheads – you take a shower, the water doesn’t come out. You want to wash your hands, the water doesn’t come out. So what do you do? You just stand there longer or you take a shower longer? Because my hair – I don’t know about you, but it has to be perfect. Perfect,” he said to laughter at an event in July on rolling back regulations.

Groups threaten to sue Energy Department over 26 delayed efficiency standard updates — A coalition of environmental and other groups on Monday threatened to sue the Department of Energy (DOE) over missed deadlines to update energy efficiency standards for products such as appliances. A notice of intent to sue filed by the organizations says they will sue the Energy Department in 60 days over its failure to update 26 standards. The groups will likely end up filing their suit, as DOE is not expected to update all of these standards within the time frame. The deadline for the department to review the efficiency standards for items including water heaters, refrigerators, microwaves and dishwashers go back as far as 2016 although most are more recent. “DOE under the Trump Administration has repeatedly and systemically failed to comply with these basic and important duties,” the letter says, referring to the department’s legal obligations to update or review the standards. “If DOE does not comply with its duty to complete the actions … to review and update the standards for these products within sixty days, we intend to bring suit to compel it to do so,” it continues. The letter also states that updating these standards will allow the country to use less energy, resulting in consumer savings and less air pollution. In response to congressional questioning, Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette said last month that he would complete “as many [rules] as I possibly can” by the end of the year. “The number of missed legal deadlines for new standards has grown from three to 26 since President Trump took office,” replied Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.) at the time. Under the Trump administration, DOE has rolled back energy efficiency regulations for lightbulbs pushed by the Obama administration and has proposed doing so for dishwashers, too.

Wireless charging: A colossal waste of energy – It turns out the cellphone industry believes its customers just can’t be bothered with setting their phones in a charging cradle or worse yet, actually plugging a charging cord into a phone. Users can now simply place a phone on top of a wireless charging pad to get their phones topped up.For the privilege of being extra lazy these users of wireless charging expend up to 47 percent more energy to charge their phones, something that if widely adopted would require dozens of new power plants across the globe to accommodate. Everything wireless seems like magic, and it is essentially sold as magic. It’s also sold as freedom, freedom from those pesky cords that limit where you can use your electronic devices. But the freedom is illusory. We are simply shackling ourselves ever more tightly to an addictive device that is contributing to an unsustainable fossil fueled way of life which is bound to crumble dramatically if we do not alter course. That’s because, in addition to the wastefulness of wireless charging, wireless technologies require 10 times more energy than wired technology to transfer each unit of data and voice and do so at much slower rates than fiber optic cable. It’s no wonder then that wireless companies do NOT use wireless signals to transfer data and voice throughout their systems. Instead, they run fiber optic cables right up to the antennas that service your phone because those cables have much greater capacity and speed and much lower energy usage. To make matters worse, so-called over-the-air charging is now becoming available. Users don’t even have to put their devices on a charging pad. They can just leave them wherever they please, and those devices will slowly charge by absorbing energy broadcast throughout a room from a charging station. It’s more of the “magic” you’ve come to expect from the wireless industry and even more wasteful than conventional charging pads. By allowing you to be even lazier than a regular charging pad does, over-the-air charging will alleviate what one company in its promotional video calls “battery anxiety.” (Users of over-the-air charging equipment might want to ask themselves whether they feel another kind of anxiety related to spending lots of time in rooms that have essentially become big charging units.)

Deadly explosion in northwest Baltimore neighborhood injures dozens – A massive blast in northwest Baltimore leveled row homes Monday morning in a residential area in what is a suspected gas explosion. The impact of the blast, which struck just before 10 a.m. local time, leveled three adjacent homes and severely damaged a fourth. An unnamed woman was pronounced dead and at least six others have been severely injured and are undergoing treatment in area hospitals. The regional gas and electrical authority has ordered energy sources shut off to contain any further damage. Firefighters and first responders have been forced to sift through debris for survivors and belongings without the aid of heavy machinery. “It was catastrophic. It was like a bomb, like you watch things in other countries where they have bombings and things like that. It was like watching that in real life,” stated local resident Dean Jones to reporters. “Telephone poles split, I mean, houses down the block, broken glass. When I initially got there, I could hear a voice just saying ‘Help,’ it’s crazy. It’s something I don’t ever wanna see ever again; I don’t want to relive it ever again.” Multiple news sources reported young children and the elderly buried beneath rubble and debris. “I didn’t think, someone’s in there,” Jones said. “So we went and we just started digging. We started calling out, ‘Is anybody in here? If you’re in here, can you say something so we know that you’re here. Once they said it was a kid in there, I lost it. I got to get in here now. I just felt like, hey, what if it was me? I’m not a hero, I’m a human.”

Agencies investigating Northwest Baltimore gas explosion, but answers could take awhile – In the immediate aftermath of a major gas explosion in Northwest Baltimore, hundreds of rescue workers sifted through rubble looking for survivors. Next will come the potentially drawn-out process of determining what exactly triggered the blast, which leveled three homes, killing two people and seriously injuring at least seven others. “With these investigations, it could take months, if not longer,” said Jason Stanek, chairman of the Maryland Public Service Commission. “Right now, our thoughts are with residents of Labyrinth Road.” Fire Chief Roman Clark said at a Monday afternoon news conference that the site is “still a rescue mission.” But mixed in with the first responders were representatives from several agencies who will work to determine what caused the explosion. Investigators from the state’s Public Service Commission, which is charged with regulating utility companies, were there alongside federal and local inspectors. “Our staff and federal agents, along with city officials, will be working throughout the night to determine the cause,” Stanek said Monday evening. “We hope to be in a better position to have more information tomorrow.”Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. released a statement saying that it would begin investigating company equipment in the area once the fire rescue is over. Company officials will inspect gas mains, service pipes and gas meters. Customer-owned appliances and piping will also be investigated. Late Monday night, BGE said crews continue to inspect area gas lines, but that no leaks had been found. Tracing such leaks can be a difficult task. The company’s records indicate that the neighborhood’s gas infrastructure was installed in the early 1960s and that BGE didn’t receive recent gas odor calls from the block of damaged homes, according to the statement.

Beirut disaster highlights dangerous ammonium nitrate stockpiles in regional Australian city – Last week’s catastrophic explosion of 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate at Beirut port has drawn fresh attention to the storage of up to four times this amount at Orica’s Kooragang plant in New South Wales (NSW). The facility is 800 metres from residential areas in the Newcastle suburb of Stockton and just three kilometres from the regional port city’s central business district.The disaster in Lebanon, which killed over 200 people and injured 5,000 others, shows that the potential exists for a similar catastrophe in Newcastle. Orica stores between 6,000 and 12,000 tonnes of ammonium nitrate at its Kooragang facility.Industrial explosives expert Tony Richards, a former blast operations manager for Orica and BHP, told the Newcastle Herald last week: “It doesn’t matter how small the risk is, the consequences are catastrophic when you are dealing with something that can turn solid iron mountains into mounds of rubble.” Richards estimates 40,000 people live within the blast zone, if an explosion was to occur in Newcastle.Orica is one of the world’s biggest manufacturers of mining and commercial explosives, and other chemical products used in mining, water treatment and other industries. Ammonium nitrate produced at Kooragang is used primarily for explosives in the coal mining industry in nearby Hunter Valley.The highly-profitable company is allowed to operate, despite the real dangers, because its products are indispensable to local mining activities. Orica’s Kooragang plant and its Botany facility south of Sydney have a dangerous history of chemical leaks and operating-licence breaches.On August 8, 2011, up to 10 kilograms of the carcinogen hexavalent chromium leaked from the Kooragang facility, showering homes in Stockton with a toxic red and yellow substance. Nearby residents were not informed of the leak by Orica or government authorities for 54 hours.While under investigation for the first leak, a second spill occurred on November 9, 2011, involving the release of hundreds of kilograms of ammonia. The fumes drifted into nearby suburbs resulting in two workers at a rail yard being hospitalised. Subsequent inquiries by the NSW and the federal governments into these leaks were a whitewash. They were designed to shield Orica from community anger and politically protect Liberal and Labor state governments who allowed the company to continuously violate basic safety requirements.

Almost 120,000 Still Without Power One Week After Hurricane Isaias – NYTimes – For residents of Connecticut and New York who are still without power, frustration with utility companies grew as temperatures rose. “The last week has been such a nightmare you can’t get away from,” Though the storm that tore through the Northeast is long gone, the anger and anxiety endured for at least 43,000 customers, mostly in New York and Connecticut, who remained without electricity as of Tuesday morning, according to tallies from utility companies. Thousands of crews called in from around the country are scrambling to restore power. But they are being stymied by trees blocking roads and damage to buildings that makes repair work unsafe. With temperatures expected to exceed 90 degrees in many parts of the region this week, the outages are now prompting fears about the safety of older people and other vulnerable residents, who are having trouble escaping the heat and keeping medication cool and medical devices running.In New York, PSEG Long Island reported on Tuesday morning that about 6,600 of its nearly 1.2 million customers were without power from outages that were reported during Isaias. In total, more than 39,000 of the utility’s customers were without power on Tuesday morning, but it was not immediately clear how many of the outages stemmed from other electrical problems unrelated to Isaias. Con Edison reported on Tuesday morning that about 6,100 of its customers still did not have power because of outages from Isaias; about 4,600 were in Westchester County and 1,200 were in Queens. At a news conference Tuesday, Mayor Bill de Blasio, asked about how tree damage was still affecting at least one resident in Queens, said the city must move quickly to help New Yorkers still affected by the storm. “We did get hit real hard by this storm, really, really hard, biggest winds since Hurricane Sandy, a lot of trees down,” Mr. de Blasio said. “But we can’t leave people vulnerable.” In New Jersey, originally one of the states hit hardest by outages, power was mostly restored by Monday. But in New York and Connecticut, whole streets remained in the dark, and utility companies drew the ire of residents and elected officials.In Connecticut, where 30,000 customers of Eversource, the main power supplier, still had no power Tuesday morning, state officials have said they are investigating utilities’ preparations and have accused Eversource of dramatically underestimating the storm’s severity.In New York, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has also called for an investigation into the utilities, a move he has made in the past after natural disasters and blackouts.Mr. Cuomo said on Monday that depending on the findings of the investigation, utilities could face a host of consequences, including the revocation of their ability to do business in the state.

Bipartisan Critics Bash State’s Power Utilities | NJ Spotlight – The good news is that the heat wave held off, and as we head into what will be at least three 90 degree-plus dog days of summer, most of New Jersey will have its power restored. But, as was the case with Tropical Storm Isaias and seemingly every major weather event since Sandy, officials are turning up the heat on utilities for the extended outages and the poor communications. “How about communications. This is my favorite: If GPS can tell you how far you are from an intersection, but they can’t tell where the lights went out? I can guarantee you that there is technology that everyone should have that immediately connects with the power companies. They should know every location and people should know exactly how much time it’s going to take to repair their electrical input,” said Assembly Minority Leader Jon Bramnick (R-Union). Senate Republicans also joined in calling on the Board of Public Utilities to get tough with the state’s utilities. In a letter to the BPU, they called on the board to get on the utilities to “… create emergency response plans to ensure a fast and effective response to storms … take proactive actions that will help prevent any disruption in service in the first place … require the implementation of emergency communications plans …” “What people need right now is immediate hardening of the infrastructure. They need to make sure the communication flow is a 21st century communications flow because people aren’t experiencing that right now, and that doesn’t take billions of dollars,” said Senate Minority Leader Tom Kean (R-Union). Much of the ire was saved for Jersey Central Power and Light, JCP&L, the New Jersey subsidiary of Ohio-based First Energy Corp. Freeholder Tayfun Selen of Morris County, which still had over 100,000 customers without power at the start of Monday, called for immediate action. “Not only the resignation of the CEO, I also called for refunds for July and August utility bills because those people who lost power and incurred some costs and incurred inconveniences so they need to be compensated,” said Selen.

As Connecticut municipal leaders mull legal action over Eversource’s handling of Tropical Storm Isaias utility says final customers will get power back by midnight Thursday – Hartford Courant – More than a week after Tropical Storm Isaias blew through Connecticut with devastating impact, just over 800 homes and businesses remained without power, but those final outages may not be fixed until midnight Thursday, leaving some customers in the dark for a total of nine days. Around 9:30 p.m. Wednesday, Eversource was reporting 784 outages scattered among a number of towns in Fairfield and Litchfield Counties. United Illuminating had resolved all but 46 outages, with 43 of those remaining in West Haven. Advertisement Eversource said in a tweet Wednesday that 2,500 crews were continuing restoration efforts and that the utility expected to restore power to those in central and eastern Connecticut by midnight Wednesday and those in the hardest-hit, western part of the state by midnight Thursday. The company cautioned that the remaining outages are more complex and may require the help of a private electrician. Leaders from some of the municipalities with the longest restoration times have spoken out this week in frustration with a perceived lack of preparedness by Eversource ahead of the storm as they consider legal action. “Eversource has no plan, they’ve broken promise after promise to our residents, the subcontractor crews are not working or dispatched with any sense of urgency,” Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton said in a social media post. Boughton said he will be consulting with other municipal leaders and his legal team “to look at legal action that we can bring against Eversource, its CEO, and its senior management team.”

N.J. investigating how utility companies handled Tropical Storm Isaias power outages – The state’s utility regulator is investigating how energy companies handled power restoration for the 1.4 million customers who were in the dark in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Isaias. The state Board of Public Utilities division of reliability and security will conduct a post-mortem investigation into power companies’ storm response, said the agency’s president Joseph Fiordaliso Wednesday during the BPU’s monthly meeting. The investigation comes after complaints from residents and officials about the pace of restorations.The Aug. 4 storm battered New Jersey with ripping winds and it knocked down trees, power lines and utility poles. Power was returned for all residents and businesses by Monday night, a week after the storm. “(An investigation) will determine for us whether or not we need a general public hearing regarding the storm to see what the findings were, to see and ensure the utilities followed the appropriate protocols, that they did everything possible to get everything up and running,” Fiordaliso said. “(The storm) was quick, it was strong and in many areas devastating.” Residents and mayors criticized utility company JCP&L for prolonged waits and poor communication. JCP&L provides power to more than 2 million New Jerseyans. “I’m anxious, and I know my colleagues are, to see what the results are,” he continued. “I kept stressing communicate, communicate communicate. You have to let people know what’s going on. I think for the most part, that did happen. But there’s always lapses.” Contributing to slow restoration times, he said, was major transmission damage and many downed trees. He said the storm renewed the importance of clearing vegetation around power lines to cut down on outages caused by fallen trees or branches, known as “vegetation management.” “Vegetation management is extremely important in maintaining a strong energy system within the state. We are going to revisit vegetation management… These trees have to be cleared before crews again can get in and repair.”

The US electric grid – climate change’s least talked about victim – Recently, Tropical Storm Isaias smattered the East Coast, bringing with it high winds, lightning and severe showers and, of course, power outages. The fact is, our national electrical grid is not up to the task of handling extreme weather, and hasn’t been for a long time. In fact, no infrastructural relic may be as vulnerable as the U.S. electric grid. As climate change escalates and disrupts weather patterns, our country must update the grid, immediately, or risk losing not only power, but lives. This is not the first time, nor the last, extreme weather has exposed infrastructural weakness. In 2017, eight senior citizens died in Florida when Hurricane Irma knocked out power. We don’t know much about the horrific conditions these men and women faced in their final moments, most probably combating sweltering temperatures with sheer will and pictures of loved ones solely for company, hoping against all odds that help would soon appear, but tragically never came. What we do know is when the grid fails, those on the margins of society – the elderly, the poor, the disenfranchised and the forgotten – bear the brunt of the impacts.The U.S. electric grid is roughly more than 100 years old by some Department of Energy estimates. But what was, and in some way still is, a sociotechnical marvel of engineering and a testament to the ingenuity and innovation of the human mind, is but a relic, aging and in disrepair. Thus, despite its stature, it remains vulnerable to extreme weather – which, as climate change progresses, is becoming increasingly exposed. As wildfires burn longer and hotter, as heat waves continue to shatter records, as historical drought ravishes water supplies, as warmer waters become more likely to conjure up vicious hurricanes and tropical storms, the national conversation increasingly turns away from a greater sense of connected urgency undergirding the constellation of these events to treating extreme weather events as singular apparitions instead of as a threaded, cohesive pattern, which when seen as a tapestry reveals the compounded horrors of climate change. 47 large-scale power outages-those with more than 50,000 customers affected for 1 hour or more – occurred – one attributed to a natural disaster in Utah, the other were caused by severe weather events, with an estimated 6 million customers directly impacted, per data analyzed from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) for the 2019 calendar year. The lion’s share of these documented outages (98 percent) were caused by severe weather. Impacted by power outages are hospitals, schools, retirement communities, water treatment centers, households, etc., who all hold in trust the fact that they rely on the electric grid for every-day life-sustaining tasks. Often po

US Coal Power Generation Plummets 30% in 2020, EIA Says – U.S. coal power generation plunged by 30 percent in the first half of 2020 off an already-depressed base, shoved out by natural gas and renewables amid low energy prices linked to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to new figures from the Energy Information Administration. Electricity generation accounts for more than 90 percent of U.S. coal consumption. In 2019, coal generation fell to a 42-year low, dropping by a record 16 percent. That record low does not look like it will last for long. Renewable electricity output rose 5 percent in the first half of 2020, and natural-gas generation surged by 9 percent in the lower 48 states, the EIA says, with gas-fired generation hitting a record U.S. high in late July during the typical summertime peak.Natural gas was already the leading source of U.S. power generation by some distance, with a 38 percent share in 2019, followed by coal (23 percent), nuclear (20 percent) and renewables (17 percent). The EIA’s renewables tally typically does not include behind-the-meter systems such as rooftop solar, a rapidly growing market in many parts of the country. While coal power’s slide is helping to reduce carbon emissions, the reasons for its decline are largely tied to another factor: money. With average monthly Henry Hub natural-gas spot prices down more than 30 percent in the first half of the year, to $1.81 per MMBtu, and more than 180 gigawatts of wind and solar plants now online across the country, coal plants have simply become “uneconomical in most regions,” the EIA says. Since the beginning of 2018, the U.S. added 18 gigawatts of new combined-cycle natural gas plants while closing 31 gigawatts of coal power stations and 2.4 gigawatts of nuclear capacity. Coal-to-gas switching has been most pronounced on the grids overseen by the PJM Interconnection and the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) – regions where price competition is particularly fierce between coal and gas. While low-cost natural gas is the most immediate threat for coal power generators and their fuel suppliers, renewable energy is becoming a more serious competitor in parts of the country, notably the ERCOT grid in Texas. In ERCOT territory, most of this year’s decline in coal generation has been replaced by renewables rather than gas, the EIA says. Gas-fired generation has actually declined slightly in Texas this year.

Powder River Basin coal production down 15% in recent 12 months | S&P Global Market Intelligence U.S. coal production and employment nosedived in the second quarter, and much of the lost tonnage would have come from the Powder River Basin that spans southeastern Montana and northeastern Wyoming. The region is the largest producer of coal in the nation and heavily relies on demand from domestic power generators, which have reduced coal consumption as the COVID-19 pandemic squeezes electricity demand. Coal production from the region fell 21.5% quarter to quarter and was down 15.4% for the 12 months ended in the second quarter as the economic fallout from the virus added to a secular decline in demand for thermal coal. Peabody Energy Corp. produced 14.0 million tons of coal from the North Antelope Rochelle mine in the recent quarter. The mine is the largest in the country and produced 19.5 million tons in the second quarter of 2019. The company recently took a $1.42 billion asset impairment on the value of the mine as it expects low natural gas prices and competition from renewables to continue to wear down demand for Powder River Basin coal. “While we still believe coal is essential to a reliable energy grid and that our Powder River Basin assets are best positioned to serve that demand … we do expect coal’s long-term share of the U.S. generation mix to remain below prior-year levels,” Peabody CEO Glenn Kellow said on an Aug. 5 earnings call. Similarly, Arch Resources Inc.’s Black Thunder mine, the second-largest mine in the country by production volume, pulled back coal output from 16.7 million tons in the second quarter of 2019 to 10.1 million tons in the second quarter of 2020. The company has been pivoting to a focus on metallurgical coal from its eastern U.S. operations as the outlook dims for domestic thermal coal sales.

‘No place to go’: US coal employment, production nosedive in wake of pandemic | S&P Global Market Intelligence – U.S. coal production and employment took a nosedive in the second quarter as the COVID-19 pandemic delivered a significant blow to demand. Average quarterly coal mine employment fell 13.3% from the prior quarter and 23.1% from the year-ago period to a new low in the second quarter of 2020, according to an S&P Global Market Intelligence analysis. At the same time, coal production declined to 112.3 million tons in the quarter, down 24.7% compared to the prior quarter and down 37.6% compared to the second quarter of 2019. “I’m not sure how to characterize this quarter other than by saying, I’m sure we would all like to never repeat the experience of operating in this kind of an environment again,” Ramaco Resources Inc. Executive Chairman Randall Atkins said on the metallurgical coal producer’s Aug. 7 earnings call. “This quarter reflects only two months of economic activity for us, not three. We were essentially closed for much of the month of April, and that in itself is a condition, of course, we hope never to repeat.” Production and employment in the coal sector have been declining for several years. However, export demand had somewhat stabilized employment levels as mines in the eastern U.S., which generally require more workers per ton to mine higher-quality coal, were able to book sales outside of the declining domestic coal market. “From the time we took this company on the road, we said that we had the capability of pivoting from the export market to the domestic market and back again, better, more cost-effectively and more efficiently than anybody else in the business, and that has not changed,” James McCaffrey, Consol Energy Inc.’s senior vice president of marketing, said on an Aug. 10 call with investors. “But what changed in the second quarter was, there was no place to pivot to. There was just no place to go.” Producers were already suffering in the first quarter with lower demand due to a warmer winter, diminished export opportunities and the ongoing retirement of the nation’s aging coal fleet. “Our concerns about competitive issues in the domestic coal market are increasing,” Benjamin Nelson, senior credit officer and lead coal analyst at Moody’s Investors Service, said in an Aug. 10 statement. “We believe that consolidation is necessary in an industry characterized by ongoing secular decline in demand combined with near-term erosion of financial strength driven by the adverse economic impact from global outbreaks of coronavirus.” The analysis of U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration data showed that a drop in production and employment occurred across all major basins. The Powder River Basin saw production decline by about 13.4 million tons, or 21.5%, compared to the prior quarter. That is down about 30.1%, or 19.5 million tons, compared to the same quarter of 2019.

Reckoning in coal country: How lax fiscal policy has left states flat-footed as mining declines — “I thought I’d be a coal miner until I retired, but things changed,” said Rose Evenson, 55. “It got stressful because you were always wondering, ‘Is this the month? How long do I have here?’ Every year it kept getting slower and slower, and I kept thinking, ‘God, I got to do something else.’” This spring, after 13 years at Black Thunder, Evenson took a buyout package. Evenson’s assessment of the industry’s future stands in contrast to legislative action in coal states, where for decades a dogmatic belief in coal’s longevity has guided fiscal policy that has in some cases actually made it harder for coal-region economies to diversify. And while thousands of mining jobs are being lost around the country, coal’s collapse carries ramifications that reach far beyond coal towns themselves, affecting downstream industries with larger geographic footprints. Railroads, for example, are slashing jobs along coal routes in response to declining shipments between coal mines and the power plants they serve. Manufacturers of equipment used in the coal industry have taken a hit as well. So what happens to communities in coal-producing regions when a $28.6 billion industry spirals into permanent decline? High-salary workers like Evenson either retire earlier than planned or search for another, most likely lower-wage, job. Some move away and many become more reliant on social health services. Businesses lose customers and healthcare providers see fewer patients with adequate insurance. Charitable giving among businesses to support local nonprofit social services dries up just as the need for such services skyrockets. Locally and regionally, revenues to support government services plummet,triggering budget cuts – often to the very programs most needed to maintain a quality of life and transition to more sustainable economies. Wyoming also disproportionately relies on tax revenue from mineral extractive industries to fund education. Since 2016, the state has made cuts and dipped into savings to help staunch a growing K-12 education budget shortfall, now about $515 million over the next two years. The situation only looks to intensify.

Contura Energy Will Accelerate Exit From Thermal Coal Business, Citing Global Transition Away From Fossil Fuels – A major Ohio Valley coal producer announced last week it will speed up its exit from producing coal used to generate electricity. In a call with shareholders last week, Contura Energy, Inc., said the move is tied to the ongoing global transition away from fossil fuels. “We recognize that the world is transitioning toward an economy that relies less on fossil fuels for power generation, and we therefore have accelerated our strategic exit from thermal coal mining,” said CEO David Stetson. The largest market for coal has traditionally been “thermal” coal, or that used in power stations. A smaller but lucrative market exists for “metallurgical” coal, which is used in making steel. Executives said Contura plans to focus its operations solely on producing metallurgical and expects to be out of the thermal coal business by the end of 2022. The Tennessee-based company operates both thermal and metallurgical mines in West Virginia, Virginia and Pennsylvania. Contura in 2018 purchased Alpha Natural Resources. The companies previously split during bankruptcy in 2015. The 2018 merger turned Contura into the largest metallurgical coal producer in the U.S. Its portfolio also includes mines owned by Massey Energy, which in 2011 was acquired by Alpha Natural Resources following the April 2010 explosion of the Upper Big Branch Mine that killed 29 miners. Contura last year exited its thermal coal operations in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin. Earlier this year the company announced it is actively seeking a buyer for its Cumberland mine, which produces thermal coal, in Greene County, Pennsylvania. Operations will cease by the end of 2022 if a buyer isn’t found. The company also said the COVID-19 pandemic continues to hurt coal prices. In April, Contura idled its operations for several weeks to cut costs. Contura reported a $238 million net loss in its second quarter. Executives said the company will idle its Kielty mine, which produces both thermal and met coal, and the Delbarton prep plant in southern West Virginia in the next six weeks. Three new metallurgical coal operations are in the works, at the Road Fork No. 52 Mine, Lynn Branch and Black Eagle Mine.

Uncertainty over earnings return for $8B North Carolina coal ash cleanup weighs on Duke – The question of whether Duke Energy will earn a return on the largest coal ash cleanup in U.S. history is poised to be “a very big deal” for the utility, analysts and company executives say. Duke is preparing to testify in front of North Carolina regulators Aug. 24, and will center its argument around the potential risks to its balance sheet if it is not able to earn a return on its projected $8-9 billion coal ash cleanup, mandated by a settlement reached with environmental groups in January. The North Carolina Utilities Commission (NCUC), in a separate January case, ruled Dominion Energy could not earn a return on its coal ash cleanup investments, which analysts say does not bode well for Duke.”If we were to receive an order consistent with Dominion … absent any other provisions within the order that would be credit supportive, our balance sheet would be weakened,” Duke Chairman, President and CEO Lynn Good said Monday during the company’s second quarter earnings call. “I don’t say this lightly, we don’t want this outcome.” For years, Duke’s highest-earning Carolinas subsidiary fought environmentalists on how it manages its coal ash. Groups argued the utility should excavate all of its coal ash ponds entirely – a fight heightened by a coal ash spill in 2014 that released tens of thousands of tons of coal ash into the nearby Dan River – while the utility insisted on leaving some facilities capped in place.But the settlement reached at the beginning of this year will require the utility to excavate 80 million tons of waste, leaving the state with just one question – who will absorb the costs?Duke received approval from the NCUC in 2018 to recover nearly all of its costs related to coal ash, but that ruling is currently being challenged in the state’s Supreme Court by NCUC public staff and North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein. Between the pending North Carolina Supreme Court case and an unfavorable ruling toward Dominion, analysts say the path forward for Duke is murky.

Illinoisans demand stricter coal ash rules, denounce state proposal – Illinoisans voiced their fears about coal ash silently contaminating their drinking water, or coal ash impoundments failing and deluging rivers with toxic sludge, during public hearings this week. It was the latest step in a years-long debate in Illinois, which has the nation’s second-highest number of contaminated coal ash sites, according to a 2011 study. Last year, Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed a law demanding the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency develop proposed rules to regulate coal ash storage, and now the Illinois Pollution Control Board is holding hearings on the proposed rules, which environmental and community groups say are far too lax to adequately protect water, communities and workers. Federal rules on coal ash were adopted in 2015, and states were encouraged to implement their own rules that were required to be at least as protective. In 2016, then-Gov. Bruce Rauner’s administration proposed rules – covering only six pages – that critics described as woefully inadequate. Environmental groups and citizens support some of the provisions in the Illinois EPA’s latest proposed rules, a filing of 320 pages. But they say the rules allow coal ash to remain stored in contact with water, do not allow for sufficient public participation, do not adequately protect coal ash workers, and do not ensure that companies, not taxpayers, will pay for coal ash cleanup. They are also demanding that unlike the federal rules, state rules must cover coal ash at power plants that have already closed, like the Vermilion plant. “The rules, as drafted, do not protect lakes, streams, rivers, groundwater and Illinois communities from coal ash stored in areas where it mixes with water,” In written testimony, the Environmental Law & Policy Center, Prairie Rivers Network and Sierra Club also cite language that they say is vague, confusing, and open to interpretation, including the use of terms like “where appropriate,” “where possible” and “best practices.” The groups describe it as “language that companies could attempt to use as loopholes or, at a minimum, attempt to exploit as ambiguous.”

Will Utah lawmakers bail out beleaguered coal-export terminal? – The bankrupt proponents of an export terminal, intended to ship Utah coal overseas through Oakland, Calif., need a $20 million bailout, and fast.Relief could come as soon as Aug. 20 when the Utah Legislature votes on whether to advance state money to pay off the project’s creditors, according to lawyers for Insight Terminal Solutions, the beleaguered company now at the center of the Oakland controversy.At least that’s what lawyer Andrew Stosberg told a Kentucky bankruptcy judge Friday in asking to delay Tuesday’s hearing on Insight’s contested reorganization plan. Insight is completely dependent on a $53 million investment from four Utah coal-producing counties to move forward on the rail-to-ship terminal that would help deliver up to 11 million tons of coal a year to Japanese utilities.Utah officials are far from ready to release the money, so making a legislative end run around a bureaucratic process for vetting such funding requests may be Insight’s best hope for salvaging the project.The Legislature has yet to post an agenda for the upcoming special session, its fifth of the year, and it is unclear how Stosberg could know in advance what will be addressed. He did not return a phone message Monday.The bankruptcy judge agreed to postpone the hearing on the Insight reorganization until after Utah’s special session.Expanding export markets is vital to the future of Utah’s storied coal industry, battered by declining domestic demand. The terminal proposed at the old Oakland Army Base on the Bay Area city’s waterfront, however, has been mired for years in controversy and litigation precisely because it would process coal, a fossil fuel that many believe must be phased out to fix the global climate crisis.

‘Derecho’ storm causes Cargill plant closure, emergency shutdown of nuclear plant in Iowa – A violent storm that tore through Iowa on Monday caused an emergency shutdown at a nuclear power plant near Cedar Rapids. The storm packing hurricane-force winds tore across the Midwest, compounding troubles for a U.S. farm economy already battered by extreme weather, the U.S.-China trade war and most recently, the disruption caused to labor and consumption by the COVID-19 pandemic. Grain silos were ripped apart, and Minnetonka-based Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland closed crop-processing plants in Cedar Rapids. The Duane Arnold nuclear plant lost its connection to the electricity grid. At about 1 p.m., the plant in Palo, 11 miles northwest of Cedar Rapids, declared an “unusual event” – an indication of a safety threat, according to a report posted Tuesday by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). An unusual event is the lowest of four levels of emergency conditions under NRC regulations. While the Duane Arnold plant is not now producing electricity, it does have power to run its emergency systems. “The plant is stable and is using a backup power source at this time,” Duane Arnold’s majority owner and operator, Florida-based NextEra Energy Resources, said in a statement. The storms damaged the plant’s cooling towers, which are used in electricity production to cool steam after it exits the turbine, NextEra said. The loss of power at Duane Arnold automatically triggered an automatic reactor “scram,” or shutdown. Standby diesel generators kicked in, giving power for the reactor’s cooling systems, the NRC report said.

State regulators settle over proposed transfer of Three Mile Island’s Unit 2 reactor – State environmental regulators are withdrawing their objection to a proposed license transfer for Three Mile Island’s Unit 2 reactor, the site of the nation’s worst commercial nuclear disaster in 1979.The Department of Environmental Protection has settled with the companies after raising concerns over an accelerated decommissioning at the site.DEP Secretary Patrick McDonnell wrote to the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission in April detailing several concerns, including where waste will be disposed of and unknown levels of radiation left on site.“I firmly believe TMI Unit 2 is the most radiologically contaminated facility in our nation outside of the Department of Energy’s weapons complex,” he said. TMI-2, owned by GPU Nuclear, experienced a partial meltdown in March 1979 and has been non-operational since then. TMI’s Unit 1 is owned by Exelon. It stopped operations in September 2019.McDonnell also had said there might not be enough money in a trust fund dedicated to clean up the site.GPU Nuclear reported in 2018 the trust fund held about $899 million, while the estimated clean-up costs for TMI-2 were $1.35 billion.DEP claims costs could be even higher, since the site has been inaccessible for decades and the full extent of the damage in the reactor is unknown.GPU Nuclear, a subsidiary of FirstEnergy, plans to transfer TMI-2’s license to the newly-formed TMI-2 Solutions. It’s a venture of Utah-based EnergySolutions, which buys shuttered nuclear plants for decommissioning, with the goal of dismantling them cheaper and faster.Under the agreement, DEP will withdraw its petition to intervene in the transfer. DEP will have more oversight of financial and environmental aspects of the decommissioning. For example, TMI-2 Solutions agrees to provide quarterly reports to DEP on project milestones, amounts of low-level radioactive waste created during clean-up, and other environmental surveillance that will be made public. Quarterly reports to DEP on project finances will be confidential.In a statement, FirstEnergy spokeswoman Jennifer Young said the agreement also “ensures local residents are involved in the decommissioning process and informed of key activities; and will enable local officials’ and residents’ input directly to the new owners to address concerns and questions.” Young said FirstEnergy will continue to work through the license transfer process with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Regulators prep for an industry few want: nuclear waste disposal – North Dakota is imposing its first comprehensive rules for nuclear waste disposal more than four years after Pierce County residents were caught off-guard by a proposal to drill test wells near Rugby.The state Industrial Commission approved the regulations in late July, as well as new rules surrounding deep geothermal wells, another industry that does not exist in North Dakota but could emerge one day.The waste disposal rules spell out all the steps an entity would have to go through if it were to propose storing “high-level radioactive waste” in North Dakota. Such waste is highly radioactive material generated from the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel, for example, and it requires permanent isolation.The regulations likely will serve to discourage disposal of the waste in North Dakota, said Sen. Jim Roers, R-Fargo, who chaired an advisory committee working on the rules. He hasn’t heard of any proposals to examine potential sites in the state following an effort by the U.S. Department of Energy to drill an exploratory borehole near Rugby, which Pierce County officials shot down when they heard about it in 2016. Federal officials said the proposed experiment was not a step toward actually burying waste in the state.“The most important thing to come out of this is that we have rules and expectations of anybody coming to our state,” Roers said. “I don’t think they’ll try to do the backdoor approach anymore.”The Legislature passed a bill into law in 2019 that prohibits the disposal of high-level radioactive waste in North Dakota. For the rules to even take effect, “the first thing you have to do is get that law overturned or thrown out,” State Geologist Ed Murphy said.“We were writing rules for a program that, by law, is prohibited,” he said.Roers said the thinking behind establishing the rules in light of the ban is that if the federal government were ever to try to trump North Dakota’s prohibition, it might still agree to follow the regulations established by the state.

Federal PAC Donations Show Ohio Valley Lawmakers Raked In Thousands From FirstEnergy – Lawmakers from across the Ohio Valley have received nearly half a million dollars in campaign contributions from 2019-2020 from a political action committee associated with FirstEnergy Corp., the electric utility implicated in a $61 million bribery and racketeering scheme related to Ohio’s controversial energy bill that bailed out several struggling nuclear and coal plants. FirstEnergy’s PAC donated $484,490 to elected officials in Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Kentucky. The elected officials came from both parties and encompassed a vast range of political offices – from the U.S. Senate and House to statehouses and even state auditors offices – according to an analysis of Federal Election Commission documents compiled by HEATED, a climate-focused newsletter written by journalist Emily Atkin. Last month’s revelation by federal prosecutors that the Ohio-based company funneled millions of dollars of dark money into a group, Generation Now, controlled by former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and his political allies, pulled back the curtain on the outsized political influence wielded by the utility, which is one of the largest in the country. For example, recent reporting by the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting, found a highly-connected attorney with deep ties in Kentucky Republican politics is linked to the Ohio case. Former Kentucky Republican Party General Counsel Eric Lycan is listed as the treasurer of Generation Now. Lycan is connected to several PACs and tax-exempt organizations in Kentucky and West Virginia. While the investigation is ongoing and continues to unearth connections between the utility, coal company Murray Energy and lawmakers, contributions made by FirstEnergy’s PAC during the 2019-2020 campaign cycle offer a window into the company’s priorities. Six U.S. Senators from West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky and Pennsylvania received campaign contributions from FirstEnergy’s PAC totaling $24,500. The Country Roads PAC, associated with Sen. Manchin, and Wild and Wonderful PAC, associated with Sen. Capito, each received $5,000 in contributions from FirstEnergy’s PAC, records show. West Virginia’s three U.S. House representatives – Republicans David McKinley, Alex Mooney and Carol Miller – each received $7,500 in campaign donations this election cycle. In addition, 21 Republican House candidates and six Democrats from Ohio and Pennsylvania also received campaign contributions. Every member of Ohio and West Virginia’s U.S. Congressional delegation took political contributions.

Murray Energy’s limited disclosures on Ohio conspiracy case leave big questions unanswered — While an Ohio-based coal company has contributed $100,000 to an organization that may have been involved in an alleged bribery operation to pass a power plant bailout law last year, company officials said in a bankruptcy filing that they don’t know how the money was spent. A bankruptcy court ruled last week that Murray Energy can move ahead to seek approval of its reorganization plan, subject to a representation that its officers and directors have no knowledge about how money it gave to a dark money organization might have been used to promote the Ohio coal and nuclear bailoutlaw at the heart of a federal conspiracy case. The ruling is a partial victory for environmental and citizen groups, who had objected to a more limited disclosure statement proposed by Murray Energy and its related debtors on Aug. 6. But creditors or others can’t independently verify that statement or dig into other questions about the extent to which the company may have spent funds to influence Ohio energy policy. “If we do not have the ability to verify, we should not trust,” said Catherine Turcer, executive director of Common Cause Ohio, paraphrasing a Russian proverb. Murray Energy has been identified as “Company B” in the federal government’s July 21 complaint, which alleges that $100,000 was wired from a company to “Dark Money Group 1″ on Oct. 26, 2018. Murray Energy’s bankruptcy filings show a $100,000 cash contribution that day to Hardworking Ohioans, Inc. That organization, which is registered as a for-profit corporation, allegedly spent $1.5 million on political ads supporting Republican candidates in 2018.

Ohio corruption scandal hits Energy Harbor bankruptcy case -The judge in Energy Harbor’s bankruptcy case has hit the brakes on approving millions of dollars in fees and expenses for the utility’s outside law firms and consultants after learning of the federal racketeering case against former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder. Judge Alan Koschik said he’d been prepared to approve remaining interim fees and expenses for nineteen firms at the July 21 court hearing, according to a transcript reviewed by the Energy and Policy Institute. The judge had also been prepared to grant allowances for the total final fees and expenses incurred by the firms over the course of the multi-year bankruptcy case, much of which have already been paid for, including nearly $68 million for the utility’s bankruptcy counsel and lobbying firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, and $2.4 million for the public relations firm Sitrick & Company. Energy Harbor is the new name for the company formerly known as FirstEnergy Solutions (FES), which had been a subsidiary of FirstEnergy Corp. until it emerged from bankruptcy at the end of February. Both Akin Gump and Sitrick & Company were involved in last year’s successful campaign by FES to pass House Bill 6. The new law benefits Energy Harbor by providing long sought subsidies to the Davis-Besse and Perry nuclear plants, and what environmentalists call a “stealth bailout” of the coal-fired Sammis power plant, as well as rolling back Ohio’s renewable energy and energy efficiency standards for electric utilities. Instead of approving the fees and expenses, Koschick read aloud excerpts from a Cleveland.com article by Jeremy Pelzer, with the headline “House Speaker Larry Householder arrested in $60 million bribery case related to HB6 nuclear bailout,” that was handed to him shortly before the hearing began. “The investigation centers on House Bill 6, the one billion dollar plus rate payer bailout of two Ohio nuclear power plants owned by FirstEnergy Solutions, now Energy Harbor, that Householder helped push through last year, with the help of millions in dark money, according to the Toledo Blade,” he read. Koschick announced at the hearing “that this may not be the right day to finally approve fees and expenses relating to what was the FirstEnergy Solutions case, now Energy Harbor.”

FirstEnergy tells SEC it needs time to file quarterly report; cites investigation – Akron Beacon Journal –FirstEnergy Corp. said in an after-hours filing Monday that it needed more time to file its latest Form 10-Q quarterly financial report with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Instead, the document will be filed with the SEC on or before Aug. 17, a spokeswoman for the Akron electric utility said Tuesday. The utility said it could not file the form with the SEC for the quarter ended June 30 “within the prescribed time period without unreasonable effort and expense.” A 10-Q is a routine, in-depth financial report that publicly traded companies file with the SEC four times a year timed to the release of quarterly earnings. In its filing Monday, FirstEnergy cited the federal investigation involving former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, R-Glenford, as well as subpoenas received by the company connected to the investigation. The company also cited subsequent threatened litigation. FirstEnergy said it “requires additional time to complete its quarterly review and closing procedures and to provide appropriate disclosure in the Form 10-Q.” The company publicly reported earnings July 23 for the quarter ended June 30. FirstEnergy typically files its 10-Q on the day it holds its earnings conference call, spokeswoman Tricia Ingraham said. Because federal agents arrested Householder, who was then House speaker, and four other men, two days before the earnings call, FirstEnergy executives decided it was necessary to delay the filing.

More lawsuits filed against FirstEnergy tied to Columbus bribery scandal – Akron Beacon Journal – Lawsuits against FirstEnergy Corp. continue to climb. Two class action lawsuits were filed last week, with the latest one on Friday in federal court in Cleveland that alleges share prices dropped drastically because of wrongdoing by the Akron electric utility tied to a $60 million bribery and racketeering scheme in Columbus. These two new lawsuits join others previously filed in various courts since the scandal broke on July 21 when federal agents arrested then-Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder. Also arrested were four other men who included lobbyists for FirstEnergy and former subsidiary Energy Harbor, previously called FirstEnergy Solutions. Friday’s 32-page shareholder lawsuit filed by California resident Jennifer Miller argues, like others, that FirstEnergy senior executives and board members breached their fiduciary duty, “were unjustly enriched, wasted corporate assets,” and violated provisions of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934. Miller is identified as being a FirstEnergy shareholder since 1999 who, at the time of the lawsuit filing, owned 812 shares of stock in the company. The second lawsuit, filed Aug. 5 in federal court in Columbus, differs from the shareholder complaints by alleging that Brian Hudock and Cameo Countertops Inc., both in Lucas County in Northwest Ohio, were injured by being forced to pay monthly surcharges on their electric bills that are tied to the scandal. The 41-page class action lawsuit alleges violations of the Federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization, or RICO, Act, the Ohio Corrupt Activity Act, and civil conspiracy. Both lawsuits heavily draw upon the lengthy criminal complaint and affidavit that led to the arrest of Householder and the four other men.FirstEnergy now faces at least six lawsuits with these latest two filings tied to the Householder investigation. FirstEnergy has previously said that it will not comment on pending litigation.

Cleveland City Council to investigate whether statehouse corruption figures, FirstEnergy sought “to destabilize” Cleveland Public Power – – Cleveland City Council intends to investigate whether any parties accused in the statehouse corruption scandal involving bailouts of Ohio’s nuclear plants also intended to “destabilize” city-owned Cleveland Public Power. In particular, council will examine if FirstEnergy Corp., listed but not charged as “Company A” in federal indictment papers, was involved in efforts against the city and its electric utility, City Council President Kevin Kelley said Monday. “I believe if this was some outside attempt to destabilize Cleveland Public Power, we have an obligation of investigate,” Kelley said during a meeting of City Council’s Finance Committee. “If you peel this [HB 6] back, it really did have a harmful effect on the city of Cleveland.” The council has the authority under Cleveland’s charter to subpoena witnesses, compel production of documents and take testimony to investigate issues of city interest. While the council often has hearings, it has been years since it subpoenaed witnesses. The Finance Committee amended a resolution that initially called for repeal of HB 6 to invoke the subpoena power. The resolution will be put before the full council on Wednesday. Approval from Mayor Frank Jackson would be needed to implement it. Kelley, in an interview with cleveland.com, said the mayor’s support is expected. “Council has reason to believe that Company A has other long-term public policy goals specific to the City of Cleveland: to restrict or destroy Cleveland Public Power and to influence or control the City’s legislative body as well as its executive branch,” the resolution states.

Cleveland City Council OK’s investigating efforts against CPP, but members want to scrutinize CPP, too – – Cleveland City Council voted unanimously Wednesday to launch investigations into whether any parties accused in the statehouse corruption scandal involving bailouts of Ohio’s nuclear plants sought to harm city-owned Cleveland Public Power. City Council President Kevin Kelley, the primary sponsor of the resolution, noted that CPP is a competitor to FirstEnergy in Cleveland and that he intends for the investigation to include a look at lobbying by FirstEnergy. “There are active organizations that are hostel to Cleveland Public Power and seeking to destabilize Cleveland Public Power,” Kelley said. “My questions are very simple: Who’s funding these operations and did any of the money come from one of the sources … that are involved in the HB6 investigation.” But several members made clear they also wanted to scrutinize Cleveland Public Power itself with an eye toward making the struggling utility more efficient and more accountable to the public. “If we’re going to talk about what’s impacted CPP, then we need to talk about how CPP has been run and how CPP has been managed,” Councilman Mike Polensek said in an interview with cleveland.com after council’s meetings. The resolution approved Wednesday calls for repeal of HB 6, which provided more than $1 billion in ratepayer subsidies for Ohio’s Davis-Besse and Perry nuclear power plants. The plants are owned and operated by Energy Harbor – formerly FirstEnergy Solutions, a subsidiary of FirstEnergy Corp., until it broke away earlier this year. Approval from Mayor Frank Jackson would be needed to launch the probe, which could involve council’s little-used power to issue subpoenas. The mayor is expected to sign the legislation. The General Assembly approved HB6 last year and Gov. Mike DeWine signed it into law. In addition to the nuke plant bailout, it also gave coal plants in Ohio and Indiana subsidies and it effectively gutted the state’s green-energy mandates for utilities. Those changes hurt Cleveland. The city had set goals to reduce its emissions by 20% by 2020 and by 25% by 2025. HB 6 undercut energy efficiency programs and made it more difficult to generate electricity through renewable sources.

Ohio House keeping some documents secret from FBI, public over House Bill 6, citing attorney-client privilege – cleveland.com – The Ohio House of Representatives withheld more than two dozen records from federal investigators and the public involving House Bill 6, claiming that various email attachments and other documents were a matter of attorney-client and legislative privilege. The move came in response to a federal subpoena and a public records request that sought information on the bill, which is the focus of a federal public corruption investigation, and previously failed legislation on the issue. The list of withheld documents was released along with more than 1,000 pages of documents related to the controversial nuclear power plant bailout. The list includes email correspondence between House attorneys Heather Blessing and Paul Disantis and several lawmakers, including the bill’s sponsors, state representatives Jamie Callender and Shane Wilkin, both Republicans. The emails include possible amendments and other documents pertaining to the bill that Gov. Mike DeWine signed into law last July. The correspondences began weeks before the bill passed in May 2019 and through January of this year. The FBI had subpoenaed documents related to the bill, a $1.3 billion bailout for two nuclear plants passed last year. FirstEnergy Corp. had sought the help when its subsidiary, FirstEnergy Solutions, owned the plants. It filed for bankruptcy in 2018, and Energy Harbor now owns the plants. Taylor Jach, a House Republican spokeswoman, said the documents were withheld from the FBI, as well as Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer, which sought the records. She said the attorney-client and legislative privilege they’re citing in withholding the release of the records exists between each member and the House attorney or legislative staffer who corresponded with those individual members.

After HB 6, we need a new energy vision for Ohio: Casey Weinstein – cleveland.com — In October 2018, I was watching “60 Minutes” with my wife after a long day of campaigning, when an ad paid for by a dark money group called “Hardworking Ohioans’” came on, spreading blatant lies about me. I knew this was an incredibly expensive TV ad space and couldn’t believe what I was up against. So, while I was appalled to learn of former Speaker Larry Householder’s alleged $60 million racketeering scheme, I wasn’t shocked when Hardworking Ohioans was one of the groups implicated. After beating back those attacks, I joined the legislature and almost immediately confronted House Bill 6, which we now know was at the core of Householder’s alleged scheme. I sought input from my constituents on the bill, and their responses matched polling that showed an overwhelming majority of Ohioans opposed HB 6. Instead, they showed support for a clean energy economy that drives economic development while reducing pollution from outdated and uncompetitive energy resources. I opposed HB 6, not only because it provided a bailout to a chronically failing corporation, but also to two failing coal plants while sunsetting our energy efficiency and renewable portfolio standards. Unfortunately, we lost that fight.Until the recent revelations, it looked as though the scheme had worked. But it was not then, nor is it now, the will of the people. Real hardworking Ohioans can’t afford to bail out a chronically dependent corporation whose bad investments we’re already subsidizing. The Cleveland-Akron area has one of the highest rates of air particle pollution in the United States, leading to worse health outcomes, like the childhood asthma that afflicts my daughter.I take no joy in Householder’s fall. But this is our opportunity to start anew, and we can do so in a way that transcends politics. In place of HB 6, I propose a new vision for Ohio. One that embraces our legacy of innovation and enables us to lead the nation in the renewable energy revolution.We can get there by reestablishing our energy efficiency programs, which saved Ohio over $5.1 billion from 2009 – 2017 and supported the employment of 80,000 Ohioans, often in unionized positions. We can restore our renewable energy portfolio standards, setting Ohio on a path toward 100% clean power generated right here at home. We can eliminate the burdensome regulations purposely implemented to kill the wind industry, and make reforms that bring our regulations in line with our neighboring states, leading to as much as 3,000 megawatts of new wind projects by 2026, and unlocking $4.2 billion in investment along the way.

.