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 early hours after midnight (EDT) Wednesday morning.
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Note: Because of the high volume of news regarding the coronavirus outbreak, that news has been published separately:
- 23 Aug 2020 – Coronavirus Disease Weekly News 23August 2020
23 Aug 2020 – Coronavirus Economic Weekly News 23August 2020
Summary:
This week’s new cases were down more than 15% from the prior week, but are still occurring at twice the rate of early summer. The US death rate is also falling, albeit more slowly. Since the US remains the epicenter of the pandemic, that means global totals are now also trending downward too.
Note: Again this week we conclude the review with several articles on the Ohio utility corruption and bribery scandal.
California resident diagnosed with plague – A South Lake Tahoe, Calif., resident has tested positive for the plague, area health officials confirmed this week. El Dorado County said in a Monday statement that the “individual is currently under the care of a medical professional and is recovering at home.” Officials said the person, who is an “avid walker,” could have been bitten by “an infected flea” while walking their dog along the Truckee River Corridor or the Tahoe Keys area. “Plague is naturally present in many parts of California, including higher elevation areas of El Dorado County. It’s important that individuals take precautions for themselves and their pets when outdoors, especially while walking, hiking and/or camping in areas where wild rodents are present. Human cases of plague are extremely rare but can be very serious,” El Dorado County Public Health Officer, Nancy Williams said Monday in a statement. The statement explained that the plague is caused by bacterium often transmitted by fleas who acquired the bacteria from infected squirrels, chipmunks and other rodents. Household pets like dogs and cats “may also bring plague-infected fleas into the home.” Symptoms of the plague include fever, nausea, weakness and swollen lymph nodes. The last confirmed case of plague confirmed in California was in 2015, when two individuals were exposed in Yosemite National Park. Both people fully recovered.
Pollution linked to antibiotic resistance – Antibiotic resistance is an increasing health problem, but new research suggests it is not only caused by the overuse of antibiotics. It’s also caused by pollution.Using a process known as genomic analysis, University of Georgia scientists found a strong correlation between antibiotic resistance and heavy metal contamination in an environment. According to the study, published in the July issue of the journal Microbial Biotechnology, soils with heavy metals had a higher level of specific bacterial hosts that were accompanied by antibiotic-resistant genes. Hosts included Acidobacteriaoceae, Bradyrhizobium and Streptomyces. The bacteria had antibiotic-resistant genes, known as ARGs, for vancomycin, bacitracin and polymyxin. All three drugs are used to treat infections in humans. The bacteria also had an ARG for multidrug resistance, a strong defense gene that can resist heavy metals as well as antibiotics, according to Thomas, who was conducting his doctoral research at the time. When these ARGs were present in the soil, metal-resistant genes, or MRGs, were present for several metals including arsenic, copper, cadmium and zinc. Microorganisms develop new strategies and countermeasures over time to protect themselves. “The overuse of antibiotics in the environment adds additional selection pressure on microorganisms that accelerates their ability to resist multiple classes of antibiotics. But antibiotics aren’t the only source of selection pressure,” Thomas said. “Many bacteria possess genes that simultaneously work on multiple compounds that would be toxic to the cell, and this includes metals.”
More toxic hand sanitizer recalls (at Dollar Tree, Family Dollar) and Do Not Use updates – SkinGuard24 – All Day Hand Sanitizer, which states its active ingredient contains methanol, has been recalled nationwide while 10 other hand sanitizers join it on the FDA’s Do Not Use list.According to the FDA, methanol can be toxic if absorbed into the skin. Most of the hand sanitizers on the Do Not Use list contain methanol or were made in the same facility as a hand sanitizer with methanol. Within a week of being put on the Do Not Use list, SkinGuard24 – All Day Hand Sanitizer got recalled by Bolingbroke, Georgia, manufacturer SG24 LLC. The label on each size – 8-ounce, 2.67-ounce, 10 ml pocket pen, moist towelette – declares methanol is part of the active ingredient. Dollar Tree and Dollar Tree-owned Family Dollar sold hand sanitizer recalled two weeks ago by Albek de Mexico: Next Hand Sanitizer, lot numbers that ended in 1001, 1002, 1003, 1004 or 1005; NuuxSan Instant Antibacterial Hand Sanitizer, all lots; Assured Hand Sanitizer with Vitamin E and Aloe, lot No. 1931101AL; Assured Hand Sanitizer Aloe Vera, lot No. 1931102AL; andModesa Instant Hand Sanitizer with Moisturizers and Aloe Vera, lot No. 1931104AL.Also, the Dollar Tree chains sold the Assured, Blumen and Modesa hand sanitizers in the recall by 4e Brands, a division of 4e Global, which has the most hand sanitizers on the Do Not Use list. Speaking of the Do Not Use list…Grupo Asimex de Mexico’s Florance Morris Body Care Antiseptic Hand Sanitizer and Asimex International-distributed Florance Morris Body Care Antiseptic Hand Sanitizer both tested as having methanol. The Roldan Industries-distributed Florance Morris Body Care Antiseptic Hand Sanitizer gets put on the list by association of being made in the same facility.Grupo Yacana Mexico’s Yacana Alcohol Antiseptic 70% Topical Solutiontested as having methanol, the FDA said. Yacana Isopropyl Alcohol Antiseptic 70% Topical Solution didn’t come strong enough on the isopropyl alcohol content. And Yacana Clase Mundial Isopropyl Alcohol Antiseptic 70% Topical Solution or Gel was made at the same facility as the hand sanitizer that tested positive for methanol.
Microplastic particles now discoverable in human organs – Microplastics have polluted the entire planet, from Arctic snow and Alpine soilsto the deepest oceans. People are also known to consume them via food andwater, and to breathe them in, but the potential impact on human health is not yet known. The researchers expect to find the particles in human organs and have identified chemical traces of plastic in tissue. But isolating and characterising such minuscule fragments is difficult, and contamination from plastics in the air is also a challenge.To test their technique, they added particles to 47 samples of lung, liver, spleen and kidney tissue obtained from a tissue bank established to study neurodegenerative diseases. Their results showed that the microplastics could be detected in every sample.The scientists, whose work is being presented at a meeting of the American Chemical Society on Monday, said their technique would enable other researchers to determine contamination levels in human organs around the world.“It would be naive to believe there is plastic everywhere but just not in us,” said Rolf Halden at Arizona State University. “We are now providing a research platform that will allow us and others to look for what is invisible – these particles too small for the naked eye to see. The risk [to health] really resides in the small particles.”The analytical method developed allows the researchers to identify dozens of types of plastic, including the polyethylene terephthalate (PET) used in plastic drinks bottles and the polyethylene used in plastic bags. They found bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical used to make plastics, in all 47 samples. The US Environmental Protection Agency is concerned about BPAbecause “it is a reproductive, developmental and systemic toxicant in animal studies”. The researchers examined lung, liver, spleen and kidney tissue as these organs are likely to be exposed to microplastics or collect them. “We never want to be alarmist, but it is concerning that these non-biodegradable materials that are present everywhere [may] enter and accumulate in human tissues, and we don’t know the possible health effects,”
Microplastics Found in Human Organs for First Time – Bolstering activists’ demands to reduce plastic pollution worldwide, Arizona State University scientists on Monday presented their research on finding micro- and nanoplastics in human organs to the American Chemical Society. Greenpeace UK responded to the reporting on the study by calling to “massively reduce the amount of plastic” produced and used worldwide. Microplastic particles have been found in human organs for the first time! Microplastic pollution effects the entire planet. The best way to tackle the problem is to massively reduce the amount of plastic that’s being made and used.https://t.co/ARSPnjttLn – Greenpeace UK (@GreenpeaceUK) August 17, 2020 Microplastics are plastics that are less than five millimeters in diameter and nanoplastics are less than 0.001 millimeters in diameter. Both are broken down bits of larger plastic pieces that were dumped into the environment. According to PlasticsEurope.org, 359 million tons of plastic was produced globally in 2019. Previous research has shown that people could be eating a credit card’s worth of plastic a day; a studypublished in 2019 suggests humans eat, drink and breathe almost 74,000 microplastic particles a year. Microplastics have been found in places ranging from the tallest mountains in the world to the depths of theMariana Trench. Plastic particles in wildlife have been shown to substantially harm entire ecosystems, especially marine organisms. The Arizona State University scientists developed and tested a new method to identify dozens of plastics in human tissue that could eventually be used to collect global data on microplastic pollution and its impact on people. To test the technique, the scientists used 47 tissue samples from lung, liver, spleen and kidney samples collected from a tissue bank. Researchers then added particles to the samples and found they could detect microplastics in every sample. These specific tissues were used because these organs are the most likely to be exposed to, filter or collect plastics in the human body. Because the samples were taken from a tissue bank, scientists also were able to analyze the donors’ lifestyles including environmental and occupational exposures.
Chemical Used to Line Plastic Bottles Is Linked to Premature Death – The chemical bisphenol A, or BPA, which is ubiquitous in plastic bottles, can linings and receipts, has been linked to numerous health issues because it disrupts hormone function. Besides being connected to low birthweight and brain disorders in babies and children, and obesity, heart disease and erectile dysfunction in adults, a new study has linked the chemical to a greater likelihood of premature death, Newsweek reported.The study, published in the journal JAMA Network Open, noted that BPA is so common that 90 percent of urine samples from the general population contain trace amounts of the chemical. Newsweek noted that BPA is prevalent in many kinds of plastics and resins. Besides the aforementioned items, it’s also found in sports equipment, medical devices and water pipes. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cite its presence in dental sealants, compact disks, plastic dinnerware, car parts, impact-resistant safety equipment and even toys. Until a decade ago, it was also present in baby bottles, sippy cups and infant formula containers, CNN reported. To understand the role that BPA exposure may play in premature death, a group of researchers led by Wei Bao, an assistant professor in the College of Public Health at the University of Iowa, looked at nearly 4,000 adults who took part in the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 2003-2008, Newsweek reported. A decade after the study, nearly 10 percent of the participants had died. The researchers found that people with the highest BPA levels had a 51 percent higher risk of death from any cause, whether from cancer, heart disease or an accident, Newsweek reported. “This paper will add to a growing body of concern about the safety of polymers containing the monomer BPA.” “This is another puzzle piece that compellingly speaks to the seriousness of the threat posed by these chemicals used in can linings and thermal papers,” Leonardo Trasande, director of environmental pediatrics at NYU Langone Health and an author of the study, told CNN. Trasande said people are also regularly exposed to BPA through thermal paper, which is used to print receipts.
Data omission in key EPA insecticide study shows need for review of industry studies – For nearly 50 years, a statistical omission tantamount to data falsification sat undiscovered in a critical study at the heart of regulating one of the most controversial and widely used pesticides in America. Chlorpyrifos, an insecticide created in the late 1960s by the Dow Chemical Co., has been linked to serious health problems, especially in children. It has been the subject of many lawsuits and banned in Europe and California. The EPA itself nearly banned the chemical, but in 2017 the Trump administration backtracked and rejected EPA’s own recommendation to take chlorpyrifos off the market. Now University of Washington researchers report in a new study that decades of exposure to chlorpyrifos and all the political wrangling and lawsuits surrounding it might have been averted if a 1972 study had been adequately reviewed by the EPA, itself newly established in the early 1970s. The EPA also did not re-analyze the study data when new statistical techniques became available a few years later, the UW researchers added. Lianne Sheppard, a professor of biostatistics and environmental health in the UW School of Public Health and the study’s lead author, explained that the 1972 “Coulston study” established erroneously how much of the chemical a human could be exposed to before adverse effects showed up in a body’s chemistry. When Sheppard re-ran the study data using the same longhand statistical analysis as the original, she discovered that key data used in two other level-of-exposure tests in the same study had been left out of the central exposure question — inexplicably. Consequently, the safe exposure limit, called the “no observed adverse effect level,” that the EPA used was wrong. “This has huge public health implications,” said Sheppard. “This study was the basis of policy for over 15 years and because it concluded that the ‘no observed adverse effect level’ was more than twice as high as it should have been, the standard was a lot less protective than it should have been.”
Organic Farming Protects Communities from Toxic Chemicals – The purpose of pesticides is to kill. So it’s not surprising that widespread use of these chemicals poses a serious public health threat. Diet alone exposes us to a frightening cocktail of pesticide residues, and toxic pesticides pose much more severe health threats to farming communities. Food system workers and their families and communities – who are disproportionately Latinx and low-income – bear the brunt of harm from toxic pesticide use in agriculture. Farmworkers are at risk from direct exposure to harmful chemicals when mixing and applying pesticides, as well as while working in fields; as a result, they suffer more chemical-related injuries than any other U.S. workforce. Exposure also extends beyond the workplace. Workers can carry pesticides home on clothes, shoes, and skin, inadvertently exposing their children and other family members, and pesticide drift can harm people living, working, and learning near farms. These exposure routes add up. And weaning our agricultural system off its addiction to toxic chemicals is an uphill battle. We’ve seen recent wins on pesticide issues in the courts and in some states, but it can take decades of fighting to end the use of a single pesticide. For example, NRDC petitioned the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to end use of the brain-toxic pesticide chlorpyrifos in 2007; thirteen years later, we’re still in court demanding that EPA protect public health. Meanwhile numerous similar organophosphatechemicals also remain in our fields and our bodies.This pesticide “whack-a-mole” problem makes organic farming a potent addition to our public health toolbox, especially in farming communities: organic farmers do no use most synthetic pesticides, so organic farming eliminates a wide range of health threats posed by farming with toxic chemicals.The health crises facing farm workers and rural communities needs urgent attention, particularly in light of theadded burdens from the COVID-19 crisis. Kendra Klein and Anna Lappé got it right:”As long as we treat organic food as if it’s a shopping preference instead of a public good, we will miss the opportunity to fight for a desperately needed shift in how we farm.”
Iowa’s corn yields could be cut in half where hurricane-force winds flattened fields (11 photos) Yields may be cut by as much as half where a derecho flattened crops as it swept through Iowa this week, agriculture officials said. Iowa Agriculture Secretary Mike Naig said in a call with reporters that no other Midwestern state along the storm’s 770-mile path suffered the level of wind or hail damage that struck an estimated 10 million acres across central Iowa. That’s about a third of Iowa’s 30 million acres of crops – acreage typically split between corn and soybeans in Iowa, the nation’s largest corn producer. The derecho’s straight-line winds reached nearly 100 mph in parts of Iowa, officials said. The storm swept across Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin and Michigan before losing steam.
A swarm of locusts of biblical proportions is threatening the food supply of 20 million people in East Africa — Swarms of locusts in East African countries are threatening the food supply of more than 20 million people at a time when food is already scarce because of the coronavirus pandemic. Now, experts are looking for creative solutions to deal with the pests – including eating them. Desert locusts are considered the most destructive migratory pest in the world. They usually live solitary lives in desert environments, but heavy rainfall allowed their eggs to survive in unprecedented numbers this season. The swarms first appeared in Kenya in late December 2019, with a second wave following in April. The region is now bracing for a third, possibly bigger wave in the weeks ahead. Locusts haven’t been seen at this scale, in these numbers, for 70 years. According to the United Nations, a locust swarm 1 square kilometer in size can eat the same amount of food in a day as 35,000 people, a devastating amount of destruction for local farmers. ….. Control methods for the swarms include traditional pesticides, which raise environmental concerns, newly developed biopesticides, which are more eco-friendly, and capturing the locusts with nets to turn them into food. “Go to some of those remote areas where locust swarms are actually prevailing – a lot of people are eating them,” said Chrystanus Tanga, a researcher with the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology in Nairobi. “We think it’s something to promote so that a lot more people will engage in this practice, rather than them shying away thinking that it is a primitive man’s food.” But eating locusts could come with health drawbacks if they’ve eaten plants that were sprayed with pesticides, Tanga said. “If these animals are being killed by chemicals and they happen to be eaten by humans, it’s definitely going to have an impact on their health,” he told Reuters.
750 Million Genetically Engineered Mosquitoes To Be Released In Florida Keys Despite Objections Over ‘Jurassic Park Experiment’ – Officials in the Florida Keys approved a plan to release over 750 million genetically modified mosquitoes, despite objections by local residents and several environmental advocacy groups. The proposal – aimed at eradicating the Aedes aegypti species of mosquito that carries several deadly diseases including Zika, dengue, chikungunya and yellow fever – has already been approved by both state and federal bodies, with the EPA signing off on it in May. “With all the urgent crises facing our nation and the State of Florida – the Covid-19 pandemic, racial injustice, climate change – the administration has used tax dollars and government resources for a Jurassic Park experiment,” said Jaydee Hanson, policy director for the International Center for Technology Assessment and Center for Food Safety in a Wednesday statement reported by CNN.”What could possibly go wrong? We don’t know, because EPA unlawfully refused to seriously analyze environmental risks, now without further review of the risks, the experiment can proceed,” she added.Named OX5034, the mosquito has been genetically altered to produce only female offspring which die in the larval stage, before they can hatch and start biting things. Only female mosquitoes suck blood, which they require to mature their eggs. Males feed on nectar and are not carriers for disease.To grow them to adulthood, however, the antibiotic tetracycline is added to the water – creating batches of sterile OX513A which would be allowed to mate with females, whose offspring would inherit the self-destruct programming and die. The same mosquitoes have also been approved for release in Harris County, Texas beginning next year, according to the US-owned UK-based Oxitec which developed the genetically modified bugs and has field tested them in the Cayman Islands, Panama and Brazil. According to the company, a trial in an urban area of Brazil reduced the Aedes aegypti by 95%. Florida reached out to Oxitec in 2012, after 2009 and 2010 outbreaks of dengue fever in the Florida Keys were unable to be contained with aerial, truck and backpack spraying, as well as the use of mosquito-eating fish.That said, a backlash over the GMO mosquitoes has ensued – with nearly 250,000 people signing a Change.org petition against the plan.
Ohio EPA blames fish kill in Tuscarawas River on dishwashing detergent – – At this time, the source of the foam is not known. The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency has determined dishwashing detergent created foam and killed fish Monday in the Tuscarawas River in northern Stark and southern Summit counties. Someone dumped the detergent on the ground near a storm drain by Sunnyside Street SW and Market Avenue NW in Hartville, EPA spokesman Anthony Chenault said Tuesday. Rain pushed it into the river, where it affected eight miles of river and tributaries from Lake Township to Springfield Township. The agency, which continues to investigate the incident, used six pumps to aerate the water near Twin Lakes Drive and Sweitzer Road. “The incident has dissipated and we are demobilizing,” Chenault wrote in an email Tuesday afternoon. Residents living along the river said they discovered hundreds of dead fish floating in the water Monday. EPA spokeswoman Heidi Griesmer said the agency was notified and called in the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) to investigate the source of the problem. Springfield residents Jim and Diane Millard, who have lived in their house for 44 years near the Tuscarawas River in the area of Pontius Road, said they had never seen an incident like this. A live fish could not be found in that area of the river.
What made the Mahoning River in Alliance turn orange? – An accidental discharge from the PTC plant on the north side of Alliance resulted in an orange discoloration in the Mahoning River. That was the findings of Ohio Environmental Protection Agency investigators who were summoned when city officials discovered the discoloration in the Mahoning River Tuesday. The discharge initially went into a storm sewer. “Wastewater from PTC Alliance was accidentally discharged into the storm sewer,” Anthony Chenault, a public relations officer for the EPA, wrote in an email statement. City Fire Department officials were notified Tuesday of the discoloration in the Mahoning River by a city employee. “We were there for the better part of six hours (Tuesday) night,” Fire Chief Jason Hunt said. “It was an odor that went along with the discoloration. We didn’t know exactly what we were dealing with. To be honest, I still don’t know what we are dealing with.” Hunt described the color in the river as orange. “It is usually a lovely shade of brown,” Hunt said. “It appeared there was substance being released. There was not, at least obvious to us, a fish kill. That is not to say there won’t be.” The discoloration covers a half-mile stretch of the Mahoning River between Gaskill Drive and Webb Avenue on the north side of Alliance. And just south of the river sits the PTC plant is nearby in the 600 block of Keystone Street. “The company hired an environmental contractor to clean the creek and storm sewer system,” Chenault also wrote in his email statement. “An environmental consultant also was hired to do an assessment on the impact to the river.” The EPA’s statement, however, does not speculate on what the chemical or compound is that drifted into the Mahoning River. “My understanding it was caustic material,” city Safety-Service Director Michael Dreger said. “They were checking if it would affect our water supply. We get our water from Deer Creek, and Deer Creek is a tributary to the Mahoning. We get our water before it gets to the Mahoning. It in no way impacts our water supply.”
Lake Erie’s Toxic Green Slime is Getting Worse With Climate Change – As the summer winds down, much of western Lake Erie stinks. Green goo – miles and miles of it – floats on the surface, emanating a smell like rotting fish as it decays. The scum isn’t just unpleasant. It’s dangerous.Harmful algal blooms are a health hazard in all 50 states. But Lake Erie, the shallowest, and therefore the warmest, of the five Great Lakes, is uniquely vulnerable to algal blooms. Like most other water bodies suffering from blooms, the lake is overloaded with nutrients, forming the perfect breeding ground for a bacteria known to poison pets, contaminate drinking water and create oxygen-deprived “dead zones” that kill aquatic life. The lake’s immediate future looks grim: the blooms are worsening with climate change, and pose a threat to tourism and recreation. But research into the lake’s gunky plight is flourishing, and the findings are relevant worldwide. The blue-green “algae” smothering Erie, Microcystis – which is not really algae but a kind of photosynthetic bacteria – abounds in lakes on every continent except Antarctica. “Why is it such a good competitor? That’s what we’re hoping to learn,” Toxic cyanobacteria, colloquially dubbed “toxic algae,” burst into the spotlight in the United States in 2014, after a drinking water plant in Toledo, Ohio, found dangerous levels of toxins during a routine test, and the city declared the tap water undrinkable. Hundreds of thousands of people were left scrambling to find safe water until Toledo lifted the ban more than two days later. Lake Erie’s biggest tributary, the Maumee River, flows into Erie’s western basin, the shallowest part of the lake. More than 70 percent of the Maumee’s watershed is used for agriculture, and rainfall washes nitrogen and phosphorus – the two key nutrients for algae growth – from fertilizer used on farmland into the Maumee. The nutrients in that runoff are transported directly to the lake. Rainfall and nutrient levels are the two main factors that influence bloom size. The release of nitrogen and phosphorus from agriculture, the biggest source of nutrients entering Lake Erie, can be controlled. But heavier rainfall leads to increased nutrient loading from all sources, including natural ones, which is causing bigger blooms. Algae thrives in warmer water, and climate change is expected to bring warmer, wetter weather to the region, exacerbating existing factors.
Michigan Agrees to Pay $600 Million to Flint Water Crisis Victims –The state of Michigan has reached a settlement with the victims of the Flint water crisis. Michigan agreed to pay $600 million, which will primarily benefit the city’s children since they were most affected by the lead-tainted water, The Washington Post reported.The settlement will be officially announced on Friday. It is expected that tens of thousands of residents will be eligible for compensation, which is subject to approval by a federal judge in Michigan, The New York Timesreported.Governor Gretchen Whitmer and Attorney General Dana Nessel have been entrenched in negotiations with lawyers for more than 18 months on behalf of the thousands of Flint residents who filed a lawsuit against the state, the AP reported.The issue in the case dates back to 2014, when Flint city officials changed the city’s water supply source from Lake Huron to the Flint River. The decision was made under the leadership of a state-appointed emergency manager who overlooked safety precautions. This resulted in chemicals and lead leaching into Flint’s drinking water through corroded pipes, The Hill reported.At the time, residents began to complain about discolored and foul-smelling water. Soon after that, residents reported skin rashes, but their concerns were ignored. Local pediatrician Mona Hanna-Attisha warned that abnormally high lead levels were appearing in children. Lead poisoning can severely harm brain development, The Washington Post reported.Flint’s water source is once again supplied by Lake Huron, but many residents continue to cook, drink and brush their teeth with bottled water. In 2016, researchers said there were no longer detectable levels of lead in many homes, according to the AP.However, Flint’s necessary pipe repairs remain unfinished. The repairs were supposed to be made by January, but were paused in the spring due to the coronavirus pandemic, The Hill reported.
Heat wave, rolling blackouts affect thousands across California – As record high temperatures for this time of year crossed the state of California, utility companies conducted rolling blackouts affecting more than 410,000 homes and businesses over the weekend. A total of 20 record highs for August 14 and 15 were set or tied in 15 cities across the state, with the most remarkable being 105 degrees Fahrenheit in the coastal city of Santa Cruz, breaking the last record of 96 set 114 years ago. In a troubling indicator of climate change, 13 of the previous records were set last year. According to the National Weather Service (NWS), highs in inland areas will continue to reach 100 to 110 F through the middle of next week. The NWS has issued excessive heat warnings for much of the country west of the Rocky Mountains. Maximum temperatures have been 5 to 15 degrees above normal in interior areas, and could rival conditions last seen during the deadly July 2006 North American heat wave, which killed at least 147 people in California, according to coroner reports. A 2009 study in the journal Environmental Research estimated that the number of deaths due to that heat wave was in fact two to three times higher. As National Weather Service meteorologist Bruno Rodriguez noted in a video briefing, “the cumulative effect from so many days of above-average temperatures is definitely going to act to increase the overall heat risk.” A study this year in the journal Environmental Epidemiology estimated that, nationally, about 5,600 deaths are attributable to heat annually, more than from any other weather-related cause. Extreme heat disproportionately affects children and the elderly, and the vast majority of deaths occur in poor and working class neighborhoods. A 2019 study from USC, published in Environmental Research Letters, found that 31 percent of residential homes in the Greater Los Angeles area did not have access to air conditioning. “Cooling stations” have been opened in some districts, but with limited capacity due to social-distancing measures. The elderly and people with preexisting medical conditions, among the most vulnerable to both overheating and COVID-19, will now have to choose between extreme heat and exposing themselves to infection. And as sociology professor Eric Klinenberg recently commented to the LA Times, “social isolation combined with extreme heat is a proven killer.” The heat wave comes during a pandemic which has intensified an already intense crisis for working families. Unemployment was 19.4 percent in LA county as of August 3, almost 1 million people. A 2020 study by UCLA’s Institute on Inequality and Democracy estimated that there are 449,000 individuals who are unemployed, with no income, living in rental housing in Los Angeles county, putting them at high risk for homelessness.. Rolling blackouts affected over 130,000 people in Southern California Friday, after the state ordered utilities to decrease power output by 1,000 megawatts due to the increased demand. Blackouts continued Saturday evening after a 470-megawatt power plant unexpectedly went offline, with utility companies cutting power to 130,000 people in southern California and 220,000 people in the Central Coast and Central Valley areas.
Death Valley reaches 130 degrees, hottest temperature in U.S. in at least 107 years- On Sunday, the thermometer at Death Valley’s Furnace Creek, located in the deserts of Southern California, soared to 130 degrees Fahrenheit, according to NOAA’s Weather Prediction Center. If verified, it would be the hottest temperature recorded in the U.S. since 1913, and perhaps the hottest temperature ever reliably recorded in the world. The historic reading is just a small part of a massive, intense and long-lasting heat domesmothering the West Coast that will continue to get worse through Tuesday. The highest temperature ever recorded on Earth was also observed in Death Valley – 134 degrees Fahrenheit in 1913. However, many experts contend that temperature reading, along with various other temperatures recorded that summer, was likely an observer error. A 2016 analysis by Weather Underground historian Christopher Burt revealed that other observations from the region in 1913 simply do not square with the Death Valley reading. Because of the unique landscape and meteorology, the daily readings from the various observation sites in that area of the desert Southwest are almost always in lockstep with each other. But during the week the all-time record was set in 1913, while other sites were around 8 degrees above normal, the Death Valley readings were 18 degrees above normal. In 1931, a record-high temperature for Africa was recorded in Tunisia at 131 degrees. However, according to Burt, this recording, and many others in Africa from the colonial period, has “serious credibility issues.” Because of these discrepancies, experts say the hottest temperature ever “reliably” recorded on Earth is 129.2 degrees, from 2013 in Death Valley. That is, until now. Assuming no abnormalities are apparent, Sunday’s reading will likely be accepted. It seems the reading is not suspect, but if there is reason for skepticism, the National Weather Service or World Meteorological Society may choose to conduct a review. The current heat wave is certainly not limited to deserts. Record-breaking heat extends from Arizona to Washington state. Throughout the coming week, more than 100 temperature records are expected to be challenged. On Saturday, several cities recorded all-time high August temperatures. The peak of the heat wave will be Monday and Tuesday, and then the dome will weaken a little as it shrinks back into the Southwest. But while temperatures may drop just a couple of degrees, the blazing heat will likely continue in California and the Southwest for the next 10 days.
America Has Never Experienced A Heatwave Quite Like This – Every summer is hot, and every summer there are heatwaves, but what we are witnessing in 2020 is rewriting all of the rules. It has been blistering hot across the Southwest, and record after record is being broken. In a year when we have had a seemingly endless series of things go wrong, we definitely didn’t need a historic heatwave to hit us, and it is causing all sorts of problems. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like we will be getting any relief for at least a few more days, because it is being reported that record-setting heat is “expected to last throughout the week”… As many as 52 million people remain under heat alerts in the West on Monday, where some could see temperatures between 110 and 130 degrees. The heat is expected to last throughout the week, possibly setting more than 100 new daily record highs.A high temperature of 100 degrees is really hot, a high temperature of 110 degrees is dangerously hot, a high temperature of 120 degrees is catastrophically hot, and a high temperature of 130 degrees is not supposed to happen. But it just did.On Sunday, the high temperature in Death Valley reached 130 degrees…A temperature of 130 degrees Fahrenheit (54.4 degrees Celsius) recorded in California’s Death Valley on Sunday by the US National Weather Service could be the hottest ever measured with modern instruments, officials say. The reading was registered at 3:41 pm at the Furnace Creek Visitor Center in the Death Valley national park by an automated observation system – an electronic thermometer encased inside a box in the shade. Prior to Sunday, modern instruments had never measured a temperature that high anywhere in the world. Just one day before, we witnessed a new daily record high temperature in Sacramento… Downtown Sacramento set a new record-high temperature of 111 degrees on Saturday, during what is the biggest heatwave of the year so far in the area. And that came on the heels of Palm Springs absolutely smashing a daily record on Friday… Palm Springs shattered the previous record of 117° for today’s date by recording 120° this afternoon! Thermal set a record for the ‘highest minimum’ for the days date with a low temperature of just 92° this morning. Needless to say, all of this heat is putting an enormous amount of strain on California’s power system as people endlessly stay indoors and try to cool off. In fact, things have gotten so bad that authorities just announced “the first rolling blackouts in the state since 2001″…
Cold-weather accounts for almost all temperature-related deaths -With the number of extreme weather days rising around the globe in recent years due to global warming, it is no surprise that there has been an upward trend in hospital visits and admissions for injuries caused by high heat over the last several years. But cold temperatures are responsible for almost all temperature-related deaths, according to a new study published in the journal Environmental Research. According to the new study by researchers at the University of Illinois Chicago, patients who died because of cold temperatures were responsible for 94% of temperature-related deaths, even though hypothermia was responsible for only 27% of temperature-related hospital visits. “With the decrease in the number of cold weather days over the last several decades, we still see more deaths due to cold weather as opposed to hot weather,” said Lee Friedman, associate professor of environmental and occupational health sciences in the UIC School of Public Health and corresponding author on the paper. “This is in part due to the body’s poorer ability to thermoregulate once hypothermia sets in, as well as since there are fewer cold weather days overall, people don’t have time to acclimate to cold when those rarer cold days do occur.” Hypothermia, or a drop in the body’s core temperature, doesn’t require sub-arctic temps. Even mildly cool temperatures can initiate hypothermia, defined as a drop in body temperature from the normal 98.7 degrees to 95 degrees Fahrenheit. When this occurs, organs and systems begin to shut down in an effort to preserve the brain. The process, once started, can be very difficult to get under control; however, people who are more regularly exposed to lower temperatures are better able to resist hypothermia. Heat-related issues are more likely to self-resolve by getting to a cooler place or by hydrating, Friedman said. The researchers looked at inpatient and outpatient heat- and cold-related injuries that required a hospital visit in Illinois between 2011 and 2018. They identified 23,834 cold-related cases and 24,233 heat-related cases. Among these patients, there were 1,935 cold-related deaths and 70 heat-related deaths. “We found five to 10 times more temperature-related deaths by linking the hospital data to data from the National Weather Service and medical examiner’s data,” he said. “There are a lot more people dying from temperature-related injuries than is generally reported.”
Massive wildfire spawns fire tornadoes in Northern California – A massive wildfire in Northern California spawned rotating columns of flames Saturday, prompting forecasters to issue a rare fire-related tornado warning. “It was a first for us,” said Shane Snyder, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Reno, which issued the warning shortly before 3 p.m.Multiple videos posted to social media showed twister-like formations in the path of the Loyalton fire, which started Friday evening in the Tahoe National Forest near California’s border with Nevada. The fire quickly grew to 20,000 acres and was 0% contained as of Sunday morning. Authorities were performing updated flight mapping and expected the acreage to rise, said Joe Flannery, public affairs officer for the national forest.“Our resources on the ground are facing extreme fire behavior, rugged terrain and warm temperatures,” Flannery said. Evan Bentley, severe weather meteorologist with the National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center, wrote on Twitter that radar data showed at least four “distinct anticyclonic circulations” associated with the fire on Saturday. One was present for more than an hour and traveled about four miles, he wrote.The extreme weather phenomenon is believed to have been sparked by the rapid growth and intensity of the blaze.“It was hot; it was very unstable atmospherically,” Snyder said in an interview, “and that allowed the fire, which is burning very hot and [through] lots of fuel, to really explode up in a vertical sense, up into the atmosphere.”The hotter the air, the more rapidly it rises, he said.“Hot air wants to rise, and if it’s very hot it wants to rise dramatically,” Snyder said. “It’s allowed to rise because the temperature of the air the fire makes is much warmer than the air around it. So it keeps rising until it’s not warmer than the air around it.” That can send a column of smoke up tens of thousands of feet into the atmosphere, he said. And as it rises, the air underneath it needs to be replaced, creating a vortex that pulls in air from all around it.
California Sees Record Heat, Rolling Blackouts and a ‘Firenado’ – While California has several microclimates that make the temperatures and weather patterns in various parts of the state wildly different from each other, few areas were left unaffected by the extreme heat that has blanketed the state. In Southern California, triple-digit temperatures have taxed the power grid so much that utilities had to impose rolling blackouts for the first time since 2011. In Death Valley, the temperature reached 130 degrees, and in Northern California a freak lightening storm ignited small fires and stoked ongoing ones. In the northeastern part of the state, the winds and high-temperatures caused strange fire behavior, leading to “rotating columns and fire whirls,” colloquially known as a “firenado.”The bizarre and rare firenado was spotted on Saturday near the Loyalton Fire in the northeastern part of the state by the Nevada border. The fire, which started in the Tahoe National Forest, had burned more than 2,000 acres by Saturday evening. Video of the firenado was posted to Twitter with the line, “Fire Tornado today outside Chilcoot and Hallelujah Junction California. This was intense and scary!!!!” Firenados are very similar to regular tornados. They are formed when the rising hot air meets changing wind patterns higher in the atmosphere. Those winds shift the direction of the blazes. Unlike a regular tornado, the winds in a firenado shift smoke plumes around, making them extremely dangerous to anyone nearby, as NBC News reported.”The big concern is that it’s extremely erratic fire behavior,” said John Mittelstadt, a Reno-based meteorologist with the National Weather Service, as NBC News reported. “For any of the firefighters who are working on one flank of the fire, all of a sudden, there is no way to predict what the winds are going to do or how strong they are going to be,” he added. Meanwhile, the Bay Area faced triple-digit heat for the first time ever in August. It also witnessed a rare lightning storm. While beautiful, it raised the fire threat significantly for the parched area. On Sunday, the National Weather Service (NWS) issued a red flag fire warning for “critical fire weather conditions” until Monday morning, as The Guardian reported. “Any lightning strikes will likely lead to new fire starts given the current heat wave,” the NWS forecasters said, according to The Guardian. “A secondary pulse of moisture and instability arrives later Sunday into early Monday.”
Who’s to blame for California’s rotating blackouts? – Los Angeles Times – California’s power grid operator delivered a blistering rebuke Monday to the state’s Public Utilities Commission, blaming the agency for rotating power outages – the first since the 2001 energy crisis – and warning of bigger blackouts to come.In their first public comments since the blackouts began Friday evening, officials at the California Independent System Operator described a “perfect storm” of conditions that caused demand to exceed available supply: scorching temperatures in California and across the western United States, diminished output from renewable sources and fossil-fueled power plants affected by the weather, and in some cases plants going offline unexpectedly when electricity was needed most.But Stephen Berberich, the grid operator’s president, said the state could have been prepared for that perfect storm if only the Public Utilities Commission had ordered utility companies to line up sufficient power supplies.During the grid operator’s board meeting Monday, Berberich faulted the commission for failing to ensure adequate power capacity on hot summer evenings, when electricity from the state’s growing fleet of rooftop solar panels and sprawling solar farms rapidly drops to zero but demand for air conditioning remains high. It’s a challenge that will only intensify as California adds more solar panels and wind turbines to meet its targets of 60% renewable electricity by 2030 and 100% emissions-free power by 2045.“For many years, we have pointed out to the [Public Utilities Commission] that there was inadequate power available during the net peak,” Berberich said, referring to the evening period when solar production dries up but cooling demand remains high. “The situation we are in could have been avoided.”He added, “It’s near certain that we will be forced to ask the utilities to cut off power to millions today to balance supply and demand – today, tomorrow and perhaps beyond.” Asked about the grid operator’s criticism, commission spokeswoman Terrie Prosper said the agency is “working with our sister agencies to better understand why this occurred.” “The question we’re tackling is why certain resources were not available,” she said in an email. Even before this week’s heat wave, which saw temperatures reach a record-shattering 130 degrees in Death Valley, California’s power system was in flux. So much solar power is generated during the afternoon that California sometimes pays other states to take its excess supply. But there are fewer gas-fired power plants than in past years to pick up the slack each evening. And coal plants have been shutting down across the West because of competition from cheaper natural gas and renewables, meaning there may be less energy available for California to import in a pinch.
PolitiFact | Grid Operator Rejects Trump’s False Claim ‘Democrats’ Purposely Triggered Calif.’s Rolling Blackouts – President Trump claimed in a tweet on Tuesday, without evidence, that “In California, Democrats have intentionally implemented rolling blackouts.” The state and much of the Western United States is in the middle of a searing heat wave. California’s grid operator called for utilities to initiate temporary blackouts on Friday and Saturday as the high demand for electricity outstripped supply. Additional blackouts are possible. We set out to fact check the president’s questionable claim that politics was at play in deciding to call for the blackouts. The state’s power grid is managed by the California Independent System Operator, or CAISO. It is a nonprofit public benefit corporation. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom nominates members to the organization’s board of governors. But the decision to call for blackouts was made by a shift manager at CAISO’s control room, not by the board or the organization’s CEO, officials said on Tuesday. “There wasn’t any party affiliation or other kind of input into the decisions to shed load on Friday and Saturday night,” Steve Berberich, the system operator’s CEO, told the media, as reported by the San Francisco Chronicle. On Saturday evening, PG&E, which provides power to much of Northern and Central California, said 220,000 customers lost electricity. Outages were mostly in portions of the Central Coast and Central Valley, including Monterey, Santa Cruz and San Joaquin counties. Approximately the same number of customers lost power on Friday evening. Severin Borenstein, who sits on CAISO’s board of governors, said calling for rolling blackouts is a last resort measure to avoid having “the entire grid go down.” Politics, he said, had nothing to do with it.
Fires Surge in Brazil’s Amazon a Month After Bolsonaro Declared Fire Ban – A month after Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro declared a 120-day ban on setting fires in the Amazon rainforest and three months after he deployed military troops to combat deforestation, Greenpeace on Tuesday called out the far-right leader for his ineffective strategies and attacks on environmental protections. “Bolsonaro’s administration has continued to systematically dismantle environmental protection and has undermined the work of environmental law enforcement agencies,” Cristiane Mazzetti, an Amazon campaigner for Greenpeace Brazil, said in a statement. “Bolsonaro’s supposed fire ban has already been undermined by Bolsonaro himself. Sending troops to the Amazon is just a PR stunt and a waste of resources.” The Brazilian president, who took office in January 2019, has long been criticized within and beyond his country’s borders for targeting the environment and Indigenous people, and for his attempts to open up the Amazon to more economic development. Fires in the Amazon are often set to illegally clear land for farming, ranching, and mining. Satellite data released in early August by Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE) suggest Bolsonaro’s military deployment and fire ban aren’t working. The agency reported that fire activity in the Amazon throughout July jumped 28% compared with the same month last year. INPE documented 6,803 fires in the rainforest last month, compared to 5,318 in 2019. “And it’s still early – August is generally considered to be the start of the fire season, which typically hits during drier months,” German broadcaster Deutsche Welle reported Tuesday. “More than 10,000 fires were recorded in the first 10 days of this month, up 17% from the same period last year, according to INPE.” Greenpeace’s Romulo Batista said in response to the INPE data in early August that “more than 1,000 fires in a single day is a 15-year record and shows the government’s strategy of media-spectacle operations is not working on the ground.” Bolsonaro disputed the fire data from his own government in an August 11 speech to South American leaders, saying that “tropical rainforest doesn’t catch fire. So this story that the Amazon is burning is a lie, and we have to fight it with real numbers.”
Amazon’s Widespread Fire Damage Is ‘Invisible to Our Eyes’ – 2020 is shaping up to be another destructive year for the Amazon rainforest in Brazil. Deforestation – a grim precursor to the fires used to clear the land for development – has increased significantly, according to observers. And many experts fear the region could see a repeat of the destructive wildfires of last August and September. Satellite data released by Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE) on August 1 showed more than 6,800 fires across the Amazon region in July, an increase of 28% compared with last year. And it’s still early – August is generally considered to be the start of the fire season, which typically hits during drier months. More than 10,000 fires were recorded in the first 10 days of this month, up 17% from the same period last year, according to INPE. Last year’s deforestation toll on the world’s biggest rainforest – 60% of which is in Brazil – was an estimated 10,000 square kilometers (3,800 square miles), roughly the size of Lebanon. That’s the highest level since 2008, according to INPE. President Jair Bolsonaro – who has repeatedly called for more of the Amazon region to be cleared for economic development – disputed the recent fire data in a speech to other South American leaders on August 11. Bolsonaro challenged the leaders to fly over the rainforest from Boa Vista to Manaus, a distance of some 750 kilometers (460 miles), and see for themselves. “They won’t find any spot of fire, nor a quarter of a hectare deforested,” he said. While these forests may still appear untouched when viewed from above, the green landscape seen from a plane or satellite can be deceptive. A typical wildfire burning through the understory – the vegetation growing beneath the forest’s main canopy – of a virgin rainforest can wipe out small shrubs, plants and between 40 to 50% of all trees. “A considerable part of the Amazon forest has been consecutively degraded, and it’s invisible to our eyes,” said Ane Alencar, director of science at the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM), a Brazilian non-governmental organization. “In fact, the quality of these forests has been degraded due to these forest fires.” When much of the undergrowth and smaller trees are eliminated, it makes it difficult to maintain the moist understory microclimate that helps protect rainforests from fires. These microclimates are already suffering, with the average temperature in the Amazon basin having risen by at least 0.5 degrees Celsius (0.9 degrees Fahrenheit) since 1980, according to climate data from USAID. The dry season has become longer and severe droughts are now more frequent, with three reported since 2005.The damage doesn’t end with the initial blaze, either. Larger trees, which may be harmed in a fire but survive thanks to the moist environment, could finally succumb to the trauma years later. “Initially, it’s the small trees which die because they are most vulnerable to the heat stress, but over time it’s actually the larger trees which die and fall over, taking with them many other trees,”
“Deflect, Delay, Defer”: Decade of Pacific Gas & Electric Wildfire Safety Pushback Preceded Disasters – PBS – After sparking a series of deadly fires in Northern California and then shutting off power to millions of people in an attempt to avoid sparking more, Pacific Gas & Electric has started on an ambitious slate of upgrades that it says will drastically reduce the number of new fires sparked by its electrical equipment. The utility giant’s leaders have said that transformation may take as long as a decade. But a detailed review of documents and hearings shows that PG&E spent the last 10 years resisting many of those very same reforms. A FRONTLINE investigation found dozens of instances of such pushback: For instance, the company fought a proposal that it report every fire its equipment caused, describing the measure as an “unnecessary cost” of time and resources in a 2010 filing. The following year, responding to another proposal, its attorneys wrote that “PG&E does not agree that it is necessary to require a formal plan specific to fire prevention.” And for years, the Northern California company argued to regulators that it shouldn’t be held to the same standards as its Southern California counterparts, saying wind-driven fire risk in its territory was significantly lower than in Southern California. These battles unfolded mainly within a little-publicized proceeding overseen by its regulator, the California Public Utilities Commission. In recent years, the commission has monitored the utilities’ fire safety more aggressively. But from 2008 to 2018, even as it wrote rules aimed at reducing utility wildfires, the commission didn’t have a single staff member who specialized in wildfire prevention. During that period, according to three former employees, the commission was hamstrung by too few enforcement officers and distracted by simultaneous investigations into other utility catastrophes, which allowed utility lawyers to dominate its proceedings. In many cases, PG&E could have upgraded its systems and passed along those costs to its consumers as rate increases. After starting a devastating fire in 2018, the company filed for bankruptcy. Its exit plan, approved in June, leaves the company as much as $38 billion in debt, including $13.5 billion in compensation owed to people who lost their homes and businesses in fires over the last several years. PG&E wasn’t the only utility that pushed back against fire-prevention regulations. California’s two other major investor-owned utilities, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric, usually sided with them. But documents and interviews suggest that the vigor and persistence of PG&E’s resistance stood out.
California governor declares state of emergency as dozens of wildfires rage – California’s governor has declared a state of emergency as the state battles dozens of wildfires amid a historic heatwave. “We are deploying every resource available to keep communities safe asCalifornia battles fires across the state during these extreme conditions,” said Gavin Newsom, the state governor, on Tuesday. “California and its federal and local partners are working in lockstep to meet the challenge and remain vigilant in the face of continued dangerous weather conditions.” Fires of varying size are currently burning across the state including in Sonoma, San Mateo, Napa, Butte, Nevada and Monterey counties. Evacuations were in effect or growing in the Napa county wine country north of San Francisco Bay, near Salinas in Monterey county, around Oroville Dam north of Sacramento and near the Nevada state line north of Lake Tahoe.Several fires had been sparked by lightening strikes during unusual thunderstorms prompted by the extreme heatwave, which has sent temperatures soaring into the triple digits. One of the largest – the SCU Lightning Complex fire, comprised of fires burningin several Bay Area counties – has so far consumed 25,000 acres and remains 0% contained.A fire in Napa county was burning close to remote grape-growing properties owned by Villa Del Lago Winery.“Our vineyard workers had to evacuate very quickly. And we heard this morning that there was zero containment, so that’s scary. It’s very steep, so I know it’s hard for firefighters to get up there,” Firefighters toiled in oppressive heat as the fires burned, posing threats to homes, forcing evacuations and fouling the air with smoke far beyond the largely rural or wilderness areas where flames fed on very dry vegetation. In southern California, evacuations continued for a week-old fire in the mountains of northern Los Angeles county. Dynamic weather churned up thunderstorms bringing the double threat of more lightning-sparked fires and flash floods. Meanwhile, California’s power grid operators are under pressure to avoid more power blackouts as an ongoing heat wave stresses the electrical system. Thousands lost electricity over the weekend as the system strained under high demand, a situation Newsom described as“unacceptable”.
California governor calls wildfires ‘deadly moment,’ urges residents to flee – (Reuters) – Hundreds of wildfires burning across Central and Northern California that have already killed six people more than doubled in size on Friday, becoming some of the largest in state history and threatening small towns in the path of the flames. The conflagrations, which broke out over the last week, have blackened an area larger than the U.S. state of Rhode Island and destroyed more than 500 homes and other structures. In addition to the fatalities, 43 firefighters and civilians have been hurt. California Governor Gavin Newsom said crews were fighting 560 fires across the state, many of them sparked by lightning storms, straining resources to the breaking point as he seeks reinforcements from as far away as Canada and Australia. “We are not naive by any stretch about how deadly this moment is and why it is essential … that you heed evacuation orders and that you take them seriously,” Newsom, a Democrat, told Californians at a news briefing. The state has been hit by its worst dry-lightning storms in nearly two decades as close to 12,000 strikes here have sent flames racing through lands left parched by a recent heat wave. Some 175,000 people have been told to leave their homes. In Santa Cruz, a city of around 65,000 people on California’s central coast, residents were told to prepare “go bags” as bulldozers cut fire lines and flames came within a mile of the University of California Santa Cruz campus. Video footage posted on social media showed giant Redwood trees, some more than 2,000 years old, standing largely unscathed among the torched ruins of buildings in and around Big Basin Redwoods State Park.
Trump Wanted to Withhold Wildfire Aid to California Over Political Differences, Former DHS Official Says –President Donald Trump wanted to cut off wildfire relief money to California because the state did not support his political goals, a former administration staffer has claimed.In a scathing campaign ad released Monday by Republican Voters Against Trump (RVAT), former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Miles Taylor said that his experience had showed him that the president wanted to “exploit the Department of Homeland Security for his own political purposes and to fuel his own agenda.”In one example, Taylor cited a phone call Trump made to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).”He told FEMA to cut off the money and to no longer give individual assistance to California,” Taylor said. “He told us to stop giving money to people whose houses had burned down from a wildfire because he was so rageful that people in the state of California didn’t support him and that politically it wasn’t a base for him.” Taylor does not say when Trump made the alleged call, the San Francisco Chronicle pointed out.However, Trump did publicly clash with California over wildfire aid two months after the Camp Fire killed 84 people and devastated the town of Paradise.In January 2019, he said he had ordered FEMA not to give any more money to the state, but said the reason was forest management policies, not politics. “Billions of dollars are sent to the State of California for Forest fires that, with proper Forest Management, would never happen,” the president tweeted at the time. “Unless they get their act together, which is unlikely, I have ordered FEMA to send no more money. It is a disgraceful situation in lives & money!” Billions of dollars are sent to the State of California for Forest fires that, with proper Forest Management, would… https://t.co/l5Jyjb8lEs – Donald J. Trump (@Donald J. Trump)1547047543.0 The tweet was widely criticized by California firefighters and politicians at the time for making such a threat following a major tragedy. Trump’s focus on forest management was also seen as a way to downplay the role of the climate crisis in fueling more extreme fires.
Trump Pulls Nomination of William Pendley to Head Nation’s Public Lands, Yet Pendley Remains in Charge – Environmental campaigners on Saturday welcomed news that President Donald Trump withdrew his nomination of “pro-polluter” and “unapologetic racist” William Perry Pendley for director of the Bureau of Land Management, with groups saying he should no longer be allowed to continue in his role as unofficial head of the agency. Pendley, who’s called fracking an “environmental miracle,” was panned by civil rights, environmental, tribal, and immigrant advocacy groups as “the worst possible person you could conjure to be a leading steward of our shared public lands” given his public record that includes a history of racist and sexist comments, “overt racism” toward native people, dismissal of the climate crisis, suggestion that “the Founding Fathers intended all lands owned by the federal government to be sold,” and a 17-page list of 57 potential conflicts of interest. “Pendley never should have been nominated, and the fact that he was shows you what you need to know about this administration’s conservation priorities,” Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) said in a statement Saturday. Trump formally nominated Pendley in June to lead BLM, an agency within the Interior Department (DOI). However, he has been overseeing – to the outrage of progressive groups – BLM for over a year, with the agency’s website describinghim as “exercising authority of the director.” Outdoor Life first reported on the news of the withdrawal. Interior spokesperson Nicholas Goodwin confirmed the nomination withdrawal toThe Hill but provided no explanation for the decision. “The president makes staffing decisions. Mr. Pendley continues to lead the Bureau of Land Management as Deputy Director for Programs and Policy,” Goodwin said. Critics of Pendley responded to the news with fresh attacks on his record. According to Lena Moffitt, director of the Sierra Club’s Our Wild America campaign, “Pendley’s tenure as head of the Bureau of Land Management, like the entire Trump administration, has been a disaster for our public lands. At best, he’s demonstrated a total disregard for the health of our communities and our wild places, prioritizing giveaways to polluting fossil fuel corporations. At worst, he actively worked against marginalized communities.”
Official who briefed Trump on Hurricane Florence said president was obsessed with which way storm was spinning ‘like a 3rd grader’–Former US Department of Homeland Security Chief Miles Taylor claimed Donald Trump was unfocused during security briefings, likening him to a distracted elementary school student. During an interview on CNN, Mr Taylor recounted a story about an interaction with Mr Trump during which he claimed the president became fascinated by the way hurricanes spin rather than staying focused on the potential damage and loss of life the storm could cause if the White House did not act.Mr Taylor said initially he thought the president was intently studying the storm, and described him studying a foam board where pictures of the hurricane and its projected path were hanging. “Then he turned to me and said ‘I’ve got a question’ … ‘do the hurricanes always spin this direction?'” Mr Taylor said. “He meant counter clockwise, that’s called the Coriolis effect.” He claimed the president then followed up asking if that was why water in Australian toilets flow opposite of those in the US. “This is what the president was focused on. Americans were on the path of a deadly hurricane, he needed to get out there and tell them to evacuate, and he was just marvelled at the way that hurricanes spin, in a way that a third grader might learning about earth science,” Mr Taylor said. “This is the president that we’re talking about to keep us safe.” Mr Taylor – now employed by Google – was formerly a major ally of Mr Trump. He helped form the policies that led to Mr Trump’s migrant child separation policy at the border. Mr Taylor attempted to distance himself from the policy in a Washington Post op-ed he wrote earlier this week. He recently took a leave of absence from Google so he can campaign for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden prior to the 2020 US election.
2 Hurricanes Could Strike U.S. on the Same Day for the First Time in History – Yet another extraordinary event could be added to 2020’s list of historic disruptions, as two developing hurricanes may make landfall in the U.S. at the same time early next week, according to The Weather Channel.”What are the odds? It has never happened before that two hurricanes made landfall on the same day,” said Brent Watts, chief meteorologist at WDBJ, the CBS News affiliate in Roanoke, VA, in a tweet. “A tropical storm and a hurricane made landfall at Midnight on Sep. 5, 1933. We’ll see how this plays out over the next 5 days.” If the two developing storms strengthen into systems with sustained winds above 39 miles per hour, they will be named Laura and Marcos, respectively. That will mark the earliest L and M named storms in history, according to CBS News.”Tropical Depression 14 has formed in the western Caribbean,” said Phillip Klotzbach, a meteorologist at Colorado State University, in a tweet, “The next Atlantic named storm in 2020 will be #Laura. Current Atlantic record for earliest ‘L’ storm is Luis on August 29, 1995.”
Dual hurricane landfall in Louisiana becoming more likely (WAFB) – The latest advisories from the National Weather Service show the possibility of two hurricanes making landfall in Louisiana within 48 hours of each other. While the tracks do appear ominous, it’s important to note that the forecast tracks can change significantly within the coming days. In fact, the predicted track for Marco shifted dramatically from the 10 a.m. advisory to the one issued at 4 p.m. Saturday. A Hurricane Watch has been issued for along the Gulf Coast from the MS/AL state line west all the way to Pecan Island, LA. Inland parishes near the tidal lakes have also been put under a Hurricane Watch. A portion of the Florida Parishes and metro Baton Rouge are currently under a Tropical Storm Watch. Tropical Storm and Hurricane Watches mean that those conditions are expected within the next 36-48 hours. The big change from the NHC’s forecast for Marco came during the 4 PM advisory when the forecast track was shifted significantly east to account for a large number of weather models trending towards a Louisiana landfall. Marco is forecast to become a category 1 hurricane as it makes landfall somewhere along the Central Gulf Coast states (presumably SE LA) Monday afternoon. Tropical Storm force winds could arrive as early as Sunday night along the LA Coast. Initial coastal storm surge estimates show 3-5 feet from the Mouth of the MS River east and 2-4 feet from the Mouth of the MS River west. Initial tidal lake surge estimates are 2-4 feet. Laura is also forecast to become a category 1 hurricane once it moves into the Central Gulf. Laura is forecast to take a turn towards the north as it impacts the Central Gulf Coast (presumably South LA) Wednesday afternoon.
There’s a Rush to Mine Deep Seabeds, With Unknown Ecological Impacts – Mining the ocean floor for submerged minerals is a little-known, experimental industry. But soon it will take place on the deep seabed, which belongs to everyone, according to international law. Seabed mining for valuable materials like copper, zinc and lithium already takes place within countries’ marine territories. As soon as 2025, larger projects could start in international waters – areas more than 200 nautical miles from shore, beyond national jurisdictions. We study ocean policy, marine resource management, international ocean governance and environmental regimes, and are researching political processes that govern deep seabed mining. Our main interests are the environmental impacts of seabed mining, ways of sharing marine resources equitably and the use of tools likemarine protected areas to protect rare, vulnerable and fragile species and ecosystems. Today countries are working together on rules for seabed mining. In our opinion, there is still time to develop a framework that will enable nations to share resources and prevent permanent damage to the deep sea. But that will happen only if countries are willing to cooperate and make sacrifices for the greater good. Countries regulate seabed mining within their marine territories. Farther out, in areas beyond national jurisdiction, they cooperate through the Law of the Sea Convention, which has been ratified by 167 countries and the European Union, but not the U.S.The treaty created the International Seabed Authority, headquartered in Jamaica, to manage seabed mining in international waters. This organization’s workload is about to balloon.Under the treaty, activities conducted in areas beyond national jurisdiction must be for “the benefit of mankind as a whole.” These benefits could include economic profit, scientific research findings, specialized technology and recovery of historical objects. The convention calls on governments to share them fairly, with special attention to developing countries’ interests and needs. The United States was involved in negotiating the convention and signed it but has not ratified it, due to concerns that it puts too many limits on exploitation of deep sea resources. As a result, the U.S. is not bound by the treaty, although it follows most of its rules independently. Recent administrations, including those of Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, sought to ratify the treaty, but failed to muster a two-thirds majority in the Senate to support it.
Atlantic Ocean Holds 10x More Plastic Pollution Than Previously Believed, New Study Finds – There is at least 10 times more plastic polluting the Atlantic Ocean than previously believed, a new study has found.The National Oceanography Centre (NOC) study, the first to measure the “invisible”microplastics beneath the surface of the entire Atlantic Ocean, found that there were between 12-21 million tonnes (approximately 13-23 million U.S. tons) of them floating in the top 200 meters (approximately 656 feet) under the waves.However, the study only measured the three most common types of microplastic in the upper levels of the ocean, The Guardian pointed out. The researchers estimate that the Atlantic’s total plastic load is closer to 200 million tonnes (approximately 220.4 million U.S. tons). That is much higher than the previous estimate of 17 million to 47 million tonnes (approximately 19 to 52 million U.S. tons) of plastic released into the Atlantic between 1950 and 2015.”The amount of plastic has been massively underestimated,” lead study author Katsiaryna Pabortsava told The Guardian.The research, published in Nature Communications Tuesday, was based on seawater samples taken from September to November 2016, the NOC explained. Pabortsava and her coauthor professor Richard Lampitt then filtered their samples and used spectroscopic imaging to detect the three most common and most polluted types of plastic: polyethylene, polypropylene and polystyrene. The pair found up to 7,000 particles of the plastics per cubic meter of seawater,BBC News reported. The total weight of the plastic they detected would be enough to fill almost 1,000 container ships.
Pools of Water Atop Sea Ice in the Arctic May Lead it to Melt Away Sooner Than Expected – The thickening atmospheric stew of greenhouse gases is punching holes in Arctic sea ice, leading it to crumble at a rapidly increasing rate. Last spring, ponds of meltwater on the ice sped the melting of the glossy shield that reflects incoming heat from the sun back to space. By July, the ice had dwindled to a record low extent for that month.It could disappear as soon as 2035, scientists said this week, as they released a study showing how the formation of melt ponds on the surface of the sea ice drove it to completely melt away about 130,000 years ago in an era called the Last Interglacial – probably the last time the Arctic Ocean was ice-free during summer. Observations show melt ponds forming earlier and persisting longer. Their blue water is darker than the white ice surrounding them, so they absorb more warmth from the sun. That heat seeps through the sides of the pond to melt more ice, and even oozes down to warm the ocean beneath it. Instead of a solid reflective mirror, the surface is increasingly pitted, scarred and cracked until, at its edges, it dissolves into the sea like an ice cube melting on a hot sidewalk. During the Last Interglacial period, that process accelerated in a vicious cycle of warming that ended up with the Arctic 6 to 8 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than it is today, said the study’s co-lead author Maria Vittoria Guarino, an Earth system modeler with the British Antarctic Survey. That much warming has huge implications for everything from ocean food systems to sea level rise around the world. The imminent disappearance of Arctic sea ice has also raised concerns about the potential for international conflicts over the oil and gas deposits beneath the floors of Arctic seas, as well as over prized commercial fish stocks that have moved or are easier to reach due to the diminishing ice.
‘Canary in the coal mine’: Greenland ice has shrunk beyond return, study finds (Reuters) – Greenland’s ice sheet may have shrunk past the point of return, with the ice likely to melt away no matter how quickly the world reduces climate-warming emissions, new research suggests. Scientists studied data on 234 glaciers across the Arctic territory spanning 34 years through 2018 and found that annual snowfall was no longer enough to replenish glaciers of the snow and ice being lost to summertime melting. That melting is already causing global seas to rise about a millimeter on average per year. If all of Greenland’s ice goes, the water released would push sea levels up by an average of 6 meters – enough to swamp many coastal cities around the world. This process, however, would take decades. “Greenland is going to be the canary in the coal mine, and the canary is already pretty much dead at this point,” said glaciologist Ian Howat at Ohio State University. He and his colleagues published the study Thursday in the Nature Communications Earth & Environment journal. The Arctic has been warming at least twice as fast as the rest of the world for the last 30 years, an observation referred to as Arctic amplification. The polar sea ice hit its lowest extent for July in 40 years. The Arctic thaw has brought more water to the region, opening up routes for shipping traffic, as well as increased interest in extracting fossil fuels and other natural resources. Greenland is strategically important for the U.S. military and its ballistic missile early warning system, as the shortest route from Europe to North America goes via the Arctic island.
Greenland’s Ice Sheet Has Reached ‘Point of No Return’ – Greenland’s ice sheet has reached the “point of no return” and would continue to melt even if the climate crisis were halted, a new study has found. The study, published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment Thursday, used more than 30 years of satellite data to determine that the ice sheet would continue to shrink even if surface melting decreased. However, the findings are not an excuse to give up on climate action.”We’ve passed the point of no return but there’s obviously more to come,” study coauthor and Ohio State University professor Ian Howat told CNN. “Rather than being a single tipping point in which we’ve gone from a happy ice sheet to a rapidly collapsing ice sheet, it’s more of a staircase where we’ve fallen off the first step but there’s many more steps to go down into the pit.”Greenland’s ice sheet loses mass when icebergs calve or glaciers melt into the ocean and gains it when snow falls on the surface of the glaciers.The scientists used monthly data from more than 200 large glaciers that drain into the ocean around Greenland, an Ohio State University press release explained. During the 1980s and 1990s, the glaciers lost roughly as much ice through melt and calving as they gained through snowfall. But, starting in the year 2000, that changed.”We are measuring the pulse of the ice sheet – how much ice glaciers drain at the edges of the ice sheet – which increases in the summer. And what we see is that it was relatively steady until a big increase in ice discharging to the ocean during a short five- to six-year period,” lead study author and Ohio State UniversityByrd Polar and Climate Research Center scientist Michalea King said in the press release. Before 2000, the ice sheet had an equal chance of gaining or losing mass each year; now, it only would only gain mass once every 100 years. Greenland’s larger glaciers have also retreated about three kilometers (approximately two miles) since 1985. This means more of the glaciers are exposed to warmer ocean water, which increases melting. That is why the ice sheet would continue to retreat if global warming stopped.
Report warns of climate threats In Gloucester, more than 26 miles of roadway may flood in 2050 from a 100-year storm. About 400 acres of the Great Marsh, which stretches from Gloucester and Essex to the New Hampshire border, could be completely lost by 2070. Those are some of the bleak scenarios laid out in a new report that analyzes the future impacts of climate change on Gloucester, Rockport, Manchester, Essex and nine North Shore communities. The report, called State of the Coast, was released Thursday by The Trustees of Reservations and urges action to prevent further damage to the area’s coastline. Tom O’Shea of The Trustees said Cape Ann and North Shore communities can no longer postpone decisions on what he called “climate-facing emergency planning.” “We really want to use this report as a conversation starter, a platform to begin to the move to the future,” said O’Shea, The Trustees’ director of coast and natural resources. “I think we can all recognize there’s a lot more that needs to be done.” O’Shea said the report focuses on the impact of sea level rise and storms on Cape Ann and the North Shore’s coastline, not only beaches and salt marshes but roads, homes and businesses. More than 600 buildings on Cape Ann and the North Shore could experience daily tidal flooding by 2030, and more than 7,000 will flood if a 100-year-storm event occurs, according to the report. The report said that in Salem, a 10-year storm could flood more than 1,000 buildings in the year 2050. In Beverly, beach erosion will threaten oceanfront homes and neighborhoods. In Ipswich, Crane Beach will continue to erode dramatically, adding to the 84 football fields of beach that have already been lost. The report said that lawmakers need to increase investment in land conservation and restoration. The Trustees also support a new sales tax on sporting goods to fund habitat conservation and outdoor recreation, as well as a program designed to buy coastal properties and relocate homeowners and businesses from flood-prone zones. The Trustees, a nonprofit that owns 120 miles of shoreline, plans to release annual State of the Coast reports over the next four years highlighting other areas of the Massachusetts coastline.
Monthly U.S. energy-related CO2 emissions in April were the lowest in decades – Monthly U.S. energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions fell to 307 million metric tons (MMmt) in April 2020, the lowest value in the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) monthly series for CO2 emissions, which dates back to 1973. Travel restrictions and other measures to mitigate the spread of coronavirus in April resulted in sudden and significant changes in energy consumption, resulting in lower energy-related emissions. Changes in U.S. energy-related CO2 emissions in April largely mirror the changes in energy consumption described in previous Today in Energy articles: a sudden drop in petroleum consumption, shifts in electricity consumption from the commercial and industrial sectors to the residential sector (and lower overall electricity use), and relatively smaller changes in natural gas consumption across sectors. More than 99% of energy-related CO2 emissions come from the consumption of fossil fuels: petroleum, coal, and natural gas. From March to April 2020, CO2 emissions from petroleum consumption decreased 25%, and CO2 emissions from coal consumption decreased 16%. Both changes resulted in the lowest monthly CO2 emission values on record for those fuels. Despite the 25% decline in petroleum-related CO2 emissions, the United States still emitted more CO2 from petroleum (133 MMmt) in April than from natural gas (122 MMmt) or coal (51 MMmt).Energy-related CO2 emissions from natural gas consumption decreased 17% between March and April 2020. However, unlike CO2 emissions from petroleum and coal, which reached record lows, CO2 emissions from natural gas in April 2020 were 22% greater than the previous April, largely because natural gas-fired power plants gained market share in the U.S. electric power sector.The largest decreases in CO2 emissions in April occurred in the transportation sector. Consumer responses to the coronavirus, stay-at-home orders, and other travel restrictions that were in place throughout the country in April reduced consumption of motor gasoline (the most-consumed petroleum fuel in the United States) and jet fuel (the third-most consumed petroleum fuel). CO2 emissions from motor gasoline consumption, which accounted for 57% of transportation sector emissions in 2019, fell to a record-low 59 MMmt of CO2 in April 2020. CO2 emissions from jet fuel, which accounted for 13% of 2019 U.S. transportation-sector emissions, also fell to a record low in April 2020.
‘Super-Pollutant’ Emitted by 11 Chinese Chemical Plants Could Equal a Climate Catastrophe – In December 2007, Charles Perilloux, an American chemical engineer, traveled to China to help install inexpensive and game-changing technology at a Chinese chemical plant that was spewing a climate “super-pollutant” into the atmosphere. The emissions quickly fell to near zero. The state-owned Henan Shenma Nylon Chemical Company manufactures adipic acid, a key ingredient in nylon and polyurethane, which is used in everything from car parts to running shoes. While producing adipic acid, the factory emitted thousands of tons of nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas nearly 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide in warming the planet. Shenma’s emission reductions had a greenhouse gas impact equivalent to taking one million cars off the road, records from the United Nations’ Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) show. Through the program, Shenma reduced its emissions in exchange for lucrative carbon credits. The plant’s abatement technology produced a financial windfall. Shenma, and another, larger, state-owned adipic acid plant that also reduced its emissions, sold carbon credits over a five-year period that were worth as much as $1.3 billion, records from the U.N. and carbon markets show. Then, in 2012, funding for the U.N. program dried up. What has happened since at the two plants, and at nine others across China that now manufacture nearly half of the world’s adipic acid, has been a mystery. Satellite imaging and stationary air monitors can’t discern nitrous oxide emissions from chemical plants versus N2O emissions from other sources. Plant operators and government officials in China are hesitant to talk at this critical moment, when China is finalizing a wide ranging plan for economic development and emission reduction targets that will guide the country for the next five years. However, an InsideClimate News investigation, based on dozens of interviews and a review of hundreds of pages of documents from the Chinese government, the United Nations, and Chinese state media, strongly suggests that when funding for the U.N. program ended, so too did nearly all of the emissions reductions. This likely occurred despite the availability of proven, low-cost abatement technology.
Fire at Plastics Plant Sends Toxic Smoke Over North Texas – A plastics plant near Dallas,Texas caught fire midnight Wednesday, sending a column of toxic smoke billowing over North Texas.The smoke could be seen for miles and was picked up on a weather camera in Denton, about 40 miles away,WFAA reported. No injuries were reported and no evacuations were ordered, but people with underlying medical conditions were warned to avoid the smoke and self-evacuate if needed.”Anybody with any breathing problems, any asthmatics, I mean it is the combustion from plastic so it’s not good to breathe,” Grand Prairie Assistant Fire Chief Bill Murphy told CBS Dallas-Fort Worth.Our #radar captured the #smoke plume from the #GrandPrairie industrial #fire. #dfwwx #txwx#polyethylene pic.twitter.com/OjQR21LohY The fire broke out at Poly-America factory in Grand Prairie, which manufactures polyethylene and petroleum-based products such as trash bags, drop cloths, plastic sheeting and vapor barrier film.Firefighters think the blaze started when a powerline fell on an area where plastic rolls were being stored.”All of their storage there at Poly-America, for their rolled plastic, is underneath those towers so it ignited the plastic rolls. It just spread to all the inventory that they have back there,” Murphy told CBS Dallas-Fort Worth. Local media reports a major fire and explosions at the Poly America industrial facility in Grand Prairi… https://t.co/kf5VPU8uVw Because of the nature of the plastic fuel, firefighters initially thought the fire would burn through Thursday, but they managed to contain it by 4 p.m. Wednesday, The Associated Press reported.”Plastic is hard to put out and it’s just gonna burn,” Murphy said.Another difficulty was train tracks that ran between the firefighters and the factory building, WFAA reported. One train car filled with paint caught fire.”It was a solid wall of 15-foot flames all night long,” Murphy said.
Close Call- Asteroid Unexpectedly Makes The Closest Pass Of Earth On Record — Asteroid 2020QG just made the closely pass-by of our planet on record. The most amazing part? Scientists didn’t even see it coming. The asteroid came as close as 4,778 miles from the center of the Earth, according to NASA’s database of near Earth objects and a new report by Forbes. At its lowest point, it could have been just 1,000 miles over our heads – lower than almost all artificial satellites that are currently orbiting the Earth. The asteroid wasn’t spotted until after it passed the Earth, which is wild considering it is officially the closest call since we started following such passes nearly 100 years ago. The asteroid had a diameter of about 10-20 feet, according to NASA, who also says that the asteroid likely didn’t pose a threat even if it had entered into the Earth’s atmosphere. It would have likely burned up in the atmosphere, NASA said.Newly-discovered asteroid ZTF0DxQ passed less than 1/4 Earth diameter yesterday, making it the closest-known flyby that didn’t hit our planet. Simulation: https://t.co/a81R100OwV Higher-res GIF: https://t.co/4Wxn0YNpVb pic.twitter.com/SMtVRbjYOA A similar sized asteroid was spotted in 2018 and, after entry into the Earth’s atmosphere, “only the tiniest bits” made it to the ground. It caused no reported damage or injuries. And because nothing involving science or outer space can be brought up without bringing up the world’s greatest faux-scientist, Elon Musk, Forbes commented that the object was “roughly the size of a Tesla Model 3, which makes you wonder for a second if the car Elon Musk famously launched towards Mars might have activated its autonomous boosters and attempted to make its way home.”
Digital content on track to equal half Earth’s mass by 2245 — As we use resources, such as coal, oil, natural gas, copper, silicon and aluminum, to power massive computer farms and process digital information, our technological progress is redistributing Earth’s matter from physical atoms to digital information — the fifth state of matter, alongside liquid, solid, gas and plasma. Eventually, we will reach a point of full saturation, a period in our evolution in which digital bits will outnumber atoms on Earth, a world “mostly computer simulated and dominated by digital bits and computer code,” according to an article published in AIP Advances, by AIP Publishing. It is just a matter of time. “We are literally changing the planet bit by bit, and it is an invisible crisis,” author Melvin Vopson said. Vopson examines the factors driving this digital evolution. He said the impending limit on the number of bits, the energy to produce them, and the distribution of physical and digital mass will overwhelm the planet soon. For example, using current data storage densities, the number of bits produced per year and the size of a bit compared to the size of an atom, at a rate of 50% annual growth, the number of bits would equal the number of atoms on Earth in approximately 150 years. It would be approximately 130 years until the power needed to sustain digital information creation would equal all the power currently produced on planet Earth, and by 2245, half of Earth’s mass would be converted to digital information mass.
Trump set to duck no-win ethanol decision until after election – The Trump administration appears set to postpone politically fraught decisions on ethanol until after the November election to avoid a backlash from the feuding agriculture and petroleum sectors, according to several people in both industries who have been in contact with the White House and the Environmental Protection Agency. EPA faces a late-November deadline to decide how many billion gallons of ethanol the oil refining industry must blend into the nation’s gasoline and diesel supply, but the agency has yet to even issue its proposal, which is itself months overdue. That decision has been delayed because of a battle over small oil refiners’ request for exemptions that corn farmers say would undercut the 2007 law that is designed to promote biofuels. The oil and agriculture industries have fought for years over the EPA’s ethanol mandate, which was created under the George W. Bush administration to reduce U.S. reliance on foreign oil and cut carbon emissions. About 40 percent of the U.S. corn crop goes to producing ethanol, which makes up about 10 percent of the U.S. fuel market for cars and small trucks. But refiners say the program saddles them with heavy costs that are driving small plants out of business.”It’s a no-win proposition because you’re going to alienate (one or) the other group,” said Tom Kloza, analyst at the oil price service OPIS, who has not been in touch with the Trump administration. “To the extent that they can, they’ll probably stall or wait. And they can get away with it because its such an uncertain environment in terms of what volumes are going to look like next year.” Trump has held several Oval Office meetings on the biofuel disputes, and he has been in regular telephone conversation with biofuel champion Sen.Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who has admonished the president to pump up ethanol volumes. But he has also faced pressure from Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), two oil refining advocates who have pressed Trump to side with the industry’s blue collar workers. But Trump has failed to craft a deal that satisfies both sides. And even his efforts to placate farm country – such as an agreement to allow year-round sales of higher-ethanol blends of gasoline – have been overshadowed by corn growers’ anger over EPA’s expanded use of exemptions for refineries.
How Trump Appointees Short-Circuited Grid Modernization – – On august 14, 2018, Joshua Novacheck, a 30-year-old research engineer for the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory, was presenting the most important study of his nascent career. He couldn’t have known it yet, but things were about to go very wrong.At a gathering of experts and policy makers in Lawrence, Kansas, Novacheck was sharing the results of the Interconnections Seam Study, better known as Seams. The Seams study demonstrated that stronger connections between the U.S. power system’s massive eastern and western power grids would accelerate the growth of wind and solar energy – hugely reducing American reliance on coal, the fuel contributing the most to climate change, and saving consumers billions. It was an elegant solution to a complicated problem. Democrats in Congress have recently cited NREL’s work to argue for billions in grid upgrades and sweeping policy changes. But a study like Seams was politically dangerous territory for a federally funded lab while coal-industry advocates – and climate-change deniers – reign in the White House. The Trump administration has a long history of protecting coal companies, and unfortunately for Novacheck, a representative was sitting in the audience during the talk: Catherine “Katie” Jereza, then a deputy assistant secretary in the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Electricity.Jereza fired off an email to DOE headquarters – before Novacheck had even finished speaking, according to sources who viewed the email – raising an alarm about Seams’ anti-coal findings. That email ignited an internal firestorm. According to interviews with five current and former DOE and NREL sources, supported by more than 900 pages of documents and emails obtained by InvestigateWest through Freedom of Information Act requests and by additional documentation from industry sources, Trump officials would ultimately block Seams from seeing the light of day. And in doing so, they would set back America’s efforts to slow climate change. A nearly impermeable electrical “seam” divides America’s eastern and western power grids. These giant pools of alternating current on either side of the Rockies contain a total of 950 gigawatts of power generation by thousands of power plants. But only a little over one gigawatt can cross between them. . That separation raises power costs, and makes it hard to share growing surpluses of environmentally friendly wind and solar power. And years of neglect have left the grids – and the few connections between them – overloaded and ill-prepared to transition to highly variable renewable energy.
Skipjack Gets Green Light for GE 12 MW Offshore Wind Turbine – Maryland Public Service Commission (PSC) has approved the use of GE Haliade-X 12 MW offshore wind turbine at Ørsted’s Skipjack offshore wind farm, to be built at a site some 30 kilometres off the Maryland-Delaware coast.Ørsted selected GE Renewable Energy as the preferred turbine supplier for the project in 2019, changing its initial plan to use Siemens Gamesa 8 MW offshore wind turbines.The developer submitted the new wind turbine plan to the Maryland PSC last year, and the authority initiated public comment process. The PSC issued a decision on 20 August, approving the wind turbine change and saying that the selection of the Haliade-X 12 MW turbine is consistent with both the Maryland Offshore Wind Energy Act and the public interest. The Order No. 88192 from 2017 – issued in accordance with the Maryland Offshore Wind Energy Act and by which the PSC approved the project – contains conditions whose purpose was to mitigate risk to ratepayers and maximise value to the State of Maryland, including opting for “best commercially-available technology at the time of deployment”.Namely, in its application submitted in 2016, Ørsted included the Siemens Gamesa 8 MW turbine in its project design. However, neither the developer, nor the PSC in its Order No. 88192 determined which turbine would be used specifically. Ørsted then stated that “the latest class of technology is what we want to deploy” and noted that the turbine model ultimately selected could have a higher output than 8 MW.
Connecticut might make utilities pay customers for outages (AP) – Legislation being drafted in Connecticut would force utility companies to pay consumers for spoiled food and lost medicine following lengthy power outages. The move comes after more than 1 million state homes and businesses were left in the dark for days earlier this month following Tropical Storm Isaias. The Democrat and Republican leaders of the Legislature’s Energy & Technology Committee said they are working on a bipartisan package that would hold Eversource and United Illuminating responsible for poor planning and an inadequate storm response. “We are working to understand how it’s possible after rate increase after rate increase to prepare for storms, how such a colossal failure on the part of UI and Eversource occurred,” said state Sen. Norm Needleman, of Essex, a Democrat and the Senate chair of the committee. The lawmakers said they hoped to address customer reimbursement in a special legislative session in September. The package would include forcing the companies to pay $100 a day to residential customers with critical needs who lose power and to reimburse all ratepayers up to $500 for food and medicine lost as the result of a power outage of more than two days. They plan to address larger issues in next year’s regular session, such as requiring that future power lines be placed underground and perhaps moving toward allowing more regulation or competition in the industry. The Aug. 4 storm and its high winds brought down trees across the state. At its peak, more than 1 million homes and businesses in Connecticut lost power, including more than 800,000 customers of Eversource, the state’s largest electric utility.
Charlottesville group pushes leaders to link climate goals with energy equity – A recent report draws attention to the extreme energy burden facing hundreds of low-income and people of color in the community. At first glance, access to affordable and secure energy doesn’t seem much of a struggle for residents of Charlottesville, Virginia. On average, households spend just over 2% of their income heating, cooling and lighting their homes. But a dogged dive into demographics, U.S. Census data and housing affordability figures by the local Community Climate Collaborative tells a hidden story. It reveals upward of 1 in 4 of the city’s households are saddled with a high energy burden, meaning at least 6% of their income is spent on electric and gas bills. More alarming, the vast majority of that segment spends at least 10% on energy bills, while hundreds pay more than 20%. A large majority of these energy-burdened households are low income and people of color. For instance, the report highlights that 236 of the 851 households with extreme energy burdens are in the 10th and Page and Venable neighborhoods, both east of the University of Virginia. College students and minority and lower-income families have long lived side-by-side in these areas. C3, as the nonprofit is known, unveiled these shortcomings and more in its Uncovering Energy Inequity report this summer. The group’s leaders want to spur a collaborative approach to relieving energy burdens through affordable access to energy efficiency and solar power. “This report doesn’t answer all the questions, but it does tell us where we need to begin looking for solutions,” said C3 Executive Director Susan Kruse.
Path of new 1,000 MW transmission line in New York lengthened – A 1,000 MW transmission line to be built by Champlain Hudson Power Express, Inc. will have its approximately 330-mile route slightly altered under new plans approved by the New York State Public Service Commission last week. Intended to run from the New York/Canada border to a converter station in Astoria, Queens, the $2 billion line will gain about 5.8 miles of circuit as a result of the modification. Cables will be rerouted and the converter station site will be relocated within the Astoria Generating Complex. The changes reflect a response to challenges posed by shallow water engineering issues, rock removal, and wetland impacts, as well as community concerns. “With this decision, we will allow the developer to make minor changes to the certificate to construct and operate a transmission project known as the Champlain Hudson Power Express Project,” Commission Chair John Rhodes said. “The transmission of renewable energy will enable the success of the State and New York City legislative programs aimed at curbing greenhouse gases, including the nation-leading Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act.” Much of the line will still be built underwater and underground to avoid or minimize both visual and environmental impacts. It will consist of two solid electric cables with no insulating fluids. Much of the power it transports will likely stem from hydroelectric energy. As the Commission determined that proposed changes would result in no m
Propelling the transition: The battle for control of virtual power plants is just beginning | Utility Dive – The largest power plants in the the U.S. – massive feats of engineering like the over 5,000 foot-long, 6,800-MW capacity Grand Coulee Dam – are proving to be no match in scale to the combined power of the rooftops and basements of homes and businesses across the country. Distributed energy, including rooftop solar, on-site batteries to store electricity and more, are on track to grow to nearly 400 GW in the U.S. by 2025, according to projections from Wood Mackenzie, significantly greater than the amount of coal or nuclear power capacity in the U.S. today. The existence of that much power leads to an inevitable question: who controls it? Utilities see distributed energy as both a threat to their business models and an opportunity to harness this relatively new and massive source of energy to make money. The rise of distributed energy has led to a conflict between a utility-centered business model and a service model based around third parties. “The fundamental question is who can manage and schedule distributed energy resources (DERs) and how?” said Omar Saadeh, business strategy manager at Accenture. “It’s a question being asked in a number of states.” The concept of a network of DERs operating across homes or businesses and being collectively dispatched – sometimes described as a “virtual power plant” – has gone from theory to practice in a short amount of time. Roughly five years ago, the idea of a central authority using distributed energy resource management systems (DERMS) to remotely control an aggregate of rooftop solar, battery systems, water heaters and other resources was just starting to be demonstrated in a few pilot projects. Now, virtual power plants are bidding into wholesale electricity markets in California, New England and other areas, pilot projects are proliferating, and more utilities are, if not yet pursuing the full virtual power plant model, at least investing into or considering the DERMS technology that enables the aggregation of DERs to perform services for the grid. But as virtual power plants have started to get more real, discussions around how to implement the concept and the software behind it have become more heated. There is a growing debate about the degree to which the future of distributed energy management will be in the hands of large utilities, or in the hands of third-party aggregators.
Who is behind anti-regional transmission organization ads in the Southeast? – Google users in North Carolina were furnished with anti-regional transmission organization (RTO) advertisements when searching for clean energy-related terms this July and August. The ads’ sponsors are not currently known, but the ads appeared as Duke Energy, Southern Company, and more than a dozen other utilities confirmed efforts to create a loosely-administered energy imbalance market in the Southeast earlier last month – the formation of which could thwart more thorough market reforms that some legislators in the region are considering, and which could integrate more renewable energy at lower prices.The message of the Google ads echoed anti-RTO Facebook advertisements sponsored by a 501(c)(4) group late last year; that group does not disclose its funding, but its leader has connections to Duke Energy. Duke Energy did not respond to a request for comment regarding whether it placed the anti-RTO Google ads, or if it had a relationship to the 501(c)(4) group and that group’s advertising. A spokesperson for Southern Company said the utility was not involved with either. Google searches conducted in North Carolina for the terms “clean energy”, “solar”, and “RTO” this July and August yielded ads calling RTOs “a failed experiment” and “federal overreach”. The advertisements further claimed that RTOs “hurt renewables development” and that wholesale power markets are “costing customers millions”. An RTO is an electric transmission system operator that ensures reliability and access to transmission infrastructure, and facilitates day-ahead or real-time electricity transactions, often across state lines. Some version of an RTO exists in most midwestern and northeastern states, but states in the Southeast do not have their own RTO, absent which utilities operate their own electric systems. Studies from the Brattle Group, the Brookings Institution, and faculty at Harvard University, among others, have concluded that RTOs promote greater deployment of renewable energy, along with fair and transparent pricing. An analysis by the Duke University Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions found that a southeastern RTO “would likely produce the most benefits compared to other options”, reducing both emissions and costs. Both North and South Carolina lawmakers have called for utility market reform, with representatives in each stateintroducing legislation last year to study the formation of an RTO
A Lawsuit Challenges the Tennessee Valley Authority’s New Program of ‘Never-Ending’ Contracts – A fight over how the nation’s largest public utility sells electricity to its customers across seven southern states entered a new phase this week when the Southern Environmental Law Center took the Tennessee Valley Authority to court over provisions of its new long-term power contracts.Last August TVA began pressuring municipal power companies serving cities like Nashville, Knoxville and Chattanooga into signing new contracts that, unlike previous ones, would prevent them from ever again negotiating with TVA for cheaper, cleaner electricity, the lawsuit claims in federal court in Memphis.TVA has already locked 141 of its 154 local retail electricity distributors into the contracts across its territory, where it provides electricity to 10 million people. Created to lift the Tennessee Valley out of the Great Depression, the utility has a monopoly on supplying electricity in Tennessee and parts of Kentucky, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina and Virginia. The lawsuit, filed Monday, takes aim at the TVA’s monopoly status and says that the new contracts renew automatically and require a 20-year notice to terminate, effectively making them “never-ending.” As such, they run afoul of the 1933 law that created TVA and limited its monopoly power, according to the lawsuit, which was filed on behalf of three southeastern groups that advocate for cleaner energy – Protect Our Aquifer, Energy Alabama and Appalachian Voices.The legal challenge also claims that TVA failed to analyze and disclose the consequences of its program establishing the new contracts, and consider alternatives, as required by the National Environmental Policy Act. NEPA is the law that President Trump in July proposed weakening by shortening and limiting environmental reviews.”TVA is public power. It’s a federal utility,” said Amanda Garcia, Southern Environmental Law Center’s Tennessee office director. “All of its distributors are public power. The fact that they didn’t do any NEPA (process) shows that the public’s interest was left entirely out of this monumental decision for public power.”The result will be that TVA gets to “stamp out any competition for the next century,” said Garcia. “These never-ending contracts threaten to prevent local distributors from ever renegotiating their contract with TVA, let alone consider leaving the utility if it continues to lag behind in transitioning towards cheaper, cleaner renewable energy.”TVA spokesman Scott Brooks responded that the contracts are “completely voluntary” agreements that provide their customers an annual 3.1 percent discount on wholesale power rates, as well as the flexibility to self-generate a portion of their own power, primarily through renewable energy, Brooks said. The contracts allow local utilities to develop up to 5 percent of their electricity from other sources, such as solar power – an amount that critics have said is woefully inadequate to meet the challenge of climate change.
How the Energy Storage Industry Responded to the Arizona Battery Fire –The energy storage industry didn’t wait for the outcome of Arizona Public Service’s year-long investigation into the battery fire that injured four firefighters in April 2019 to start improving the safety of grid batteries.The McMicken fire set off a series of shadow investigations, as battery suppliers, developers and customers pieced together evidence to identify the risks posed by their own systems. New looks at potential failures prompted product redesigns, along with hardware and software updates to existing systems. “Because of our own research into the causes of the APS event, we were aware of what the report was basically going to say,” said Danny Lu, senior vice president at storage integrator Powin Energy, in an email. “We had immediately started working on solutions to those problems about a year ago.” By the time the APS battery report came out last month, leading energy storage providers, including Fluence, which supplied the McMicken energy storage system, had already adopted key safety improvements. They engineered systems to detect and remove dangerous gases so they cannot build up and explode. They also addressed the layout of battery cells so that if one heats up, the problem does not spread. A high-profile failure like the McMicken fire might be expected to hold back construction of more grid batteries. Numerous startups hawk alternative storage technologies on the basis of being safer than lithium-ion.But the U.S. energy storage market did not stop expanding as a result of safety concerns. Instead, the industry has experienced meteoric growth, with record procurements announced almost weekly this summer. An unprecedented number of utilities and power producers are investing in batteries as a pillar of a cleaner electric grid.
Democrats Drop Demand To End Fossil Fuel Subsidies From Party Platform | HuffPost -The Democratic National Committee this week quietly dropped language calling for an end to fossil fuel subsidies and tax breaks from its party platform, HuffPost has learned. On July 27, officials added an amendment to the Manager’s Mark, a ledger of party demands voted on as one omnibus package, stating: “Democrats support eliminating tax breaks and subsidies for fossil fuels, and will fight to defend and extend tax incentives for energy efficiency and clean energy.”The amendment was approved. But the statement ― which reflects pledges presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his running mate, Kamala Harris, each made on the campaign trail ― disappeared from the final draft of the party platform circulated Monday.In an emailed statement, a DNC spokesperson said the amendment was “incorrectly included in the Manager’s Mark” and taken out “after the error was discovered.” Activists accused the DNC of retroactively removing the amendment from the final draft of the platform. “This is ridiculous,” Collin Rees, a campaigner with the nonprofit Oil Change U.S., said by phone. “This is a commonsense position held by both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. … The DNC should immediately include it in the platform.” Greenpeace ranked the DNC platform a C-plus in a new grade set to be released Wednesday, giving the official party manifesto a lower rating than the B-plus proposals Biden and Harris each ran on in the presidential primary. “This platform is a step backwards, and we deserve better,”
DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION: What changed – and what didn’t – in the climate platform — Wednesday, August 19, 2020 —Democrats released their strongest climate platform in history, but any celebration from the left was soured by news that party officials had removed a provision that called for an end to subsidies and tax breaks for fossil fuel companies.The last-minute drama follows months of negotiations between climate activists and party insiders over the Democratic direction on global warming. The talks led to a detente of sorts, but the latest platform fight runs the risk of upsetting that armistice (Climatewire, Aug. 17).Especially galling for climate activists is that the 2016 Democratic Party platform included a provision that sought to end subsidies and tax breaks for the fossil fuel sector. Most of the 2020 Democratic field – including presidential nominee Joe Biden – supported an end to those subsidies as well.The reversal on subsidies contrasts to the rest of the 2020 Democratic platform, which is generally more ambitious on climate than the 2016 version. Activists and party officials said the change reflects increased awareness among voters about the scale of the climate crisis and a belief among Democrats that global warming is a winning issue for them against President Trump.”The whole climate platform is a must for voters now; we have reached that tipping point with a lot of people that this is a crisis that needs to be dealt with,” said Lori Lodes, executive director of the advocacy group Climate Power 2020. “That’s the difference we’re seeing, the American people have shifted and that’s really being reflected in the platform.” Below are six notable changes between the Democratic platforms of 2016 and 2020 on the issue of global warming.
Global Warming Is Accelerating. (In Other News, Democrats Reverse Platform, Won’t End Fossil Fuel Subsidies) – As we contemplate the political events of the week – the Republican takeover of the Democratic Party and convention; Democratic media adjunct MSNBC lying about AOC’s Party-approved nomination of Bernie Sanders (before changing their headline); Bill Clinton daring to show his face in public, and post-MeToo leadership letting him – it’s nevertheless impossible not to be overwhelmed by this: “Good morning. The Greenland ice sheet has past the melting point of no return“ “[I]ce that’s discharging into the ocean is far surpassing the snow that’s accumulating on the surface of the ice sheet” – Michalea King, lead author of the study and a researcher at The Ohio State University’s Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center. “[S]tarting in 2000, you start superimposing that seasonal melt on a higher baseline – so you’re going to get even more losses,” meaning the melt-rate has permanently accelerated while the snowfall has not. “Record Arctic blazes may herald new ‘fire regime’ decades sooner than anticipated” “This is the type of fire event that would be described by these worst-case modeling scenarios that were supposed to occur mid-century” – Jessica McCarty, a wildfire expert at Miami University of Ohio. Mid-century (2050) Arctic fires now occur regularly. “Global warming is accelerating. 12-month mean peaked just below prior maximum“ “[G]lobal temperature is clearly running well above the linear trend that existed for decades” – climate scientist James Hansen. Nonetheless, not everyone is scared. “Democrats Drop Demand To End Fossil Fuel Subsidies From Party Platform” “Roughly half of all U.S. oil reserves required subsidies to generate a profit, according to a study published in the journal Nature Energy in 2017, and that was before the price of crude plunged far below $50 a barrel.” – Huffington Post writer Alexander Kaufman. “This platform is a step backwards” – Charlie Jiang, Greenpeace. “DNC’s Flip-Flop on Fossil Fuel Subsidies Follows Deep Ties the Industry” “In August 2018, the DNC approved a resolution from Chair Tom Perez that reversed a DNC policy prohibiting it from accepting contributions from fossil fuel PACs. … Shortly thereafter, donations from fossil fuel executives began flowing into DNC coffers.” .. “A-a-and we’re done…” – Yours truly
Biden Commits to Banning Fossil Fuel Subsidies After DNC Dropped It — The Democratic party made the curious move of removing a ban on fossil fuel subsidies from its platform earlier this week as its convention kicked off. The move, which also backtracked from a clean energycommitment, raised the ire of environmental activists. However, presidential nominee Joe Biden, who will steer the party’s agenda if elected, has recommitted to a ban on fossil fuel subsidies, as The Verge reported.What happened was this: earlier this week HUFFPOST revealed that the amendment to the party’s platform that was approved, “Democrats support eliminating tax breaks and subsidies for fossil fuels, and will fight to defend and extend tax incentives for energy efficiency and clean energy,” was not included the platform document that Democrats released on Monday.That stoked the ire of activists who had been buoyed by the aggressive climate plan that Biden agreed to. Annie Leonard, executive director of Greenpeace USA, called the removal of the amendment, “immoral, criminal, inexcusable,” as Common Dreams reported.”We are nearing global tipping points on climate, fires and extreme weather are killing people and devastating the economy, and the DNC can’t even accept an end to public subsidies for making it worse?” Leonard tweeted. “This platform is a step backwards, and we deserve better,” Charlie Jiang, a campaigner at Greenpeace, said in a statement, as HUFFPOST reported.And yet, the public document of Biden-Harris campaign’s climate agenda says it will end subsidies for fossil fuels. The Verge reached out to the campaign to get some clarity on the discrepancy between the campaign and the party’s platform. “Vice President Biden’s commitment to ending fossil fuel subsidies remains as steadfast as it was when he outlined this position in the bold climate plan he laid out last year,” Stef Feldman, policy director for the Biden campaign said in a statement to The Verge. “He will demand a worldwide ban on fossil fuel subsidies and lead the world by example, eliminating fossil fuel subsidies in the United States during the first year of his presidency.”
Revealed: how the gas industry is waging war against climate action – When progressive Seattle decided last year to wipe out its climate pollution within the decade, the city council vote in favor was unsurprisingly unanimous, and the easiest first step on that path was clear. About one-third of the city’s climate footprint comes from buildings, in large part from burning “natural” gas for heating and cooking. So, a city councilman drafted legislation to stop the problem from growing by banning gas hookups in new buildings. Suddenly, the first step didn’t look so easy. “From there, we just ran into a wall of opposition,” said Alec Connon, a campaigner with the climate group 350 Seattle. Local plumbers and pipe fitters warned of job losses. Realtors complained their clients would still want gas fireplaces. Building owners feared utility bills could soar. The effort died. The ban wasn’t politically tenable, it seemed. But internal records obtained by the Guardian show the measure’s defeat and the “wall of opposition” that advocates experienced were part of a sophisticated pushback plan from Seattle’s gas supplier, Puget Sound Energy. Seattle’s story isn’t unique. In fact, it’s representative of a nationwide blitz by gas companies and their allies to beat back climate action they consider an existential threat to their business, according to emails, meeting agendas and public records reviewed by the Guardian. The documents show the multibillion-dollar gas industry has built crucial local coalitions and hired high-powered operatives to torpedo cities’ anti-gas policies – sometimes assisted by money those same cities have paid into gas trade associations. In historically conservative states, the gas industry has convinced legislatures to pass laws prohibiting cities from following in Seattle’s footsteps and trying to ban new gas hookups. In the digital world, it has carefully cultivated the fuel’s image, paying Instagram influencers to cook with gas stoves. In the media, it has sought to be quoted in important stories in news outlets like Reuters, according to internal records. In Washington DC, where the industry has strong support from the Trump administration, it has lobbied the federal government on everything from environmental reviews to appliance standards. CBE Strategic, a lobbying firm, was asked to “develop an action plan targeted at countering 350.org’s efforts” and “stopping local governments” from enacting restrictions on gas, according to a summary document of the work. CBE’s responsibilities included “coalition building, lobbying strategy, communications, and research”. “We have been able to stop the fast track the proposal was on by deploying a strong coalition of labor and business,” the summary said. CBE planned to “shape an alternative” to the ban. The firm would create an “inclusive stakeholder process” and analyze possible economic impacts on customers. In other words, the opponents would band together and stall.
US utilities, power providers continue plans to accelerate coal retirements | S&P Global Platts – US coal producers are already in a tough spot, but the hints power generators dropped on second-quarter earnings calls suggest they may soon be announcing plans to retire even more of the nation’s aging coal fleet. Demand for coal has been decimated by the COVID-19 pandemic, with production and employment in the sector falling to new lows as the lower demand weighs further on a sector already in secular decline. In recent weeks, multiple power generators made comments about the future of their generation fleets suggesting more coal plant retirements loom on the horizon. Ameren Corp. CEO Warner Baxter said the company would “take a careful look at our coal-fired energy centers and the useful lives of those plants” and “really think about what’s really going to deliver value to our customers in the state of Missouri.” . Ameren Missouri, known legally as Union Electric Co., operates four coal-fired power plants, including the 2,464-MW Labadie and 1,218-MW Rush Island facilities. The utility’s 2017 integrated resource plan called for the retirement of 2,750 MW of its 5,100 MW fleet of coal-fired generation over the next 20 years, starting with shutting down the 867-MW Meramec Energy Center by the end of 2022. Executives with Wisconsin-headquartered Alliant Energy said on an Aug. 7 earnings call that while they have not announced any early retirements in Iowa, they are evaluating potential coal plant shutdowns as part of the under-development “Clean Energy Blueprint” plan. “We’ll have some more information to share later this year on any potential early retirements for Iowa state,” Alliant said in May it plans to retire the 417.8-MW, coal-fired Edgewater power plant in Sheboygan County, Wis., by the end of 2022. Power generators continue the steady march of coal plant retirements, even under a friendly presidential administration that campaigned on bringing back jobs in coal. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently completed a coal combustion residuals rule that Vistra Corp. CEO Curtis Morgan said would have “far-reaching implications for the power sector.” “At a very high level, the rule requires certain coal plants that dispose of coal ash and surface impoundments to either make necessary capital investments and operating changes to bring these coal ash disposal sites into compliance with the federal rule or to permanently retire by 2023 or 2028, depending on the size of the surface impoundment,” Morgan said. “We are fine-tuning the steps we plan to take in each of our impacted sites. … It is important to note that our valuation suggests that there are several coal plants, especially in [PJM Interconnection LLC], that will be under pressure due to this rulemaking.”
DNR moves earth in Fulton mine reclamation project – Stepping onto the mine reclamation site just off Hickman Avenue in Fulton, it’s immediately clear why the landowners called the Missouri Department of Natural Resources for help. A few yards away from their vegetable garden, a sheer cliff (the mine’s former high wall) plunges down into a gulch that was once filled with water. Standing on the brink of the former pond, you can see a giant chunk of rock and soil – topped with a full-grown tree – that recently broke free from the high wall and tumbled into the former pond. “There was a pretty large rock and some grass that fell off while we were looking at the project,” said Austin Rehagen, of the DNR’s Land Reclamation Program. Bit by bit, the high wall was collapsing and imperiling the garden, not to mention anyone who got too close to the edge. The DNR rated the high wall and pond as Priority 2 hazards – not as dangerous as, say, an open mine shaft right next to a home, but still potentially able to cause injury. Before the DNR began its work, the area was full of spoils mounds overgrown with hardwood trees and invasive bush honeysuckle. Right now, the 8-acre site behind Blue Jay Field looks even more a mess: the vegetation has been stripped away, leaving mounds of clay-heavy soil, and the pond’s empty, its bottom coated with stinking mud. But that’s all part of the process, Rehagen said. “When we’re done, you won’t believe the difference,” Rehagen said. The contractor, Carl R. Jones Excavating and Hauling of Fredericktown, will push earth all along the 300-foot length of the collapsing high wall, converting it from a cliff to a gentle slope and filling in the hazardous pond.
Indiana city still dealing with old coal-storage vaults (AP) – A northern Indiana city still has more than two dozen underground coal-storage vaults that need addressing more than eight years after a man walking on a sidewalk plunged into one of the chambers. Goshen officials began mapping and inspecting the vaults after Dew Drop Inn owner Ken Carner fell 8 feet into a vault under his building in July 2012 when its weakened roof gave way. That led to a cost-sharing program to fill in the most dangerous vaults and under which building owners paid to wall off their basements, while the city paid to fill in the cavity. The cost of repairing the overhead sidewalk was split, The Elkhart Truth reported. While some of the vaults were shored up and restored, 30 were closed by the time the cost-sharing program ended in 2018, but 27 still need to be addressed, Public Works Director Dustin Sailor told the Goshen Redevelopment Commission last week. He said that while annual inspections were required for the vaults identified as the biggest concerns, no known follow-up was done after reports were last received in 2015. Sailor’s staff inspected the 27 remaining vaults and found that 12 were safe with no apparent repairs needed, six were in OK condition with future repairs likely required, and nine others were bad and needed to have corrective measures done soon. Sailor said he’d like to have the “OK” and “bad” vaults inspected by a structural engineer to help determine the next step. He estimated it could cost $3,000 per location. But some commission members balked at that proposal, with Commission President Tom Stump calling it too expensive.
McFeely: ‘Betting on Einstein,’ North Dakota coal county bans solar power | Grand Forks Herald – McLean County is, in the words of its state’s attorney and policy influencer, “betting on Einstein” for its future. That’s why the central North Dakota county in the heart of lignite coal country recently imposed a two-year moratorium on solar power, a couple of months after it told Great River Energy to take a hike when the Minnesota power cooperative wanted to build more power lines to transmit wind energy from neighboring counties.Great River Energy is the company that announced earlier this year it was shuttering the massive Coal Creek Station coal-fired power plant in McLean County in 2022, a devastating economic blow in an area low on high-paying jobs with good benefits.There is an aversion to wind power in this area of North Dakota, both because locals see it as a threat to coal and because many view large wind farms as a blight on the wondrous landscape. The Missouri River, Lake Sakakawea and Lake Audubon are outdoors meccas for fishing, hunting and recreating. Huge swaths of wind towers and power lines blunt the beauty. Recreation dollars are a major source of income for many in this area. Ladd Erickson is the state’s attorney in question. When a local newspaper ran a story last week that McLean County put a two-year ban on solar farms, and Erickson was quoted as saying the contracts being offered to landowners were close to an “outright scam,” I couldn’t resist talking with him for further comment. Erickson believes the solar companies approaching landowners with leases are speculators who want to tie up land around Coal Creek Station with the hope of selling the leases to a third party if access is granted to the massive high voltage power line that carries electricity from North Dakota to Minnesota. Erickson considers the moratorium “landowner protection” because, he said, the solar company leases have the potential to tie up property for decades. Property, Erickson says, that can be used in a coal operation.
Peabody pushes coal carbon capture through front groups, industry associations, PR and lobbying efforts – A coal industry front group funded by Peabody Energy and the state of Wyoming successfully urged the Department of Energy to fund a study proposing a carbon capture project at the Comanche coal plant near Pueblo, Colorado. The operator of the coal plant, Xcel Energy, and regulators in Colorado have made clear that Xcel will close the coal units to reduce costs, and the carbon capture proposal has not gained traction. The effort shows one of the many ways that the largest coal mining company in the U.S. pushes coal carbon capture proposals, while many electric utilities are now more focused on closing coal plants they operate than pursuing carbon capture projects. Beyond the effort in Colorado, Peabody Energy promotes coal carbon capture proposals through industry associations, direct lobbying, and public relations campaigns. As Xcel Energy sought approval from the Colorado Public Utilities Commission in 2018 to close two units at the Comanche coal plant, the utility faced opposition from a group that called itself a “Coalition of Ratepayers,” organized by the Independence Institute, a Denver-based conservative think tank. But emails obtained through a public records request show that the effort was actually the work of a front group for coal mining companies and the state of Wyoming called the Energy Policy Network (EPN). The Comanche plant burns coal that is mined in Wyoming, and EPN’s effort to keep it operating is part of a broader campaign funded by coal mining companies with Wyoming operations to delay the closures of coal plants that burn coal from there. EPN hired lawyers to argue the case before the Colorado PUC, paid a public relations firm to influence media coverage in Colorado, and funded the Independence Institute. A lawyer for the Independence Institute wouldn’t say how much money it received from EPN. The Independence Institute is a chapter of the State Policy Network, a web of state-based think tanks with a history of advocating for state policies that would aid its corporate donors. Peabody helped fund EPN, according to an unredacted tax form, and EPN’s Vice President Jacob Williams is a former Peabody executive. In one email exchange, Williams told EPN Executive Director Randy Eminger to include six additional Peabody executives on updates about the effort to keep the Comanche coal units operating, explaining “The more Peabody Sr. Management engaged, the better.”
Top 25 Illinois Basin coal mines dropped output 20% in 12 months ended June 30 – Coal production from the Illinois Basin’s top mines decreased 20.0% for the 12 months ended June 30 as the COVID-19 pandemic added pressure to producers already facing a long-term decline in domestic markets as well as weak export markets. The top 25 coal mines by production volume in the Illinois Basin produced an aggregate 72.1 million tons in the 12 months that ended with the second quarter, decreasing year over year from 90.2 million tons. Much of the production decline occurred in the recent quarter, when producers were dealing with increased safety precautions at their mines and demand for coal decreased as the U.S. economy faltered. The top mines produced 14.0 million tons of coal in the three-month period, down from 18.4 million tons in the first quarter and 21.7 million tons in the second quarter of 2019. Lively Grove, a mine owned by multiple power generating entities, climbed two spots in its ranking compared to the prior quarter to become the top producer in the region in the second quarter. Production from the mine in the 12 months ended June 30 increased 4.0% year over year. Alliance Resource Partners LP’s River View mine, the second-largest producer in the quarter, saw production fall 10.5% in the 12-month period compared to the prior year. The company’s No. 1 and Gibson South mines reported production declines of 33.3% and 54.4%, respectively. Over the same time, the company’s Cardinal mine increased coal production by 1.6%. “The first half of 2020 presented many challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which negatively affected economic activity around the globe, resulting in lower demand for coal, oil and natural gas,” Alliance President and CEO Joseph Craft said on a July 27 earnings call. “The entire energy industry, including Alliance, has had to react quickly to the rapid loss of demand.” Alliance temporarily idled all of its Illinois Basin operations early in the second quarter to mitigate impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Foresight Energy LP, another large producer in the region, produced about 3.1 million tons of coal from three top Illinois Basin mines in the second quarter. Output decreased from 3.6 million tons in the prior quarter and 5.0 million tons in the second quarter of 2019. Hallador Energy Co. reported 1.4 million tons of coal production in the second quarter from its Oaktown Fuels No. 1 and Oaktown Fuels No. 2 mines, down from 1.5 million tons in each the prior quarter and the comparable year-ago period.
Coal country envisions paths forward in manufacturing, reclamation and renewables – In parts of Appalachia, coal has been joined, though not replaced, by a burgeoning industry that seeks funding for schemes to repurpose land on and around former mines into new economic endeavors. These ideas range wildly, but often involve outdoor recreation, heritage tourism, agriculture or renewable energy.Often, these proposals seek nonprofit grants or federal funding from the more than $300 million that Congress has appropriated for the Abandoned Mine Lands Fund that was established through the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Action of 1977. The nonprofit advocacy group Appalachian Voices produced reports in 2016 and 2018 in collaboration with a number of other organizations that promoted redevelopment of dozens of sites throughout central Appalachia, including several that eventually won Abandoned Mine Lands funding. The federal funding has also been used to support the development of federal and state prisons, which have become major employers in several coal communities.Not all of those prison projects have found success. Other projects aiming to reinvent former mineland have fallen as well. In 2016, a plan to farm lavender at a reclaimed strip mine in Boone County, West Virginia, won grants from the Benedum Foundation and the Appalachian Regional Commission, then abruptly collapsed when the grants ran out. Similarly, the nonprofit Mined Mines promised to train and place people in coding jobs, but failed to follow through on its promises, leading to accusations of fraud. Fayetteville, West Virginia, has the advantage of its location near the New River Gorge National River, a unit of the National Park Service, while other communities market attractions in national forests and state parks. Both Kentucky and Virginia have built networks of off-road trails modeled after West Virginia’s Hatfield-McCoy Trails, which wind more than 700 miles across 14 counties in the state’s southern coalfields. Many communities are building hospitality industries around outdoor adventure in hopes of attracting not just visitors, but talented workers and companies that want to hire them. Making that happen requires infrastructure – and not just basics like good water and reliable electricity, but broadband internet, healthcare access and higher education to train an ever-evolving workforce. In places struggling to maintain basic government services, that’s a tall order.
How W.Va. Miners With Black Lung Disease Are Navigating The Pandemic – Jerry Coleman, a third-generation miner, worked for 37 years, mostly underground, near Cabin Creek, West Virginia. But at 68 years old, he has complicated black lung disease, meaning, his lungs are permanently and irreversibly scarred by coal dust.“Black lung, it doesn’t get better, it gets worse,” Coleman said.Black lung is in a way, a death sentence — the lungs gradually deteriorate until the person can no longer breathe. And in the middle of a pandemic, it is only more complicated, Coleman said. He is also the president for the Kanawha County Black Lung Association. “You gotta wear a mask, and with your breathin’ problems and stuff, it’s hard to walk around and breath through the mask. It’s like sucking in hot air,” he said. “But I don’t have no choice, with the condition of my lungs and stuff, I can’t take a chance.” COVID-19 is classified as a respiratory virus. It can affect and even be deadly to the healthiest of people, but the most vulnerable are those with high-risk conditions, such as lung disease and old age — which represent much of West Virginia’s former coal miner population.“Each different lung disease kind of takes away some of your lung function,” said Carl Werntz, an occupational medical specialist in southern West Virginia.Werntz administers black lung exams, a crucial step to apply for federal black lung benefits. “So that person if they get COVID it bothers their lungs,” he said. “They’re going to run out of usable lung much faster than somebody who starts out with healthy lungs.”Since the pandemic began, Werntz said black lung exams were put on hold at the clinic he works at in Cabin Creek. Exams slowly resumed in July, but at half capacity. Typically, he sees six to eight patients a day, but with new COVID protocols, Werntz said he sees three to four — creating a backlog of patients waiting for their black lung exam.Federal black lung benefits include monthly payments and medical coverage for lung treatment – medical care that is expensive, said Jerry Coleman, the former coal miner with black lung. The fight for benefits can be long even without a pandemic. Coleman said he fought for seven years to receive his benefits. “Until you get awarded it, anything that pertains to you breathing, you have to pay for everything,” he said. “And you’re not going to, you know, spend exactly what you have to spend, because you don’t have the money to waste. You know? It’s a shame to say but that’s the way it is.”
‘They deserve to be heard’: Sick and dying coal ash cleanup workers fight for their lives – Doug Bledsoe and his wife, Johnnie, were out celebrating the end of her two-year battle with breast cancer and trying to relax after his hospital visit that afternoon, when doctors found a spot on his lung. Johnnie remembers looking across the table at her husband, whose tan face was slack, his mouth drooling. She quickly got him to their truck and sped to North Knoxville medical center across the street. Doctors ran a Cat scan of his brain and found a large tumor growing above his eye, which was catalyzing the seizure and affecting his speech. They also found that the shadow on his lung, as well as spots on his brain and adrenal gland, were tumors. .. .. For almost six years, he, along with roughly 900 others, helped clean up the nation’s largest coal ash spill an hour west of his doorstep. TVA’s own testing showed the utility knew the coal ash – waste material leftover from burning coal for electricity – contained toxic heavy metals such as cadmium, lead, mercury and selenium, and radioactive materials, decades before the spill; an EPA pollution report from early 2009 shows TVA tested for radioactivity in ash and soil samples two weeks after the spill occurred and EPA found spikes in radiation above background levels. When reached for comment, Scott Brooks, a TVA spokesperson, stated, “The constituents of coal ash have been well-known for years, and TVA was transparent with this information throughout the Kingston recovery project.” But an initial draft of the site safety plan made no mention of radioactive materials, and did not list heavy metals as constituents of fly ash aside from arsenic. Contractors working for the utility repeatedly assured cleanup workers that the ash, which floated in the air, coating their bare skin and lungs, was safe. Some workers testified the company refused to provide or allow for the use of protective suits or masks. Bledsoe was one of many workers hired for the cleanup who have suffered since the spill. His eldest brother, Ron, a lifelong health enthusiast, has a terminal condition called chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. App Thacker, who dredged ash from the riverways, said his testosterone levels dropped to those of an octogenarian when he was in his 40s. Roy Edmonds, who drove dump trucks around the site, had five debilitating surgeries to remove a sarcoma that nearly bankrupted his family. Ansol Clark, a fuel truck driver, had two strokes before he was diagnosed with a rare blood disorder. Frankie Norris, a heavy equipment operator, developed weeping sores all over his skin, including on his face. He has to wash blood off his body every night. Philip Crick, who operated a water truck, had skyrocketing blood pressure and a series of skin cancer diagnoses that led to reconstructive surgery on both sides of his nose.
UAE’s nuclear power plant connects to the national grid in a major regional milestone — Unit 1 of the UAE’s Barakah plant – the Arab world’s first nuclear energy plant – has connected to the national power grid, in a historic moment enabling it to provide cleaner electricity to millions of residents and help reduce the oil-rich country’s reliance on fossil fuels. “This is a major milestone, we’ve been planning for this for the last 12 years now,” Mohamed Al Hammadi, CEO of Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC), told CNBC’s Dan Murphy in an exclusive interview ahead of the news. Unit 1 is the first of what will eventually be four reactors, which when fully operational are expected to provide 25% of the UAE’s electricity and reduce its carbon emissions by 21 million tons a year, according to ENEC. That’s roughly equivalent to the carbon emissions of 3.2 million cars annually. The Gulf country of nearly 10 million is the newest member of a group of now 31 countries running nuclear power operations. It’s also the first new country to launch a nuclear power plant in three decades, the last being China in 1990. The achievement for the UAE is particularly significant given tensions in the wider region over nuclear proliferation. Some observers have warned of a regional arms race, though the UAE already partakes in what nuclear energy experts call the “gold standard” of civilian nuclear partnerships: The U.S.-UAE 123 Agreement for Peaceful Civilian Nuclear Energy Cooperation. It allows the UAE to receive nuclear materials, equipment and know-how from the U.S. while precluding it from developing dual-use technology by barring uranium enrichment and fuel reprocessing, the processes required for building a bomb.By contrast, nearby Iran has suspended its compliance to the multilateral 2015 deal that regulated its nuclear power development and many fear its approach toward bomb-making capability. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia has voiced its desire to develop a nuclear energy program without adhering to a 123 agreement. And most recently, in the wake of a historic deal that has seen the UAE become the first Gulf country to normalize relations with Israel, Iran responded by warning the agreement would bring a “dangerous future” for the Emirati government.
Georgia Public Service Commission balks at speeding up review of Plant Vogtle cost to customers – Georgia’s utility regulating agency voted unanimously Tuesday to approve $674 million in spending on the Plant Vogtle nuclear expansion Georgia Power Co. reported incurring during the last half of 2019. But the state Public Service Commission rejected a PSC staff recommendation to start discussing how much of the project’s cost the utility’s customers will be forced to absorb when the first of two new reactors under construction at the site in Waynesboro, Ga., goes into operation late next year.The PSC has been signing off on Georgia Power’s spending on the $25 billion project in six-month increments since the agency approved the nuclear expansion in 2009.Following a series of delays that set the work back five years and drove up the price tag from an original estimate of $14 billion, the commission voted in 2017 to hold off any decisions on whether the cost overruns were “prudent” and, thus, could be passed on to customers, until after the new reactors are finished.But the project’s critics, including consumer and environmental advocacy groups, have been pushing the PSC to take up the impact on customers sooner.On Tuesday, the commission’s Public Interest Advocacy Staff recommended the PSC start considering the issue when Georgia Power presents its next semiannual Vogtle Construction Monitoring (VCM) report, due by the end of this month. But Commissioner Tricia Pridemore argued now is too soon to start discussing the project’s ultimate impact on customer bills. She proposed an amendment to the staff’s recommendation to limit Tuesday’s vote to approving the $674 million in spending from the last six months of last year. “It’s premature to talk about rates and ratemaking,” she said. “We’re 14 months out from [the] Unit 3 [reactor] coming on line.”
PSC approves Duke nuclear decommissioning plan – The Florida Public Service Commission on Tuesday approved Duke Energy’s plan to decommission the Crystal River Nuclear Plant by 2038.Duke has contracted with Delaware-based Accelerated Decommissioning Partners to dismantle the plant at a cost of $540 million. The plan’s approval locks in that cost, which is less than half of the plan’s original $1.2 billion estimated cost.The utility company will use funds from the decommissioning trust fund to pay for the project. The account has about $660 million collected from customers during the plant’s operational lifetime.“Duke’s transaction requires no additional funds from its customers, and mitigates any risk from the plant’s otherwise long-term dormancy,” PSC Chairman Gary Clark said in a news release. “Customers will also benefit from the plan’s fixed-price and elimination of continued execution and property maintenance risk.”The approved plan requires Duke to report how it has spent money from the decommissioning fund on a quarterly basis until the project is complete.The plan was announced in May 2019. Now that it has been approved, the decommissioning process will begin this year and is expected to be completed by 2038. Duke originally announced it would decommission the plant in 2014 with an expected completion date of 2074.The Crystal River Nuclear Plant went online in 1977 and was shut down for maintenance in 2009. The concrete walls containing the plant’s steam generators cracked during repairs, extending the maintenance period and eventually leading Duke to announce it would permanently shut down the plant.Also on Tuesday, the PSC approved a plan by Peoples Gas System to track costs incurred due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The plan will allow the utility company to defer cost recovery for things such as unpaid utility bills and seek recovery through rates at a later date.
Larry Householder case complicates bankruptcy reorganization of former FirstEnergy unit – Cleveland Business Journal – The alleged corruption scheme surrounding Ohio’s nuclear power plant bailout law is complicating the bankruptcy reorganization of former FirstEnergy Corp. subsidiary Energy Harbor Corp. U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Alan Koschik on Tuesday is scheduled to consider approving payment of millions of dollars in fees and expenses charged by outside law firms and consultants that helped the former FirstEnergy Solutions break free of its parent company, FirstEnergy, according to an Akron Beacon Journal report. Both Energy Harbor, the former FirstEnergy Solutions, and FirstEnergy (NYSE: FE) are headquartered in Akron. The former FirstEnergy Solutions, which owns the Perry and Davis-Besse nuclear power plants in northern Ohio and two coal-fired power plants, exited bankruptcy court as Energy Harbor Corp. in February.Koschik had been expected to approve Energy Harbor’s final slate of legal and consulting fees from the bankruptcy reorganization on July 21 but delayed his plans after being informed that the FBI had arrested former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, one of his advisers, the state’s former Republican Party chairman and a pair of Columbus-based lobbyists had been arrested.Householder and the others are accused in an alleged $60 million bribery and racketeering conspiracy to pass House Bill 6, the law that bailed out the money-losing nuclear plants, and to keep a referendum of the law off the ballot last fall.FirstEnergy is alleged to have steered millions of dollars to a “dark money” group to back Householder and other political allies and cut short the referendum effort. Dark money groups do not have to disclose their donors.FirstEnergy CEO Charles Jones has said that his company acted ethically in its support of H.B. 6 and is cooperating with the U.S. Justice Department investigation of Householder.Jones also said the former FirstEnergy Solutions, now Energy Harbor, “made its own decisions” about external affairs after appointing a new board of directors as part of its separation from parent FirstEnergy.Householder is expected to appear before a judge this week, the Beacon Journal reported. The others charged – lobbyists Juan Cespedes and Neil Clark, Republican strategist Matthew Borges, and Householder aide Jeff Longstreth – have all pleaded not guilty.In the wake of the bribery scandal, some state officials are pushing for a campaign finance bill to eliminate dark money and make the sources of political contributions in Ohio public information.
Federal judge approves partial payment of millions in fees to firms involved in FirstEnergy Solutions bankruptcy case – cleveland.com – Weeks after halting bankruptcy proceedings for the company formerly known as FirstEnergy Solutions because of an alleged bribery scandal to bail out the company’s nuclear plants, a federal judge on Tuesday approved paying tens of millions in fees and expenses to outside firms that did work on the case. However, U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Alan Koschik ruled that accounting, legal, and consulting work done for FirstEnergy Solutions – a former FirstEnergy Corp. subsidiary now called Energy Harbor – can only be paid on an interim basis, meaning many of the firms will only receive a fraction of their payment until the judge grants final approval. Koschik also held off on allowing payment of about $68 million in fees and expenses to law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, a law firm that represented FirstEnergy Solutions during its bankruptcy proceedings and helped lobby for the passage of House Bill 6, which provides a $1.3 billion ratepayer bailout to the company’s two Ohio nuclear power plants. Ex-House Speaker Larry Householder and four allies have been charged with operating a massive bribery scheme to secure the legislation’s passage. Koschik said he would issue a ruling on Akin Gump, as well as decide on final approval about payment for the other firms, during a hearing on Nov. 17. Firms that did work for the creditors in the case were permitted payment in full by the judge. Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost’s office previously asked Koschik to delay approving any payments to the firms, in case it’s found that any of them had a connection to the bribery case. “Once the horse gets out of the barn, it’s kind of hard to put him back in,”
Ohio AG seeks to halt payouts in nuke plants’ bankruptcy | The Blade – The $60 million bribery and racketeering scheme which prosecutors believe was masterminded by former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder has cast “a cloud of suspicion” over federal bankruptcy proceedings used to help save the Davis-Besse and Perry nuclear plants, and is akin to a “hijacking of the legislative process,” according to a new court document written by Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost. In a filing Monday, Mr. Yost, a Republican, said the arrests of Mr. Householder, who also is a Republican, and four of his Republican associates in an operation that federal prosecutors have described as a pay-to-play scheme “raises concerns that the Debtor may not have entered into the bankruptcy with clean hands.” He is asking U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Alan M. Koschik for a temporary halt on payouts from those proceedings. He said it’s not clear if those requesting fees “were in a position to recognize underlying activities as opposed to further depleting the funds of the estate.” “In light of the foregoing, [the] Ohio Attorney General is requesting this Court not take any further action to approve compensation, fees, or expenses until there is further clarity in the federal criminal case,” Mr. Yost wrote. The scandal accusations stem from legislation known as House Bill 6, which Mr. Householder pushed through the Ohio General Assembly in 2019. The main purpose of that legislation was to bail out the Davis-Besse nuclear plant east of Toledo and the Perry nuclear plant east of Cleveland. Both are now owned and operated by a new company Energy Harbor, which emerged from the bankruptcy proceedings to replace FirstEnergy Solutions. FES is a former subsidiary of Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp. “This casts a cloud of suspicion over the bankruptcy proceedings,” Mr. Yost said in his filing. His comments echo what many legislators from both parties have stated in the aftermath of the arrests of Mr. Householder and others, some calling for an outright repeal and invalidation of House Bill 6 and others – including Gov. Mike DeWine – calling for a repeal that is immediately followed by similar legislation to stave off immediate closures of those two plants. Neither has been able to compete in the modern era of record low natural gas prices and greater support for solar, wind, and other forms of renewable energy. House Bill 6 also gave FirstEnergy one of the biggest things it had wanted for years, a repeal of an Ohio law which required utilities doing business in the state to steadily invest more in renewable energy.
Lawmakers conflicted over repealing law at heart of scandal – Several bills have been introduced in the Ohio General Assembly to outright repeal the nuclear plant bailout law at the heart of a $61 million Statehouse bribery scandal. But then what? Gov. Mike DeWine has called on lawmakers to swiftly act to undo House Bill 6. He signed the bill into law last year and still supports the policy behind it. But he argues that the $1 billion bailout has been tainted by the revelations detailed in a federal indictment of what allegedly went on behind the scenes to get HB 6 across the finish line. Former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder (R., Glenford) and four of his allies face charges that they conspired to funnel $61 million from FirstEnergy and related interests to help elect lawmakers loyal to Mr. Householder and get him elected speaker. They are accused of then using that power to push through a controversial law bailing out the Davis-Besse plant near Oak Harbor and Perry plant east of Cleveland as part of Ohio’s energy policy. But the commissioners of Ottawa and Erie counties, where the two plants are located, called on lawmakers to leave the law in place. Together, they directly employ about 1,400 people. “White we detest any alleged illegal or unethical activity before, during, or after the enactment of the legislation, we certainly believe the policy outcomes were of great benefit not only to our counties, but also to all Ohioans,” they said in a joint statement on Monday. “If the former House speaker or ‘dark money’ contributors were coordinating illegal behind-the-scenes activities, they should be punished in accordance with federal and state laws,” they said. Mr. DeWine wants lawmakers to openly debate and enact a replacement law. House Republicans and Democrats have introduced separate bills to repeal House Bill 6 and return to prior law that include no subsidies for the two nuclear plants and require utilities to obtain increasingly more of their power from renewable sources and reduce energy usage overall. A bipartisan measure doing the same thing has been introduced in the Senate. But all three bills have lawmakers who voted against the law in the first place as their primary sponsors. Only a handful of prior “yes” votes – including Reps. Mike Sheehy (D., Oregon) and Lisa Sobecki (D., Toledo) – are among those who’ve added their names as co-sponsors. Rep. Mike Skindell (D., Lakewood), a sponsor of House Bill 738, said the repeal should take place now but debate over a new bill should wait until after the new General Assembly is sworn in in January. “Because this session of General Assembly was created through alleged corrupt activities, we should deal with the legislation in the next General Assembly with the people there,” he said.
Crain’s editorial: Dark days – At a time when many citizens need, or soon will need, Ohio’s government to be at its best, the state Legislature is at a low point in perceptions of its integrity.It doesn’t have to stay that way, though, if lawmakers are willing to embrace some sensible measures to reduce the influence in Ohio of “dark money” groups, which aren’t required to disclose their donors, in political campaigns.The recent arrest of former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and others in the House Bill 6 scandal is prompting consideration in Columbus about how to eliminate the unethical funneling of money to lawmakers that allegedly greased the way for bad legislative sausage-making.As federal prosecutors tell it, “Company A,” thought to be FirstEnergy and related entities, used a 501(c)(4) called Generation Now to direct more than $60 million to political organizations that Householder controlled, with the prize being passage of a $1 billion-plus nuclear bailout bill. As Cleveland.com reported, “FirstEnergy’s funding – which was spent on buying political ads and hiring consultants and campaign staff – was obscured by routing it through various political organizations and business entities with vague names and lax disclosure rules,” practices made possible by dark money. U.S. Energy News, in its analysis of how dark money was used in the passage of HB 6, added that the independent expenditures “often escape reporting requirements, even when attack ads against a candidate’s opponent clearly aim to influence the outcome of a campaign. Likewise, issue-focused ads also escape reporting requirements unless they relate to a specific ballot proposal, as opposed to general warnings against plant closures, foreign influence or certain types of energy.”Without knowing where the backing of groups like Generation Now and others comes from, it’s impossible for voters to evaluate their messages during a political campaign. Whatever comes next in energy reform in Ohio cannot be tainted by the financial maneuverings that led to HB 6. State Reps. Gayle Manning, a Republican from North Ridgeville, and Jessica Miranda, a Democrat from Forest Park, are co-sponsoring HB 737, a campaign-finance reform bill that would require mandatory donor disclosures for all political spending in Ohio, even if a group is organized as a nonprofit. Cleveland.com noted that Manning and Miranda “also want to require more frequent disclosures – once every other month, instead of the common practice of quarterly reports – and to give the Secretary of State’s Office subpoena power to force organizations to share records if they don’t file them willingly.”
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