Environmental News For The Week Ending 06September 2019

Written by rjs, MarketWatch 666

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

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

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

• 30 Aug 2020 – Coronavirus Disease Weekly News 06September 2020

• 30 Aug 2020 – Coronavirus Economic Weekly News 06September 2020

Summary:

It appears that new US cases have virtually flatlined over the past three weeks, although this week’s totals got a boost from Illinois catching up on a virus data backlog (which was what also caused the reported test count to spike). US deaths were down slightly, probably less than 5%. But global cases seem to be rising again, with Spain and France leading a new surge in Europe and India’s new cases going off the chart (trending ~50% higher than the US) The government in India is reporting recoveries, which are also rising, so those hearing the virus news there think they’re doing great.

Calculated Risk continues to track US testing. The steep decline in recent days may simply reflect the holiday weekend. The 08 September graphic:

Meanwhile, with both thousands of fires out west and rapidly shifting weather patterns, there’s also quite a bit of other environment news this week in the US plus more around the world:

UN says new polio outbreak in Sudan caused by oral vaccine – The World Health Organization says a new polio outbreak in Sudan is linked to an ongoing vaccine-sparked epidemic in Chad – a week after the U.N. health agency declared the African continent free of the wild polio virus. In a statement this week, WHO said two children in Sudan – one from South Darfur state and the other from Gedarif state, close to the border with Ethiopia and Eritrea – were paralyzed in March and April. Both had been recently vaccinated against polio. WHO said initial outbreak investigations show the cases are linked to an ongoing vaccine-derived outbreak in Chad that was first detected last year and is now spreading in Chad and Cameroon.“There is local circulation in Sudan and continued sharing of transmission with Chad,” the U.N. agency said, adding that genetic sequencing confirmed numerous introductions of the virus into Sudan from Chad.WHO said it had found 11 additional vaccine-derived polio cases in Sudan and that the virus had also been identified in environmental samples. There are typically many more unreported cases for every confirmed polio patient. The highly infectious disease can spread quickly in contaminated water and most often strikes children under 5. In rare instances, the live polio virus in the oral vaccine can mutate into a form capable of sparking new outbreaks. Last week, WHO and partners declared that the African continent was free of the wild polio virus, calling it “an incredible and emotional day.” On Monday, WHO warned that the risk of further spread of the vaccine-derived polio across central Africa and the Horn of Africa was “high,” noting the large-scale population movements in the region. More than a dozen African countries are currently battling outbreaks of polio caused by the virus, including Angola, Congo, Nigeria and Zambia. Amid the coronavirus pandemic, many of the large-scale vaccination campaigns needed to stamp out polio have been disrupted across Africa and elsewhere, leaving millions of children vulnerable to infection. In April, WHO and its partners reluctantly recommended a temporary halt to mass polio immunization campaigns, recognizing the move could lead to a resurgence of the disease. In May, they reported that 46 campaigns to vaccinate children against polio had been suspended in 38 countries, mostly in Africa, because of the coronavirus pandemic.

UN Forced To Admit Gates-Funded Vaccine Is Causing Polio Outbreak In Africa -This really should be one of the biggest scandals in public health, but it’s given little attention – mainly because of the high-profile nature of the people and organisations involved. The United Nations has been forced to admit that a major international vaccine initiative is actually causing the outbreak of the very disease it was supposed to wipe-out. While international organisations like the World Health Organization (WHO) will regular boast about supposedly ‘eradicating polio’ with vaccines, the opposite seems to be the case. Their decades-long campaign to eradicate polio is now killing scores of innocent young people living in poor countries. Now it seems that health officials are beginning to admit that their plan to stop ‘wild’ polio is backfiring, as scores children are being paralyzed a deadly strain of the pathogen derived from a live vaccine – causing a virulent of polio to spread. This latest pharma-induced pandemic has broken out in the African countries of Chad and Sudan, and the culprit has been identified: a vaccine-derived polio virus type 2. Officials now fear this new dangerous strain could soon ‘jump continents,’ causing further deadly outbreaks around the world. Shocking as it sounds, this Big Pharma debacle is not new. After spending some $16 billion over 30 years to eradicate polio, international health bodies have ‘accidentally’ reintroduced the disease to in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and also Iran, as the central Asia region was hit by a virulent strain of polio spawned by the corporate pharmaceutical vaccine distributed there. Also, in 2019, the government of Ethiopia ordered the destruction of 57,000 vials of type 2 oral polio vaccine (mOPV2) following a similar outbreak of vaccine-induced polio.It’s important to note that the oral polio vaccine being pushed on to the African population by the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI), a consortium which is supported and funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.All of this should be a cause for concern, especially with western governments and transnational pharmaceutical giant all rushing to roll-out their new Gates-funded experimental coronavirus vaccine for the global population.Currently, the first experimental COVID-19 vaccine is being tested on the African population through GAVI Vaccine Alliance, another organization funded by the Gates Foundation. A large round of human trials will take place in South Africa, locally managed by the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg – yet another Gates-funded institution. This latest revelation from Africa should prompt media and health advocates to ask hard questions about the efficacy and safety of the much-hyped COVID ‘miracle’ vaccine.

EPA sued over decision not to regulate chemical linked to fetal brain damage -An advocacy group on Thursday sued the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over its decision not to regulate a chemical that has been linked to fetal and infant brain damage. The agency announced in June that it would not regulate the chemical perchlorate even though it estimated that up to 620,000 people could be drinking water with a concerning amount of the chemical. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) sued Thursday in an attempt to get the agency to withdraw its decision not to regulate the chemical, which is used in rocket fuel. “The agency should establish an enforceable drinking water standard for perchlorate that protects vulnerable people, especially our children,” said Erik Olson, the NRDC’s senior strategic director for its health and food, healthy people and thriving communities program. “Since the current EPA management will not do so voluntarily, we are seeking relief from the courts to force the agency to comply with the law and to follow the scientific evidence,” Olson added in a blog post. The EPA said in a July statement that perchlorate “does not meet the criteria for regulation as a drinking water contaminant” under the Safe Drinking Water Act and said in its decision that the number of people affected by perchlorate was too small to present a “meaningful opportunity for health risk reduction.” EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler also cited regulations that are present in some states and localities that he said are “effectively and efficiently managing levels of perchlorate.” The decision not to regulate the chemical follows a prior proposal to set a 56 parts per billion (ppb) standard for the chemical. This would have been stricter than the decision not to regulate, but still would have been significantly higher than the 15 ppb proposed under the Obama administration. Standards set by some states have been even lower, with California setting a 6 ppb maximum and Massachusetts setting a 2 ppb maximum.

Blue Jean Fibers Found Polluting Arctic Ocean, Great Lakes – What is the environmental footprint of your favorite pair of blue jeans? A new study indicates it might be quite large. The study, published in Environmental Science and Technology Letters Wednesday, found denim microfibers had infiltrated all the way to the Canadian Arctic Ocean. Researchers say it’s a telling example of the extent of human-generated pollution. “It’s not an indictment of jeans – I want to be really clear that we’re not coming down on jeans,” study coauthor and University of Toronto environmental scientist Miriam Diamond told WIRED. “It’s just a really potent example of human impact.” Scientists and environmental advocates have long known that plastic microfibers rub off synthetic clothing in the washing machine, where they enter the world’s oceans and rivers via wastewater treatment plants. One study estimated that two garbage trucks worth of microfibers enter Europe’s oceans this way every day. These fibers have been found everywhere from the bellies of deep-sea crustaceans to concentrated hotspotsin the sediment of the Mediterranean seafloor.At any given moment, about half of the world’s population is wearing blue jeans or other types of denim. So researchers at the University of Toronto wondered whether the popular garment had an equally global environmental impact. To find out, they looked at water samples from the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, the Great Lakes, and suburban lakes near Toronto. They found that indigo denim microfibers made up a sizable percentage of all the microfibers found in the three locations, according to an American Chemical Society (ACS) press release, the percentages were as follows:

1. Toronto Lakes: 12 percent
2. Arctic: 20 percent
3. Great Lakes: 23 percent

“Unfortunately, the results are not surprising to environmental scientists; they are even expected,” Caroline Gauchotte-Lindsay at the University of Glasgow in the UK, who was not involved in the study, told New Scientist. The researchers didn’t just look to see where the denim ended up. They also examined how it got there. To do this, they washed used, new and new distressed jeans, according to WIRED. They found that the new jeans released more fibers, and that a pair of jeans could release 56,000 microfibers per wash. They also counted the denim microfibers that turned up in effluent, or discharge, from two wastewater treatment plants on Lake Ontario. They concluded that as many as a billion denim microfibers could be entering the lake every day. While denim is made with organic fiber, not plastic, study coauthor Sam Athey told WIRED that they could still bring human contaminants to ocean ecosystems. “They’re called ‘natural’ textile fibers,” Athey said. “I’m doing air quotes around ‘natural’ because they contain these chemical additives. They also pick up chemicals from the environment, when you’re wearing your clothes, when they’re in the closet.”

Newly Hatched Florida Sea Turtles Are Consuming Dangerous Quantities of Floating Plastic – We work as scientists and rehabilitators at The Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience and Sea Turtle Hospital at the University of Florida. Our main focus is on sea turtle diseases that pose conservation threats, such as fibropapillomatosis tumor disease. However, it’s becoming increasingly hard to ignore evidence that plastic pollution poses a growing, hidden threat to the health of endangered sea turtles, particularly our youngest patients. In a newly published study, we describe how we examined 42 post-hatchling loggerhead sea turtles that stranded on beaches in Northeast Florida. We found that almost all of them had ingested plastic in large quantities. Ocean plastic pollution originates mostly from land-based sources, such as landfills and manufacturing plants. One recent study estimates that winds carry 200,000 tons of tiny plastic particles from degraded tires alone into the oceans every year. Plastics are extremely durable, even in salt water. Materials that were made in the 1950s, when plastic mass production began, are still persisting and accumulating in the oceans. Eventually these objects disintegrate into smaller fragments, but they may not break down into their chemical components for centuries. Overall, some 11 million tons of plastic enter the ocean each year. This amount is projected to grow to 29 million tons by 2040. Many forms of plastic threaten marine life. Sea turtles commonly mistake floating bags and balloons for their jellyfish prey. Social media channels are replete with videos and images of sea turtles with plastic strawsstuck in their nostrils, killed in plastic-induced mass mortality events, or dying after ingesting hundreds of plastic fragments. So far, however, scientists don’t know a lot about the prevalence and health effects of plastic ingestion in vulnerable young sea turtles. Post-hatchling washbacks are recently hatched baby turtles that successfully travel from their nesting beaches out to the open ocean and start to feed, but are then washed back to shore due to strong winds or ill health. We examined 42 dead washbacks, and found that 39 of them, or 93%, had ingested plastic – often in startling quantities. A majority of it was hard fragments, most commonly colored white.One turtle that weighed 48 grams or 1.6 ounces – roughly equivalent to 16 pennies – had ingested 287 plastic pieces. Another hatchling that weighed just 27 grams, or less than one ounce, had ingested 119 separate pieces of plastic that totaled 1.23% of its body weight. The smallest turtle in our study, with a shell just 4.6 centimeters (1.8 inches) long, had ingested a piece of plastic one-fourth the length of its shell. Consuming such large quantities of plastic increases the likelihood that broken-down plastic nanoparticles or chemicals that leach from them will enter turtles’ bloodstreams, with unknown health effects. Ingested plastic can also block turtles’ stomachs or intestines. At a minimum, it limits the amount of space that’s physically available for consuming and digesting genuine prey that they need to survive and grow.

Animal rights group sues US government to prevent aquarium from acquiring 5 beluga whales – An animal rights group filed a lawsuit against the federal government on Thursday in an effort to stop the Mystic Aquarium in Connecticut from acquiring five new beluga whales. The nonprofit group Friends of Animals filed the suit against U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and the National Marine Fisheries, claiming the permit granted to the Mystic Aquarium violates the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the National Environmental Policy Act. The aquarium already has three beluga whales and the largest outdoor habitat for whales in the U.S., a 750,000-gallon enclosure. Beluga whales are found in the Arctic Ocean and subarctic waters, according to the World Wildlife Fund. The species is considered “near threatened.” “Beluga whales do not belong in captivity,” the lawsuit reads. “They are highly social and intelligent animals who roam large distances in the wild. Captivity robs them of their most basic needs. Belugas are subject to extreme emotional and physical suffering in captivity. Protest groups clash outside of Kentucky Derby The five-year permit claims the aquarium seeks the animals for non-invasive research, which means the whales would not be bred or allowed to be displayed for entertainment purposes at the aquarium. Mystic Aquarium says on its website that it’s “a leader in beluga research, care and behaviors.”

The Fires May be in California, but the Smoke, and its Health Effects, Travel Across the Country — Record setting conflagrations in California and Colorado have smothered residents of the two states with choking, stinging smoke. But the impact of that smoke is also being felt hundreds, even thousands, of miles away, and the health impacts may last for years after the flames subside. If the current fire weather trends continue, said Pete Lahm, a smoke specialist for the U.S. Forest Service, “it’s gonna be a hellacious level of smoke out there for a lot of people.”Smoke from the current fires has blanketed much of the United States, spreading all the way to the East Coast, although not always falling to the ground level where people can inhale it. Colorado has four large wildfires of its own burning, including one on the verge of becoming the state’s largest in history. But much of the smoke around Denver last weekend was from the fires in California, said Colorado state air quality meteorologist Scott Landes.”I would say at minimum 50 percent of the smoke that we’ve had in the Denver area has come from the California wildfires,” he said. Doctors have long warned that the smoke from wildfires can damage the hearts and lungs of people who are near the flames. But they are increasingly learning that such emissions may damage livers and kidneys, hobble immune systems and even prompt genetic changes that could be passed down through generations. And with climate change continuing to drive steep increases in the amount of land burning around the planet, millions more people are expected to endure smoke-related illnesses in coming years.

Containment increases on Colorado wildfires, but dry and warm conditions persist through weekend – Firefighters continue to increase containment on the four major wildfires burning in Colorado, but are expecting hot temperatures, gusty winds and drier conditions through the weekend before a cold front arrives early next week. Firefighting efforts for these four fires have cost the state $77 million, according to the National Interagency Fire Center in Idaho.Here is the latest on the four major fires burning in Colorado:

• Grizzly Creek Fire: Firefighters were able to increase containment on the Grizzly Creek Fire on Wednesday to 82% – up 7% from that morning, at 32,464 acres. Fire managers said firefighters have secured containment lines on about 64 miles of the 78-mile fire perimeter.But officials saw warmer and drier conditions Wednesday, which they expect to continue through the weekend. The warmer and drier weather is expected to cause some interior smoke on hot spots well within the fire perimeter that have not fully burned but did not threaten the fire perimeter or any structures. Deputy Incident Commander Tom Kurth said hotshot crews had completed a “major accomplishment” by securing line in the No Name Creek drainage they had been working on for the past week in a steep and rugged area.
• Pine Gulch Fire: Wednesday was a quiet day at the Pine Gulch Fire, with crews focused on continuing to monitor, patrol and mop up the fire.Small pockets of heat are persisting along the fire’s northwest side. On Thursday, crews in that area will focus on mopping up along the southern rim of the East Salt Creek main canyon. Crews around the fire will also continue assessing and repairing damage from fire suppression efforts.Because the fire is 83% contained, personnel and equipment are being released to help elsewhere. The Pine Gulch Fire is the largest wildfire in Colorado history at 139,007 acres. It is not expected to grow any more on Thursday.
• Cameron Peak Fire: The Cameron Peak Fire was at 23,137 acres and 6% contained on Thursday morning, and officials were expecting more active fire activity with dry conditions throughout the day – even as they deal with a positive case of COVID-19 among the crew.Officials are giving an update on the fire on Facebook at 7:30 p.m. Thursday.After holding steady for most of the week, fire behavior on Wednesday increased slightly as the area dried out and winds increased, though burned acreage was only up by about 130 acres from Tuesday. A Red Flag Warning was in effect for most of the day Thursday due to dry, warm and windy conditions. Crews on Thursday are planning to monitor the fire along its perimeter and continue structure mitigation and protection in Crystal Lakes, Redfeather Lakes, Glacier View and other nearby areas. Colorado Highway 14 remains closed from Rustic to Gould, and some mandatory evacuations are in place near the fire, though most of those areas have been campgrounds and other outdoor spaces.
• Williams Fork Fire: Fire managers at the Williams Fork Fire, which is burning 15 miles southwest of Fraser, are taking advantage of calmer fire conditions to scout for more containment line opportunities along the north side of the fire.Currently, the fire is 12,097 acres and 10% contained.On Wednesday, crews felled trees that had been damaged and extinguished hot spots along the fire’s containment lines. The construction of lines along Crooked Creek Road and St. Louis Creek Road is progressing well, according to the Rocky Mountain Incident Management Team. Before the fire lines are complete, crews will need to reduce the amount of fuel around the perimeter.

Wildfires Have Burned Colorado’s Iconic Forests. Because Of Climate Change, Some Won’t Grow Back The Same | Colorado Public Radio – Marin Chambers was in the middle of a large, high severity burn patch from the 2002 Hayman forest fire, northwest of Colorado Springs. Dead and fallen trees surrounded Chambers, a research associate with the Colorado Forest Restoration Institute at Colorado State University. The fast-moving flames of the Hayman fire charred more acreage than any other wildfire in state history at the time. It’s now second to thePine Gulch fire, still ablaze north of Grand Junction. Nearly 20 years later, the burn patch Chambers stood in seemed to be missing something: Where were the new trees? She and others have found in their research on places like this that Colorado’s forests are struggling to grow back some of the state’s most iconic species, like ponderosa pine and Douglas fir, particularly in lower elevations. Baby trees don’t thrive in increased heat and drought brought on by climate change, combined with larger, high-severity fires. The result, then, decades after a wildfire, is that the landscapes are transformed, perhaps never again to be covered in a lush forest.This patch of 18-square miles burned hot and fast in a single day during the Hayman fire, driven by high winds, drought and an unnaturally dense forest caused by fire suppression. After the flames came through, almost no living trees were left. Taking the long view, comparing it to decades past, Chambers said, “It’s pretty unprecedented in the historical record, or at least what we understand wildfires to have done in the past in this kind of vegetation.” A lower intensity wildfire would have left behind some living trees, scattered through the acres. Those trees would drop seeds, and a forest would regenerate. High-severity fires instead leave behind massive burn areas with almost nothing alive. The tree seeds can’t travel much past the edge of the vast burn scar. If there is forest regeneration, it occurs in bands along the surviving forest edge where seeds drop close by.“In this fire and in other fires in the Front Range of Colorado, the seeds from surviving trees don’t travel very far from their parent trees,” Chambers said. “So especially, the middle of these very high-severity burn areas where lots of the surviving trees are a really far distance from the middle of those patches, we’re likely not going to see tree regeneration occurring.”

Arctic wildfires emit 35% more CO2 so far in 2020 than for whole of 2019 -The amount of carbon dioxide emitted by Arctic wildfires this year is already 35% higher than the figure for the whole of 2019.The latest data, provided by the EU’s Copernicus a tmosphere monitoringservice, shows that up to 24 August 245 megatonnes of CO2 had been released from wildfires this year. The figure for the whole of last year was 181 megatonnes.The peak number of active fire observations was about 600 in late July, compared with 400 in 2019. The average equivalent number between 2003 and 2018 was about 100. Copernicus estimated that 205 megatonnes of CO2 was emitted between 1 June and 31 July alone. The wildfires coincided with a heatwave in Siberia, where temperatures soared to more than 30C (86F) in some areas. Emissions increased significantly in July and early August compared with 2019. “In some respects [the data] has been similar to 2019 in terms of the dry and warm conditions in the Siberian Arctic. This year, the difference was a large cluster of fires that burned through July for many days leading to higher estimated emissions.” Dr Thomas Smith, assistant professor in environmental geography at the London School of Economics, also warned that some fires were destroying ancient peat bogs containing carbon that has accumulated over thousands of years, a process similar to fossil fuel burning.Analysis performed by Smith, covering May and June of this year, suggested that about 50% of the fires in the Arctic Circle were burning on peat soils, with the vast majority of the fire activity occurring in eastern Siberia. In June, Russia’s aerial forest protection service reported that 3.4m acres of Siberian forest were burning in areas unreachable to firefighters. Last summer, the Arctic fires were so intense that they created a cloud of smoke and soot bigger than the EU landmass.

14 million acres of crops affected by powerful derecho in Iowa, U.S. (videos) Up to 5.6 million ha (14 million acres) of crops in Iowa have been battered a powerful derecho that struck parts of the Midwest on August 10, 2020. Northern Illinois University meteorology professor Victor Gensini considers it as one of the worst weather events of 2020 for the country. A powerful line of severe thunderstorms known as a “Derecho” tracked across eastern Iowa and northwest Illinois on the afternoon of Monday, August 10, 2020, producing widespread straight line wind damage. A swath of damage from Benton County, through portions of Linn, Jones, Cedar, and Clinton Counties, is consistent with intermittent straight line winds in the 160 – 210 km/h (100 – 130 mph) range, NWS said. Maximum estimated winds were around 225 km/h (140 mph), which caused extensive damage to an apartment complex in southwest Cedar Rapids, IA. Straight line winds of this magnitude are equivalent to an EF-3 tornado. The U.S. Department of Agriculture said a total of 5.6 million ha (14 million acres) of crops in Iowa were affected by the event. Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig specified that 1.6 million ha (4 million acres) of corn have been severely damaged, as well as 1 million ha (2.5 million acres) of soybean. The storm exacerbated the situation for farmers as Iowa is already experiencing its most widespread drought since September 2013. Dr. Charles Hurburgh, an expert in corn grain quality at Iowa State University’s Extension and Outreach, said the crop damage is likely the biggest one he has ever seen. “Largest area of coverage of multiple problems that I’ve ever seen and that’s what makes it more of a challenge.” Hurburgh recommended farmers to check their crops for mold or other toxins. Some of the damaged grain may be used for feed while keeping the bad grains out of the market. This year’s total crop damage is yet to be identified until harvest is completed. NASA shared satellite images of the destruction that was so extensive that it was seen from space.

Severe storms with giant hail and tornadoes hit northern Italy, leaving at least 4 people dead (videos) Powerful storms brought lightning, giant hail, and tornadoes to northern Italy over the weekend, causing significant material damage and leaving at least 4 people dead. Severe weather continued into Monday, August 31, but the threat is now shifting into southeastern Europe, including Croatia, Hungary, Serbia, etc. where yellow and orange weather alerts are in effect. Severe weather hit wide swaths of Italy over the weekend, from South Tyrol down to the central region of Lazio around Rome, killing at least 4 people in two separate incidents and leaving several missing. “A supercell outbreak with numerous intense and deadly storms has verified across northern Italy,” Severe Weather Europe meteorologists noted August 31. “Several tornadoes were reported, besides destructive winds, very large hail events, and severe flooding.” Two girls aged three and 14 were killed on August 29 in Tuscany, when a tornado uprooted a tree which then hit their tent at a campsite in Marina di Mass. Additionally, two German tourists were killed during severe flooding near Bolzano, South Tyrol after their car collided with a lorry. At least one person is missing in the Varese area after being swept away by a swollen river, The Local reports.Hailstones the size of eggs were reported in Cremona, Mantova, and Bergamo in Lombardy, where authorities had to call in heavy machinery to clear out roads.The city of Verona is again making headlines after multiple waves of severe weather since August 23. The city has been hit by severe flooding, giant hailstones, and strong winds, causing considerable damage. Severe damage reports are coming from the entire Veneto region, with Vicenza and Belluno areas hit particularly hard. Vincenza was reportedly hit by a tornado that flattened trees, fences and road signs, and damaged buildings.

17 dead, more than 10 000 houses damaged in Odisha floods, India – At least 17 people died while more than 10 000 houses were damaged by floods in India’s Odisha state as of Monday, August 31, 2020. Although the situation has improved, over 1.4 million people remain affected across 20 districts. The state saw days of heavy rainfall from August 25, with several places recording more than 200 mm (8 inches) in 24 hours. In Marshaghai, Kendrapara, 234 mm (9 inches) of rain fell in a 24-hour period to August 26, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) reported. Downpours pushed rivers above the danger mark in five sites, including the Subarnarekha River in Baleshwar, which hit record levels of around 6.9 m (22.7 feet) on August 27. The river was above the danger mark of 5.5 m (18 feet), beating the previous high of 6.8 m (22.3 feet), according to the Central Water Commission (CWC). As of Monday, August 31, the rivers Subarnarekha, Budhabalanga, Baitarani, and Brahmani have been stable and flowing below the danger level, water resources secretary Anu Garg said. Three sluice gates of Rengali Dam have also been closed, while the fourth will soon be shut. While the situation has improved, disaster authorities said more than 1.4 million people remain affected across 3 256 villages across 20 districts of Odisha. The state government also reported that more than 100 roads have been blocked across 11 districts, stranding more than 265 000 residents in 340 villages. At least 17 people lost their lives in flood-related incidents, while dozens were rescued by the fire services and national disaster response forces. More than 10 000 houses were also damaged.

24 dead, 11,000 displaced after highest August rain in 44 years hits Madhya Pradesh, India– At least 24 people lost their lives while 11 000 residents have been displaced after heavy rains struck Madhya Pradesh from August 27 to 31, 2020, causing major flooding. According to the India Meteorological Department (IMD), this was the state’s highest rainfall for the month of August in 44 years. Authorities reported at least 24 fatalities while 11 000 others have been evacuated by the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) from widespread flooding during the end of August. More than 400 mm (16 inches) of rain was recorded in a 24-hour period to August 30 solely. This led the Narmada River at Hoshangabad to rise around 2 m (7 feet) above the danger mark on August 1. Other districts hit badly by flooding include Raisen, Sehore, Bhopal, Vidisha, Chhindwara, Balaghat, Seoni, Katni, Sagar, Shivpuri and Ujjain India’s Disaster Management Division (DMD) said flooding over the past few days has affected 33 000 people across 1 906 villages and 28 districts of the state. A total of 11,197 homes have also been damaged.

Severe flood death toll at 251, more than 5 million affected and wide swaths of crops lost, Bangladesh – A total of 251 people have lost their lives while more than five million people have been affected due to severe floods across Bangladesh, officials confirmed in a media statement on Friday, August 28, 2020. The loss of crops has also been put at 13.2 billion takas or about 156 million dollars. The Health Emergency Operation Center and the Control Room of Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) revealed the figures after studying the control room data from the last two months. As many as 269 sub-units in 33 districts have been flooded, and 210 of the fatalities were due to drowning, 25 from snake bites, 13 from lightning, one from diarrhea, and two from injuries. According to the Asian News International (ANI), quoting the daily disaster report by the National Disaster Response Coordination Center, more than five million people have been affected, while thousands of households were forced to evacuate. “Also, the loss of crops due to floods in Bangladesh has been put at 13.23 billion takas (about 156.4 million US dollars),” ANI wrote.

At least 190 dead, 4 000 houses damaged or destroyed as devastating floods hit Parwan, Afghanistan – The death toll from a week of severe flooding in Parwan, Afghanistan, has reached at least 190 on Tuesday, September 1, 2020. Scores of people were injured, about 4 000 houses were damaged or destroyed, and many others are still missing, leaving the victims’ families devastated.The floods started last Tuesday, August 25, after heavy rains struck northern Parwan Province, affecting the city of Charikar the most.Raging waters dislocated thousands of boulders that destroyed houses and buried people under the rubble. Initial reports showed that 121 people died while 136 others were injured, according to deputy spokesman Rahmatullah Haidari.As of September 1, at least 190 fatalities have been reported and 170 injured, with the number of deaths expected to further rise.”Our rescue teams are removing rubble at the sites and looking for more possible dead bodies,” said state minister for disaster management, Ghulam Bahawudin Jilani. He added that overall, 1 055 houses have been completely destroyed, while almost 3 000 were partially damaged.

Nearly 200 000 people affected by major flooding after record rains hit Chad (videos) Some 190 000 people across Chad have been affected by severe flooding triggered by record downpours since early August. According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), nearly 120 000 of these victims have been displaced– much of the affected were in the capital city of N’Djamena, where 10 people have died across seven departments due to flash flood-related incidents. Some of the victims have sought shelter with other relatives and friends as numerous houses have been damaged or destroyed. “The flooding has exacerbated the already challenging situation for many of the most vulnerable N’djamenois, who are now seeking refuge in local school buildings after having lost not only their homes but also their livelihoods,” Anne Schaefer added, IOM Chad’s chief of mission. At least 10 people have died across seven departments in N’djamena after severe flooding. Hundreds of houses were damaged or destroyed, displacing thousands of people. Flooding also struck other parts of the country, including the Lac Province, which already hosts 6 807 displaced persons– 33 000 of them were evacuated due to flooding. “Not only does the damage caused by floods exacerbate the risks of COVID-19 due to unsanitary conditions, [but] there are [also] very high risks of cholera and malaria outbreaks as water levels rise and water stagnates in the city,” Schaefer noted. This year, the Lake Region has had its highest rainfall in almost 30 years.

Hurricane “Laura” aftermath: at least 54 people dead, widespread destruction across the Caribbean and US Gulf Coast – Hurricane “Laura” entered history books as a deadly, very powerful, and damaging hurricane that tied the Last Island Hurricane of 1856 as the strongest hurricane ever recorded to make landfall in Louisiana, U.S. Laura is the 12th named storm, 4th hurricane, and 1st major hurricane of the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season. At least 53 people were killed, as of August 30, 2020 — 31 in Haiti, 4 in the Dominican Republic and 18 in the United States (10 in Louisiana, 7 in Texas and 1 in Florida). Laura intensified into a tropical storm on August 21 when it was about 375 km (230 miles) ESE of the northern Leeward Islands. This made it the earliest 12th named storm in the Atlantic Ocean on record, beating the previous record held by Hurricane “Luis” of 1995 by 8 days. The storm was strengthening as it passed just south of Puerto Rico and early on August 23, it made landfall near San Pedro de Macoris, Dominican Republic with maximum sustained winds of 72 km/h (45 mph). On the same day, it passed near Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic, and emerged from Haiti and crossed the Windward Passage, making a second landfall near Santiago de Cuba Province, Cuba with maximum sustained winds of 95 km/h (60 mph) and a minimum central pressure of 1 000 hPa. The third landfall took place around 00:00 UTC on August 25 in western Cuba’s Pinar del Rio Province. The storm then entered the Gulf of Mexico and started reorganizing. Laura brought heavy rainfall to the islands of Guadeloupe and Dominica. In the Netherlands Antilles, Saba, Sint Eustatius, and Sint-Maarten saw minor flooding. Scattered power outages affected 4 000 people in Saint Kitts and Nevis. In the Virgin Islands, a peak wind gust of 65 km/h (41 mph) was reported in Sandy Point, Saint Croix. The Virgin Islands reported some power outages and flash flooding. Puerto Rico authorities declared a state of emergency after roughly 200 000 customers lost power and nearly 14 000 access to running water. A peak 104 mm (4.09 inches) of rain was reported in Villalba and peak wind gust of 121 km/h (75 mph) in Salinas. In the Dominican Republic, the heaviest rains were reported in the country’s southern coast. The highest 24-hour rainfall accumulation was recorded in Barahona at 300 mm (11.7 inches). According to media reports, approximately 1.1 million people lost power, and 1.56 million experienced water service disruption. Estimates made on August 24 included 1 791 damaged homes. At least 4 people lost their lives. Widespread flooding also hit Haiti where Peligre Dam overflowed, sending floodwaters down the Artibonite valley. Floods damaged 447 homes and destroyed 15 in the Artibonite. At least 31 people lost their lives and 8 went missing. In Cuba, 260 000 people were forced to evacuate. A wind gust of 146 km/h (91 mph) was recorded in Maisi, where residents reported downed trees and destroyed roofs. 231.5 mm (9.51 inches) of rain was recorded in Complejo Palma, Santiago de Cuba, and 190.6 mm (7.50 inches) in San Antonio del Sura, Guantanamo. A bridge in Buey Arriba, Granma Province, collapsed due to flooding, stranding residents of 30 communities. Flash flooding and significant disruption to road infrastructure were also reported across Jamaica. On August 25, a St. George Island first responder drowned while trying to rescue a swimmer caught in rough surf. This was Laura’s first fatality in the United States.

Suffocating heat torments hurricane-ravaged areas of Louisiana, where more than 300,000 lack power – Large portions of southwestern Louisiana remain without power four days after Hurricane Laura struck the region as the strongest storm on record for this part of the state, with gusts topping 150 mph. Now, the areas hit hardest are dealing with dangerous levels of heat and humidity that could last several more days, according to the National Weather Service.One extreme weather event layered atop another makes the region’s arduous recovery process even more difficult. Many residents are without air conditioning and lack running water while stifling heat, among the most lethal weather hazards, takes hold. The absence of basic services amid a punishing heat wave is made even more daunting by the novel coronavirus, which is keeping many residents at home or in shelters. Louisiana has seen 661 new cases in the past week alone, and the hurricane disrupted testing efforts. On Monday, the Weather Service upgraded a heat advisory for extreme southwestern Louisiana, including Lake Charles and Cameron, to an excessive heat warning, cautioning that the combination of the heat and humidity would make it feel like 111 to 114 degrees outside.“An Excessive Heat Warning means that a prolonged period of dangerously hot temperatures will occur,” the Weather Service said. “The combination of hot temperatures and high humidity will combine to create a DANGEROUS SITUATION in which heat illnesses are likely. Drink plenty of fluids, stay in an air-conditioned room, stay out of the sun, and check up on relatives and neighbors.”The warning area also included counties in southeastern Texas along the Louisiana border that were seriously affected by Laura. Heat is the leading cause of weather-related deaths in the United States in some years, and those without access to air conditioning are most vulnerable, especially older adults, those with preexisting medical conditions and the socially isolated.The widespread power outages in extreme southwestern Louisiana and parts of Texas along the Louisiana border mean limited access to air conditioning. Compounding problems even more, some of these areas, including Lake Charles, lack access to running water, according to a Federal Emergency Management Agency briefing for senior leadership obtained by The Washington Post. To compensate for the lack of power, some residents were relying on generators, which can create a hazard if improperly installed. Eight people died of carbon monoxide poisoning in the hurricane’s wake.

Damaged transmission towers slow Hurricane Laura recovery – Hurricane Laura caused “catastrophic” damage to Louisiana’s electric grid, which will leave some customers without power for weeks, Entergy said Wednesday in an update on the state’s recovery from last month’s storm. “Our damage assessments indicate catastrophic damage to our electrical infrastructure,” the company said in its Sept. 2 update. “We expect the recovery to be as difficult and challenging as we have ever faced in the past. Customers should expect extended power outages lasting for weeks.” Entergy reported 140,449 customers in four states still without power since the storm made landfall as a category 4 hurricane on Aug. 29, a 77-percent restoration rate from the peak 616,000 customers. In Louisiana, the restoration rate was 56 percent with 119,786 still without power. Throughout the region, approximately 268,000 customers were still without power, down from a peak of nearly 989,000 and a restoration rate of nearly 73 percent, according to the Edison Electric Institute. More than 29,000 utility workers from across the United States and from Canada were still repairing the damage in the storm area. “The damage assessments completed by crews on the ground and by helicopter and drone flights have revealed the catastrophic damage that Laura caused to nearly 1,000 transmission structures in Louisiana and parts of southeast Texas,” EEI said in its Sept. 2 update. “Often, crews must use fan boats, barges, and tracked vehicles just to reach some of the most heavily damaged areas.” Laura took a heavy toll on the largest of the transmission towers that distribute power throughout the state. The major steel structures that support the mainstay 500,000-volt power lines buckled in some locations and will require a significant construction effort to repair.

Louisiana moves two mobile air monitoring labs to Lake Charles – The state Department of Environmental Quality has moved two of its three Mobile Air Monitoring Labs, which they’ve affectionately dubbed “mammals,” to the Lake Charles area, where a loss of power has meant no monitoring of air pollutants since Hurricane Laura’s landfall on Thursday. The federal Environmental Protection Agency conducted some hand-held and aerial monitoring in the Lake Charles area on Thursday and Friday, following an intense fire and chlorine gas release at the BioLab Inc. manufacturing facility in Westlake. Chlorine, other chemicals detected near Hurricane Laura-damaged chemical plant, EPA says “We are glad to use the MAMLs to monitor ambient air quality while our ambient air-monitoring network is out of power. This is not the MAMLs’ intended use, but they can do the job,” said DEQ Secretary Chuck Carr Brown. “We hope to have our monitoring system back up and running soon. Like so many others in the storm impact zone, we are awaiting the restoration of electric power.” The custom laboratories are mounted on a 35-foot truck chassis, and house equipment, supplies and work gear for DEQ staff to use in monitoring and testing for chemicals. The labs have gas chromatographs, reduced sulphur compound analyzers, analyzers to identify methane, and other monitoring equipment.

Tropical Storm “Omar” forms off the coast of North Carolina, U.S. – Tropical Storm “Omar” formed at 21:00 UTC on September 1, 2020, as the earliest 15th named storm in the Atlantic Ocean. The previous record was set by Ophelia on September 7, 2005. The storm is moving away from the coast and is expected to be short-lived. At 21:00 UTC on September 1, Omar’s center was located 365 km (225 miles) E of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, U.S. The system had maximum sustained winds of 65 km/h (40 mph) and was moving ENE at 24 km/h (15 mph). Its minimum central pressure was 1 007 hPa. Tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 95 km (60 miles).

Tropical Storm “Nana” forms near Jamaica, forecast to make landfall in Belize – Tropical Storm “Nana” formed at 16:05 UTC on September 1, 2020, as the earliest 14th named storm in the Atlantic Ocean on record. The previous record was set by Nate on September 6, 2005. At the time it formed, Nana’s center was about 195 km (120 miles) SW of Kingston, Jamaica. The system is forecast to be a hurricane as it approaches the coast of Belize. Strong winds, dangerous storm surge, and very heavy rainfall causing flash flooding are becoming more likely from Nana. At 18:00 UTC on September 1, Nana’s center was located 175 km (110 miles) S of Negril, Jamaica, and 1 045 km (650 miles) E of Belize City, Belize. Its maximum, sustained winds were 85 km/h (50 mph) and minimum central pressure 1 002 hPa. Nana is moving to the W at 30 km/h (18 mph). The current NHC forecast track takes Nana near but north of the coast of Honduras on Wednesday, September 2, and likely be approaching the coast of Belize on Thursday, September 3 as a hurricane.

Hurricane “Nana” makes landfall in Belize – Hurricane “Nana” made landfall in a relatively sparsely populated area of Belize, between Dangriga and Placencia at 06:00 UTC on September 3, 2020, with maximum sustained winds of 120 km/h (75 mph). Nana is the 5th hurricane of the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season and the first hurricane to make landfall in Belize since Earl in 2016. Belize authorities evacuated more than 4 000 people ahead of landfall which took place between Dangriga and Placencia some 80 km (50 miles) south of Belize City. Thousands of people reportedly stocked up on food, water, and construction materials on Wednesday. Media reported long lines in supermarkets and nearly empty shelves in hardware stores after residents bought materials to board up windows and doors. By 12:00 UTC, Nana’s center reached northern Guatemala. At the time, the system had maximum sustained winds of 95 km/h (60 mph) and was moving WSW at 24 km/h (15 mph).The government of Belize has discontinued all coastal watches and warnings while Mexico discontinued the Tropical Storm Warning for the coast of Mexico. On the forecast track, Nana will continue moving inland over Guatemala and extreme southeastern Mexico today and tonight while rapidly weakening.

FEMA Spends More Preparing for Terrorism Than Hurricanes — In the days and hours before Hurricane Laura reached the Gulf Coast, emergency personnel took up positions in Texas and Louisiana and readied half a million meals and 800,000 liters of water. It’s the role of the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate the immediate response to storms, floods and wildfires, all of which have become more common as a result of global warming. But even though scientists have warned of increasingly extreme weather, preparation for climate-related disasters hasn’t been FEMA’s top spending priority. An analysis of preparedness grants disbursed by FEMA shows the agency spends far more on counter-terror than natural disasters. In 2019, for example, the U.S. Government Accountability Office found more than $1 billion in FEMA grants assigned to counter-terror preparation and only $315 million in readiness for natural disasters. There are new FEMA grant programs for 2020 that will disburse $660 million in funding for what the agency calls “pre-disaster mitigation,” focusing on resiliency against flooding and the relocation of vulnerable communities. Last year, however, approximately 75% of FEMA’s total preparedness grants went to the programs with counter-terrorism links, according to the GAO report.

Maysak becomes strongest typhoon of the year, heads toward South Korea after lashing Okinawa – Typhoon “Maysak” became the strongest typhoon of the year on August 31, 2020, with its eye passing very close to Kume Island, Okinawa Prefecture, Japan. The storm is moving towards the Korean Peninsula, with landfall expected near Busan, South Korea on September 2. Another powerful typhoon — Haishen — is expected to move toward Japan later this week, and possibly impact Kyushu around September 6 before it approaches the Korean Peninsula.Maysak intensified to Category 4 hurricane equivalent on August 31, becoming the strongest typhoon of the year so far. According to the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), Maysak’s central pressure was around 940 hPa, which is nearly the same as Hurricane “Laura” at the time of landfall in Louisiana, U.S.Kumejima airport recorded the strongest wind gust at 196 km/h (121 mph) and 225 mm (8.8 inches) of rain in 24 hours.At least 5 people have been injured and more than 30 000 households lost power.In Okinawa’s capital Naha, where peak gust of 157 km/h (98 mph) was measured, a wall of a building was ripped off, damaging two cars parked nearby. Many buildings had their roofs blown off, more than 250 flights have been canceled and many bus and ferry services temporarily canceled.Maysak is now moving towards the north and is expected to pass very close to Kyushu before it makes landfall in South Korea on September 2 as one of the strongest typhoons to hit the country on record. Only 5 other Category 2+ typhoons have made landfall in South Korea since 1959.The country is still recovering from this year’s record-long monsoon which caused destructive flooding and left more than 40 people dead.After moving over South Korea, Maysak is forecast to reach North Korea — which was hit byTyphoon “Bavi” last week, one of the country’s three strongest typhoons on record.

Typhoon “Maysak” makes landfall near Busan, South Korea – At least one person died and more than 2 000 were displaced as powerful Typhoon “Maysak” hit South Korea, authorities said Thursday, September 3, 2020. The storm packed maximum sustained winds of 170 km/h (105 mph) at the time of landfall, knocking down trees and poles, flooding streets, and cutting power to nearly 280 000 homes. Maysak is the 6th Category 2 or greater storm to lash South Korea since credible records started in 1951, and the 4th typhoon to hit the Korean Peninsula in the 2020 Pacific typhoon season. It also set a low-pressure record for South Korea at 950 hPa. Maysak touched down near Busan, South Korea, on Wednesday, September 2, as Category 2 hurricane equivalent. Busan is South Korea’s second-largest city and the world’s fifth-largest port. A woman died after a strong gust of wind shattered her apartment window in Busan, while an elderly man was injured. More than 2 200 people evacuated to shelters, while around 278 6000 homes were left without power throughout the night across the southern region and on Jeju Island. Since Tuesday, September 1, Jeju recorded 1 000 mm (39 inches) of rainfall. More than 950 domestic flights were canceled, while some rail services were disrupted for safety purposes. As of Thursday morning, crews have managed to restore electricity to about 199 400 houses.

Ocean acidification causing coral ‘osteoporosis’ on iconic reefs — Scientists have long suspected that ocean acidification is affecting corals’ ability to build their skeletons, but it has been challenging to isolate its effect from that of simultaneous warming ocean temperatures, which also influence coral growth. New research from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) reveals the distinct impact that ocean acidification is having on coral growth on some of the world’s iconic reefs. In a paper published Aug. 27, 2020, in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, researchers show a significant reduction in the density of coral skeleton along much of the Great Barrier Reef–the world’s largest coral reef system–and also on two reefs in the South China Sea, which they attribute largely to the increasing acidity of the waters surrounding these reefs since 1950. “This is the first unambiguous detection and attribution of ocean acidification’s impact on coral growth,” says lead author and WHOI scientist Weifu Guo. “Our study presents strong evidence that 20th century ocean acidification, exacerbated by reef biogeochemical processes, had measurable effects on the growth of a keystone reef-building coral species across the Great Barrier Reef and in the South China Sea. These effects will likely accelerate as ocean acidification progresses over the next several decades.” Roughly a third of global carbon dioxide emissions are absorbed by the ocean, causing an average 0.1 unit decline in seawater pH since the pre-industrial era. This phenomenon, known as ocean acidification, has led to a 20 percent decrease in the concentration of carbonate ions in seawater. Animals that rely on calcium carbonate to create their skeletons, such as corals, are at risk as ocean pH continues to decline. Ocean acidification targets the density of the skeleton, silently whittling away at the coral’s strength, much like osteoporosis weakens bones in humans.

• Cumulative PV capacity to be 1,600 GW and 4,500 GW,
• Cumulative PV waste to reach up to 8 million tonnes and 78 million tonnes,
• Value creation to be $450 million and $15 billion in raw materials recovery,
• New industries and employment opportunities to arise from repair, reuse, recycling and treatment of PV panels,
• Enough raw materials recovered to produce 60 million new panels (equivalent to 18 GW) and 2 billion new panels (equivalent to 630 GW).

Current global panel recycling trends are not yet poised to capitalize on this environmental and economic opportunity. According to Grist, while the E.U. requires manufacturers to ensure panels are properly recycled, in the U.S., there are no regulatory frameworks requiring the recycling of old panels, except for Washington state. In Japan, India and Australia, recycling requirements are being discussed. Without robust recycling mandates, most of this toxic trash will be sent to landfills.

Climate Crisis Could Change Permafrost Soil Microbes, With ‘Unknown Consequences’ for Arctic Ecosystems, Scientists Say – Can the past predict the future? In the case of communities of microbes living in the Arctic permafrost, researchers at the University of Alberta think it might. The scientists discovered that the microbes and chemistry of Arctic soil changed dramatically following the end of the last Ice Age, and the same thing could happen again due to the climate crisis.”Since soils are where plants grow and where nearly all terrestrial life lives, this could have big impacts on the entire Arctic ecosystem,” study coauthor and University of Alberta associate professor Brian Lanoi said in auniversity press release. “Our work shows this happened before, and it is possible that this could happen again as the result of current climate change. The study, published in Frontiers in Environmental Science this month helped fill a gap in scientists’ understanding of how the end of the Ice Age impacted soil communities. The shift between the Ice Age (the Pleistocene) and the current era (the Holocene) led to dramatic and well-documented changes in plant and animal life, but, until now, it had not been clear if it caused equally dramatic changes to the communities of microbes living in the Arctic soil.However, previous studies had looked at permafrost sediments dating from either the Pleistocene or Holocene. To better understand the transition, the University of Alberta researchers looked at sediment that showed the transition between the two geological epochs. They then analyzed the samples under sterile conditions for both their genetic makeup and chemical composition, and found that both markers were very different before and after the transitional period. “We found that both the microbial communities and the chemical parameters are stable within each era until they cross a threshold, driven by the change in climate,” Lanoil explained in the press release. “After that threshold, there is an abrupt switch to a new microbial community and new soil chemistry. We argue that modern climate change could lead to a similar transition in state for soils in Arctic ecosystems, with unknown consequences.”

Another giant sinkhole opens up in Yamal Peninsula, Russia (news video) A new massive sinkhole opened up last week in the Russian Yamal Peninsula, with blocks of soil and ice thrown hundreds of meters from the hole. This is the 17th — and considered the largest — such sinkhole to form in the Yamal Peninsula since the phenomenon was first observed in 2014. A group of scientists examined the crater and determined it has a depth of up to 50 m (164 feet). It was spotted by chance from the air by a Vesti Yamal TV.

Russia’s permafrost is melting -The frozen wastes of Russia’s interior are melting. That’s a big problem for Russia. And it could be an even bigger problem for the planet. A large share of Russia’s oil, gas, diamonds and metals are produced in cities that sit on the permafrost. And thousands of kilometres of roads, rails and pipelines could sink into a bog, while some of the buildings and processing plants will simply fall over if the ground melts. The climate crisis arrived in Russia this year and is going faster than elsewhere. Temperatures in northeastern Russia are rising two and half times faster than in the rest of the world. Few people live there but if Russia’s permafrost melts the economic cost could be astronomical. Russia has 24 regions that are permanently frozen but only nine of those contain extensive infrastructure and cities. However, these regions are key to Russia’s economy, producing the bulk of its raw materials that account for almost half of the country’s GDP.The main issue is that because the ground is so hard everything is built on piles driven into the ice. Even in the brief summers, which only last a month, typically only the first half metre of top soil melts, which is why the pine trees that blanket much of the taiga are only a metre or so tall; their roots can’t get very deep before hitting the concrete-like layer of ice.If the permafrost melts it will cause billions of dollars worth of damage. A recent study by Dmitry Streletskiy tried to assess the impact of climate change on the fixed assets in Russia’s permafrost regions that was published in Environmental Research Letters and goes into a lot of detail.While the population density of everything east of the Ural mountains – the formal end of Europe – is thin, there has actually been a fair amount of building done in the Asian part of Russia, mostly by the Soviets. The total value of all these fixed assets – buildings, factories, pipelines, roads, etc. – in just the nine most at risk regions is $1.29 trillion, or about 17% of Russia’s entire fixed assets.

Greenland and Antarctica Already Melting at ‘Worst-Case-Scenario’ Rates – Antarctica and Greenland‘s ice sheets are currently melting at a pace consistent with worst-case-scenario predictions for sea level rise, with serious consequences for coastal communities and the reliability of climatemodels. A paper published in Nature Climate Change Monday compared the latest satellite observations of polar ice melt with the predictions outlined in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report. It found that the ice sheets are currently raising sea levels at a rate 45 percent above the IPCC’s central prediction and closer to its worst-case scenario. If this continues, the two ice sheets could raise sea levels a further 17 centimeters (approximately 7 inches) more than central predictions by 2100.”If ice sheet losses continue to track our worst-case climate warming scenarios we should expect an additional 17cm of sea level rise from the ice sheets alone,” study coauthor and University of Leeds researcher Anna Hogg said in a university press release. “That’s enough to double the frequency of storm-surge flooding in many of the world’s largest coastal cities.”Since the 1990s, the two ice sheets have already increased global sea levels by 1.8 centimeters (approximately 0.7 inches). But it was between 2007 and 2017 that the ice sheets began to lose mass at a rate consistent with worst-case-scenario projections, adding around 1.23 centimeters (approximately 0.5 inches) to the water line during that decade, according to the study. A worst-case-scenario sea level rise as currently predicted would expose 44 to 66 million people to yearly coastal flooding by century’s end. But one of study’s most alarming implications is that, if sea level rise is already tracking worst-case-scenario predictions, the actual worst-case scenario could be even more dire. “We need to come up with a new worst-case scenario for the ice sheets because they are already melting at a rate in line with our current one,” lead author and Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling (CPOM) at the University of Leeds researcher Thomas Slater told AFP. “Sea level projections are critical in helping governments plan climate policy, mitigation and adaptation strategies. If we underestimate future sea level rise, then these measures may be inadequate and leave coastal communities vulnerable.” The latest study follows a slew of bad news for the world’s ice. One study published in August found that the Greenland ice sheet had passed the “point of no return” and would continue to melt even if the climate crisis were halted.Another recent study, also driven by Leeds’ CPOM, calculated that the earth had lost 28 trillion tonnes (approximately 31 trillion U.S. tons) of ice in just 23 years. These studies reflect a new global reality: In the last five years, melt from ice sheets and glaciers has outpaced the expansion of warming ocean water as the main cause of sea level rise.

Aviation Accounts for 3.5% of Global Warming Caused by Humans, New Research Says – A new international study that used unprecedented calculations to pinpoint how much global air travel contributes to the heating of the atmosphere found that aviation makes up 3.5 percent of all the activities that contribute to the climate crisis, according to the University of Reading in the UK where some of the research was conducted. It turns out that in the last 20 years, air travel has doubled its contribution as a driver of the climate crisis. “It is growing so rapidly,” said David Lee at Manchester Metropolitan University in the UK, as The New Scientist reported. “It’s just astonishing.” The study looked at the time frame from 2000 to 2018, so it did not account for the current slowdown in air travel due to the coronavirus pandemic. And yet, Lee said that the current slowdown will be just a blip compared to the long-term damage that has already been done by air travel. “It’s not going to make much difference in the long term,” Lee said, according to The New Scientist. The paper, published in Atmospheric Environment, was a collaboration of international scientists. The researchers took the most comprehensive look to date at the various components of air travel, from the use of carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxide, to the effect that the white contrails behind a jet engine have on absorbing sunlight. It turns out that those contrails along with a mix of water vapor, nitrogen oxide, aerosol gases and soot make up two-thirds of the environmental impact, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The remaining one-third is attributed to the cumulative effect of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide. “The biggest problem underlying aviation is basically the public’s desire to fly,” said Lee, as CGTN in Beijing, China reported. “The problem with aviation is that it’s highly dependent on liquid fossil fuel, kerosene, to power aircraft. So if we continue to depend on fossil fuel for powering an aircraft, it will become a much larger percentage of total emissions over time.”

Extinction Rebellion Returns to UK Streets – After a coronavirus-induced hiatus, the activist group Extinction Rebellion (XR) is back on the streets of the UK demanding action on the climate crisis.The group kicked off 10 days of planned civil disobedience on Tuesday with protests in London, Manchester and Cardiff, The Guardian reported. The London protest ended in Parliament Square as the UK’s legislative body returned from its summer recess.”The government is failing to do what’s necessary to keep people safe. We are here, taking action, because their criminal negligence is putting lives at risk,” Extinction Rebellion said on its website, Reuters reported. “We refuse to be bystanders and wait for this emergency to push beyond the point of no return.”Specifically, the group wants Parliament to pass the Climate and Ecological Emergency (CEE) Bill. The CEE Bill was written by a coalition of scientists, lawyers and activists determined to advance UK climate policy beyond its current goal of reaching net zero emissions by 2050. Instead, it would require a climate plan that would:

1. Reduce emissions enough to account for the UK’s “fair share” of carbon pollution
2. Account for the country’s whole carbon footprint, both at home and abroad
3. Protect nature both in the UK and abroad by looking at the impact of consumer supply chains
4. Not rely on new technologies as an excuse to keep polluting at current levels
5. Create a citizen’s assembly “with bite” to shape climate policy

Ohio River Valley Institute Launched to Promote Clean Energy Economy – – The Ohio River Valley Institute, a newly established think tank, was unveiled today with the mission of achieving job growth by embracing the clean energy economy.The Institute’s focus is the Appalachian regions of Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Kentucky. The goal, organizers say, is to equip residents and decision makers with in-depth research, analysis, and commentary to advance long-term solutions to some of Appalachia’s most pressing economic and social challenges.“The need for new, evidence-based perspectives on public policy is acute in a region where purported economic game-changers, including the natural gas fracking boom and a proposed build-out of the petrochemical and plastics industries, have conspicuously failed to deliver on promises of jobs and prosperity,” the institute states in its announcement. “Meanwhile, other regions of the country, which have embraced the emerging clean energy economy and more inclusive policymaking, have experienced healthy growth in jobs and commerce.”Joanne Kilgour, the Institute’s executive director, formerly the Pennsylvania chapter director for the Sierra Club, sites New England, Texas and the Northwest as diverse regions that saw “excellent jobs and economic growth before the coronavirus crisis. Learning from those experiences can help us reverse the employment stagnation and population decline, which have plagued the greater Ohio Valley and western Pennsylvania since the dawn of the fracking boom,” he says.“We’ve spoken with economists, policy analysts, and community leaders who agree that a massive build-out of polluting industries isn’t a plausible economic strategy and that pursuing it will squander public resources that could be better used to develop better options,” Kilgour says. That view was expressed by a group of economists and a former Pennsylvania secretary of environmental protection in a recently released public letter to the governors of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. The organizer of that letter, Sean O’Leary, will serve as a senior researcher at the Institute.

Trump’s U.S. EPA chief claims climate-change fight hurts the poor (Reuters) – The head of the Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday accused Democrats of hurting the poor with policies aimed at fighting climate change, and said the agency would keep supporting development and deregulation if President Donald Trump is re-elected. The speech, on the EPA’s 50th anniversary, laid out agency priorities if Trump wins a second term in office. It reflected the gaping ideological divide between Democrats and the administration, which has loosened regulations for pollution and vehicle fuel efficiency and promoted oil and gas drilling. “Some members of former administrations and progressives in Congress have elevated single issue advocacy – in many cases focused just on climate change … over the interests of communities within their own country,” EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said in a speech that was streamed live on YouTube. Critics said the administration’s deregulatory agenda has undermined public health by rolling back water and air protections, disproportionately harming low income communities. Congressional Democrats argue that a transition to clean energy will create jobs across the economy. Wheeler said if Trump were re-elected the agency would focus on community revitalization, water quality, permitting reform, Superfund cleanups, and pesticide administration. “This will do more for environmental justice than all the rhetoric in political campaigns,” he said in the speech, given at the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, California, whose namesake President Richard Nixon, a Republican, created the EPA in 1970. He criticized California for efforts to replace fossil fuels with renewable power sources like solar and wind, blaming that push for the state’s rolling blackouts. He also took aim at New York for blocking a natural gas pipeline. Former EPA officials decried the speech, saying it was an attempt to justify gutting a slew of green regulations.

Interior watchdog: top officials misled Congress on BLM relocation out West – Top Interior Department officials misled Congress when they claimed high office rent in Washington, D.C., was a factor in the need to move the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to a new headquarters in Colorado, the agency’s internal watchdog found. A report on Tuesday from Interior’s Office of Inspector General found that two officials overplayed the cost of BLM’s M Street SE lease near Nationals Park as a motivating factor in the move, as the agency already had plans underway to return to office space owned by the government. Joseph Balash, a former assistant secretary for land and minerals management who now works in the oil industry, and BLM acting Director William Perry Pendley, whose tenure with the agency is the subject of a lawsuit, are implicated in the report. Both men wrote in correspondence with Congress that BLM would be unable to stay in its existing M Street SE office because the cost would exceed the $50 per square foot limit set by the government. The report found the claims were “misleading” and said that “the future lease cost of 20 M Street was irrelevant.” Interior announced in July of last year that it would move more than 200 of BLM’s Washington-based employees to existing offices across the West, while putting nearly 25 of its top-ranking leaders at a new headquarters in Grand Junction, Colo. The move would leave just 61 of BLM’s 10,000 employees in Washington. The move was considered a victory for Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), who is facing a tight reelection campaign, but it raised the eyebrows of former BLM employees, who questioned why the agency would leave such a small footprint in D.C. and set up shop in a town four hours from any major airport. But well before Grand Junction was on the drawing board, BLM was already planning to leave its M Street SE space. “When we got that lease it was a bargain,” said Steve Ellis, who retired from the highest-ranking career position within BLM in 2016. “Since we moved people in there, Nationals Park popped up across the street, the area’s become much more popular and built up. That’s a good thing, but it meant the lease would be cost prohibitive when it ended, so we we’re looking around at options.”

Trump will roll back more environmental regulations if reelected, says EPA chief – President Donald Trump will move to weaken more environmental regulations on industries if reelected in November, while work to complete Superfund cleanup projects, according to Environmental Protection Agency administrator Andrew Wheeler. The Trump administration in a second term would establish a cost-benefit analysis of any new regulation and expand the use of “science transparency” in order to justify the science behind implementing new regulations, Wheeler said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. The EPA also plans to continue working on cleanup efforts at Superfund sites that have gotten delayed. “We need to make sure we are speaking to people where they live and we’re addressing the problems they see on a daily basis,” Wheeler told the Journal. After three years in office, the Trump administration has moved to reverse more than 100 major climate and environmental rules that it has deemed burdensome to the fossil fuel industry, even as climate change accelerates and global greenhouse gas emissions rise. Analysts say many of the administration’s rollbacks could increase emissions and lead to thousands of additional deaths from bad air quality. Among many rollbacks to rules that protect air, water and land, the administration repealed and replaced the Obama-era emissions rules for power plants and vehicles, weakened the country’s landmark environmental law, cut protections for most of the country’s wetlands and weakened regulations on methane, a potent climate-changing gas. Some of the rollbacks have been criticized by businesses they’re meant to help, including some major oil and gas producers looking to reduce their carbon footprint. Many of the reversals also face legal challenges from environmental groups and states. As the November presidential election approaches, the Trump administration has worked quickly to finish some of its major regulatory goals, since some of the new rules could be reversed if Democrats win control of the White House and Congress.

Court for second time strikes down Trump admin rollback of automaker penalties tA court has for the second time struck down a Trump administration attempt to limit the penalties faced by automakers who do not meet mileage standards. A Monday ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit found there is “no ambiguity in the statute” that requires agencies to periodically increase penalties in order to keep track with inflation. The decision throws out a 2019 rule from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) that sought to freeze penalties for automakers to levels not seen since the 1970s. The administration finalized the rule after the same court ruled it could not delay an increase in those penalties agreed to by Congress in 2015 under the Obama administration. “The statutory purpose of the Improvements Act is to adjust civil monetary penalties to keep pace with inflation,” the three-judge panel wrote in its decision, noting that inflation “can take the bite out of fines.” Penalties for automakers are charged for every tenth of a mile per gallon automakers exceed fuel economy standards, a figure that can prove substantial when applied across a company’s entire fleet of vehicles. The Trump administration rule would have frozen the penalty to $5.50 for every tenth of a mile per gallon rather than $14, cutting by almost two-thirds the fine automakers would be expected to pay. NHTSA said it would not comment on the lawsuit. “Once again, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has ruled that the Trump Administration cannot give away polluting passes to automakers who lag behind on meeting standards required by law,” the Sierra Club, which sued over the rule alongside other environmental groups and 13 states, wrote in a release.

Revived Iowa ethanol plant would make RNG to meet demand in California – A German bioenergy company is preparing to produce corn ethanol and renewable natural gas at the site of a failed cellulosic ethanol plant in Nevada, Iowa. Verbio Vereinigte BioEnergie AG is building an anaerobic digester on the site that will annually convert up to 100,000 tons of corn stover – a crop leftover consisting of everything but the kernel – into a renewable fuel that can be fed into the nation’s natural gas pipeline system. Verbio hopes to begin production by fall of 2021. The biogas, known as RNG, is more expensive to produce than conventional natural gas, but producers can turn a profit by selling credits to refineries and fuel suppliers in California, where a state low-carbon fuel standard requires annual reductions in the carbon intensity of transportation fuels. “In a facility we own in Germany, we make ethanol and then turn around and make renewable natural gas,” said Greg Northrup, president and chief executive officer of Verbio North America. “We are just taking what we do in Germany and bringing it here to the U.S.” Verbio purchased the facility in November 2018 from DuPont Industrial Biosciences, which operated the plant for less than two years. The German company expects initially to produce enough RNG to equal about 7 million gallons of gasoline. That will require between 75,000 and 100,000 tons of corn stover annually, which Northrup said is readily available within 50 miles of the plant. Plans call for expanding that to possibly the equivalent of 20 million gallons of gasoline. The other side of the operation, corn ethanol production, is likely to begin sometime in 2022, he said, topping out at 10 or 12 million gallons annually. The residue from ethanol production will be added to the corn stover to produce RNG. Northrup said it will be the first facility in this country to produce both ethanol and RNG, which he expects will be in demand. Oregon also has a low-carbon fuel standard, and other states including Minnesota, New York, and Washington are considering policies similar to California’s.

Rhode Island initiates vehicle charging station project – – The Rhode Island Department of Transportation (RIDOT) is offering motorists free access to electric vehicle chargers as part of an effort to encourage electric vehicle use on state roadways. The initiative to provide the chargers at two of the agency’s Park & Ride commuter lots is in accordance with the Rhode Island Office of Energy Resources (OER) and National Grid. The chargers will be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week off of I-95 at the Park & Ride on Route 117 at Exit 10 in Warwick and the Park & Ride on Route 3 (Main Street) at Exit 1 in Hopkinton, per officials, who indicated the service would be free until the end of the year. RIDOT and OER will evaluate usage patterns throughout the pilot program to help make decisions on deploying more charging stations. “Electric cars are becoming more common on our streets, and the commuter parking lots we own are a perfect test bench for us to evaluate the demand for this service,” RIDOT Director Peter Alviti, Jr. said. “There are a number of barriers to electric car adoption, among them concerns about range and access to fast, convenient charging stations. These stations help alleviate those concerns.”

How dangerous are burning electric cars? – There’ s a loud bang, and then it starts: A battery module of an electric car is on fire in the Hagerbach test tunnel. A video of the test impressively shows the energy stored in such batteries: Meter-long flames hiss through the room and produce enormous amounts of thick, black soot. The visibility in the previously brightly lit tunnel section quickly approaches zero. After a few minutes, the battery module is completely burnt out. Ash and soot have spread throughout the room. The trial, which was funded by the Swiss Federal Roads Office (FEDRO) and in which several Empa researchers participated, took place in December 2019. The results have just been published. “In our experiment we were considering in particular private and public operators of small and large underground or multi-story car parks,” says project leader Lars Derek Mellert of Amstein + Walthert Progress AG. “All these existing underground structures are being used to an increasing extent by electric cars. And the operators ask themselves: What to do if such a car catches fire? What are the health risks for my employees? What effects does such a fire have on the operation of my plant?” But until now there has been hardly any meaningful technical literature, let alone practical experience for such a case. With the support of battery researcher Marcel Held and corrosion specialist Martin Tuchschmid from Empa, Mellert developed three test scenarios. Experts from the Hagerbach AG test tunnel and the French Centre d’études des tunnels (CETU) in Bron were also involved. “We installed test surfaces in the fire tunnel on which the soot settled,” explains Martin Tuchschmid, corrosion and fire damage specialist at Empa. “After the test, the surfaces were chemically analyzed and also stored in special rooms for several months to detect possible corrosion damage.”

Groups say Boston electric grid upgrades should anticipate offshore wind — The Mystic Generating Station, a natural gas-burning facility that is one of the largest plants in New England, is located in Everett, a small city across the Mystic River from Boston. It’s the only power plant in the metro area, which will completely rely on outside sources after Mystic’s scheduled shutdown in 2024. The question now is how to strengthen transmission so that the system can handle the added electron traffic into the city during times of high demand. ISO New England, the organization that oversees the region’s electric grid, put out a call for proposals to address the problem. The organization received 36 proposals; in the first round of assessment, it eliminated 35 of them from consideration for a range of reasons. What remained was a plan known as Ready Path put forward by a partnership between the state’s two major utilities, National Grid and Eversource. The project will upgrade equipment at existing substations owned by the utilities, so it is unlikely to be slowed down by permitting issues and should be completed by the time Mystic retires at the end of May 2024. With a price tag of $49 million, it also has the lowest estimated cost of all the proposals. “It will provide a complete reliability replacement to Mystic,” said Bill Quinlan, Eversource’s president of transmission. “It meets the need, it’s the lowest cost, and they have confidence it will be in place prior to Mystic’s retirement.” Not everyone, however, is convinced that the utilities’ straightforward, task-focused plan is the best choice for the environment or consumers. Some feel ISO New England should have used the procurement process to explore more ambitious approaches to preparing the grid for the future, particularly when it comes to offshore wind. Massachusetts has committed to developing at least 1,600 megawatts of offshore wind capacity, with another 1,600 megawatts likely to follow. Pending legislation could boost that number even higher. The grid will need upgrades to move all that power when those projects come online. With this long-term challenge in mind, transmission development company Anbaric submitted two proposals that aimed to both solve the reliability concerns caused by Mystic’s retirement and create a transmission circuit between Boston and Plymouth, a coastal town in southeastern Massachusetts, near the area offshore wind developments are planned. Anbaric’s plan would also prepare the transmission system to remain reliable upon the retirement of other fossil fuel-burning plants in the area, such as the Canal Generating Plant on Cape Cod,

Advocates say over 200 shovel-ready community solar projects await legislative action in Pennsylvania – There are at least 220 community solar projects in 41 counties across Pennsylvania ready to break ground, pending legislative action in Harrisburg, according to a new analysis by the PA Community Solar Economic Alliance, a local industry and advocacy group. The projects would serve an estimated 250,000 homes and businesses, including customers in every utility territory across the commonwealth.Community solar projects allow residents and business owners to sign up to purchase electricity from local solar installations, many of which are located on nearby farms. Subscribers then receive credit on their electricity bills for their share of the power produced, saving them money.Counties with five or more community solar projects that stand ready to come online include: Berks, Bucks, Centre, Chester, Columbia, Dauphin, Erie, Lancaster, Lebanon, Lycoming, Mercer, Monroe, Montgomery, Northumberland, Schuylkill, Wayne, Westmoreland and York.While 20 other states permit these types of programs, Pennsylvania’s utility laws don’t allow competition and currently block community solar projects. HB531 and SB705, which are being sponsored by Representative Aaron Kaufer in the state House of Representatives and Senator Mario Scavello in the Senate, respectively, would change utility law to permit Pennsylvania businesses and families to sign up for community solar projects if it’s right for them, regardless of their income level or if they own their home. There is no cost to taxpayers.

Student-led initiative puts Pennsylvania school district on 100% renewable path – pv magazine USA – A group of students in Radnor Township, Pennsylvania have successfully petitioned their school district to set a goal of transitioning to 100% clean, renewable electricity by 2030. All other energy needs, including heating, cooking, cooling, and transportation, will be electrified and renewably powered by 2040. This makes Radnor the first school district in Pennsylvania to pass a resolution with the goal of transitioning to 100% renewable energy and a zero emission school bus fleet. “Being a student leader for this initiative has been a very special experience; it’s given me a chance to connect with my community and involve Radnor in a national and global shift towards sustainability,” said student leader Becca Zajac in a release touting the resolution. “I am extremely grateful that our school board recognizes the urgency of fighting the climate crisis, especially through these challenging times. By reducing our greenhouse emissions and adopting the goal of 100% clean energy and transportation, Radnor School District is leading by example. I have never been more proud. Climate Students from every grade are honored to have a longstanding impact on where we’ve grown up. I look forward to continuing this journey in the implementation stage and collaborating with district leaders to create a better school community for all future Radnor students.”

Rooftop solar in Indiana worth 13¢/kWh, not 3¢/kWh, says expert witness – A high level of distributed solar in Indiana would reduce utility costs by up to $540 million per year, a national lab has found. Fair compensation for rooftop solar power in southern Indiana would be 13¢/kWh, an expert calculated – not the 3¢/kWh proposed by a utility.To figure the fair compensation for customers providing solar power to the grid, start with the average price that customers pay for power, testified Edward Rutter in an Indiana rate case. Then subtract the fair share of the cost of the distribution grid that’s used to move the solar power. The resulting value is 13¢/kWh for residential solar generation in the southern Indiana region served by Vectren, he calculated, compared to the 3¢/kWh that Vectren proposes to pay. Rutter, a former accountant, recently served as chief technical advisor with the Indiana state agency that represents ratepayer interests. The Indiana Distributed Energy Alliance sponsored his testimony. Vectren is the first of five Indiana utilities to propose new rates for distributed solar generation, under a 2017 state law that calls for replacing net metering compensation, says an Alliance statement.

ENERGY TRANSITIONS: Big Oil, meet Big Green — Tuesday, August 25, 2020 — “Supermajor” has long been the term used to describe the world’s largest oil companies. Increasingly, it is coming to define the globe’s biggest producers of wind and solar power.Large-scale renewable energy developers now boast valuations greater than the behemoths of the oil and gas industry.NextEra Energy Inc., a Florida-based power company and the world’s largest generator of wind and solar electricity, is now worth $138 billion. That’s more than the likes of Royal Dutch Shell PLC ($112 billion), BP PLC ($71 billion) and ConocoPhillips ($40.1 billion).Iberdrola SA, the Spanish renewable titan, is valued at $78 billion. And Ørsted A/S, once a tiny Danish utility, has been transformed into a global offshore wind juggernaut worth $58 billion.The role reversal is a reflection of the times. Oil stocks have been battered by the coronavirus pandemic and the resulting drop-off in demand. BP and Shell have been forced to write down their assets by $17.5 billion and $22 billion, respectively, as a result of low oil prices. And Exxon Mobil Corp., one of the world’s largest oil companies, was removed from the Dow Jones Industrial Average yesterday, a symbol of the industry’s sharp economic fall.Many of the world’s oil reserves simply aren’t profitable when crude is trading for $45 a barrel.Sky-high valuations for renewable developers also speak to wider changes in energy markets. Some analysts are predicting the world may soon see a peak in demand for oil (Climatewire, May 7).Wind and solar are being propelled forward by a combination of falling costs and government climate targets. That has made renewable energy projects increasingly attractive to investors.

Solar Panels Are Starting to Die. Will We be Able to Recycle the E-Waste? Solar photovoltaic (PV) panels convert sunlight into energy and continue to play an essential role in the fight to stop the climate crisis. As the pioneering panels of the early 2000s near the end of their 30-year electronic lives, however, they are at risk of becoming the world’s next big wave of e-waste. International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), a leading energy agency, projected that up to 78 million metric tons of solar panels will have reached the end of their life by 2050, resulting in about 6 million metric tons of new solar e-waste annually, reported Grist. The IRENA report noted that since their debut, solar PV deployment has grown at “unprecedented rates,” with global installed PV capacity reaching 222 gigawatts (GW) by the end of 2015, with projections rising to 4,500 GW by 2050. Earth911 reported that solar is the fastest-growing energy source in the world. According to recent research, wind and solar renewable energy technologies will soon be cheaper than coal globally. This will drive even further deployment of solar panels. The United States, China, India, Japan and Germany have planned for “particularly high” deployment, the IRENA report said. As the global PV market continues to expand, so too will the e-waste we can expect when the panels are decommissioned. IRENA also analyzed the potential upside and value creation of proper end-of-life management of PV panels. It noted that proper management could help shift the world to sustainable long-term development. By 2030 and 2050, respectively, the report projected:

Mining needed for renewable energy ‘could harm biodiversity’ –The mining necessary for producing renewable energy could exacerbate threats to biodiversity, researchers have found.The production of renewable energy requires metals and other materials which are mined. Researchers mapped the areas around more than 60,000 mining properties to assess whether they overlapped with biodiversity conservation sites.The scientists found mining potentially influences 50m sq km of the Earth’s land surface, and that 82% of mining areas produce materials used in renewable energy production. Furthermore, they found 8% of these mining areas overlapped with regions designated as protected areas, 7% with key biodiversity areas, and 16% withremaining wilderness.Mining areas that produce these materials and overlap with protected areas and remaining wilderness also contain a greater density of mines compared with the overlapping mining areas that target other materials.Dr Laura Sonter, the lead author of the study published in the journal Nature Communications, said switching from fossil fuels to renewable sources of energy was critical for mitigating against climate breakdown, but that producing the required infrastructure would mean mining a lot more metals and other materials.She said: “We already know that mining causes widespread habitat loss for many species, but our study was the first to illustrate the areas that may become increasingly threatened under a ‘green’ future. Specifically, we mapped areas that contain materials needed for renewable energy production and showed that many of these places occur within or nearby currently protected areas or sites identified as future conservation priorities.”

Kill the ‘zombie’: Springfield demonstration calls for end to biomass proposal after decade-long battle – – More than 75 people gathered on the steps of City Hall on Thursday calling for an end to a long-proposed biomass project in East Springfield, saying it is a threat to public health and an environmental hazard. Some of those speaking used he phrase “we can’t breathe” in expressing their strong opposition to the wood-to-energy plant proposed by Palmer Renewable Energy LLC at 1000 Page Blvd. Verne McArthur, of the Springfield Climate Justice Coalition, led the activists and residents in chants against the biomass project, including, “We will, we will, block you, block you.” “This event is about the zombie project – this biomass plant that Palmer Renewable wants to build and keeps pulling political strings to get loopholes to go do it,” McArthur said. “We’ve been fighting it for 10 years and they’re now trying to come back.” There is a climate bill before the state Legislature, in conference committee, that includes one proposed clause that would list biomass energy plants as “non-emitting sources” – a designation that would help the developers receive subsidies, opponents said. Ten city councilors have urged legislators to reject the clause, and there is also a signature petition. The demonstration occurred after a recent council subcommittee meeting in which the city’s building commissioner, Steven Desilets, said the biomass building permit remains valid despite being initially approved in 2011 and later extended.Palmer Renewable Energy plans a $150 million, 35-megawatt plant to convert green wood to energy. It obtained a special permit for the project 12 years ago, and has prevailed each time the project was challenged in court.

The gas industry’s survival plan: Make fuel from cow poop – Polly is a 10-year-old black-and-white Holstein cow, the oldest in a herd of about 300 on the Bar-Way Farm in Deerfield, Mass. Together they produce 2,000 gallons of milk each day. They also make enough poop to fill about two garbage trucks. In 2014, Bar-Way began working with Vanguard Renewables to install a biodigester, which uses specialized bacteria to convert organic material – for example, cow poop – into biogas, a versatile fuel. Once it’s purified, this biomethane, also known as renewable natural gas (RNG), is chemically identical to the main ingredient in the fossil-based natural gas that comes out of your stove or heats your water. Bovine waste is typically stored in vast open lagoons that emit methane – a greenhouse gas more than 80 times as potent as carbon dioxide over 20 years – making agricultural waste the single biggest contributor to the country’s total methane emissions from human activity. Both biogas and fossil natural gas are mostly methane, and though they burn more cleanly than the megapolluter coal, they still emit carbon dioxide. But by diverting cow poop into biodigesters in the process of making RNG, gas companies argue, the effect is a net climate win. Virginia-based utility giant Dominion Energy Inc. claims that supplying only 4% of its customers with biogas would be enough to offset the emission from its entire gas system. That’s the type of math that irks Matt Vespa, an attorney for the nonprofit climate litigation group Earthjustice. “Just 4% of the gas needs to be renewable gas, and then all of the sudden you have 100% clean energy,” he says, “requires some shoddy assumptions” – for instance, that all the methane coming out of all those lagoons is inevitable in factory farming. But there are plenty of other ways to solve this problem that don’t extend our reliance on polluting fuels, Vespa says. Earthjustice is far from the only climate organization ringing the alarm bells about RNG. Mark Kresowik, a deputy director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign, says RNG is a costly distraction that will only slow the energy industry’s transition away from hydrocarbons. (The Sierra Club has received funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the charitable organization created by Michael R. Bloomberg, founder and owner of Bloomberg News parent company Bloomberg LP.) “This is the last gasp of the gas industry. They know that electrification is superior,” Kresowik says. “If you go down that dead-end route, it increases the cost to consumers in the long run.” That said, getting rid of gas won’t be easy. It’s enjoyed unprecedented growth over the past decade as the boom in shale oil and gas production made costs plummet. Today gas accounts for about a third of America’s total energy consumption, and it’s projected to rise to 40% this year, data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration show.

Gov. Justice clarifies remarks regarding Brooke County Power plant project – Justice said Monday that he asked the West Virginia Economic Development Authority to take another look at the request by the Energy Solutions Consortium Brooke County Power project for a $5.6 million loan guarantee for the natural gas-power electric plant. “My position is just this … I’ve directed (Commerce Department Secretary Ed Gaunch) to have the West Virginia Economic Development Authority to review their application again,” Justice said.“I’m going to go with Economic Development Authority’s decision upon their review.” The merchant power plant wouldn’t serve residential customers. Instead, it would sell power to PJM Interconnection’s 13-state wholesale energy market once completed. According to the website for the project, the construction of the plant would create 1,164 direct and indirect jobs and 30 full-time jobs once completed, and provide a $1.25 billion economic impact during the construction phase and $440 million economic impact annually to Brooke County and the surrounding area. Despite Justice’s commitment to letting the Economic Development Authority decide on the loan guarantee for the project, the governor still had a number of concerns about the viability of the project. Justice said he is concerned that the project doesn’t have the funding to complete the plant, which would leave the state holding the bag for the $5.6 million loan. He also expressed doubts in the viability of the project.“From the state guaranteeing something that looks to me like they’ve been trying to raise these dollars for eight or nine years. Very frankly, I have very serious doubts that will ever happen,”Justice said. “Before somebody comes to us and starts asking for money, at least we should have some level of assurance that the business is viable and the thing is going to truly happen.”Justice said he wants the project to guarantee to hire 75 percent of the construction workforce for the project from West Virginia, as well as most of the sub-contractors.

CAMPAIGN 2020: Trump’s 2nd term energy plan? ‘Continue what we’re doing’ — Friday, August 28, 2020 — On the 2016 campaign trail, then-presidential hopeful Donald Trump embraced coal, oil and gas and pledged an era of U.S. energy dominance with fossil fuels taking center stage. That pitch has been muted by the rise in renewables, an oil crash and a pandemic barring the president from the campaign events that hallmarked his first run. So what’s Trump’s second-term energy agenda? Fossil fuels remain a big deal for the president, who lambasted Democratic nominee Joe Biden at the Republican National Convention on Monday night for his plan to ban hydraulic fracturing on federal land. But the White House has offered few details on the president’s overall energy game plans. “I think it would be, I think it would be very, very, I think we’d have a very, very solid, we would continue what we’re doing,” Trump told The New York Times in a story published yesterday. “We’d solidify what we’ve done and we have other things on our plate that we want to get done.” While it’s not unusual for an incumbent to be tight-lipped on second-term details when big-ticket items have already been punched, Trump has struggled to articulate what he’d like to do in the next four years, and the Republican Party scrapped a 2020 convention platform, saying only that it would “continue to enthusiastically support the president’s America-first agenda.” Since his first term focused on trashing Obama-era regulations, the next four years would likely be focused on defending policy changes and regulatory overhauls in court. He would continue his push to get the United States out of the Paris climate change accord, but if there’s a Trump plan to address climate, it didn’t come up during the four convention nights. Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette said the United States under Trump would seek to “maintain our posture as the No. 1 producer of oil and gas.” He didn’t offer new initiatives but said the nation would include building more oil and gas pipelines and export facilities. “We need to continue to build out infrastructure,” Brouillette said of the next four years in a Bloomberg TV interview. More of the same seems to be the central ticket item, but that leaves a lot of potential for a second term, said Mike McKenna, a former Trump energy adviser who briefly led the president’s transition team at the Department of Energy.

EPA finalizes rollback of coal plant wastewater regulations – The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has finalized a rollback of wastewater regulations from coal-fired power plants, a move critics say will allow dangerous substances including arsenic and mercury to leach into waterways.The finalized rule loosens requirements for treating discharges of toxic pollution from power plants that were set by the Obama administration in 2015. It also delays the implementation of the requirements and exempts several plants.The Obama EPA estimated that its requirements would annually reduce “the amount of toxic metals, nutrients, and other pollutants that steam electric power plants are allowed to discharge by 1.4 billion pounds.”A senior Trump EPA official told reporters on Monday that the new version of the rule is expected to save the power sector $140 million annually and reduce pollution by a million pounds per year compared to the 2015 rule. “Newer, more affordable pollution control technologies and flexibility on the regulation’s phase-in will reduce pollution and save jobs at the same time,” EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said in a statement.However, Betsy Southerland, who served as director of the Office of Science and Technology at the EPA’s Office of Water under the Obama administration, said that this calculation is flawed because it assumes that a certain number of facilities will voluntarily adopt more stringent standards.“They only listen to industry, they never listen to public health specialists or environmentalists so it must be that these people told them they didn’t want it required, so that doesn’t bode well for them just voluntarily deciding to do it on their own, but it allows the EPA … to argue that their less stringent treatment option has a bigger reduction of toxics than the Obama rule,” Southerland said. She suggested that this voluntary option, known as membrane filtration, should have been what the EPA required. The rule, first proposed last year, weakens the regulations from dealing with residue from burning coal, called coal ash, and residue that’s rinsed off smokestack filters. Both of these types of waste are often mixed with water and stored in large pits that can leak into groundwater or be released into waterways. In addition to weakening treatment requirements, the rule also gives power plants two additional years to implement the regulations. Read more of the details here.

EPA Eases Coal-Ash and Wastewater Disposal Rules – WSJ – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Monday completed a set of new guidelines for disposing of coal ash and wastewater from coal-fired power plants, changes that critics say could allow more pollutants into the nation’s waterways. The rules, which ease stricter guidelines set by the Obama administration in 2015, apply to coal ash, a common byproduct of burning coal for power that can contain lead, arsenic, mercury and other toxic pollutants. Some of it is used to make cement and other products, but much of it gets dumped into ponds and landfills from which it can leach into groundwater. The guidelines establish new compliance dates, as well as changes in wastewater-treatment rules. A senior EPA official said the new rules will save the U.S. power sector roughly $140 million a year by reducing compliance costs and other measures. The revisions have been in the works since 2017 and mark the latest push in the Trump administration’s deregulatory agenda at the request of the U.S. energy sector. Power utilities had asked for the relief, with one trade group estimating that the 2015 rules would have led to the closings of dozens of coal-ash dumps at a cost of $23 billion to $35 billion over 20 years. “Newer, more affordable pollution control technologies and flexibility on the regulation’s phase-in will reduce pollution and save jobs at the same time,” EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler said in a written statement. The Obama administration rules, which marked the first federal coal-ash standards, came in response to a dam break at a large ash pond in Tennessee in 2008 that destroyed homes, released 1.1 billion gallons of wet waste into two rivers and covered about 300 acres with toxic sludge. The spill occurred after a dike failed at a pond holding waste from the utility’s coal-burning power plant. Environmentalists have criticized moves to roll back tough rules on coal ash and wastewater from power plants, saying any leniency risks polluting groundwater. On Monday, Mary Anne Hitt, a Sierra Club national director, said President Trump and Mr. Wheeler are “putting power plant industry profits before the public’s health” with the new rules. “Today’s rule, and every effort to undermine bedrock clean water protections, will undoubtedly jeopardize our waters and our communities, and if Wheeler’s other rollbacks are any indication, it will not help coal workers or their communities,” she said in a written statement. “Communities historically tied to the coal industry need help transitioning, not polluted air and water.”

WATER POLLUTION: EPA eases limits on coal plants’ toxic discharges — – EPA is relaxing Obama-era regulations for wastewater coming from coal-fired power plants, discharges that can contain high levels of toxic chemicals like mercury, arsenic, nitrogen and selenium.The agency issued a final rule today, rolling back 2015 standards that represented the first time in more than 30 years the federal government had acted to curb the toxics and other pollutants that power plants release into nearby waterways.The final rule, known as the Effluent Limitations Guidelines (ELGs), is similar to one proposed last fall but would further extend the timeline for plants to comply. And coal facilities closing, repowering or switching to natural gas by 2028 are exempt. A senior EPA administration official on call today touted the rule as another example of President Trump’s dedication to “American energy independence” and said the final changes will save $140 million annually while reducing 1 million pounds of pollution per year over the 2015 rule, despite relaxation of the timelines for compliance.The official said the earliest a plant will need to comply is one year from the rule’s publication in the Federal Register, and 2025 for best available technology. The official said EPA’s revisions unveiled today will apply to wastewater generated at coal-fired power plants when sulfur dioxide is removed from the facilities’ emissions, as well as water used to flush the bottom ash out of plants and into coal ash pits. Compared with the 2015 rule, EPA’s proposal would have allowed significant increases of selenium that enters waterways in discharges of wastewater that came from cleaning power plants’ air filters (Greenwire, Nov. 4, 2019). It would set a daily maximum limit on selenium at 76 micrograms per liter – or more than three times the Obama-era limit of 23 micrograms per liter. The monthly average treatment in the new rule is 31 micrograms per liter, compared with 12 micrograms per liter in the Obama-era rule. The rule also includes loopholes for power plants to be exempted from even the higher selenium limits. The Trump rule would allow power plants to use a shorter biological treatment process, which would result in the higher selenium levels. But many plants have been exempted from using the biological treatment process at all, allowing their mercury, arsenic and nitrogen levels to increase significantly. Power plants with “high flows” of wastewater and coal power plants that are used only during peak power demand are exempted from the biological treatment requirement entirely. Those plants are allowed to release nearly 10 times as much mercury – 788 micrograms per liter daily – as plants that are not exempted from the treatment requirement, which are limited to 85 micrograms per liter daily. The rule gives power plants until the end of 2025 to comply with the new rules but also says EPA would establish a voluntary incentive program whereby power plants would have until 2028 to comply if they decide to include more biological treatment.The Trump rule also makes changes to new requirements the Obama administration set on water used to flush plants of waste left over when coal is burned, known as bottom ash. Under the rule, plants that are retiring by 2028 do not have to treat their wastewater or dry dispose of their bottom ash.

Trump Admin Weakens Obama-Era Rule to Limit Toxic Waste From Coal Plants – The Trump administration announced that it would roll back a rule from 2015 that was put in place to limit the amount of toxic chemicals that are in the wastewater of coal plants, according to The Washington Post.The rule insisted that coal plants invest in newer technologies to treat their wastewater so toxic heavy metals like lead, selenium and arsenic are not leached into nearby rivers and streams where they can damage fragile ecosystems and also seep into drinking water, as The Washington Post reported.The new regulations put forth by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which is run by Andrew Wheeler, a former lobbyist for the coal industry, allows coal plants to dial back their investment in new technologies; the regulations delay the date that plants needed to be in compliance, and they exempt some coal-fired plants from taking any corrective or pollution-limiting action, according to The New York Times.The compliance date is pushed back to 2025 for some plants. The ones exempted from the rule are done so with the expectation that they will be retired by 2028.The “effluent limitations” regulations that the EPA rolled out Monday will save the coal industry $140 million, according to Reuters.”Newer, more affordable pollution control technologies and flexibility on the regulation’s phase-in will reduce pollution and save jobs at the same time,” said Wheeler, as Reuters reports.The Obama administration had said that the 2015 rule would limit 1.4 billion pounds of toxic pollutants from entering U.S. waterways each year. Coal plants use scrubbers to capture mercury, sulfur dioxide and heavy metals that would be emitted through smoke stacks. That rule has been in place since the 1980s, but what to do with those trapped pollutants is a thorny issue. Coal plants had been allowed to dump them into nearby waterways until the 2015 rule took effect, according to The New York Times.And yet, without evidence, the current EPA said it expects the same or even greater pollution reductions because coal plants will supposedly adopt the newer technologies voluntarily. The EPA’s math is based on the assumption that 30 percent of coal plants will implement technologies that are beyond the regulations required by the EPA, according to The Guardian.

For now, latest federal rollback of coal regs won’t affect PA plants – A Trump administration rollback of rules for toxic waste water from coal plants won’t have an immediate effect on coal-fired power plants in Pennsylvania, because the state has already adopted tougher Obama-era EPA standards for treating the waste. But environmental advocates said the move could open up the possibility that coal plants could seek to release higher levels of pollutants into the state’s rivers and streams that provide drinking water for millions of people. The new rules, finalized by EPA this week, would exempt coal plants that run at lower capacity or are in their final years of service from having to comply with tougher standards adopted by the agency in 2015. In addition, it allows plants to use less expensive technology to clean up wastewater from smokestack scrubbers that remove air pollutants, and allows some treated coal ash slurry to be released into rivers and streams. It also pushes compliance for most plants back to 2025. The EPA says the rule changes would reduce costs for the coal power plant industry by $140 million a year. The power industry sought the changes to the 2015 rule, which the agency said at the time would keep 1.4 billion pounds of pollution out of rivers and streams. “The revisions provide environmental protections in a technologically and economically achievable manner, which is critical to EEI member companies’ ability to continue providing reliable, affordable, and clean energy to U.S. homes and businesses,” said Quin Shea, vice president for environment, natural resources, and occupational safety & health at the Edison Electric Institute (EEI), one of the industry groups that lobbied EPA for the changes. But environmental groups worry the rule will allow coal pollution to continue for years in the U.S. “This is a very significant rollback of the protections the Obama administration put in place,” said Zachary Fabish, an attorney with the Sierra Club. “The Obama rule, as good as it was, was long overdue. And this rule just weakens and delays it even further.” The wastewater regulated by the rule comes from scrubbers put on coal smokestacks to comply with federal clean air regulations, and from coal slurry used to transport coal ash to disposal ponds. Both contain some of the same toxic materials: mercury, arsenic, and selenium. The wastewater also contains bromides, a kind of salt that can create carcinogenic compounds in drinking-water plants.

Cleanup worker’s wife cautions: Be wary of coal ash from Bull Run – A recent Zoom meeting of the community group Bull Run Neighbors pulled together local politicians, Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation assistant commissioner Chuck Head, reporters, members of environmental organizations and Oak Ridge, Claxton, Powell and Knoxville residents with questions about the Bull Run Fossil Plant’s future and that of its stored coal ash. For one participant, Powell resident Julie Bledsoe, the issues are personal. She said her husband, Ron Bledsoe, and brother-in-law Doug Bledsoe worked for TVA contractor Jacobs Engineering Group in cleaning up the 2008 coal ash spill at Kingston Fossil Plant. She said their health suffered due to the exposure. That spill occurred on Dec. 22, 2008. As reported by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on its website, a dike failed and about 5.4 million cubic yards of coal ash fell into Swan Pond embayment and the Emory River channel. Doug Bledsoe died Aug. 12, just one day before the online meeting. Julie Bledsoe attributed her brother-in-law’s death to his exposure to toxic substances during the coal ash cleanup. After leaving the cleanup project, he received diagnoses of brain and lung cancer, the Knoxville News-Sentinel has reported. Julie Bledsoe said Jacobs Engineering Group did not give the workers respiratory protection, “because they did not want to alarm the community.” Her husband Ron, which the News-Sentinel reports as having suffered a mild stroke since leaving the cleanup and has been diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, is involved in a lawsuit against Jacobs Engineering Group. Attorney Theane Evangelis, a partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, gave a response to Julie Bledsoe’s comments when contacted by the newspaper. “Numerous safety measures were implemented at Kingston, as required by the safety plan approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and TVA. Depending on their specific responsibilities, the safety plan either required workers to wear respiratory protection or permitted workers to wear respiratory protection with the necessary medical clearance,” Evangelis stated in an email to The Oak Ridger. Evangelis represents Jacobs Engineering Group in the lawsuit.

Who will use Coal Creek Station’s massive transmission line? –Nearly five months after Great River Energy announced it plans to close Coal Creek Station, it’s unknown who will make use of the transmission line that extends from the power plant to Minnesota.The high-voltage direct current line, which underwent a $130 million upgrade in recent years, is a major piece of infrastructure on par with the scale of the Dakota Access Pipeline, said John Weeda, director of the North Dakota Transmission Authority, which is an arm of the state’s Industrial Commission.The line was first built 40 years ago. In 2019, 43% of the electricity exported from North Dakota went across its wires. The latest development occurred in early August when commissioners in McLean County, where Coal Creek is located, enacted a two-year moratorium on solar farms. That follows a similar moratorium in neighboring Mercer County on applications for wind farm permits, as well as McLean’s decision in March to enact zoning restrictions on wind farms and their power lines.Great River Energy, meanwhile, has identified three scenarios for how the line could be operated in the future. The Minnesota-based power cooperative could continue to own it and allow a variety of generation facilities to connect to it, including Coal Creek if a new owner emerges, wind farms, solar farms or other sources of electricity. The co-op is also considering turning over control of the power line to the Midcontinent Independent System Operator, which oversees the power grid in the middle of the country, including in parts of North Dakota. GRE, lastly, could sell the power line and Coal Creek. When the co-opannounced in May that it planned to close the plant in 2022, the co-op said it had essentially sought to give the facility away rather than shutter it, but it couldn’t find another company interested in operating it. The facility has run at a loss amid market challenges, as it faces competition from natural gas and renewable energy.

Coal Company Murray Energy Poised to Exit Bankruptcy — Murray Energy, the nation’s largest private coal company, is poised to leave bankruptcy under the ownership of its senior lenders after shedding billions of dollars in retiree and health-care liabilities and striking deals with key creditors to fund the business. Judge John E. Hoffman Jr. of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Columbus, Ohio, said Monday he would confirm Murray’s chapter 11 reorganization plan, which outlines a financial restructuring that company management and top lenders said will preserve thousands of jobs..

Majority of Ohio voters support repeal of House Bill 6, poll says – – During these highly polarized times, one thing Ohioans on both sides of the aisle seem to agree on is the repeal of House Bill 6. In July, former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and four others were charged in a $60 million bribery and racketeering scheme related to passage of the 2019 bill. Miranda Leppla, vice president of energy policy at the Ohio Environmental Council, said HB 6 gutted the state’s clean-energy and efficiency standards and provided a $1.3 billion nuclear and coal bailout. “It needs to be repealed now, and we need to have an honest conversation, without bribery allegations, about what Ohioans need for an energy future,” Leppla said. A recent poll found 64 percent of Ohio voters oppose HB 6 and want it repealed. Tyler Duvelius, executive director of the Ohio Conservative Energy Forum, said anything short of that isn’t justice. “We couldn’t agree more with Senate President Larry Obhof when he said it’s time for us just to rip it up and start over again,” Duvelius said. There are rumors that legislators in both House and Senate will possibly act on legislation – HB 738 and SB 346 – to repeal HB 6 this week. On Friday, state Reps. Michael O’Brien, D-Warren, and Michael Skindell, D-Lakewood, announced they would file a discharge petition to bring bipartisan legislation to repeal HB 6 to the floor for a vote this week. House Speaker Bob Cupp, R-Lima, has created a new committee tasked with repealing and replacing HB 6.

Ohio House begins process of repealing House Bill 6, nuclear bill tainted by corruption probe – — New Ohio House Speaker Bob Cupp has taken what he says is the first step toward repealing House Bill 6, the nuclear bailout law that’s at the center of an ongoing federal corruption investigation. Cupp, a Lima Republican, on Monday announced the creation of a new “select committee” on Energy Policy and Oversight. He then referred to it for review three HB6-related bills, including House Bill 746, a Republican-backed proposal that would repeal the bill, passed last year, and re-instate previous law. But Cupp, speaking to reporters Monday morning, provided few additional details on the committee, including who its members will be or when it will begin reviewing legislation. He also said he couldn’t say when the repeal might take effect if were to pass. “We are sorting through our members here,” Cupp said. “We have some in mind, but we certainly would want to confirm with them before we surprise them.” He said, however, the new committee will begin holding hearings “rather quickly.” The issue is time-sensitive. Starting on Jan. 1, the law will provide more than $1 billion, or $150 million annually, to the Perry and Davis-Besse nuclear plants, via new fees tacked onto Ohioans’ electricity bills. Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, a Republican, has threatened to sue to prevent the subsidies from going into effect. “We want to move on it, and we want to get going on it. So this is the first step in the process,” Cupp said. State legislators are facing increasing pressure to act on HB6 as prominent Republicans, including Gov. Mike DeWine and Senate President Larry Obhof, have called for it to be swiftly repealed. But there has been debate on exactly how to act. Some former legislative supporters have distanced themselves from the bill since the emergence of the corruption probe, which resulted in the arrest of then-House Speaker Larry Householder. But some legislators have defended the bill, saying its policies – intended to prop up the nuclear plants, which employ thousands of workers in Lake and Ottawa counties – are worth keeping despite the taint of the corruption investigation.

Ohio nuclear bill also funded solar projects. What will happen to them if the bill is repealed? – – House Bill 6, recently revealed to be at the center of a federal corruption investigation into the Ohio Statehouse, is best known as a $1 billion bailout for two Ohio nuclear plants. But aside from the corruption that federal prosecutors have said fueled the nuclear portion of the bill, HB6 also provided tens of millions of dollars for a few designated solar projects in Southwest Ohio, including at least one with politically prominent backers. When fully operational, the projects, the first large-scale solar farms in Ohio, will generate 650 megawatts per year, enough to power almost 200,000 homes. Their inclusion allowed bill sponsors to accurately claim the bill funded renewable energy. However, the projects’ funding vexed Ohio’s community of renewable energy advocates and environmentalists, since HB6 gutted a larger requirement for power companies to provide a certain percentage of their electricity through renewable sources, and also eliminated a ratepayer fee that financed energy efficiency programs. The nuclear and solar funding is scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1, financed through new fees on Ohioans’ electricity bills. With that in mind, the projects have been moving toward construction. But now that lawmakers are debating repealing HB6 due to its alleged corrupt origins, the proposed solar farms’ financing calculations could be in flux. “We need to get financing for the project, and that’s up to the financial markets,” said Stephanie Williams, a lobbyist for Innergex, the developer behind the Hillcrest solar project in Brown County that’s more than halfway through construction and slated to be complete in December. “And the more HB6 is brought up and the repeal is talked about, the less financial markets want to look at a place like Ohio to put money.” Craig Sundstrom, a lobbyist for RWE Renewables, said the company’s Willowbrook project in Highland County will go forward “with or without” House Bill 6. Construction hasn’t yet begun, and it’s not scheduled to be complete until 2022.

Ohio bribery scandal increases scrutiny of how utilities use ‘dark money’ groups – As Wall Street analysts and anxious shareholders continue to wait for more dominoes to fall from a federal corruption probe in Ohio, investor-owned utilities could feel greater pressure to avoid any semblance of improper political activity by voluntarily disclosing contributions to “dark money” groups. “I think there will be efforts to create transparency. I don’t know really what is going to end up happening,” Glenrock Associates LLC analyst Paul Patterson told S&P Global Market Intelligence, expressing skepticism over a “nationwide movement.” “I think it can vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction,” Patterson said. David Pomerantz, executive director of the Energy and Policy Institute, a utility watchdog organization, said the Ohio scandal has led to “increased scrutiny on utilities’ use of 501(c)(4) groups to covertly spend money in pursuit of their political agenda, both from policymakers and from investors.” “I think that scrutiny’s very well-founded,” Pomerantz said in an email response to questions about the issue. “After all, if a utility is pursuing political advocacy that’s so potentially toxic to the public that utilities feel compelled to hide their role in it, investors are right to question whether the company is pursuing a politically sustainable course.” Akron, Ohio-headquartered FirstEnergy Corp. on a July earnings call disclosed that it spent about $15 million to support subsidies for the massive merchant nuclear plants embroiled in the federal investigation behind the passage of House Bill 6 in Ohio. Federal prosecutors filed bribery charges against former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and four associates, including lobbyists, who have been indicted and accused of using “more than $59 million” through a “slush fund” used to steer the nuclear subsidy bill through the Ohio Legislature. An affidavit filed by an FBI special agent implies FirstEnergy and affiliated entities, though not mentioned by name, wired funds through a 501(c)(4) nonprofit group called Generation Now to support H.B. 6 and Householder-backed candidates in the Ohio House of Representatives. The affidavit and an indictment filed July 30 in the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of Ohio state that from August 2019 through November 2019, after H.B. 6 was signed into law, “Householder’s Enterprise received over $38 million into Generation Now from Company A” with $23 million then transferred to “Front Company,” which was formed to defeat a ballot initiative seeking to repeal the legislation.

Ex-Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder returns to Ohio House, says he’ll plead not guilty – cleveland.com – State Rep. Larry Householder returned to the Ohio House chamber Tuesday for the first time since he was charged with overseeing a $60 million bribery scandal to pass the state’s nuclear bailout, saying he intends to plead not guilty and defending the bailout as “good legislation.” “I think that, you know, in the United States, we believe that you’re innocent until you’re proven guilty. And that day has not occurred,” said Householder, a Perry County Republican who was removed as House speaker in July following his arrest on a racketeering conspiracy charge. “And so, I am innocent. I am going to defend myself vigorously.” Householder declined to speak further about his case, though he said he didn’t know that authorities were looking into his actions until his arrest. As the lone candidate on the ballot in House District 72, Householder is likely to win re-election despite having a few write-in challengers. Householder said if he wins in November, he intends to take office next January, though he said he wouldn’t run to become speaker again. Asked whether there are still enough votes in the House to pass a revised version of the $1.3 billion nuclear bailout of two Northern Ohio nuclear plants owned at the time by a subsidiary of FirstEnergy Corp., Householder replied, “Do I think it’s going to be difficult? Yes, because it’s a very complex bill and not everybody’s tuned in.” Householder, who has had trouble finding legal representation, said he’s found an attorney. Householder said his lawyer, whom he declined to name, said he was allowed to come to House session even though a federal judge ordered him to “avoid all contact directly or indirectly with any person who is or may become a victim or potential witness in the investigation.” He continued: “But I’m not going to cause any problems. I mean, I’m just coming here to to participate and vote for the people in my district and do my job.”

Republicans And Democrats Clash Over How To Repeal Nuclear Bailout | WOSU Radio – At the Statehouse on Tuesday, both the Ohio House and Senate addressed the potential repeal of the controversial nuclear power plant bailout. As Democrats call for a quick repeal, Republicans moved ahead with a different approach. House Speaker Bob Cupp (R-Lima) says a special committee will hold hearings on HB6, the law that bails out nuclear power plants, subsidizes coal plants, rolls back renewable energy standards and eliminates efficiency mandates. Cupp says there’s a lot of unwinding the House must do to understand the impacts of a repeal. “And to do something in a hasty and reckless manner is totally inappropriate,” Cupp says. But Minority Leader Emilia Sykes says Democrats have asked for hearings on repeal bills that haven’t moved – so they’ll take other steps to, in her words, press the issue. “We’ve asked, we’ve waited, our constituents have waited, they deserve to feel trust in the institution that is making the laws and holds the purse in the state of Ohio,” Sykes said. “And when they don’t do that, we will have to find ways to act.” Part of the debate over a repeal is the impact it could have on electric bills. Nearly every Ohioan is set to see an increase of about $2.35 on their monthly electric bills for the nuclear power plant bailout, and to subsidize existing solar farms and coal plants. Supporters of HB6 say a repeal would allow the continuation of increased charges customers see for the renewable and energy efficiency standards. Opponents of HB6 say the energy efficiency standards creates a return on investment with savings that counter the initial cost. The Senate held its first hearing on a repeal bill, with several members who voted for the energy law defending it as good policy. Federal investigators charge that HB6 was at the center of a $60 million bribery scheme. A utility believed to be FirstEnergy and its subsidiary is accused of funneling the money into a dark money group controlled by former House Speaker and current Rep. Larry Householder (R-Glenford), in return for passing the bailout. Householder, who faces federal racketeering charges, says he plans on entering a plea of “not guilty.”

Ohio Senate President Says He Favors “Straight Repeal” Of Nuclear Bailout Law | WKSU – Ohio House Speaker Bob Cupp (R-Lima) has appointed the members of a committee that will consider the nuclear bailout law at the center of a $61 million federal bribery case that led to the ouster of former Speaker Larry Householder. Democrats say Republicans are slowing down the repeal process with a new committee. But in the Senate, a repeal bill is starting to move forward. Senate President Larry Obhof (R-Medina), who voted for the bailout, said something needs to be done about the legislation known as HB 6 soon. “I favor straight repeal and frankly, I’m not sure how much discussion we really need to have to discuss that. But there are economic effects of doing that,” Obhof said. For instance, Obhof said a repeal of the entire law could result in an increase to ratepayers because he says it cut rates overall – though it created an 85-cent monthly surcharge for the nuclear power plants on all ratepayers’ bills starting this coming January. That’s a defense that others, including former House Speaker Larry Householder (R-Glenford), have said are why the bill is good legislation. A bipartisan Senate bill that would repeal the law in full had its first hearing this week. Neither the Republican nor Democratic sponsored bills in the House has had a hearing. The bills will be considered by the new House Select Committee on Energy Policy and Oversight. It includes five representatives who voted for HB 6, eight who voted against it and two who weren’t in the legislature when it passed last year.

HB 6 costs go well beyond claimed harm to public trust in Ohio | Energy News Network A bill to repeal Ohio’s nuclear bailout law has languished for more than a month so far, and signs suggest that House leadership may be angling to defer or stop such efforts as Election Day draws near. Lawmakers filed repeal bills soon after the arrest of former House Speaker Larry Householder and others in July. Starting in January, House Bill 6 will require ratepayers to pay approximately $1 billion over the course of six years for subsidies that FirstEnergy had sought for two Ohio nuclear plants. Yet more is at stake, even beyond the $7 average increase in monthly energy spending that some advocates forecast as a result of the law.The federal indictment claims that approximately $60 million for an alleged unlawful enterprise came from “Company A” and affiliates “in return for legislation that would save the operation of the Nuclear Plants” in the state. Federal prosecutors have charged Householder, R-Glenford, and others with an alleged conspiracy involving the unlawful solicitation and use of funds for the election of sympathetic lawmakers, Householder’s rise to House speaker, the passage of House Bill 6, and the defeat of a referendum effort last year. Federal prosecutors claim that the various actions violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. Quotes in case materials indicate that FirstEnergy is Company A. Its subsidiary FirstEnergy Solutions, together with other affiliates, owned and operated the Davis-Besse and Perry nuclear plants. FirstEnergy Solutions emerged frombankruptcy earlier this year and became Energy Harbor. Only about $3 million of the total could be traced from FirstEnergy Solutions and other entities before the federal complaint was released on July 21. The rest was dark money – funding to influence political action whose origin can’t readily be traced.Democratic Reps. Mike Skindell, of Lakewood, and Michael O’Brien, of Warren, introduced HB 738 on July 29. Lawmakers in the group attempted on Aug. 31 to file a motion to compel a floor vote. The effort was thwarted by the House clerk’s insistence on in-person signatures, even though electronic signatures have been accepted for other purposes during the COVID-19 pandemic.That same day, new House Speaker Robert Cupp announced plans for a House Select Committee on Energy and Policy Oversight, to which that and other bills would be referred, but without a specific timeline. “Our goal is to have an open and thorough process for repealing House Bill 6 and replacing it with thoughtful legislation Ohioans can have confidence in,” Cupp said in a press release.Skindell, who has decried HB 6 as a “corrupt piece of legislation,” said the new committee creation was basically just “a bureaucratic slowdown of the repeal process.”“We don’t need to study it,” said Rep. David Leland, a Democrat from Columbus, referring to hundreds of hours of testimony on the bill from last year. “We need to repeal it. We need to send a strong message to everybody, loud and clear, that Ohio is not for sale.”

Amid the HB 6 scandal, Ohio utility regulators must act to reassure ratepayers of the integrity of Ohio regulation: Ashley C. Brown – cleveland.com — The allegations, if true, of bribery and unlawful lobbying by regulated utilities and affiliates to pass a bill requiring all Ohio electric consumers to pay a surcharge to provide subsidies for nuclear and coal plants (not all of them in Ohio) may pose a fundamental threat to the state’s regulatory system. While the substance of the House Bill 6 legislation is questionable, given its bestowing more private than public benefits and its adverse impact on the electricity market, the charges related to unlawful lobbying for its passage raise critical issues for both prosecutors and state regulators. Based entirely on the public record, the situation demands accountability. Criminal prosecution, alone, is insufficient. There are important issues that go to the functionality and integrity of the Ohio’s regulatory process. The two most critical issues are:

• 1. Whether ratepayer money was used for lobbying and/or bribery; and
• 2. Possible deficiencies in corporate governance.

The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) cannot stand by while the credibility of the regulatory process is eroded. It has tools which have been used in the past that should be deployed without disrupting the ongoing criminal investigations. The first issue is the source of money for lobbying and/or alleged bribery. The governing principle, of which breaches have occurred in the past, is that, while a utility can use its own funds, no ratepayer money can be used to lobby, much less bribe, public officials on its behalf. It is not clear in the public record from where the money used to carry out the activities described in the in the indictment and related documents came from, but it is crystal clear that full public accounting for any nontrivial amounts is necessary. A transparent, detailed financial audit is needed to paint the money trail that definitively establishes whether funds used for lobbying or alleged bribery came from ratepayers. If none did, it is important to establish that in the public record. If, on the other hand, significant ratepayer dollars were used, then the PUCO should make that public and decide how to compensate consumers for misuse of their money. The PUCO should order and oversee such an audit by competent, independent personnel.

No more delays on tainted House Bill 6. GOP lawmakers need to discard or revise the bill now. – cleveland.com The Ohio General Assembly is dawdling over the repeal or radical revision of House Bill 6, Ohio’s nuclear power plant bailout – to be funded by ratepayers should the legislature not act by Dec. 31. Federal prosecutors have charged that HB 6 passed last year thanks to a $60 million “racketeering conspiracy … to pass and uphold [the] billion-dollar … bailout” of the Perry and Davis-Besse nuclear plants, once owned by FirstEnergy Corp. And a federal grand jury indicted then-House Speaker Larry Householder and four other Statehouse figures in connection with HB 6′s passage. Ohioans have gotten used to stalling by the General Assembly. Still, it’s shocking that the legislature seemingly doesn’t know what to do about a law passed with the help of alleged criminality. When a doctor finds a malignancy, she aims to remove it. That’s what needs to happen now with HB 6. Nothing about this bailout bill inspires any trust in the legislature. HB 6 was introduced on April 12 of last year and became law in 102 days, on July 23, 2019. That’s warp speed in a Statehouse that’s ignored Ohio’s school funding crisis for 20-plus years.

Exelon to pay up to $500 million for Byron cleanup if nuke closes — Exelon will have a price to pay if it closes its Dresden and Byron nuclear plants, as it warned last week it would do without state subsidies.In the case of Byron, the funds set aside for eventual cleanup and restoration of the site near Rockford aren’t sufficient, the company disclosed in an Aug. 27 Securities & Exchange Commission filing. Exelon is estimating it will need to provide up to $500 million in support to Byron funds if the plant shuts down next year, as the company plans. About $325 million could come initially in a guarantee by the corporate parent ofExelon Generation, the unit that owns the plants. In addition, the company may have to pay up to $175 million in cash over 10 years.The amounts – and how they’re furnished – will depend on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission once Exelon files its plans for decommissioning, the nuclear industry’s term for safeguarding the radioactive waste and contaminated equipment on-site, as well as restoring the land.Exelon says the funds for Dresden, a far older nuke than Byron, are sufficient using NRC standards. In addition, Exelon will record one-time cash expenditures totaling $100 million to $175 million over the next several years to cover employee-related costs stemming from the plant closures.

Santee Cooper finalizes settlement over leftover material at failed SC nuclear project – Santee Cooper may finally be able to recover some of the money it dumped into two unfinished nuclear reactors in South Carolina. The board of the Moncks Corner power provider finalized a settlement this weekend with Westinghouse Electric that will enable the state-run utility to sell off leftover parts and materials from the failed expansion of the V.C. Summer project. The settlement, which has been in the works for months, requires Santee Cooper and Westinghouse to split the profits from any remaining equipment that could be used on another site. The two companies will evenly split the profits on the most expensive components that are still being warehoused at the V.C. Summer Nuclear Station, but Santee Cooper will get 90 percent of the profits on the other major components that were already welded, bolted or cemented into place. The proceeds from any remaining nuclear equipment will also be divided up, with Santee Cooper getting 67 percent and Westinghouse netting the rest. Meanwhile, Santee Cooper will keep all of the profits from the non-nuclear parts and material being stored on the property.

Georgia Power: Plant Vogtle expansion still on schedule – – – The Plant Vogtle nuclear expansion project remains on schedule, Georgia Power Co. reported in a filing with the state Public Service Commission (PSC) this week. The construction of two additional nuclear reactors at the site south of Augusta is about 87% complete, according to the latest progress update the Atlanta-based utility submits to the PSC every six months. The first of the two new units is scheduled to go into service in November of next year followed by the second unit one year later. In the report, Georgia Power asks the commission to verify and approve $701 million in capital costs incurred during the first half of this year. While the completion schedule hasn’t slipped, the coronavirus pandemic is affecting the pace of the work. As of the end of last month, 800 workers at the site had tested positive for COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic.

Some U.S. cities turn against first planned small-scale nuclear plant – (Reuters) – The first U.S. small-scale nuclear power project, grappling with cost overruns and delays, faces another challenge: the defection of cities that had committed to buying its power. The more than 30 members of the public power consortium Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS) have until Sept. 30 to decide whether to stick with the project and devote more funds to NuScale Power LLC’s first-of-a-kind reactor. But two cities, Logan and Lehi, Utah have walked away from the project, and a third is now considering dropping its support because of risks and a lack of backers, according to officials. Allen Johnson, the power department director for Bountiful, Utah, said chances are greater than 50-50 it will withdraw. “You’ve got to have enough people to support it and some of the players I thought would be interested are not,” he said. The defections are bad news for U.S. efforts to develop modular nuclear energy, which is regarded by some as a critical carbon-free technology that power grids will need to supplement intermittent sources like wind and solar. Combined, cities have so far committed to buying just under 200 megawatts of the plant’s planned 720 megawatts of power. The U.S. Department of Energy has pumped more the $280 million into the project since 2013, and is expected to commit another $1.4 billion over the next nine years. The department did not respond to requests for comment. UAMPS spokesman LaVarr Webb said “the project is very much alive” noting that just two of 35 cities have officially left.

Illinois Faces (Another) Nuclear Power Standoff – Illinois is up against what one observer calls a “nuclear hostage crisis”: The energy company Exelon says it will close two struggling nuclear power plants unless the state provides subsidies. If this sounds familiar, it’s because something very similar happened in Illinois about five years ago, leading to a 2016 state law that subsidized two other Exelon nuclear plants in the state – a law now tainted by a still-unfolding bribery scandal. Despite all the reasons to tell Exelon to take a hike, some consumer and environmental advocates say there is a strong case for keeping the plants open because they are an important source of carbon-free electricity. This ties into the larger, often acrimonious debate about the role of nuclear power in the transition away from fossil fuels. “It makes sense to us that people want to punish Exelon,” said David Kolata, executive director of the Citizens Utility Board in Chicago. “But you have to be careful not to punish consumers and the environment too. That’s what makes it a much more thorny issue.” Exelon said last week that it would close the Byron and Dresden nuclear plants in 2021, but “will continue our dialogue with policymakers on ways to prevent these closures.”If the Byron and Dresden plants close, fossil fuels probably would fill much of the void, leading to an increase in carbon emissions, the company said. This would be a major setback in the state’s push to move away from fossil fuels.Exelon owns all six nuclear plants in Illinois. This includes the two that would close in 2021, two (the Braidwood and LaSalle plants) that the company says are at risk of closing for financial reasons but are not yet scheduled to close and two (the Quad Cities and Clinton plants) that are subsidized by the 2016 law. The six plants produced 54 percent of the electricity generated in the state last year. Coal is a distant second with 27 percent, followed by natural gas with 10 percent.

Campus pursuing nuclear options – – University of Illinois researchers are hoping to bring a micronuclear reactor to campus, which could be used to help heat buildings and reduce the campus’ dependence on fossil fuels. To prepare the campus and the community for the possibility, the UI’s Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment is hosting a virtual conversation at 4:30 p.m. Sept. 10 with sustainability leaders, the executive director of Facilities & Services and nuclear engineering faculty. “Technology has come a long way since 1960, and so have nuclear reactors,” nuclear researcher Caleb Brooks said. “We’d like to have the opportunity to share with folks about these new systems, about how we could see them helping to meet our carbon production goals on campus, which we’re committed to carbon neutrality by 2050. This would go a long way to helping achieve that.” The UI has joined a reactor company on a bid for a microreactor from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy, Brooks said. “If successful, we would have a large investment from the federal government to see that purchased system built,” he said. Microreactors are the smallest of three classifications of nuclear reactors, Brooks said: traditional, large-scale reactors that produce around 3,000 megawatts of energy; small, modular reactors in the 60 to 300 megawatt range and microreactors, which typically produce less than 20 megawatts. Microreactors “are designed to be very small, so they can be built in a factory and tested, and then shipped complete on a truck,” Brooks said. “They can be put down at site where needed, without any major construction, and they can be pretty easily connected to the electric grid or whatever need the reactor is used for.” While the exact location would need approval from federal and state regulators, Brooks said it would make sense to be located near the Abbott power plant and be used to produce steam that would heat campus buildings.

Duke Energy’s Epic Fails: $11.6 Billion in Scrapped Projects Since 2013 –In July, Duke Energy and Dominion Energy canceled the $8 billion Atlantic Coast Pipeline. Six months earlier, Duke and three partners canceled the $1 billion Constitution Pipeline. These surprising decisions – made shortly after both ventures seemed assured of going forward – sent shock waves through the industry, with Dominion selling off much of its natural gas infrastructure, even as Duke clings to its plans to spend billions on more projects to supply gas for electricity generation.But maybe the pipelines’ failures shouldn’t have been so surprising.Since 2013, Duke and its partners have pulled the plug on an estimated $11.6 billion of failed projects. EWG’s analysis estimates that Duke’s share of losses from those failures is more than $4.3 billion.1 That’s not counting the $3.5 billion cost – $2 billion more than projected – of its coal-to-gas plant in Edwardsport, Ind., which has been plagued by scandal and failed to deliver affordable and efficient electricity.Such staggering losses and overruns could send a company’s finances reeling. But Duke – the nation’s largest investor-owned electric utility, headquartered in Charlotte, N.C. – has continued to reap record profits, in part because its government-protected monopoly status allows it to pass on to ratepayers much of the costs of its failures.In June, Indiana regulators ruled that Duke could permanently add charges to customers’ bills to cover three-fourths of the cost of the Edwardsport boondoggle, or $2.6 billion. Regulators in other states in Duke’s vast service territory have allowed the company to stick ratepayers with an additional $2.6 billion for other failed plants. For decades, Duke customers will be paying for these mistakes:

• Edwardsport Coal Gasification Plant, Indiana: $2.6 billion
• Crystal River Nuclear Plant, Florida: $1.3 billion
• Levy Nuclear Plant, Florida: $800 million
• Lee Nuclear Station, South Carolina: $517 million

North Carolina customers are also paying $787 million to clean up Duke’s toxic coal ash pits, and this month, Duke will ask regulators to let it charge customers $8 billion more to finish the cleanup.The Atlantic Coast Pipeline was only 6 percent complete when aborted. If it had gone online, Duke and Dominion could have sought approval to pass on the cost to customers in Virginia and the Carolinas. Duke had spent $1.6 billion on the pipeline before soaring costs and protracted legal battles killed it. But Duke’s finances won’t suffer much.

.