Written by rjs, MarketWatch 666
This is a collection of interesting news articles about the environment and related topics published last week. This is usually a Tuesday evening regular post at GEI (but can be posted at other times).
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Note: Because of the high volume of news regarding the coronavirus outbreak, that news has been published separately:
- 04 Oct 2020 – Coronavirus Disease Weekly News 03October 2020
04 Oct 2020 – Coronavirus Economic Weekly News 03October 2020
Summary:
As you probably know, this week saw Trump, Melania, Kellyanne Conway, Hope Hicks, Chris Christie, 3 GOP senators and a number of other GOP officials test positive for the virusm There are roughly 20 articles relating to that specific DC outbreak included in the “economic” news batch posted on Sunday (link above). Elsewhere, new US cases appear to be flat for the 7th week in a row, and the number of US deaths continues to fall slowly, ie ~5%, week over week. Global cases were down slightly week over week, but still higher than any week prior to last week, while global coronavirus deaths topped a million.
Calculated Risk continues to track US testing. The decline in positive test results over July and August may be ending over the past 30 days but it is too early to be sure. The 06 October graphic:
Globally, new cases are rising, with John Hopkins reporting a record 361,390 new cases on Thursday. Part of that might be the result of a reporting issue though, since Tuesday’s new cases were the lowest since July. Still, worldwide cases were up at least 5% week over week and are at a new high on a weekly basis. A new surge of infections in Europe, led by an record-setting outbreak in France, appears to be driving the increase now. New cases in India were somewhat lower. The Johns Hopkins graphic for global new cases as of the end of last week can be viewed here.
The rest of this week’s environment and energy news follows. In addition to coverage of the storms and the wildfires, there are a number of stories this week on efforts to control emissions. At the end there are five articles about the Ohio nuclear bibery scandal.
Here’s this week’s news on the environment and energy:
Brain-eating amoeba kills a 6-year-old boy in Texas, prompting officials to test the water supply to 8 cities -The death of a 6-year-old boy alerted Texas officials to the presence of a brain-eating amoeba in their water supply. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) has issued a water advisory to residents of eight cities that are served by the Brazosport Water Authority, according to CNN. People were warned not to ingest any water because it contained a deadly microscopic organism called Naegleria fowleri.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says this amoeba can be traced to soil and warm freshwater, which includes rivers, hot springs, and lakes, as well as insufficiently chlorinated swimming pools and heated tap water.Contaminated water typically enters a body via the nose, per the CDC. Naegleria fowleri then travels to the brain, triggering a fatal infection called primary amebic meningoencephalitis (PAM). CNN reported that this incident began on Sept. 8 when authorities in Lake Jackson, Texas, were informed of Josiah McIntyre’s hospitalization and death. Tests revealed that the brain-eating amoeba was in a water hose at the boy’s house as well as at a splash pad at the civic center in Lake Jackson, which issued a disaster declaration. Local authorities joined the CDC, the Texas Department of State Health Services, and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to test the water supply.Three out of 11 samples tested positive for Naegleria fowleri on Sept. 25, per CNN. The “Do Not Use Water” Advisory has been lifted for all Brazosport Water Authority users, but Lake Jackson residents are asked to boil water before consuming it, TCEQ announced on Twitter alongside other precautionary measures. Naegleria fowleri infections are infrequent but mostly fatal, the CDC said. The agency recorded 145 cases between 1962 and 2018, and only four of those people survived. Josiah’s mother, Maria Castillo, said she took solace in knowing what led to her child’s death, according to KTRK-TV.
Brain-Eating Amoeba Found in Texas City’s Water Spurs Disaster Declaration – Environmental officials have warned residents of Lake Jackson, Texas to boil their water before using it f or cooking or drinking after a six-year-old boy died from a brain-eating amoeba in the water. Tests for naegleria fowleri showed its presence in three of 11 samples in the Lake Jackson area, including one from a hose at the boy’s home, according to the AP. Lake Jackson is a suburb of Houston, just over 50 miles south of the city. Texas Governor Greg Abbot referred to the water sample tests when he issued a disaster declaration Sunday. He said, “the presence of naegleria fowleri, which can cause a rare and devastating infection of the brain called primary amebic meningoencephalitis, was identified in three of 11 tests of the water supply, posing an imminent threat to public health and safety, including loss of life,” as CBS News reported. Health officials let Lake Jackson know that a boy had become infected with the brain-eating amoeba in early September. Exposure to the microbe usually happens through the nose and the boy’s family believes he was exposed through the family’s hose or from the nearby Lake Jackson Civic Center Splash Pad where water sprays up from the ground, according to The New York Times.The splash pad was tested and the brain-eating amoeba was detected in both the splash pad’s storage tank and a nearby fire hydrant, said Lake Jackson city officials, as NBC News reported.According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the dangerous species is found in freshwater lakes, warm rivers, hot springs and soil. It can also thrive in poorly maintained pools or unchlorinated ones, as well as warm water waste from factories, as CNN reported. “You cannot get infected from swallowing water contaminated with Naegleria,” said the CDC in guidance on parasites posted on its website, as NBC News reported.Initially, eight communities were warned not to use tap water for anything except flushing the toilet. However, further testing localized the problem and the warning was lifted on Saturday for all cities in Brazoria County except for Lake Jackson, according to CBS News.
Wall Street is set to start trading in a new commodity: Water – Almost two-thirds of the world’s population is expected to face water shortages by 2025, according to the CME. If the record heat and wildfires ravaging California weren’t a clear enough sign that the climate is changing, then consider this: Wall Street is about to start trading futures contracts on the state’s water supply.The contracts are the first of their kind in the U.S. and are being created by CME Group Inc., the world’s largest futures exchange. They are intended, CME says, to both allow California’s big water consumers — like almond farms and municipalities — to hedge against surging prices and can act as a benchmark that signals how acute water scarcity is becoming in the state and, more broadly, across the globe.Water supplies have been tight for years in California, and large parts of Asia and Africa also face the potential of scarcity as temperatures rise. Almost two-thirds of the world’s population is expected to face water shortages by 2025, according to the CME.“Water scarcity is certainly one of the biggest challenges facing communities and individuals today across the globe, where currently about 2 billion people are already living in countries experiencing high water stress,” Tim McCourt, the global head of equity index and alternative investment products at CME, said in an interview. Wall Street first took significant note of the potential for water after investor Michael Burry drew attention to the commodity 10 years ago when he spoke about investing in farmland with “water on site.” Burry, whose bet against the subprime bubble was spotlighted in “The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine” by Michael Lewis and the 2015 movie, has since exited his water and farm holdings, though he noted last year that there’s “a lot of demand for those assets these days.”The futures could be useful as a hedge instrument for firms including food or agricultural producers, land lease owners, municipalities and public water agencies.
Why we need water futures -Investors will be able to make wagers on the price of water later this year with the launch of futures contracts, which are expected to better balance supply and demand for the commodity and hedge price risks. “The water sector had long wished for some market structure for price discovery and the ability to hedge risk,” says Deane Dray , a managing director and multi-industry analyst at RBC Capital Markets. “If this new futures contract shows promise, it could spawn more innovation in the futures market related to water.”CME Group and Nasdaq announced a plan on Sept. 17 to launch the Nasdaq Veles California Water Index futures contract, which will have a settlement price based on its namesake index, late in the fourth quarter of this year, pending a regulatory review. The contract will allow investors to hedge price risks in the spot water market and better manage price swings, says Tim McCourt, CME Group’s global head of equity products and alternative investments.The index, itself, sets a weekly spot rate price of water rights in California, the majority of which are owned and managed by water districts that deliver water to individual farms, says Clay Landry , managing director at consulting firm WestWater Research, which provides the data used to calculate the index. Some farms own water rights directly, he says; other water-rights owners include municipalities, industrial companies, water utilities, and tribes. On Sept. 23, the Nasdaq Veles California Water Index set the weekly spot price of water rights at $510.99 per one acre-foot. The unit of measure represents the amount of water required to submerge one acre of land in one foot of water – equivalent to about 325,851 gallons of water. Each futures contract based on the index will represent 10 acre-feet of water. The index is “reflective of arm’s-length economic efforts to determine fair value” for water, says Patrick Wolf, lead product developer with Nasdaq Global Information Services. The focus on the California market offers both relevance and robustness in the depth and breadth of participants and the value of transactions, he says.
California Becomes First State to Ban 24 Toxic Chemicals From Cosmetics – California became the first state in the nation to ban two dozen toxic chemicalsfrom cosmetics Wednesday when Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill to that effect into law.The Toxic-Free Cosmetics Act, or Assembly Bill 2762, targets 24 toxic chemicals including mercury and formaldehyde that have been linked to cancer, birth defects, hormone disruption and other negative health impacts, Environmental Working Group (EWG) reported. While these ingredients have been barred from cosmetics and personal care products in the EU, they are not regulated in the U.S. on the national level.”Every day, Californians are exposed to hazardous chemicals hiding in their cosmetics and personal care products. Children, communities of color and pregnant women are especially vulnerable to these ingredients, which are not actively regulated by the federal government,” Newsom said in a press release. “California is leading the nation by banning toxic ingredients from our cosmetics. This legislation will save lives and keep Californians and our environment safe.” The bill was introduced by Democratic Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi and will go into effect in 2025, The Associated Press reported. Cosmetics regulations have not been significantly updated in the U.S. since 1938. Currently, the makers of beauty products do not have to register their products with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), supply the government with an ingredients list, follow safe manufacturing standards or report safety records and any adverse health impacts.This lack of regulation is an issue of health and environmental justice, supporters of the California bill pointed out.”Some of the most toxic ingredients are being aggressively marketed to Black women,” Black Women for Wellness policy director Nourbese Flint told EWG. “Levels of formaldehyde that could be used to embalm a body are being used in hair straighteners, and Black women who dye their hair are 60 percent more likely to develop breast cancer. That’s why we demand safe cosmetics now. This law means we can finally protect women from the toxic exposures they currently face on every trip to the salon.” The law will also protect salon workers, who are 47 times more likely to develop fragrance skin allergies than people in other professions, the California government pointed out.
In bid to tackle pollution, England bans plastic straws, stirrers and cotton buds — A ban on plastic straws, cotton buds and stirrers in England came into force on Thursday, in the latest attempt to mitigate the effect of plastic pollution on the environment. There are some exemptions to the newly-introduced measures: people with certain medical conditions and disabilities will be able to ask for plastic straws at restaurants or pubs, and can buy them from pharmacies. According to the government, an estimated 4.7 billion plastic straws, 1.8 billion plastic-stemmed cotton buds and 316 million plastic stirrers are used in England each year. A large number of these end up in the ocean, it said, harming wildlife and the environment. A number of outlets had already started to move away from these types of products before England’s ban came into force. Many restaurants and bars, for instance, have replaced plastic straws with paper ones, and switched plastic cutlery and stirrers with biodegradable versions. In a statement issued alongside the government’s announcement, Laura Foster, head of clean seas at the Marine Conservation Society, welcomed the ban. She said the society’s annual “Great British Beach Clean” indicated that the number of cotton bud sticks littering British beaches was falling. On average, 31 cotton bud sticks per 100 meters of beach were found in 2017, she explained, compared with just eight per 100 meters on English beaches in 2019. “This reflects that many companies have already made the switch away from plastic, in cotton buds and other items, something we need to see more companies doing,” she said. Increased awareness In recent years, TV shows such as “Blue Planet II” have raised awareness of the issue in the U.K. Presented by David Attenborough, the show highlighted the shocking impact plastic has on wildlife and the natural world. Siôn Elis Williams, a plastic campaigner at Friends of the Earth, described the ban on plastic straws, stirrers and cotton buds as “welcome news,” but added that these items were “just a fraction of the plastic rubbish that pours into environment and threatens our wildlife.”
U.S. EPA removes requirement for curbing toxic air pollutants (Reuters) – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday reversed a Clinton administration-era policy that required major U.S. sources of hazardous air pollution like arsenic and lead to maintain pollution control technology throughout the lifetime of their operation, enabling them to meet less stringent standards. The agency finalized its 2018 proposal to reverse the 1995 “once in, always in” policy, which locked in so-called maximum achievable control technology standards (MACT) for major pollution sources like industrial plants and refineries for the lifetime of those facilities, even after they reduced emissions. The EPA said the change will ease costs for companies without undermining air quality by holding their facilities to less stringent regulatory standards as soon as they have reduced pollution back below a certain limit. “This action reduces regulatory burden and provides a level of fairness and flexibility for sources that reduce HAP emissions below major source thresholds,” according to the final rule issued by the EPA. Environmental groups said the change creates a “loophole” for big industrial plants to pollute more, threatening low income communities that are often near such plants. “The guidance was specifically designed to secure public protection from especially hazardous air pollutants – which in many cases are carcinogenic, or neurotoxic even in very small quantities – in keeping with the requirements of the Clean Air Act,” the Sierra Club said in a statement.The Environmental Defense Fund indicated it would sue the EPA after the new rule is signed. The 1995 rule had resulted in the elimination of 1.7 million tons of hazardous air pollution over two decades, according to a 2017 EPA fact sheet.
EPA finalizes rule allowing some major polluters to follow weaker emissions standards -The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Thursday finalized a rule that could reclassify many “major” sources of pollution as minor ones, allowing facilities to abide by less-stringent emissions standards for dangerous substances such as mercury, lead and arsenic. The reclassification changes a 1995 rule that for decades has held major emitters to tighter standards even if their operators have taken actions to reduce their pollution – a policy known as “once in, always in.” The agency estimated that the changes will result in up to 1,258 tons per year of additional emissions of hazardous air pollutants. John Walke, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the rule would allow corporations to emit more of “some of the most potent carcinogens and neurotoxins” they’ve successfully reduced. “It’s especially outrageous because it’s 100 percent gratuitous: these are plants that have been complying with 95 to 98 percent reduction obligations, with already-installed [pollution] controls, for decades. It’s the triumph of extreme ideology over public health, common sense and the law,” he said. The rule allows major sources to become reclassified if they now meet the hazardous air pollutants guidelines in place for the smaller “area” polluters – producing 10 tons per year or less of a single toxin, or 25 tons a year for facilities that emit multiple toxins. The EPA argues that the current policy reduces incentives for facilities to limit their air pollution while rescinding it encourages them to do so. “Today’s action is an important step to further President Trump’s regulatory reform agenda by providing meaningful incentives for investment that prevents hazardous air pollution,” said EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler in a statement, adding that the rule “will end regulatory interpretations that discourage facilities from investing in better emissions technology.” But critics say facilities that have been ordered to reduce pollution anywhere from 90 to 99 percent may now emit well below the 10 ton and 25 ton threshold, so cutting back on the use of expensive controls could lead their emissions to skyrocket. “Is industry going to try and save money and pollute more or spend more money and pollute less? I think that question answers itself,” Walke said, accusing Wheeler of “magical thinking.” When it first proposed the rule, the EPA estimated that about 3,900 emitters could be reclassified and subjected to weaker standards than before. The finalized version doesn’t provide an explicit estimate of how many facilities may reclassify, saying “the unique nature of each source’s decision process makes it difficult for the EPA to determine the number and type of sources that may choose to reclassify under this rule.” It added that there are a total of 7,183 facilities currently subject to the major source standards. Clinton administration EPA head Carol Browner called the rule “another blow to our health and environment from an EPA administration that relentlessly attacks bedrock environmental protections.” “This is a lawless action that will undoubtedly increase carcinogens and other deadly pollution in our air,” Browner said in a statement. “Taking this action during a global pandemic that preys upon people with existing respiratory ailments further confirms that for Andrew Wheeler and the political leadership of the EPA the cruelty is the point.”
INTERIOR: Department slams brakes on diversity classes —The Interior Department, one of the government’s whitest agencies, is postponing a series of training events on race and diversity in light of recent directives from the White House. In an email to agency leaders obtained by E&E News, Interior’s chief diversity officer said the “Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Conversations” will be put on hold until further guidance from the White House. The email is in response to a Sept. 4 memo from the Office of Management and Budget that banned agency spending on any training event that discusses “white privilege,” characterizing it as “divisive, anti-American propaganda.”Erica White-Dunston, director and chief diversity officer in Interior’s Office of Civil Rights, said in the email to staff that the office’s “primary assessment suggests” this diversity training series is not the subject of the OMB memo. “However,” she wrote, “out of an abundance of caution, the EDI Conversations training is being postponed pending receipt of promised further and more extensive guidance from OMB to ensure our full compliance with their training directives.” Interior spokesman Conner Swanson confirmed the email. “At this time, we are in the process of assessing all of our relevant training programs at the Department for compliance with the OMB Director’s memorandum and the president’s recent executive order,” he said in an email. The announcement makes Interior the latest agency to pull back on race training after the OMB memo, even as the country faces unprecedented protests for social justice following the killing of George Floyd and other Black Americans.
ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE: Wheeler backs Trump’s hold on diversity training — Wednesday, September 30, 2020 —EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler today defended postponing the agency’s upcoming race-related training sessions and touted the Trump administration’s work on “elevating” environmental justice.EPA last week halted a class on diversity after the White House Office of Management and Budget issued a memo on Sept. 4 directing all agencies to root out education on the structural and systematic qualities of racism in the United States (Greenwire, Sept. 16).”I think that’s very appropriate, I think that’s a misuse of America’s taxpayer dollars to promote training that marginalizes groups of people and is very controversial,” Wheeler said on a call with reporters today. “I don’t think we should be using taxpayer dollars for that.”Wheeler said the training was suspended so EPA could ensure the materials are appropriate and such reviews will continue on an ongoing basis.The administration’s move has drawn criticism as the nation faces widespread social justice protests following the killings of Black Americans. Among the critics, some have said that quashing sensitivity training could deter business with the federal government and retention of people of color in the nation’s agencies and laboratories (Greenwire, Sept. 23).President Trump at last night’s first presidential debate said he moved to end racial sensitivity training that addresses white privilege and critical race theory at federal agencies, calling the classes “racist.””I ended it because a lot of people were complaining that they were asked to do things that were absolutely insane, that it was a radical revolution that was taking place in our military, in our schools all over the place,” Trump said, claiming that the training taught people to “hate our country.”
For The Bronx, COVID-19 is an Environmental Justice Issue, Too – Elisha Bouret’s 3-year-old son Miguel asks for his asthma inhaler more often these days. And while Bouret cannot prove it, she suspects the return of constant motor vehicle emissions from local thoroughfares – including the Cross Bronx and Major Deegan Expressways – may be triggering her son’s symptoms. “Once the pandemic started and there were less cars in the street, my son had not had an asthma attack,” Bouret, a mother of two, told THE CITY. “Ironically, now that the outside has opened again, my son has had to use his pump a little bit more.” His symptoms have been severe enough to warrant hospitalization four times in his young life, said Bouret – he even spent his second birthday in the hospital. Concern over her son’s health compounds an already taxing time for Bouret and her family. Like many in Morris Heights, where she lived until recently, Bouret tested positive for the virus, as did her two sons, she said. Only she and her older son, Jonathan, who is 7, showed symptoms. Her grandmother-in-law, Joan Terrero, a mother of 10, died from the virus in early May on her 86th birthday. Mounting preliminary research, including from a team at Harvard, suggests exposure to air pollution is associated with higher COVID-19 death rates.Nationally, this link is most apparent in The Bronx, according to a new peer-reviewed study from researchers at SUNY’s College of Environmental Science and Forestry andProPublica, published in the journal “Environmental Research Letters.”Using U.S. Environmental Protection Agency data and local mortality figures, scientists found the Bronx ranked the worst for COVID-19 death rates and respiratory hazards of the more than 3,100 other counties in the country. Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens placed second, third and sixth, respectively. Like Terrero, many Bronx residents included in THE CITY’s MISSING THEM memoriallived in neighborhoods where they were consistently exposed to a major source of air pollution: the busy expressways nearby. Microscopic particles emitted from road traffic can penetrate lung tissue and cause respiratory and cardiovascular problems. The city health department estimates that current levels of PM 2.5, or fine particulate matter, contribute to more than 2,000 deaths and more than 6,000 emergency room visits and hospitalizations each year.
Homes Are Flooding Outside FEMA’s 100-Year Flood Zones, Exposing Racial Inequality – When hurricanes and other extreme storms unleash downpours like Tropical Storm Beta has been doing in the South, the floodwater doesn’t always stay within the government’s flood risk zones. New research suggests that nearly twice as many properties are at risk from a 100-year flood today than the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s flood maps indicate. Unfortunately, many of the people living in those properties have no idea that their homes are at risk until the floodwaters rise. Research in other cities has shown similar flooding problems in predominantly Black and Hispanic neighborhoods. Poor stormwater infrastructure, expanding urbanization and limited flood mitigation efforts are a few of the reasons why. About 15 million Americans live in FEMA’s current 100-year flood zones. The designation warns them that their properties face a 1% risk of flooding in any given year. They must obtain flood insurance if they want a federally ensured loan – insurance that helps them recover from flooding. In Greater Houston, however, 47% of claims made to FEMA across three decades before Hurricane Harvey were outside of the 100-year flood zones. Harris County, recognizing that FEMA flood maps don’t capture the full risk, now recommends that every household in Houston and the rest of the county have flood insurance.New risk models point to a similar conclusion: Flood risk in these areas outstrips expectations in the current FEMA flood maps. One of those models, from the First Street Foundation, estimates that the number of properties at risk in a 100-year storm is 1.7 times higher than the FEMA maps suggest. Other researchers find an even higher margin, with 2.6 to 3.1 times more people exposed to serious flooding in a 100-year storm than FEMA estimates. What FEMA’s Flood Maps Miss Understanding why areas outside the 100-year flood zones are flooding more often than the FEMA maps suggest involves larger social and environmental issues. Three reasons stand out. First, some places rely on relatively old FEMA maps that don’t account for recent urbanization; pavement and buildings – are not effective sponges like natural landscapes can be. Second, binary thinking can lead people to an underaccounting of risk, and that can mean communities fail to take steps that could protect a neighborhood from flooding. Third, the era of climate change scuttles conventional assumptions.
Researchers Say ‘The Blob’ On Cape Cod Could Cause Major Environmental Problems – podcast – “The Blob.” In science fiction, it’s a classic cult movie monster.But in real life, it’s the name researchers have given to an alarming patch of water at the bottom of Cape Cod Bay.This little “blob” of low-oxygen water is causing big problems for marine life off the coast of Cape Cod – and may be part of a much bigger problem for the environment.Tracy Pugh, a biologist with the state’s Division of Marine Fisheries, joined WBUR’s Morning Edition to talk about it.
Keeping Large Mammals Captive Damages Their Brains —Hanako, a female Asian elephant, lived in a tiny concrete enclosure at Japan’s Inokashira Park Zoo for more than 60 years, often in chains, with no stimulation. In the wild, elephants live in herds, with close family ties. Hanako was solitary for the last decade of her life.Kiska, a young female orca, was captured in 1978 off the Iceland coast and taken to Marineland Canada, an aquarium and amusement park. Orcas are social animals that live in family pods with up to 40 members, but Kiska has lived alone in a small tank since 2011. Each of her five calves died. To combat stress and boredom, she swims in slow, endless circles and has gnawed her teeth to the pulp on her concrete pool.Unfortunately, these are common conditions for many large, captive mammals in the “entertainment” industry. In decades of studying the brains of humans, African elephants, humpback whales and other large mammals, I’ve noted the organ’s great sensitivity to the environment, including serious impacts on its structure and function from living in captivity. It is easy to observe the overall health and psychological consequences of life in captivity for these animals. Many captive elephants suffer from arthritis, obesity or skin problems. Both elephants and orcas often have severe dental problems. Captive orcas are plagued by pneumonia, kidney disease, gastrointestinal illnesses and infections.Many animals try to cope with captivity by adopting abnormal behaviors. Some develop “stereotypies,” which are repetitive, purposeless habits such as constantly bobbing their heads, swaying incessantly or chewing on the bars of their cages. Others, especially big cats, pace their enclosures. Elephants rub or break their tusks.Neuroscientific research indicates that living in an impoverished, stressful captive environment physically damages the brain. These changes have been documented in many species, including rodents, rabbits, cats and humans. Although researchers have directly studied some animal brains, most of what we know comes from observing animal behavior, analyzing stress hormone levels in the blood and applying knowledge gained from a half-century of neuroscience research. Laboratory research also suggests that mammals in a zoo or aquarium have compromised brain function.
Severe weather hits SE Europe, leaving at least 5 people dead – Severe weather affecting southeastern Europe over the past couple of days resulted in a significant drop in temperatures, strong winds, hail and high elevation snow, very heavy rain, floods, landslides, and dozens of waterspouts, of which some turned into damaging tornadoes. At least 5 people were killed in Italy, the worst affected country. In Italy, where at least 5 people lost their lives, severe storms started on Thursday, September 24. By September 25, 7 regions were on Orange alert — Lombardy, Friuli Venezia Giulia, Tuscany, Lazio, Campania, Basilicata, and Sardinia. Across the country, at least three landfalling waterspouts were reported on September 26 — in Genoa, Salerno, and Rosignano. In the city of Salerno, south of Napoli, locals recorded a giant waterspout coming ashore, uprooting trees and causing damage to vehicles and buildings. (videos) At least 8 people were injured after a tornado hit Rosignano, Toskana: Numerous waterspouts were spotted over the northern Adriatic Sea, from northern Italy to Umag, Pula, and Rijeka, Croatia, with some of them truly impressive. “Clear air mass within the much colder air aloft has provided great observing conditions, so waterspouts were nicely visible even at a large distance,” Severe Weather Europe meteorologists said. “The ongoing pattern over Europe reveals an impressive upper-level cold-core low, centered over central Europe, the Alps, and the northern Mediterranean. The pattern is resulting in unsettled weather conditions over the region, producing severe storms with flooding and waterspouts over the still very warm seas.”
Worst storm of the season hits New Zealand, bringing disruptive snow and strong winds – A rapidly intensifying severe weather system brought thick snow and wind gusts of over 100 km/h (62 mph) to parts of New Zealand on Sunday, September 27, 2020, resulting in closed roads and dozens of flight cancelations. Met Service described the storm as “the worst of the season.”In Queenstown, most flights in and out were canceled as heavy snow blanketed roads. Flurries also fell at sea level in several areas, such as Wanaka, Te Anau, and Dunedin. Snow also engulfed Oban beach on Stewart Island.Multiple weather warnings and watches were posted for the bottom half of South Island and the capital city of Wellington. Thick snow in Auckland prompted authorities to close several roads, while wind gusts of over 100 km/h (62 mph) were felt both in the North and South Islands.The storm — described as “the worst of the season” — was the result of a low-pressure system moving up New Zealand from Antarctica.Met Service noted that the system was “very unusual in how widespread the severe weather is,” and it was a significant weather event, particularly as this season’s winter was the warmest on record in New Zealand. According to NIWA, the phrase “weather bomb” is used to describe dramatic weather in New Zealand. Also called a bomb cyclone, it occurs when low pressure intensifies at a pace of at least 24 hPa in 24 hours. Below-freezing cold temperatures are forecast for parts of the South Island on Tuesday, September 29. Snow is expected for beaches in Southland, Otago, and Fiordland, but should clear by Wednesday, September 30.
Nearly 830 000 affected as Sudan faces ‘unprecedented challenges’ amid worst flood in century – Heavy rains and major floods continue to pose unprecedented challenges in disaster-stricken Sudan where 124 people have died and nearly 830 000 have been affected. Humanitarian workers are struggling as funds are running out, which are necessary to continue operations to assist flood victims.Hundreds of thousands of houses have been damaged or destroyed, while wide swaths of farmland have been affected just before harvest.Nearly 830 000 people have been affected as heavy rains and flooding were continuing to pose unprecedented challenges for the victims, and the funding to respond is extremely low.The country, which is gripped by multiple crises, including the COVID-19 outbreak, polio, and armed conflict, only received 15 percent of the 110 million dollar budget necessary for healthcare needs, and only 22 percent of the requested 71.6 million dollar budget for water and hygiene. “Aid organizations are running out of support and more funding is urgently needed,” said UN OCHA.Earlier in September, Sudan has declared a state of emergency for three months due to the catastrophic flooding across 16 states, which has killed 124 people. The Blue Nile River has reached more than 17 m (56 feet), the worst in nearly a century, according to the Sudanese Ministry of Irrigation.
225 000 affected as third wave of flooding hits Assam, India – At least 225 000 people have been affected in nine districts of Assam, India, as the ongoing third wave of flooding worsens, officials of Assam State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA) reported Sunday, September 27, 2020. Around 10 000 ha (25 000 acres) of cropland in 219 villages have been inundated, hundreds of people have taken shelter in 43 relief camps, and one person drowned in floodwaters. ASDMA officials said in the third wave of floods, 225 000 people in 155 villages have been affected and one person has died in Nagaon District. The victim drowned in the floodwater at Kampur, where the Kopili River was flowing above the danger mark. On Saturday, September 27, the Brahmaputra was flowing above the danger level at Nematighat in Jorhat District, while the Jia Bharali was also above the danger levels in Sonitpur District. As many as 40 000 domesticated animals were also affected in the districts of Dhemaji, Lakhimpur, Morigaon, Nagaon, and West Karbi Anglong– all of which have become marooned. Also among the worst-affected areas are Tinsukia, Dibrugarh, and Sivasagar. The officials added that around 10 000 ha (25 000 acres) of cropland have been ravaged by floodwaters in 219 villages. Hundreds of people have been taking refuge in 43 relief camps, mostly in Nagaon. Many other assets and infrastructures have been damaged, including roads, bridges, embankments, government buildings, and schools. Moderate to heavy rain and thundershowers are forecast over parts of West Assam on Tuesday, September 29.
At least 40 dead and 2 million tons of rice destroyed as Jigawa sees worst flood in 32 years, Nigeria – At least 40 people have lost their lives and more than 2 million tons of rice crops – a quarter of the country’s projected harvest – have been lost as northwestern Nigerian state Jigawa reels from its worst flood in 32 years, according to the Jigawa State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA).
- Officials could not give the exact number of farmlands and houses that were destroyed by the flood but said the damage is unprecedented.
- Due to the massive loss of rice, officials fear that the situation may worsen the country’s food insufficiency and lead to a further price hike.
40 people have died in about 19 local government areas since the beginning of the rainy season, with the Hadejia Emirate as the worst affected, SEMA executive secretary Sani Yusuf told Premium Times. The areas badly hit were Buji, Ringim, Taura, Jahun, Miga, Malammadori, Auyo, Kafinhausa, Guri, as well as Gwaram, Kiyawa, Kaugama, Birninkudu, kirikasamma, Garki, and Babura. “These are the number of deaths so far reported to the agency since the beginning of this rainy season.” Yusuf added that with federal government support, SEMA is exerting efforts to assist flood victims by providing emergency needs. So far, the agency has distributed 30 canoes to inundated communities, as well as materials to build embankments to control the floods.
Ashfall produced by Sangay destroys 11 200 ha of crops, affecting at least 24 500 farmers, Ecuador – (satellite video) Ashfall produced by the eruption Ecuador’s Sangay volcano continues to be registered in several areas of the country, with most affected the Andean province of Chimborazo.A total of 11 198 ha (27 670 acres) of crops have been destroyed in the provinces of Bolivar, Chimborazo, Guayas, and Los R’os, affecting at least 24 557 farmers, after the major eruption on September 20, 2020, when volcanic ash rose to 12.2 km (40 000 feet) above sea level.According to DG ECHO, the National Risk Management Service has distributed 26 250 volcano kits to those most affected in the provinces of Bolivar, Chimborazo and Guayas. The Ministry of Agriculture has delivered forage for the cattle.IGEPN volcanologists said that explosions and ash emissions on September 20 were much more energetic than any of those observed in the past couple of months. A large ash cloud was reported at 09:40 UTC, with the highest part of the cloud heading east, while the lower part headed west of the volcano.On September 24, El Comercio reported 55 000 ha (135 900 acres) of banana crops were affected by ashfall, especially in the provinces of Guayas and Los Rios.This area’s production accounts for 25 to 30% of the fruit that is exported to the world on a weekly basis, equivalent to 1.5 million boxes. The worst affected areas were Naranjito and El Triunfo in Guayas, and Mata de Cacao in Los Rios.Sangay is located in the Morona Santiago province, 41 km (25 miles) north-west of the city of Macas. The current eruptive period began in May 2019. The activity is characterized by lava flows, pyroclastic density currents (pyroclastic flows), and gas and ash emissions.
Bright fireball lights up the sky over Ohio, U.S. – A brilliant fireball exploded over Ohio, U.S. at around 10:24 UTC (06:24 EDT) on September 30, 2020.The American Meteor Society (AMS) has so far received 701 reports about the meteor, which was observed in more than a dozen states.The event was primarily seen from Ohio, but AMS has also received reports from Washington D.C., Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, the Carolinas, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, the Virginias, Wisconsin, U.S., and Ontario, Canada The meteor traveled in a southeast to the northwest direction and ended its visible light somewhere over North Benton, Ohio, according to the AMS.
Migrating tornadoes found to be more dangerous and deadlier in the Southeast, U.S. — Migrating tornadoes that are increasingly occurring in the southeastern United States have been found to be more dangerous and twice as deadly as twisters elsewhere in the country, according to an analysis by the Environment & Energy Publishing (E&E News). A shift of tornado activity from the Great Plains to the Southeast exposed heightened danger by concentrating such storms in a far more perilous landscape covered by forest that conceals tornadoes and occupied by mobile homes that are easily destroyed. During the March 2019 Alabama tornado in eastern Alabama, 19 of 23 victims died in mobile homes. A year later, March 2020, a tornado packing 273 km/h (170 mph) ripped through central Tennessee, killing 19. The tornadoes swirled along the ground for only a few minutes, but the two are considered the deadliest natural disasters in the U.S. since 2019. These storms show an alarming trend that is disregarded amid concern about wildfires and floods– tornadoes are increasingly occurring in the Southeast, where they are twice as fatal as twisters elsewhere in the U.S. According to NOAA records dating back to 1950, tornado activity has increased in the Southeast since the late 1990s, and the trend and death toll has risen in the previous years. “The number of killer tornadoes in the Southeastern U.S. is disproportionately large when compared to the overall number of tornadoes throughout the country,” said NOAA. Since January 2019, NOAA records show that 99 of the country’s 120 tornado-related fatalities, or 83 percent, occurred in the Southeast. In the 2010s, 54 percent of tornado deaths happened in the Southeast, while 25 percent occurred in the 1980s. The Southeast includes Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee– an area called “Dixie Alley” by some tornado analysts. Meanwhile, west of the Mississippi River, the Great Plains region called “Tornado Alley” has become safe. Kansas, which was once the epicenter of tornado activity, has not had a tornado-related fatality since February 2012. Nebraska hasn’t had a tornado-related death since June 2014, and only recorded five deaths in the last 32 years. Iowa had three tornado casualties since June 2008. Throughout Tornado Alley, there have been 24 tornado fatalities since the beginning of 2016, according to NOAA data. This region includes Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Texas.
California wildfire’s scale revealed as Bobcat Fire scorches Los Angeles County – The scale of one of the largest wildfires on record burning in Los Angeles County has been revealed in new imagery from NASA. The Bobcat Fire has scorched some 114,000 acres since the beginning on Sept. 6 and exploded in size as it burned through the Angeles National Forest. The blaze is now 62% contained, but a red flag warning is in effect for Monday due to critical fire weather conditions with gusty winds and low humidity that could fan the flames. The blaze has generated tremendous amounts of smoke that has choked the greater Los Angeles area with poor air quality. More than two dozen homes were destroyed or damaged as the blaze burned through the Juniper Hills and Littlerock neighborhoods near Palmdale, but the blaze has mostly worked its way through the national forecast. Fire experts at NASA monitored the blaze from satellite sensors including the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on the Landsat 8 satellite, which revealed the burn scar from the blaze. The burn scar can be seen from the Bobcat Fire on Sept. 21, 2020 (NASA) The image released by NASA also shows where the active fires are burning (shown in bright red), scarred land that is burning (seen in darker red), intact vegetation (pictured in green), and where urban development is located. Over 70 large wildfires are currently burning across the West, including a new wildfire that broke out Sunday in Napa County, prompting evacuations of hundreds of homes and a hospital.
Tens of thousands flee rapidly growing wildfires overnight = The arrival of cooler fall temperatures hasn’t relieved Northern California of the devastating wildfires that have plagued the region for months now, with thousands of residents forced to evacuate due to two growing fires in Sonoma and Napa counties. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the Glass Fire has shifted from the St. Helena border and threatened parts of Napa County from Sunday into Monday. The fire has spread to parts of Sonoma County, with communities east of Santa Rosa advised to evacuate. Paradise, a town in neighboring Butte County that was scorched by the massive 2018 Camp Fire, has also been issued an evacuation warning. Evacuations are underway for vulnerable communities, including for 4,500 senior living facility residents. City buses from Santa Rosa arrived at the Oakmont Village at 1 a.m. on Monday. Earlier, 14,000 Santa Rosa PG&E customers reportedly lost power as the fire raged and smoke billowed into the air.Following more widespread evacuation orders, the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office ordered residents along the Sonoma-Napa County line to evacuate as “multiple fires” were recorded nearby. Updates from Cal Fire indicate that the additional fires reported merged with the main Glass Fire. So far, the Glass Fire has consumed 11,000 acres and is 0 percent contained. Weather conditions have only added to the flames, with a red flag warning in place due to “strong and gusty offshore winds, low humidity, and dry fuels.” The Chronicle reports that high temperatures and familiar smoky conditions have returned.
New wildfires cause mass evacuations in California’s Napa Valley – Warmer weather and wind gusts accelerated and sparked new fires across Central and Northern California on Sunday and Monday. Early Monday morning, three fires erupted in Napa and Sonoma Counties, the Shady, Boysen and Glass fires. They quickly merged into one, the Glass Fire, which has burned more than 11,000 acres by Monday morning, including several structures, wineries and an inn. It is burning uncontrolled. Areas east of the city of Santa Rosa (population 177,000), were quickly overtaken by flames. More than 53,000 people were evacuated in the northern counties of Napa, Sonoma, Butte and Shasta – 26,000 in Santa Rosa. Many others have been warned to prepare to flee on short notice, as fire fighters confront new blazes. Shortly after 2 a.m. on Monday morning, Santa Rosa city buses were sent to the Oakmont Village retirement community in eastern Santa Rosa, population 4,500, in order to evacuate hundreds of elderly residents as flames from the Sandy and Glass fires moved west from Napa County and consumed homes in the outer neighborhoods of Santa Rosa. CBS news described how residents of the Oakmont Gardens, a senior living center within Oakmont Village, lined up early Monday morning, many of them in wheelchairs and walkers, with the few belongings that they were able to carry, as the advancing flames lit up the sky.“ The buses drove through clouds of embers as they escaped to an evacuation center at the Santa Rosa Veteran Auditorium. But by 3:11 a.m., the elderly residents were on the move again as officials – ‘out of an abundance of caution’ – the Veterans building and the Santa Rosa Fairgrounds were closing as shelters and evacuees were moved to the safer confines of Petaluma.”In addition to the evacuations in Oakmont Village, residents of other eastern Santa Rosa neighborhoods (Pythian, Calistoga, Melita, Stonebridge and Skyhawk) were ordered to evacuate by the Santa Rosa police. A still undetermined number of homes have burned in Skyhawk and Oakmont. The main road through these neighborhoods was gridlocked, as residents evacuated the area. As the flames spread, Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E), the electricity monopoly that serves Northern California, announced the cut-off of services for 37,000 households near the Glass Fire. These cut-offs are in addition to the 90,000 households that had already been blacked out by the so-called Public Safety Power Shutoff initiated by PG&E on Sunday evening in response to the wind gusts. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Safety (Cal Fire) confronted high winds in the entire region through Monday night. Over 8,000 structures, mostly homes, were under direct threat. North of Santa Rosa, the gigantic August Fire (45 percent contained) in the Mendocino National Forest has grown to 878,000 acres and continued to expand to the west over the weekend, prompting evacuations in Trinity and Humboldt Counties. The latest fire, which began on August 17, has burned more than 306,000 acres and is 78 percent contained, but northeast winds throughout the weekend helped spark new blazes. In Butte County, northeast of Santa Rosa and north of Sacramento, households in the towns of Paradise and Magalia were asked to voluntarily evacuate. Both of those towns were destroyed by the Camp Fire in 2018, as high winds accelerated the uncontrolled northern edge of the North Complex fire.About 80 miles north of the North Complex Fire, and only a few miles west of Redding California (pop. 92,000) in Shasta County, a new conflagration, the Zogg Fire, began on Sunday afternoon, and is now burning uncontrolled; by Monday morning, it had consumed 15,000 acres.
California Wildfires Burn 10,000 Acres in a Single Day – Just days after a new report detailed the “unequivocal and pervasive role” climate change plays in the increased frequency and intensity of wildfires, new fires burned 10,000 acres on Sunday as a “dome” of hot, dry air over Northern California created ideal fire conditions over the weekend. In Napa County, the Glass Fire burned more than 2,500 acres, forcing at least 2,000 residents and a hospital to evacuate and threatening about 2,200 structures. The fire tore through vineyards and jumped two rivers Sunday evening and was zero percent contained as of late Sunday night. “It’s a cremation,” Craig Battuello, whose family has raised grapes in St. Helena for more than a century, told KPIX.As of Monday morning, the Shady and Boysen Fires, burning near the Sonoma-Napa county line were believed to be spot fires from the Glass Fire. Further north, the Zogg Fire had burned 7,000 acres as of Sunday evening. Electricity will be shut off for 65,000 Northern California customers in 16 counties to prevent the spread of the fires.For a deeper dive: Increased frequency and intensity: BBC, E&E; Weekend conditions: Washington Post, The Guardian, San Francisco Chronicle; Fires: CNN, KPIX, San Francisco Gate, CBS, The Press Democrat, San Francisco Chronicle, ABC-7 KGO News, Mercury News, KRCR, SFist, San Francisco Chronicle, Weather Channel; Climate signals background: Wildfires, 2020 Western wildfire season
PG&E shuts off power to tens of thousands as West Coast wildfires continue to rage – As wildfires continue along the West Coast of the US, Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) shut off power to nearly 100,000 customers in the midst of record-breaking heat. The company shut down power on Sunday morning to prevent its equipment from sparking wildfires in California. Across the state, firefighters continue to battle 26 major wildfires, some of which have been going for over a month. More than 3.6 million acres have burned and 26 people have died in California alone and some six counties still face evacuation orders. The power shutoff will affect around 96,976 customers in San Francisco Bay Area counties. Altogether some 300,000 people will be affected by the shutoffs according to Census data. The threat to forestland still continues as at least half of National Forests in the state will remain closed. The Forest Service announced that all 18 of California’s National Forests have stayed closed as of September 9 because of high-risk fire conditions. The National Weather Service warned that high winds could combine with a heat wave and “critically dry conditions” that could lead to rapid fire spread this week. Red flag warnings have been raised from the Bay Area all the way to the Oregon border. Meanwhile, the Glass Fire in Napa County has prompted mandatory evacuations as blazes grew to more than 1,200 acres overnight. Cal Fire issued orders for residents in St. Helena and other parts of the county to leave after the fire began on Sunday, saying it was burning at a “dangerous rate of spread.” An evacuation center was established in Napa and evacuees were asked to bring face masks and practice social distancing to limit the spread of COVID-19. A large animal shelter was also designated at the Napa Valley Horsemen’s Association. Firefighting response teams from the surrounding area were sent to help put out the Napa blaze, including elements of the San Francisco Fire Department. The fires grew so severe that the St. Helena hospital, Adventist Health, had to be evacuated and a statement was announced on Sunday morning that it was temporarily suspending emergency and hospital care and transferring all patients. A St. Helena resident, Pat McGivern, told ABC7 News that the fires were just miles from her house and were “frightening.” She was warned by her neighbor and planned to evacuate soon. She told the news channel that she could hear several propane tanks exploding and multiple homes in the area burning.
California Wildfires: Glass Fire forces entire city of Calistoga to evacuate – – A fast-moving wildfire that tore across Napa and Sonoma counties in the early hours of Monday morning destroyed homes on the eastern edge of Santa Rosa and forced at least 70,000 North Bay residents to flee, many in hasty late-night evacuations. But there was better news by Monday evening, when firefighters that had been struggling at the start of the day to defend homes and neighborhoods were cautiously optimistic that weather conditions had turned in their favor, as the ferocious dry winds that drove the fire’s explosive growth appeared to have died down. “We don’t have those critical burning conditions that we were experiencing those last two nights,” Cal Fire Division Chief Ben Nicholls said at a briefing late Monday. Fire crews, he said, “are feeling much more confident tonight when we were last night.” The Glass Fire, the largest in the Bay Area and one of 27 blazes currently burning around California, more than tripled in size Monday to cover 36,236 acres as of around 5 p.m., with zero containment, according to Cal Fire. The entire city of Calistoga was ordered to evacuate Monday evening. The blaze is made up of three fires that merged late Sunday and raced across the landscape. Nicholls said strong winds hurled embers over the Napa River and nearby vineyards, sparking spot fires on both sides of the Napa Valley and fueling a run through the mountains dividing Sonoma and Napa counties that ended in the suburban neighborhoods of eastern Santa Rosa. “Multiple” people were injured in the fire, Nicholls said, though he did not provide further information. Sonoma County authorities said deputies rescued multiple people who defied evacuation orders and may have been injured. Thousands of structures were threatened as the fire grew amid hot and dry conditions Monday, and heavy smoke forced fire crews to pause their aerial attack because of limited visibility. Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday afternoon that a “substantial” number of structures had been destroyed in the fire, though authorities have not yet tallied the losses. Later in the day, Newsom declared a state of emergency in Napa, Sonoma and Shasta counties due to the Glass and Zogg fires.Ten destroyed homes could be seen Monday along Mountain Hawk Drive in Santa Rosa’s Skyhawk Community. In Napa County, more than a dozen homes had burned on Crystal Springs Road near St Helena, as had the famed Chateau Boswell Winery on the Silverado Trail. Several more homes and wineries appeared to be damaged elsewhere in both counties. Santa Rosa Fire Chief Tony Gossner said he could not quantify the number of homes destroyed in the Santa Rosa area but that there was “significant loss between Los Alamos and Oakmont on the north side of Highway 12.”
Three people found dead in fast-moving Zogg Fire – At least three people have been killed in the fast-moving Zogg Fire west of Redding, authorities said Monday. Shasta County Sheriff-Coroner Eric Magrini announced the deaths at an afternoon news conference. “It’s with a sad heart that I come before you today to say we’ve had three deaths as a result of this fire thus far,” he said. “Our coroner’s office is working diligently to identify the decedents and notify next of kin.” Magrini did not provide any other information, including where the bodies were found. The fire, which ignited north of Igo just before 3 p.m. Sunday, has burned at least 31,000 acres and, Magrini said, forced 1,250 residents of Igo and Ono to flee their homes. “Those numbers will increase,” said Magrini, who urged residents to heed orders to evacuate. “This is fast moving,” he said. “When you hear that order, evacuate immediately. Do not wait.” The inferno is moving south away from Redding, including through the 2018 Carr Fire burn scar, with winds carrying embers and sparking spot fires as much as a mile away, said Operations Section Chief Chris Waters of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. “The wind continues to push the fire across control lines,” he said. “Until this red flag warning and these winds start to dissipate, we are not going to be able to make a lot of headway on suppression efforts.”
3 dead, nearly 100 000 evacuate as two massive wildfires explode in Northern California – At least 3 people lost their lives while almost 100 000 have fled their homes as two out-of-control wildfires continue to rage in Northern California. As of Tuesday, September 29, 2020, the Glass Fire has consumed more than 18 000 ha (45 000 acres) of land and, while the Zogg Fire has burned 16 000 ha (40 000 acres), both are zero percent contained. Some 1 500 firefighters continue to battle the wildfires that have been ravaging Napa’s famous wine region. Some notable wineries, such as Chateau Boswell and a portion of 13th-century-style winery Castello di Amorosa have been lost to the blazes, which reached the fringes of Santa Rosa– the biggest town in the neighboring Sonoma County. “It’s a complete, total loss,” said Jim Sullivan, Castello di Amorosa’s vice president of marketing and PR. Nearly 100 000 residents have been evacuated from towns, including the entirety of Calistoga, a wine tourism destination. 80 houses have been destroyed between the two counties, according to Cal Fire official Jonathan Cox. Santa Rosa fire chief Tony Gossner added that it would take weeks to put the flames under control. “It’s going to be kind of long, and it’s going to be painful.” Residents in the affected region are still reeling from a previous disaster as the area was hit by devastating wildfires in 2017, which killed 44 people and scorched thousands of buildings.
Zogg Fire update: Fourth person dies, Shasta County fire 9% contained – A fourth person has died as a result of burns suffered during the Zogg Fire, Shasta County Sheriff Eric Magrini said Wednesday.The person who died was evacuated from the fire with significant burns, Magrini said.After being taken to a Redding area hospital, the individual died, he said.Magrini did not identify the individual who died and no further information was available. As of Wednesday night, the fire had grown to 55,046 acres – up from 50,102 acres on Tuesday night – and is 9% contained, Cal Fire said. The amount of containment line around the fire is expected to increase over the next few days, officials said. Fire officials were concerned about the possibility of the fire jumping Clear Creek west of Redding, but Chris Waters, a Cal Fire operations chief, said on Wednesday the fire “laid down” in that area overnight and the fire containment line is holding at Clear Creek.However, Magrini said the fire is still dangerous and residents are not allowed back into the area, noting that all evacuation orders remained in place as of Wednesday morning. The number of structures destroyed increased by 1 to 147 as of Wednesday night. Nstructures were damaged. It is not yet known how many of those were homes, businesses, barns and sheds. Two of the buildings that did burn up in the fire were the historic Ono Store & International Café and Ono Grange. The wildfire still threatens 1,538 buildings, according to authorities. Evacuation orders remain in the Platina area, not because of the Zogg Fire, but the August Complex spreading north into the area. The August Complex, the largest fire in state history, has reached nearly 950,000 acres and is burning in Mendocino, Humboldt, Trinity, Tehama, Glenn, Lake and Colusa counties. The state is in the middle of one of its worst fire seasons in history, with more than 3.9 million acres burned this year, which have killed 29 people and destroyed about 7,200 structures, according to Cal Fire.
California wine country wildfire rages; another could merge into mega-inferno of 1M acres – Crews kept a wary eye Thursday on potentially turbulent winds that could whip up two fierce wildfires in Northern California amid fears one could merge with a third blaze into a mega-inferno of more than 1 million acres.Weather forecasts called for gusty winds, extreme heat and low humidity in the wine country north of San Francisco, which may further fuel the Glass Fire as it continues to torch the hills above the town of Calistoga.Similar conditions may prompt the Zogg Fire, which has burned through 55,303 acres near Redding and left four people dead, to fuse with the August Complex Fire – which has already incinerated 955,513 acres. “It’s likely the Zogg Fire may make its way into the August Complex, (which) remains the largest wildfire in terms of total acreage burned in California’s history,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom warned this week.The August Complex Fire was 47% contained as of Thursday; the Zogg Fire was 26% contained, nearly three times as much as the previous day as firefighters made considerable progress.In the wine country counties of Napa and Sonoma, more than 70,000 people remained under evacuation orders Thursday as the Glass Fire continued to ragethrough the rolling pastures and bucolic hills. The blaze, at just 5% containment, has burned 56,781 acres and destroyed 248 homes and businesses, including wineries and beloved landmarks such as Napa’s famed Restaurant at Meadowood. As flames closed in, firefighters were battling to save Calistoga in Napa County, which evacuated its entire population of 5,000 on Monday. More fire crews and equipment were deployed overnight, raising the number of firefighters to 2,100. Red flag warnings of extreme fire danger were expected to continue into Friday evening for large stretches of Northern California.“Every time we try to construct some control lines, the fire is outflanking us, so we have to pull back,” Cal Fire Chief Mark Brunton said.Pacific Gas & Electric also cut power to an additional 3,100 customers in Napa County at the request of firefighters, the Santa Rosa Press Democrat reported.In addition to destruction, fear and displacement, the fires caused air quality to deteriorate markedly throughout Northern California, about half of which was blanketed by unhealthy air.
Evacuees describe devastation as California fires rage In a record-setting year of heatwaves and wildfires it appears as if there is no end in sight, with California experiencing another week of extreme heat and arid conditions, setting the stage for a another round of blazes. Although firefighters were able to make some progress on the fires last week, the current heatwave is set to continue until the end of the weekend, bringing little, if any, relief. The Weather Channel reports that as temperatures begin to drop for eastern states, West Coast conditions overall will remain “very likely above average,” confirming that the fires will persist well into November. This comes as a sobering reality check, considering California’s – and the rest of the West Coast’s – wildfire season is just beginning. And yet, perhaps it should come as little surprise, after the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported recently that the Northern Hemisphere recorded its hottest summer yet. So far this year, over 8,100 fires have erupted throughout California, scorching close to 4 million acres. Five of the six largest fires in state history have occurred this year alone. Adding to these fires are the recent additions of the Glass and Zogg fires, both which ignited this past Sunday and have burned well over 100,000 acres collectively, tearing through Napa, Sonoma, and Shasta counties. Over 200 homes and other structures have been destroyed, and at least 4 people have been killed. The fires ripped through a number of local wineries, burning through vineyards and structures. Containment levels for both fires are at 5 percent and 26 percent, respectively. The Sonoma and Napa Valleys are world-famous for their wineries, with nearly 800 operations bringing in millions of dollars in tourism every year. As of Wednesday morning, Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom announced that the Zogg fire was threatening to merge with the August Fire. If combined, the two fires would cover more than 1 million acres. Yet another blaze, the Martindale fire, broke out on Monday in the Santa Clarita Valley, just 40 minutes north of Los Angeles. Although considerably smaller than the former two, it burned 200 acres in its first 30 minutes and evacuation orders were issued to nearby residents. As of Thursday morning, it was holding at 300 acres and was 40 percent contained. Emphasizing the fact that there are still many weeks left in the fire season, Cal Fire unit chief in Sonoma and Napa Counties, Shana Jones told the New York Times that “We still have a lot of this season to go.” Numerous new fires are expected between now and the end of the year, which will no doubt call for a number of new evacuation orders and will leave hundreds of thousands of people vulnerable to the very stark reality that they, too, could lose their homes. As it is, evacuation centers have struggled in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic with the overwhelming number of evacuees pouring in from the Glass and Zogg fires. In the early hours of Monday morning, elderly residents of the Oakmont Village retirement community arrived at Santa Rosa Veteran Auditorium, set up as a temporary shelter. Pictures and video surfaced on Twitter displaying the crowd of elderly evacuees sitting on the lawn, waiting to be escorted inside. However, the auditorium quickly filled to capacity and, shortly after 3 a.m., they were moved to a shelter in Petaluma, about 20 minutes south of Santa Rosa. Scenes like this will replay throughout the remainder of the fire season. So far, close to 80,000 residents have had to flee their homes. Many people will never be able to return, having lost their homes and all earthly possessions.
Fast-Moving Fires Killed Nearly Half of These Endangered Washington Rabbits – The wildfires that roared through Eastern Washington in September had a devastating impact on an extremely endangered species of rabbit. The fast-moving Pearl Hill and Cold Springs fires scorched a habitat for Columbia Basin pygmy rabbits on Sept. 7, wiping out around half of the species’ recovering population, High Country News reported Monday. “The sun was blotted out, it was just red from the fire glare and the smoke and all you saw was rocks and sand and dust, there was just nothing,” Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) Biologist Jon Gallie told The Wenatchee World after the fire. “I have not seen a sagebrush fire that hot in my 13 years out here.”Gallie leads a recovery program for North America’s smallest rabbits, which are about the size of a grapefruit, according to High Country News. Their population was devastated during the 20th century by development, agriculture and wildfires and, in 2001, the last 16 were gathered from the wild for a captive breeding program. Scientists bred the Washington rabbits with pygmy rabbits from the Great Basin of the intermountain West and began to reintroduce them to the wild in 2011, according to The Wenatchee World. To defend against wildfires, the rabbits were released in three different locations: Jameson Lake, Beezley Hills and Sagebrush Flats. It was the Jameson Lake population that was lost to September’s flames. However, WDFW manager of wildlife diversity Hannah Anderson told The Seattle Times that the department had been focusing on the Jameson Lake population and had expected it to increase. “It’s devastating,” Anderson said. “A catastrophic loss and a significant loss in recovery.”The rabbits aren’t the only endangered species that were harmed by the fires. The Pearl Fire may also have reduced the state’s sage grouse population by 30 to 70 percent, according to The Seattle Times.The fires also damaged the sagebrush ecosystem these and other species depend upon. This unique, biodiverse shrub-steppe environment once covered 10.4 million acres of Washington state, but has declined by 80 percent since the mid-19th century. The fires wiped out thousands more acres within days.While sagebrush ecosystems are used to fires, invasive species of weeds have taken root that dry out early and encourage hotter, larger fires. It takes sagebrush steppe 10 to 20 years to recover from such blazes.
Trump’s Bureau of Land Management Chief Forced Out After Judge Says He’s Serving Unlawfully – A federal judge in Montana ordered William Perry Pendley, the head of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), to quit immediately after finding that the Trump administration official had served in the post unlawfully for 14 months, according to CNN.The ruling may reverse an entire year of decisions that Pendley made to open up the American West to oil and gas drilling, as The Washington Post reported. The judge in the case, Brian Morris of the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana, said that Pendley had been appointed to the post, but his name had never been submitted to the Senate for confirmation.”Pendley has served and continues to serve unlawfully as the Acting B.L.M. director,” wrote Morris in a 34-page ruling he issued on Friday, as The New York Times reported. He added that Pendley’s authority “did not follow any of the permissible paths set forth by the U.S. Constitution.”He added, as CNN reported, “Secretary Bernhardt lacked the authority to appoint Pendley as an Acting B.L.M Director under the (Federal Vacancies Reform Act). Pendley unlawfully took the temporary position beyond the 210-day maximum allowed by the F.V.R.A. Pendley unlawfully served as Acting B.L.M Director after the President submitted his permanent appointment to the Senate for confirmation – another violation of the F.V.R.A. And Pendley unlawfully serves as Acting B.L.M Director today, under color of the Succession Memo.”The ruling went on to prohibit Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt, who appointed Pendley, from appointing a successor, according to The New York Times.The plaintiff in the case, Montana’s Governor Steve Bullock, now has 10 days to present examples of decisions Pendley made that should be nullified, according to The Washington Post.”They’ve never had a valid person running that agency,” said Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity, as The Guardian reported. “Even before Pendley there was just a never-ending list of rotating acting people, and that’s not what you’re supposed to do.” Hartl added the lack of legitimate leadership could mean every BLM decision from the last three years is reversed.
Interior Secretary will lead BLM after judge ousts Pendley from public lands role –The Department of the Interior will not name a new acting director to lead the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) after it’s leader was ousted by a federal judge, top officials told employees in an email obtained by The Hill. Instead the job will be left to Interior Secretary David Bernhardt. A Montana-based U.S. district judge on Friday ruled William Perry Pendley, the controversial acting director of BLM, “served unlawfully … for 424 days” and enjoined him from continuing in the role. The decision was in response to a suit from Montana Gov. Steve Bullock (D), who argued Pendley, whose nomination to lead the BLM was pulled by the White House last month, was illegally serving in his role through a series of temporary orders. A Wednesday email makes clear that Interior will not be placing the top career official in charge of the nation’s public lands agency, as its department manual dictates. “I understand there may be some questions about the ruling on Friday regarding William Perry Pendley’s leadership role at the Bureau of Land Management,” Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Land and Minerals Management Casey Hammond wrote in an email to BLM staff. “Secretary Bernhardt leads the bureau and relies on the BLM’s management team to carry out the mission. Deputy Director for Programs and Policy, William Perry Pendley, will continue to serve in his leadership role.” Judge Brian Morris, an Obama appointee, ruled Friday that Interior and the White House improperly relied on temporary orders far beyond the 210 days allotted in the Federal Vacancies Reform Act while also violating the Constitutional requirement to seek approval from the Senate. “The President cannot shelter unconstitutional ‘temporary’ appointments for the duration of his presidency through a matryoshka doll of delegated authorities,” he wrote.
Maryland Will Be First State to Ban Foam Food Containers -Maryland will become the first state in the nation Thursday to implement a ban on foam takeout containers.The law, which was passed in 2019, prohibits restaurants and other institutions that serve food, such as schools, from using polystyrene containers, The Baltimore Sun reported.”Single-use plastics are overrunning our oceans and bays and neighborhoods,” chief bill sponsor Democratic Delegate Brooke Lierman told CNN when it passed. “We need to take dramatic steps to start stemming our use and reliance on them … to leave future generations a planet full of wildlife and green space.”Lierman said she had tried twice before to pass the bill, but a shift in public opinion against plastic pollution finally pushed it over the finish line.The law was originally scheduled to go into effect July 1, but officials delayed it by three months because of the coronavirus pandemic, CNN reported further. Dining has shifted from table service to takeout, and the government wanted to give impacted businesses more time to use up their extra foam, The Baltimore Sun explained.Some restaurant owners still oppose the ban, arguing that foam containers are cheaper and longer-lasting than alternatives.”We don’t like increased costs,” Dan Schuman of Captain Dan’s Crabhouse in Eldersburg told The Baltimore Sun. “No restaurant does. Because we have to pass that onto the customer.”He said he was raising prices to cover the cost of new plastic containers, as well as an upcoming minimum wage increase.However, other restaurants have already made the change on their own and were pleased with the results. Victoria Gastro Pub bar manager Megan Purcell said the Victoria Restaurant Group switched to compostable takeaway containers two years ago. “It’s just the right thing to do and it was time,” Purcell told WMAR.
Scientists Created an Enzyme Cocktail That Eats Plastic – In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Monday, scientists found further evidence that the bacterium Ideonella sakaiensis produces two enzymes that break plastic down. Specifically, they work on polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, a type of plastic that’s used to make soda bottles and synthetic fabric for clothing.A team of Japanese scientists first discovered the bizarre bacteria in 2016 while examining plastic items found in wastewater samples. Since then, scientists have been working diligently to re-engineer that bacteria’s enzymes. The new study presents a major breakthrough. The first enzyme the bacteria produces, PETase, can eat through solid plastic surfaces. PET is a polymer, meaning it’s a chemical compound made up of a bunch of molecules all strung together to form a complex, strong, durable structure. But when PETase gets onto the material, it breaks it down into simpler structures, including terephthalate (or TPA), bis(2-hydroxyethyl) TPA (or BHET), and mono-(2-hydroxyethyl) terephthalate acid (or MHET). Essentially, this speeds up the natural disintegration so that it takes days instead of centuries to breakdown plastic.In 2018, the authors of the research engineered a version of the PETase enzyme, but it was only 20% more effective at degrading plastic than natural processes. But now, the researchers have tackled the second piece of the puzzle.The scientists have created the second enzyme that the bacteria produces, which is called MHETase. Essentially, the researchers explain, MHETase breaks down MHET, created in the first step of the breakdown process, into even simpler forms: TPA and ethylene glycol. At this point, the substances left can easily be broken down further by other micro-organisms.The researchers examined how these two enzymes reacted with pieces of plastic film in a lab setting, and found that without PETase around, MHETase doesn’t have any effect on the material. But the way the two work in concert could have big implications for the future of plastic waste if it’s able to scale. The study found this two-enzyme “cocktail” can break down plastic at a rate six times faster than naturally-occurring processes. This could revolutionize the way the world disposes of plastic waste. PET is the most common form of plastic in the world, and the world generates millions of tons of plastic waste each year.
Scientists Behind New Study Warn Increasingly Stable Oceans Are ‘Very Bad News’ –In a rare calm moment during a historically active Atlantic hurricane season, an international team of climate scientists on Monday published a new study in the journal Nature Climate Change showing that human-caused global heating is making the world’s oceans more “stable” – which, as co-author Michael Mann explained, is “very bad news.”Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State, detailed researchers’ findings about ocean stratification in a piece for Newsweek. Using “more comprehensive data and a more sophisticated method for estimating stratification changes” than past studies, the scientists found that “oceans are not only becoming more stable, but are doing so faster than was previously thought.”The team – led by Guancheng Li of the Institute of Atmospheric Physics in China – specifically found that stratification globally increased by a “substantial” 5.3% from 1960 to 2018, mostly in the upper 650 feet or so of the world oceans. “This seemingly technical finding has profound and troubling implications,” Mann noted.”The more stable the upper ocean, the less vertical mixing that takes place. This mixing is a primary means by which the ocean buries warming surface waters. So the surface warms up even faster. It’s what we call a ‘positive feedback’ – a vicious cycle,” he wrote. “That’s bad for a number of reasons.” Noting the ongoing storm season and previous warnings from scientists – including him – that the increasingly devastating recent hurricanes “have fed off warmer surface waters,” Mann explained that “a more stably stratified ocean potentially favors more intense, destructive hurricanes.” Warmer waters also “absorb less atmospheric carbon dioxide” and “hold less dissolved oxygen.” In other words, the new study indicates that “humans have made the oceans more stable, and the result will be more extreme weather and the acceleration of climate change,” as study co-author John Abraham wroteMonday for The Guardian. Like Mann, he detailed the research team’s findings about the stratification of the oceans, and the implications. Then, he added: The good news is we know why the climate is changing and we know how the oceans are responding. We can do something about this problem – we have the ability to slow down climate change. We just lack the will and leadership.
Sea level: Greenland ice loss worst in 12,000 years Ice loss from Greenland’s massive ice sheet will cause sea levels to rise more during the 21st century than they have during any 100-year period in the last 12,000 years, even if global warming is held in check, scientists said Wednesday. a view of a snow covered mountain: If greenhouse gas emissions continue unabated, the Greenland ice sheet will shed some 36 trillion tonnes of mass from 2000 to 2100, enough to lift the global ocean waterline by 10 centimetres, according to a new study© John SONNTAG If greenhouse gas emissions continue unabated, the Greenland ice sheet will shed some 36 trillion tonnes of mass from 2000 to 2100, enough to lift the global ocean waterline by 10 centimetres, according to a new study The study — based on ice core data and models and published in the journal Nature — is the first to painstakingly reconstruct Greenland’s ice loss record over the entire course of the Holocene, the geological epoch that has allowed civilisation to flourish. diagram: In 2019, Greenland cast off more than 500 billion tonnes of mass — 40 percent of total sea level rise in 2019 and the most in a single year since satellite records began in 1978© Laurence CHU In 2019, Greenland cast off more than 500 billion tonnes of mass — 40 percent of total sea level rise in 2019 and the most in a single year since satellite records began in 1978 It found that if greenhouse gas emissions continue unabated, the kilometres-thick ice block will shed some 36 trillion tonnes of mass from 2000 to 2100, enough to lift the global ocean waterline by 10 centimetres. Until the late 1990s, Greenland’s ice sheet was roughly in balance, gaining as much mass through snowfall as it lost in summer from crumbling glaciers and melt-off. But accelerating climate change has destroyed that balance, with the net loss flowing into the north Atlantic. The northern hemisphere’s only ice sheet ultimately holds enough frozen water to raise seas by seven metres. If it were to pass a temperature “tipping point” into irreversible decline — a threshold that could be as low as two degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels — the ice sheet would likely take thousands of years to melt away, scientists say. But even in the short term, increases in sea level measured in tens of centimetres will devastate coastal communities around the world. Areas currently home to 300 million people — mostly in poorer nations — will be vulnerable by 2050 to regular flooding from storm surges, earlier research has shown.
1.8 Billion Tons More Greenhouse Gases Will Be Released, Thanks to Trump – When President Donald Trump visited California on September 14 and dismissed the state Secretary of Natural Resources Wade Crowfoot’s plea to recognize the role of climate change in the midst of the Golden State’s worst and most dangerous recorded fire season to date, he gaslighted the tens of millions of West Coast residents suffering through the ordeal. While Trump declared that the weather will just “start getting cooler” and that science is irrelevant to the wildfires, millions were struggling to breathe through the toxic smoke that gave Portland the week-long distinction of having the most hazardous air on the planet, with pollution levels in Seattle and San Francisco close behind. Whole towns in California and Oregon have been destroyed by the wildfires.A growing body of scientific evidence over the last several decades confirms that as atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases rise, so too will frequent, intense and increasingly deadly weather events. Strange new weather phenomena like fire tornadoes, “snowacanes” and “rain bombs” are now part of our experience and language. Droughts, unprecedented heat, wildfires, hurricanes, tornadoes and flooding are happening more often, becoming more severe, and occurring over larger and larger areas.This year several strange and extreme weather conditions combined to create the perfect firestorm across the Western U.S. A prolonged record-breaking heatwave saw temperatures reach 130 degrees Fahrenheit in Death Valley, California, on August 16, and 121 degrees Fahrenheit in the Los Angeles suburb of Woodland Hills three weeks later on September 6. In mid-August, more than 10,000 dry lightning strikes began igniting fires in Northern California, Oregon and Washington, including all over the Bay Area where they were eerily close to heavily populated areas. Lightning-induced fires are also torching Idaho, Arizona, Utah, Montana, Colorado and New Mexico. Subsequent high winds in drought-stricken landscapes then turned the initial sparks into major conflagrations. By the morning of Trump’s California appearance, 28 major fires had incinerated more than 3 million acres just in California. Fires in California, Oregon and Washington had combined to create a hellscape of toxic smoke that turned the skies in those states orange, blood red and deep magenta and was detected as far away as Europe. At least 35 people had died.
1 in 4 adults cite climate change in decision not to have children — Roughly a quarter of childless adults say climate change is a factor in their decision not to have children, according to a Monday poll from Morning Consult. Eleven percent of those surveyed said climate change was a major reason they would not have children, while 15 percent said it was a minor reason. Climate change rated behind other issues such as the economy, general political concerns, and career plans when it came to the decision to reproduce, but the poll shows the existential threat is weighing on peoples’ minds when it comes to family planning. Those figures were starker for minorities, with 40 percent of Hispanic and 30 percent on Black respondents saying climate change factored into their decision compared to 23 percent of white respondents. Younger respondents also reported climate change weighed more heavily on their decision, with 37 percent of Generation Z and 34 percent of millennials saying climate change was either a major or minor factor in their decision to have children. The poll was conducted with 2,201 respondents and has a 2 percent margin of error.
Will We Be Able to Reverse Trump’s Climate Damage? – When he talks about the Trump administration, David Doniger likes to say: “Imagine where we’d be if they knew what they were doing.” The climate lawyer and senior advisor to the NRDC Action Fund spends his days defending the environment from the U.S. government, and for the past three and a half years, that’s meant a front-row seat to the Trump administration’s relentless attacks on any regulation that’s meant to slow the climate crisis. But it’s also been a window into the hasty, sloppy, and legally dubious ways that they’ve gone about it. “One of the hallmarks of this administration is how incompetently they’re doing this,” says Doniger. “It shows up in how slowly they’ve been able to work, and how flimsy their legal rationales are.” Almost all of Trump’s attempts at deregulation – some 100 rules that he’s tried to eliminate or weaken – are being challenged in court, and environmentalists are steadily winning. According to the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University, the Trump administration has lost 69 of the 83 legal challenges it’s faced in its deregulatory blitz.”We were saved by their incompetence,” says Andrew Wetzler, from the NRDC Action Fund, mainly by their failure to follow basic rule-making procedures. They rushed through the process, often shortening or entirely skipping over the required 60 days for public comment, which provided a clear opening for their rule changes to be challenged in court. The administration’s ineptitude has given environmentalists hope that if Trump loses the election, the policy impact of his unrelenting pro-fossil fuel agenda could ultimately be short-lived. “If he’s a one-term wonder,” says Doniger, “the biggest consequence of the Trump administration may just turn out to be lost time.” But time, at this hour of the climate fight, might be our most precious resource. As we stumble ever closer to the collapse of ice sheets, oceans and forests, the range of meaningful action we could take narrows. There is now believed to be more carbon dioxide in the air than any time in the last 3 million years. Our oceans are on track by the end of this century to become more acidic than they’ve been in some 15 million years – when they were enduring a major extinction event. Those oceans are also rising steadily enough to threaten the homes of 150 million people in the next three decades. “We lost years at a critical time,” says Wetzler. “We’re on the precipice of a number of climate and biological tipping points.” And, he says, we won’t fully understand the impact of that loss for years.
Cutting Emissions, Exporting Gas: Does Biden’s Climate Plan Make Sense? -For more than a decade, Susan Jane Brown has been battling to stop a natural gas pipeline and export terminal from being built in the backcountry of Oregon. As an attorney at the nonprofit Western Environmental Law Center, she has repeatedly argued that the project’s environmental, social, and health costs are too high. Jordan Cove, the $10-billion liquefied natural gas (LNG) project that Ms. Brown is trying to stop, has yet to break ground. But environmental lawsuits and permitting delays aren’t the only barriers. A calamitous crash in natural gas prices and a glut of LNG capacity have cast doubts over its commercial viability and, more broadly, the easy promise of converting abundant U.S. gas into a global commodity and geopolitical tool. “There’s too much oil. There’s too much gas. There’s not enough demand,” Still, even if projects like Jordan Cove are shelved, several other LNG terminals on the Gulf Coast already have all their permits and are waiting to secure financing. Their expansion over the next five years would make the U.S. the world’s largest LNG producer, creating jobs at home and opening new markets in energy-hungry Asia.For a future Biden administration, that’s a wrinkle in any serious climate plan. Once built, these LNG plants would potentially lock in decades of heat-trapping emissions that are already hurling the planet toward a hotter, less stable future. “Once you build the infrastructure it’s there, and it gets run on a different economic basis than if it’s not there,” says Mr. Williams-Derry, who tracks the LNG industry.Proponents say natural gas is cleaner than the coal that it replaces both in the U.S., where it now produces around 40% of electricity, and in countries like India and China. That makes it a “bridge fuel” to a fully renewable energy future that hasn’t yet arrived, says Fred Hutchison, president and CEO of LNG Allies, an industry group. “Gas can continue to be part of a low-carbon energy system globally,” he says.He predicts that LNG firms would be comfortable with a Biden presidency. “He’s got a great affinity for working people and labor, and labor is very much on board with regards to LNG,” he says.
Entergy to Rely on Gas while Claiming Net-Zero Emissions in 2050 -Entergy joined other large utilities last week in announcing its intent to achieve “net-zero emissions” by 2050, but like its regional peers of Duke and Southern, the company is charting a course that will rely heavily on gas. Gas, which is a fossil fuel that contributes to climate change, will make up as much as a quarter of Entergy’s electric capacity by 2050, according to the plan. Entergy CEO Leo Denault told investors in February the company planned to build as much as 4 gigawatts of new gas by 2030. Entergy’s net zero announcement, timed in advance of its “Virtual Analyst Day“, comes on the heels of Southern Company’s announcement that it too would rely on gas while still claiming net zero emissions. Peer utilities Consumers Energy, NIPSCO, and PSEG have pledged to forgo new gas, and APS and Xcel, which committed to fully decarbonizing by 2050 without the use of offsets. Entergy has repeatedly blocked action on climate at the operating company level; its New Orleans subsidiary threatened the City of New Orleans if the city proceeded with a plan that would force the utility to move toward clean energy as part of an effort to combat climate change. Entergy’s service territory includes much of the Louisiana and Texas coasts, which are highly susceptible to the impacts of climate change, including increased frequency and intensity of hurricanes. Climate change is the number one risk to the insurance industry, according to a 2019 report from the American Society of Actuaries. Entergy estimated Hurricane Laura would add between $1.5 billion and $1.7 billion to customer bills in storm recovery costs. Entergy has fiercely opposed action to combat climate change, including threatening to sue the City of New Orleans for what advocates termed a “resilient renewable portfolio standard”, or R-RPS. The R-RPS, like a renewable portfolio standard, is a mandate to achieve a targeted percentage of energy from resources that are both renewable and resilient. Entergy threatened the City of New Orleans multiple times with litigation if it adopted “anything like” a 100% R-RPS. The company told the Council that R-RPS proposals from clean energy advocates would result in “years of litigation at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).” The company warned the Council that forcing it to retire a resource, such as a coal plant, would “lead to litigation.”Entergy also accused R-RPS advocates of “the intellectual equivalent of denying that climate change exists.” Entergy was undaunted by New Orleans City Council President Helena Moreno’saccusations that the company was breaching the public trust: the very next month, the utility accused advocates of engaging in “anti-intellectualism” and “climate solution denial.”
COURTS: Judge advances climate adaptation case against Shell — Tuesday, September 29, 2020 — A federal judge ruled yesterday that oil industry attorneys failed to prove why a climate adaptation case in Rhode Island against Royal Dutch Shell PLC should be tossed from the courts.
How to drive investment into sustainable infrastructure – World Economic Forum – Good infrastructure is the backbone of any successful society and economy. People need access to energy, transport, sanitation, hospitals and schools to thrive. Unfortunately, the way we have built much of this infrastructure over the last century has been extremely carbon intensive. Worse still, we will need to build much more of it in the coming decades, particularly in emerging and developing countries. Unless we quickly develop a new generation of sustainable infrastructure, it will be very hard to reverse catastrophic climate change. This will involve significant investment, up to $6.9 trillion per year through to 2030according to the OECD. Bringing private sector finance to the table is crucial.Many institutions have been engaged in mobilizing finance towards sustainable infrastructure: the G20, OECD, Multilateral Development Banks and the broader development finance institutions community; the Sustainable Development Investment Partnership (SDIP), the Private Infrastructure Development Group (PIDG), financial intermediaries, NGOs, and countless others have focused on this issue. Significant progress has been achieved. Guiding principles are emerging and a lot of innovation in blended finance has taken place over the years. Yet progress has been slow to close an investment gap estimated to be in excess of $3 trillion a year over the next 10 years. The generation of bankable projects involving renewable power, green transport, sustainable water and waste, and green buildings is expanding but remains inadequate and sub-scale in the developing world. Financing of infrastructure projects is limited and lacking sufficient investment from the private sector. Institutional investors are keen to invest in sustainable infrastructure, which can offer stable, long-term returns. However, there is currently no way for them to verify which assets are genuinely sustainable.That’s where the ‘Finance to Accelerate the Sustainable Transition-Infrastructure’ (FAST-Infra) initiative comes in. Its aim is to transform sustainable infrastructure into a mainstream, liquid asset class. To do this, it proposes to establish a consistent, globally applicable labelling system for investments in sustainable infrastructure assets. Through this labelling system, the market can easily signal the sustainability of the asset, and investors can trust that their money is going to projects that meet environmental, social, resiliency, and governance needs and contribute to the SDGs.A sustainable infrastructure label will ensure that governments and project developers embed high environmental, social, governance and resiliency standards into new infrastructure at the design and pre-construction phases, on the grounds that only assets incorporating such standards will obtain the label. The label will also attract private finance at the construction stage and new institutional investors at the post-construction phase. Alongside the labelling work, FAST-Infra is developing financial mechanisms to mobilize private investment at scale for the financing of labelled projects.
U.S. EPA chief challenges California effort to mandate zero emission vehicles in 2035 — (Reuters) – The head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Monday questioned California Governor Gavin Newsom’s plan to require all new passenger vehicle sales in 2035 be zero-emission models, according to a letter seen by Reuters. EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said the plan “raises serious questions regarding its legality and practicality” and said it could cause problems for the state’s electrical grid. He also declared the move could be subject to federal approval, saying it “may require California to request a waiver to U.S. EPA.” The EPA in 2019 issued rules barring California from requiring the sale of electric vehicles; a court challenge is pending. Wheeler’s exchange with Democratic-led California comes as Republican President Donald Trump seeks to win votes in Midwestern auto manufacturing states in the Nov. 3 presidential contest.
EPA Raises Legal Questions About California’s Plan to Ban New Gas-Powered Cars Starting in 2035 – WSJ -The Environmental Protection Agency raised concerns about California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan to ban sales of new gasoline and diesel-powered passenger cars in the state by 2035, arguing that the mandate is impractical and possibly illegal.In a letter to Mr. Newsom on Monday, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said a statewide shift to electric vehicles would strain California’s electric grid.“California’s record of rolling blackouts – unprecedented in size and scope – coupled with recent requests to neighboring states for power begs the question of how you expect to run an electric car fleet that will come with significant increases in electricity demand, when you can’t even keep the lights on today,” Mr. Wheeler wrote in the letter.Mr. Wheeler also said the order likely wouldn’t be able to be implemented by the California Air Resources Board without approval from the EPA, noting that the Trump administration in 2019 took away California’s power to set its own vehicle tailpipe emissions standards.“While the Trump Administration tries to drive this country off a climate cliff, California is once again assuming the mantle of leadership in the fight against climate change,” Jesse Melgar, Mr. Newsom’s press secretary, said in a statement. “We aren’t going to back down from protecting our kids’ health and the air they breathe.”The governor’s order, which he signed last week, is an ambitious step to bolster electric vehicles and slash greenhouse-gas emissions. The order is aimed at new-car sales and won’t prohibit Californians from owning or selling existing gas-powered cars, Mr. Newsom, a Democrat, said last week.California would be the first U.S. state to ban gas-powered vehicles, but other countries, including France and Germany, have adopted similar goals. The California governor has made climate change a central part of his policy agenda, and in announcing the order cast the measure as a step toward tackling the problem.
EPA ridicules California’s proposed ban of new gas cars (AP) – U.S. Environmental Protection Agency chief Andrew Wheeler on Monday ridiculed California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan to ban the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035, saying the proposal raises “significant questions of legality.”Last week, Newsom signed an executive order directing state regulators to come up with rules that would ban the sale of all new gas-powered passenger cars and trucks by 2035. He said the plan will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 35%.On Monday, Wheeler sent Newsom a letter questioning how the state could add millions of electric vehicles despite having “a record of rolling blackouts.” He said it “begs the question of how you expect to run an electric car fleet that will come with significant increases in electricity demand, when you can’t even keep the lights on today.” California had its first rolling blackouts in nearly 20 years last month when demand for electricity during a heat wave was so high the state ran out of power. More than half a million homes and businesses lost power for about an hour. The state came close to mandatory power shutoffs a few other times this year, but was able to avoid them.“The truth it that if the state were driving 100 percent electric vehicles today, the state would be dealing with even worse power shortages than the ones that have already caused a series of otherwise preventable environmental and public health consequences,” Wheeler wrote. The blackouts in August were complicated by a heat wave that blanketed much of the West, making it more difficult for California to purchase surplus power from other states. Newsom has ordered an investigation of the blackouts and has signed an emergency proclamation allowing more energy users and providers to tap into backup power.Meanwhile, massive wildfires continue to burn across the state, aided in size and intensity by climate change. Newsom has said the fires have strengthened his resolve to combat climate change.
A Major Supply Shortage Is Set To Hit Lithium Markets – Lithium producers do not feel threatened by Tesla’s plan to produce lithium in Nevada. Miners, as well as analysts, believe that despite the recent drop in lithium prices, the industry is in for a supply shortage after 2025 as automakers significantly ramp up electric vehicle (EV) production. Massive amounts of additional lithium supply will be needed to support not only the EV revolution but also the expected surge in stationary battery storage to support the wider adoption of renewable energy. Therefore, lithium mining companies and researchers are looking to develop innovative ways to produce lithium more efficiently, in order to meet what they expect will be growing demand from the automotive sector in the coming years. Tesla, for its part, is looking to source its own lithium in the United States in a more environmentally friendly way, Elon Musk said on Tesla’s Battery Day last week. Lithium extraction needs to “reinvent” itself to meet demand, the chief executive of Standard Lithium, Robert Mintak, told Bloomberg in a recent interview. “We’re not going to be saddled with 20-year-old processes and refining capabilities,” Mintak told Bloomberg. Stocks of lithium producers plunged in the wake of Tesla’s announcement, but analysts believe there will be more than enough room for everyone in the market, considering the increase in EV production and stationary storage installation globally. “We appreciate Tesla’s goal to secure its raw materials supply. However, we disagree with the claim that Tesla will be able to supply all its own lithium. While we view lithium as an abundant resource, with lithium present in ocean water, nearly all of the world’s lithium is not economically viable to extract at current prices,” Seth Goldstein, a senior equity analyst for Morningstar, wrote after Tesla’s Battery Day. According to Morningstar, Nevada could supply less than half of U.S. demand for EVs in 2030. According to Wood Mackenzie’s Accelerated Energy Transition (AET) scenario, which sees global warming limited to 2.5 degrees Celsius, the world’s lithium market could surpass 1 million tons of lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE) in 2025.
Dominion Energy West Virginia files base rate adjustment case with Public Service Commission – – Dominion Energy West Virginia (DEWV) filed an application on Wednesday with the Public Service Commission requesting an increase to its base rates for natural gas service. A press release from Dominion stated that in its 2018 pipeline replacement and expansion program (PREP) case, DEWV committed to filing a base rate case in 2020. “For generations, DEWV customers have depended on us to provide affordable, safe and reliable natural gas service to their homes and businesses,” said Jim Eck, Vice President & General Manager, West Virginia Distribution. “We do not take this responsibility lightly and this adjustment to our base rate is key to our continued ability to deliver on this commitment and expectation.” The release stated that if the base rate increase is approved, the monthly bill for a typical residential customer who uses on average, 6.5 mcf per month, would increase by $8.58. The $12.17 gross monthly bill increase reflected in the filing is due to the partial offset and simultaneous change in the PREP rate, the other main component of customers’ monthly bills, according to the release. DEWV officials said it is expected that the commission will suspend the new rates by procedural order, and thus new base rates would be effective in July 2021. Since the last rate review, the company has made significant investments in assets and operating resources to serve an expanding customer base; maintain the safety, reliability and efficiency of its system; and meet increasingly stringent reliability, security and environmental requirements, the release stated. Approximately one third of the base rate increase relates to DEWV’s recent acquisition of natural gas gathering pipeline facilities in order to preserve and improve reliable natural gas service to nearly 10,000 of its existing farm tap customers – an acquisition previously approved by the Public Service Commission in May 2020, according to the release. The proposed base rate adjustment is consistent with increases that other West Virginia gas utilities have experienced over the last decade. Natural gas continues to be an affordable energy option for West Virginians, DEWV officials said in the release.
Offshore Moratorium Includes Wind Energy – On Sept. 8, President Trump signed an order prohibiting offshore leasing for energy exploration, development or production off the coast of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina. Trump said Sept. 25 during an event he would add North Carolina and Virginia to the moratorium.Though not explicitly stated in the executive orders, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has confirmed that wind energy is included in the withdrawal.“The withdrawal includes all energy leasing, including conventional and renewable energy, beginning on July 1, 2022. No new leases will be issued offshore North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida, for a 10-year period beginning July 1, 2022,” Stephen Boutwell, BOEM spokesperson, told Coastal Review Online Wednesday.Trump signed the memorandum Sept. 25 that states, “I hereby withdraw from disposition by leasing for 10 years, beginning on July 1, 2022, and ending on June 30, 2032: The portion of the area designated by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management as the Mid Atlantic Planning Area that lies south of the northern administrative boundary of North Carolina,” as that administrative boundary depicted on the Atlantic NAD 83 Federal Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Administrative Boundaries map. The memorandum does not appear to include Virginia.The memorandum also states, “This withdrawal prevents consideration of this area for any leasing for purposes of exploration, development, or production during the 10-year period beginning on July 1, 2022, and ending on June 30, 2032.”The move to prohibit renewable energy is counter to a June 2017 proclamation from the White House. “Today, our offshore areas remain underutilized and often unexplored. We have yet to fully leverage new technologies and unleash the forces of economic innovation to more fully develop and explore our ocean economy. In the field of energy, we have just begun to tap the potential of our oceans’ oil and gas, wind, wave, and tidal resources to power the Nation,” according to the proclamation. The president announced Sept. 8 in Jupiter, Florida, the order to extend an earlier moratorium on offshore drilling on Florida’s Gulf Coast and expand it to Florida’s Atlantic Coast, as well as the coasts of Georgia and South Carolina.
Broken wind farm blades worry local farmers, residents near Lexington – Tim Jolly is a fifth-generation McLean County farmer.However, while farming in the footprint of a wind farm near Lexington, Jolly has major concerns over the potential of falling debris from nearby wind farm turbines from the Bright Stalk Wind Farm.At least three of the turbines appear to have been damaged over the summer and Jolly is wondering why. “I’ve got one 2,000 feet behind my house,” Jolly said. “My property line is 600-700 feet from that windmill. Those things are 550 feet tall. I have seen some pictures of aerial shots around windmills that broke off and there is debris out in the fields. So, that means they were spinning and threw debris out into the field. The people who signed up to have those on their property should be deathly afraid of what could happen.”Construction on the Bright Stalk Wind Farm southeast of Chenoa was completed at the end of 2019, and is capable of producing enough energy to power more than 73,000 average Illinois homes, according to the developer, EDP Renewables. Two blades on a pair of wind turbines near the intersection of Weston blacktop and 2450 East in Lawndale Township near Lexington broke this summer. With 57 turbines totaling 205 megawatts of capacity, this wind farm was about a $348 million project and will generate up to $2.6 million per year in local taxes. The company confirmed to The Pantagraph that two wind turbines, manufactured by Vestas, experienced blade failures on Sept. 7 and on Sept. 15, a third blade failure occurred. Following the occurrences, Vestas and EDP Renewables are completing a sitewide inspection of the blades on the other 54 wind turbines.
Entergy to Rely on Gas while Claiming Net-Zero Emissions in 2050 -Entergy joined other large utilities last week in announcing its intent to achieve “net-zero emissions” by 2050, but like its regional peers of Duke and Southern, the company is charting a course that will rely heavily on gas. Gas, which is a fossil fuel that contributes to climate change, will make up as much as a quarter of Entergy’s electric capacity by 2050, according to the plan. Entergy CEO Leo Denault told investors in February the company planned to build as much as 4 gigawatts of new gas by 2030. Entergy’s net zero announcement, timed in advance of its “Virtual Analyst Day“, comes on the heels of Southern Company’s announcement that it too would rely on gas while still claiming net zero emissions. Peer utilities Consumers Energy, NIPSCO, and PSEG have pledged to forgo new gas, and APS and Xcel, which committed to fully decarbonizing by 2050 without the use of offsets. Entergy has repeatedly blocked action on climate at the operating company level; its New Orleans subsidiary threatened the City of New Orleans if the city proceeded with a plan that would force the utility to move toward clean energy as part of an effort to combat climate change. Entergy’s service territory includes much of the Louisiana and Texas coasts, which are highly susceptible to the impacts of climate change, including increased frequency and intensity of hurricanes. Climate change is the number one risk to the insurance industry, according to a 2019 report from the American Society of Actuaries. Entergy estimated Hurricane Laura would add between $1.5 billion and $1.7 billion to customer bills in storm recovery costs. Entergy has fiercely opposed action to combat climate change, including threatening to sue the City of New Orleans for what advocates termed a “resilient renewable portfolio standard”, or R-RPS. The R-RPS, like a renewable portfolio standard, is a mandate to achieve a targeted percentage of energy from resources that are both renewable and resilient. Entergy threatened the City of New Orleans multiple times with litigation if it adopted “anything like” a 100% R-RPS. The company told the Council that R-RPS proposals from clean energy advocates would result in “years of litigation at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).” The company warned the Council that forcing it to retire a resource, such as a coal plant, would “lead to litigation.”Entergy also accused R-RPS advocates of “the intellectual equivalent of denying that climate change exists.” Entergy was undaunted by New Orleans City Council President Helena Moreno’saccusations that the company was breaching the public trust: the very next month, the utility accused advocates of engaging in “anti-intellectualism” and “climate solution denial.”
Baltimore needs to stick with the plan of letting the Wheelabrator trash incinerator close — Baltimore Sun – The right to breathe clean air in Baltimore is at risk. For 35 years, Baltimore’s air has been fouled by the city’s largest air polluter, the Wheelabrator/BRESCO trash incinerator. This large smokestack by I-95 with “BALTIMORE” emblazoned on it spews toxic lead, mercury, dioxins, particulate matter, acid gases and nitrogen oxides into our air, contributing to asthma attacks, cancer, COPD, heart attacks, strokes and learning disabilities.A study of just one of these pollutants found that Wheelabrator’s pollution causes $55 million in annual harm to health, mostly from cutting lives short. Harvard found this same pollutant (fine particulate matter) increases deaths from COVID-19. With Black residents suffering the most from COVID-19 deaths in Maryland, this is a social justice issue that cannot be ignored. Thankfully, Baltimore City Council has been routinely standing up for the community in supporting efforts for clean air, environmental justice, and a transition away from incineration to “zero waste,” and the creation of five to 10 times as many jobs through the practices of reuse, recycling, and composting. If not for a bad lower court ruling, that law would have taken effect this month, forcing the closure of Wheelabrator’s trash incinerator as well as Curtis Bay Medical Waste Services, the nation’s largest medical waste incinerator. Neither incinerator is needed as we have adequate non-burn alternatives already in place in the city. The city’s contract to burn waste at Wheelabrator ends the last day of 2021. It’s worrisome that, in the last ten weeks of Mayor Bernard “Jack” Young’s administration, there’s talk about signing a new contract early to keep burning Baltimore’s trash for an additional five to 10 years, binding the hands of the next mayor.
China Calls For ‘Green Revolution’ – Right After Approving “New Fleet Of Coal Plants” – Chinese President Xi Jinping announced plans last week to boost China’s Paris climate accord target – calling for a green revolution and promising to achieve a peak in carbon dioxide emissions before 2030, and carbon neutrality before 2060. “China will scale up its intended Nationally Determined Contributions (to the Paris agreement) by adopting more vigorous policies and measures,” he said, urging the rest of the world to adopt a “green recovery of the world economy in the post-Covid era.”That all sounds nice – except that as AFP (via Straits Times) notes, “fresh spending on coal to rev up a virus-hit economy threatens to nullify its audacious bid to lead the world into a low carbon future.”The fossil fuel has powered China’s economic surge over the last 30 years, and the nation burns about half the coal used globally each year.Between 2000 and 2018, its annual carbon emissions nearly tripled, and it now accounts for nearly a third of the world’s total greenhouse gases linked to global warming.Despite pledges to wean the economy off coal with the world’s most ambitious investment in renewables, China’s coal consumption climbed back in June this year to near the peak levels seen in 2013.That was in part due to a pivot back to coal after geopolitical uncertainty in the Saudi peninsula, China’s main oil supplier. –AFP via Straits TimesAfter COVID-19 drove China’s economy to contract for the first time in three-decades, Chinese officials revved up the production of coal plants in order to revive provincial economies in dire circumstances. According to Li Shuo, senior climate and energy officer at Greenpeace China, there’s a “tension at the heart of China’s energy planning” which “pits Beijing’s strategic interests against the immediate goals of cash-strapped provincial governments, makes it difficult to walk the talk” about a cleaner future. “China’s energy policy is like a two-headed beast, with each head trying to run in the opposite direction,” he added.
Vistra to retire 6.8 GW coal, blaming ‘irreparably dysfunctional MISO market’ | Utility Dive – Competitive energy supplier Vistra on Tuesday announced it would retire6,800 MW of coal by 2027, blaming in part its grid operator’s “irreparably dysfunctional” market. The company owns seven coal-fired power plants across the Midwest, mostly within the territory of the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO), and would retire the majority of its plants through 2025-2027 “or sooner should economic or other conditions dictate,” the company said in a statement. Company officials blamed state subsidies, declining gas prices, an overbuild of resources and the “systemic failure of the MISO capacity market to provide Illinois-based power plants with adequate revenues” for its coal fleet. The announcement marks one of the largest coal fleet retirements in U.S. history, according to the Sierra Club. More competitive prices for wind, solar and gas, along with an increase in state-level efforts to eliminate coal-fired power have exacerbated the pressure on coal, rendering it largely uncompetitive compared to other market resources. Merchant coal plants are uniquely vulnerable to coal’s failing economics within competitive markets, because unlike vertically integrated rate-regulated utilities, competitive energy providers are unable to recover any losses associated with plants through their ratebase. Vistra blames the economic decline of its coal fleet on a number of factors, including state subsidies for renewable energy and nuclear power, existing and future environmental regulations and “regulatory and political headwinds,” said Vistra spokesperson Meranda Cohn in an email. These already unfavorable conditions in MISO, along with the PJM Interconnection, are further under threat from Illinois’ and New Jersey’s threats to leave the wholesale markets through a Fixed Resource Requirement (FRR), or some other option, she said. MISO declined to comment. Zero-emission credits in Illinois have been blamed for similar price distortions in the PJM Interconnection, which shares the state with MISO. Those complaints wrought by competitive generator Calpine ultimately led to the creation of the Minimum Offer Price Rule, which raises the bid floor for subsidized resources selling into the PJM market. And that rule is the reason behind New Jersey and Illinois’ threats to leave PJM, which Cohn said would put “pressure on our PJM plants.” But though the company blames state policies in part for failing economics, Vistra’s CEO earlier this year noted the pressure was almost entirely markets-based. “The one key about coal plants is that they’re closing naturally because natural gas prices are low, which then turns power prices low,” Curt Morgan, president and CEO said in a February interview. “Even though the States are anti coal, what is interesting is that’s not why coal plants are shutting down.”
In Pennsylvania coal country, miners forgive Trump for failed revival – (Reuters) – Rick Bender, who owns a coal processing plant in Hegins, Pennsylvania, voted for Republican Donald Trump in 2016, in part because of his promise to revive the industry from a decade-long decline. The revival never came. Bender says he is struggling to keep workers employed at the plant in eastern Pennsylvania because coal prices are so low. Still, he plans to vote for Trump again come November. He says the president’s Democratic challenger Joe Biden is too focused on fighting climate change. “We feel if Trump doesn’t get elected, the coal business is done,” said Bender, 61. Bender represents a dynamic that could complicate Democratic efforts to win back battleground states like Pennsylvania in the 2020 fight for the White House. Instead of punishing Trump for failing to deliver the coal renaissance he promised, many voters with ties to blue-collar industries continue to support him. Reuters interviewed 26 coal workers across Pennsylvania and found that all but one plans to back Trump on Nov. 3. While many cited faults with the president, whose incendiary style turns some off, they fear Biden’s clean-energy plan would hasten coal’s decline, and that the new green jobs wouldn’t come quickly enough to keep their families financially secure. An experienced miner can expect to earn as much as $100,000 annually including overtime, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. “There really is a very big human cost of just turning the light switch off,” on coal, said Jarrod Gieniec, 40, a miner at Silver Creek in eastern Pennsylvania’s Schuylkill County.
New rule may strip pollution protections from popular lakes (AP) – Nearly 50 years ago, a power company received permission from North Carolina to build a reservoir by damming a creek near the coastal city of Wilmington. It would provide a source of steam to generate electricity and a place to cool hot water from an adjacent coal-fired plant. Sutton Lake became popular with boaters and anglers, yielding bass, crappie, bluegill and other panfish. But coal ash from the plant fouled the public reservoir with selenium, arsenic and other toxic substances, endangering the fish and people who ate them. Environmentalists sued Duke Energy, which settled the case by spending $1.25 million protecting nearby wetlands. But now the company – and other U.S. power producers – may have gotten the last laugh. The Trump administration this year completed a long-debated rewrite of the Clean Water Act that drastically reduces the number of waterways regulated by the federal government. A little-noticed provision for the first time classifies “cooling ponds” as parts of “waste treatment systems” – which are not covered under the law. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the power industry describe it as a clarification with little real-world effect. But environmental groups challenging the Trump rule in court say it opens up reservoirs like Sutton Lake to similar abuse. “These lakes are sources of food, drinking water, recreation and property values for surrounding communities,” said Frank Holleman, an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center. “They’ve been protected under the Clean Water Act ever since it’s been adopted, all the way back to Nixon. No responsible adult would have stripped away these protections.” The provision on reservoirs is an example of “hidden bombs” that could lurk in the new regulation’s fine print, said Mark Ryan, a former EPA attorney who helped craft the Obama administration’s clean-water rule that was replaced by the substantially weaker Trump version. “Congress needs to fix this, or it will be tied up in litigation forever,” Ryan said.
Collapse over sinkhole on NC 150 remains under investigation — The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality is in the midst of an ongoing investigation concerning the collapse pavement over a sinkhole in Mooresville. On Sept. 17, following heavy rainfall, a previously repaired sinkhole reopened in the parking lot of an auto shop at 190 W. Plaza Drive. The sinkhole was repaired in both 2018 and 2019 and reopened due to the collapse of a culvert pipe, according to the DEQ. The auto shop and its adjoining parking lot were built on top of a coal ash deposit, something which only became known to the DEQ in 2019, and it has been monitoring it ever since. Following the sinkhole reopening, the DEQ discovered sediment containing coal ash in a nearby tributary. They collected water samples and have continued to monitor the situation. The DEQ is discussing possible solutions with the owners of the property, along with the North Carolina Department of Transportation, on the next step. That particular property is also within the N.C. 150 expansion plan. Iredell County and state emergency management authorities also were alerted of the sinkhole collapse.
Georgia Power responds to Juliette lawsuit; asks16 residents be barred from proceedings — Georgia Power has legally responded to a lawsuit filed by some residents in Juliette as those residents claim their well water has been contaminated by a coal ash pond at Plant Scherer. The energy company provided an affirmative defense, which is when the defendant introduces evidence of their own into the case. According to the Legal Information Institute, if the evidence is “found to be credible, will negate criminal liability or civil liability, even if it is proven that the defendant committed the alleged acts.” “Without admitting or acknowledging that Georgia Power bears the burden of proof as to any of them, Georgia Power asserts the following affirmative defenses,” reads the start of the document. The company gave multiple defenses, from complaints “failing to state a claim upon which relief can be granted against Georgia Power” to the company denying “Plaintiffs incurred any injury or damages.” The response, along with multiple other motions, was filed on September 28 in the Fulton County Superior Court. Georgia Power also “seeks the dismissal of sixteen (16) Plaintiffs because their claims are barred by the applicable statutes of limitation.” According to court documents, 16 residents on the current lawsuit sued Georgia Power in 2013 alleging that the coal combustion and emissions at Plant Scherer caused personal injuries and property damages. “Because of the statutes of limitations for their claims expired before filing their current lawsuit, the 2013 Plaintiffs should be dismissed,” reads Georgia Power’s motion for judgment on the pleadings.
Federal Judge Dismisses Roane County Coal Ash Lawsuit – A lawsuit filed against the Tennessee Valley Authority and one of its contractors has been dismissed. Federal Judge Thomas Varlan said the plaintiffs — Roane County and the cities of Harriman and Kingston – failed to prove TVA and Jacobs Engineering could be held liable for certain claims, or waited too long to pursue legal action. Seven claims were contained in a lawsuit filed in May 2019, accusing TVA and Jacobs of negligence, public nuisance and fraudulent conduct. In his ruling Wednesday, Varlan rejected every claim as insufficiently proven or past the statute of limitations. The lawsuit stemmed from a 2008 disaster in which a coal ash storage pond retaining wall collapsed, sending hundreds of thousands of gallons of toxin-containing material pouring into nearby homes and the Clinch and Emory rivers. Cleaning it up cost TVA more than a billion dollars. Roane County and its municipalities initially declined to sue, accepting instead TVA’s offer to spend $43 million on economic development projects in the area. The governments changed their minds in November 2018, when attorneys in a different trial presented evidence that TVA and Jacobs had not fully disclosed the dangers of coal ash and its constituent materials, which include mercury and arsenic. To date, fifty cleanup workers have died and more than 400 others have become ill. Some of the workers and their families say their illnesses are linked to the coal ash and have sued Jacobs Engineering, claiming the company misled them about the hazards of the job and failed to provide adequate protective equipment. Those lawsuits are in mediation, and Jacobs has asked Judge Varlan to dismiss them. TVA is not a party to those suits. TVA defended its post-spill conduct in a statement sent to local press outlets Thursday. “TVA properly accepted responsibility for the 2008 ash spill. We committed to restore the site to as good or better condition than we found it; and according to the regulatory agencies, we have,” the statement read. “Since 2008, we’ve contributed almost $100 million (dollars and in-kind) to the area around the Kingston plant, the majority of which went to Roane County and the cities of Kingston and Harriman.”
Coal dust has long plagued Norfolk, Newport News. With $500,000 grant, Virginia plans to study what’s in the air. – Residents of Norfolk’s Lamberts Point and the Southeast Community in Newport News have long complained that coal dust seeps into their neighborhoods, coating cars and potentially impacting people’s health. For the first time on a large scale, Virginia officials now plan to study exactly which and how many toxins are in the air. Advertisement The state Department of Environmental Quality received a $526,603 grant this week from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The project will include monitoring air toxics metals for a year and conducting health risk assessments in the two communities. Chuck Turner, the department’s manager of air quality monitoring, said the opportunity to apply for the grant came up in March. Though officials had several projects in mind, “this one stood out because there has been a long history of both communities having concerns about coal dust and how they’re impacted by it.” “There’s been no movement until now on getting a handle on the toxics metals content,” Turner said.
Bob Murray, Who Fought Black Lung Regulations As A Coal Operator, Has Filed For Black Lung Benefits – Robert E. Murray, the former CEO and president of the now-bankrupt Murray Energy, has filed an application with the U.S. Department of Labor for black lung benefits. For years, Murray and his company fought against federal mine safety regulations aimed at reducing the debilitating disease. “I founded the company and created 8,000 jobs there until the move to end coal use. I am still chairman of the board,” he wrote on a Labor Department form that initiated his claim obtained by the Ohio Valley ReSource. “We’re in bankruptcy, and due to my health could not handle the president and CEO job any longer.” According to sources, Murray’s claim is still in the initial stages and is being evaluated to determine the party potentially responsible for paying out the associated benefits. The Labor Department is required to determine a liable party before an initial ruling can be made on entitlement to benefits. If Murray’s claim were to go before an administrative law judge, some aspects of the claim would become a matter of public record. The Ohio Valley ReSource confirmed the authenticity of Murray’s claim documents by inputting associated information – including his last name, birthdate and a case ID number – into an online portal maintained by the Labor Department. In his claim, Murray, who is now 80 years old, writes that he is heavily dependent on the oxygen tank he is frequently seen using, and is “near death.” He states in his claim for benefits that he worked underground while supervising operations throughout the years. “During my 63 years working in underground coal mines, I worked 16 years every day at the mining face underground and went underground every week until I was age 75,” Murray wrote in his claim.
What’s next for Duane Arnold nuclear plant? –Duane Arnold Energy Center near Palo did not restart after the Aug. 10 derecho caused “extensive” damage to its cooling towers. As decommissioning work begins, here’s what we know: As of 2018 when decommissioning was announced, about 500 worked at the facility. Now, about 400 workers still are at Duane Arnold, NextEra Energy spokesman Peter Robbins said. Dean Curtland, plant director, told The Gazette in 2018 Iowa’s changing energy landscape has overshadowed and outpriced Duane Arnold. Closing the facility could save NextEra about $300 million over 21 years, with cost savings coming as early as 2021. That translates to about $42 per residential customer. NextEra Energy already was planning on decommissioning Duane Arnold this year.When the derecho caused “extensive” damage to the facility’s cooling towers, NextEra opted against restarting the plant so close to the Oct. 30 decommissioning date. Replacing the cooling towers with fewer than three months until decommissioning was “not feasible,” Robbins said last month. The decommissioning process is underway as employees remove nuclear material from the facility.
Duke Energy’s $540M Contract for Takedown of Florida Nuclear Plant Gets Underway – Takedown of the defunct 860-MW Crystal River nuclear plant in Florida now begins with final agreement reached Oct. 1 on the $540-million contract between owner Duke Energy and contractor Accelerated Decommissioning Partners initially signed last year. Work will be done under the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s immediate dismantling protocol that allows structures and equipment with nuclear contamination to be removed before radioactivity has time to decay. The utility originally planned in 2015 to defer decommissioning for 60 years to allow that decay under NRC’s SAFSTOR protocol, which also enables the site’s NRC-mandated trust fund to build financial reserves to pay for the work. But as competition in the nuclear decommissioning sector drove prices down, Duke determined that the fast-track process could be done within the budget of the $711-million trust fund, Heather Danenhower, company communications manager, told ENR. The plant is located in Citrus County, Fla., about 85 miles north of Tampa. Accelerated Decommissioning Partners, a joint venture of NorthStar Group Services and Orano USA, was selected in 2019 after four companies responded to a 2018 request for proposals. NRC approved transfer of the plant’s operating license in April and the Florida Public Service Commission approved the contract award transaction in late August, followed by a 30-day appeals window that closed Sept. 28, Danenhower said. Decommissioning should be completed by 2027. Initial decommissioning will focus on removing radioactive contaminants before full-scale site demolition. Duke Energy retains ownership of the plant and expects its 1,000-acre site to be reduced to two acres in 2026 when a partial license termination is expected and only dry-cask storage of nuclear materials remains. After the dry-cask stored materials are removed from site, possibly by 2038, money remaining in the trust fund will return to ratepayers.
Texas Governor Urges Trump to Oppose Nuclear Waste Plans – Texas Governor Greg Abbott has come out against two rival plans to ship highly radioactive waste from the nation’s nuclear power plants to sites on the Texas-New Mexico border, saying either plan would be unsafe and would threaten the region’s sprawling Permian Basin oilfield. “A stable oil and gas industry is essential to the economy, and crucial to the security of our great nation,” Abbott, a Republican, wrote in a letter to President Donald Trump on Wednesday. “Allowing the interim storage of spent nuclear fuel and high-level nuclear waste at sites near the largest producing oilfield in the world will compromise the safety of the region.” The nuclear waste plans have for years drawn the ire of advocacy groups who worry about a range of possible environmental and safety threats, but oil and gas interests have become increasingly involved in the fight as well. A coalition of oil companies and West Texas landowners called Protect the Basin was launched in 2018 to oppose the plans and has more recently stepped up its outreach. One of the coalition members, a ranching and oil company tied to one of the nation’s richest families, has been involved in fighting the issue all the way up to the D.C. Circuit. “It’s an unusual thing for environmentalists and oil companies to be on the same page, and we are on this issue,” said Karen Hadden, an environmental advocate who leads the Austin-based Sustainable Energy and Economic Development Coalition. In his letter Wednesday, Abbott urged Trump to also oppose the waste plans, echoing a call from Democratic New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, who wrote to the president over the summer. For years, two companies have been competing for a federal license that would allow them to take in shipments of “high-level” radioactive waste from all over the country, mostly in the form of used-up nuclear fuel from power plants. Congress and the federal government have been wrangling for decades over how and where to dispose of the nation’s growing stockpile of high-level waste, but a clear path forward has never emerged. The Trump administration once flirted with the idea of reviving a long-stalled plan to dispose of the waste at Nevada’s Yucca Mountain, but the president seemed to backtrack on that idea in February. “Nevada, I hear on you Yucca Mountain and my Administration will RESPECT you!” Trump wrote in a Twitter post in early February. The two companies in New Mexico and Texas are asking regulators for the go-ahead to “store” the waste until a final disposal site is located, but that could realistically amount to the waste sitting at one of the temporary sites for decades.
PSEG asks for $300M for South Jersey nuclear plants | NJ Spotlight News – Public Service Enterprise Group yesterday filed an application to retain $300 million in ratepayer subsidies annually to keep its fleet of nuclear plants in South Jersey operating. The application, filed with the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, rekindles a dispute over whether the plants need the subsidies to remain open, a controversy still being debated in the courts, before regulators, and within the energy sector. Like the original application, the request for the subsidies includes the Exelon Corp., a co-owner of the Salem I and Salem II nuclear units. PSEG initially won the subsidies in a 2018 vote by a divided BPU, which took that step to avoid the closing of the three nuclear units on Artificial Island in Salem County. Without new financial incentives, the company’s CEO Ralph Izzo threatened to close the plants, which supply roughly 90% of the carbon-free electricity used by customers in New Jersey. In seeking three more years of ratepayer subsidies, PSEG officials argued the need for the financial incentives is greater than ever. “We are in a more difficult position today than when we first applied,’’ said Rick Thigpen, a senior vice president, blaming the economic situation in the wholesale energy markets, where prices have dropped. Since 2018, three nuclear plants in the U.S. have closed, all for economic reasons, according to PSEG. “New Jersey can only achieve its ambitious clean energy goals with nuclear energy in the mix,’’ Thigpen said.
When Zero-Carbon Nuclear Asks For Money, States Find It Hard To Say No – The press release created instant shock waves. On August 27th, Exelon Corporation, one of the biggest suppliers of electricity in the U.S., announced that in a year it would close two nuclear plants in Illinois that together produce four gigawatts of power, even though the plants are licensed to operate for decades more. The two plants – Byron and Dresden – “face revenue shortfalls in the hundreds of millions of dollars,” Chicago-based Exelon said.State and local officials denounced the move as reckless saber-rattling. Not only would the plants’ closure cost thousands of good jobs, it would also jeopardize Illinois’ clean energy ambitions.Yet Exelon’s announcement, far from unprecedented, is part of a well-worn pattern. In at least four states from Ohio to New York, a handful of nuclear companies have taken a now-familiar series of actions: announce closures, enter tense talks with state officials concerned about the loss of good jobs and clean power, win subsidies, rescind the closures. Some portray this as brinkmanship, arguing that nuclear power companies know states can’t afford to lose them and so threaten premature closures in exchange for padded profits. “We’ve seen this Exelon rate hike and hostage-taking script several times before,” said Howard Learner, executive director of the Chicago-based Environmental Law and Policy Center. A commentary in the Chicago Tribune accused Exelon of “posturing as a victim of the market.”Backers of this view point to independent studies that have found that several nuclear plants that have asked for subsidies in the past, such those as in New Jerseyand Connecticut, are in fact profitable despite their owners’ claims to the contrary. But there is little denying that the U.S. nuclear fleet, the oldest in the world among large countries, is pulling in far less money than it once did. Inundated with cheap natural gas from the “fracking” boom over the last decade, electricity prices have fallen from over $60 per megawatt hour a little more than 10 years ago to below $25 per megawatt hour now, slashing the revenue nuclear plants receive.
Revival of renewables sought in debate over nuclear bailout | The Blade – EDP Renewables North America, the world’s fourth-largest wind developer, invested more than $700 million into projects in Paulding and Hardin counties when Ohio first rolled out the red carpet. But more recent signals from the state – including last year’s passage of the $1 billion bailout of two nuclear plants – have convinced the company to look elsewhere for its future investments. “HB 6 created a false dichotomy – that Ohio must sacrifice a clean-energy future at the expense of its energy past,” Erin Bowser, EDP’s director of project management, on Wednesday told a House of Representatives select committee now considering repealing House Bill 6. “But rather than pit technologies against each other, we encourage the state to leverage the strengths of each and maximize the contributions that can come from various energy sectors,” she said. Most of the effects of the law at the heart of a $60 million Statehouse bribery scandal are set to take effect Jan. 1. The law generally creates or expands consumer-fueled subsidies for legacy nuclear and coal-fired power plants in Ohio and offsets those costs by rolling back and eliminating existing surcharges designed to create markets for renewable sources like wind and solar and reduce energy consumption overall. House Bill 6 – and stricter property-line setback requirements separately enacted several years ago – have rolled up that red carpet first extended in 2008, Ms. Bowser said.
Greater Cleveland Partnership calls for repeal of Ohio nuclear bailout law – cleveland.com – The Greater Cleveland Partnership is calling on Ohio lawmakers to repeal and possibly replace House Bill 6, the $1.3 billion nuclear plant bailout law that federal authorities say was the product of a massive corruption scheme.“We recommend a repeal and replace stance on HB 6 to remove the alleged stain of corruption on the law and to enable the restoration of the energy efficiency programs supported by our members,” said Joe Roman, President and CEO of the GCP. “Our membership continues to encourage policies that provide incentives for businesses to leverage energy programming to foster growth. We recognize a level of flexibility may be needed to meet those goals, reverse HB 6, and balance Ohio’s energy environment. Extending the use and access to nuclear power may be appropriate, but policy must harness additional solutions that exist and look toward emerging sources.”The statement was approved by the business group’s board of directors “and serves as a strong continuation of members’ long-standing energy policy principles,” the GCP statement said.Ex-Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and four of his allies were arrested in July and charged with using $60 million in bribe money from FirstEnergy Corp. and affiliates to secure passage of House Bill 6 and make sure it wasn’t overturned through a referendum.A select committee of lawmakers is considering whether to repeal and replace the law. The committee has held hearings but hasn’t yet recommended specific actions.The nuclear bailout is funded by new monthly surcharges ranging from 85 cents for residential customers to as much as $2,400 for large industrial plants. In addition to the nuclear plant bailout, House Bill 6 provides subsidies to specific coal and solar plants around the state, dismantles the state’s green-energy standards for utilities, and allows FirstEnergy Corp. and other utilities to lock in a guaranteed level of ratepayer revenue for years to come.
Energy Harbor, FirstEnergy officials should testify before Ohio lawmakers about nuclear plants’ profitability, AG Dave Yost says – – Attorney General Dave Yost is urging state lawmakers to have Energy Harbor and FirstEnergy Corp. representatives testify before legislative committees and disclose whether two nuclear power plants set to receive a $1.3 billion ratepayer bailout actually need the money.In a letter to state lawmakers serving on Ohio House and Senate committees studying what, if anything, to do about the scandal-ridden bailout law, House Bill 6, Yost stated the corporations “owe it to the legislature and the public to appear before the committees and provide a detailed financial accounting of their operations.”“Knowing what we know now, these corporations have lost any benefit of the doubt,” Yost wrote in the letter, sent last Friday.Yost’s letter comes as Energy Harbor is again refusing to publicly disclose financial data showing whether its Davis-Besse and Perry nuclear plants along Lake Erie are profitable or not.In addition, state Rep. Jim Hoops, who chairs a special House committee examining whether to repeal or alter HB6, told Gongwer News Service last week he’s not sure whether the companies can testify, given lawsuits filed by Yost and others.Yost, a Columbus Republican, wrote in his letter that there is nothing in his lawsuit “preventing or even hindering company representatives from appearing in public before your committees to answer questions – particularly questions about whether they are, in fact, profitable.”Yost added that Ohioans would “welcome” company officials answering questions in a public session “in the light of day – and well into the night.”“It would, without question, aid in producing a fair, well-informed energy bill from your committees,” the AG stated in the letter, dated last Friday.State lawmakers are now considering whether to repeal or revise HB6 since ex-Speaker Larry Householder and four allies were indicted in July on charges that they secured the passage of the law through a bribery scheme fueled by $60 million in FirstEnergy money.Yost s tated in the letter that “no Fifth Amendment issues are implicated by either FirstEnergy or Energy Harbor providing testimony to your committees,” as his lawsuit is a civil action, not a criminal suit. “Of course,” he added, “company officers may invoke the protections of the Fifth Amendment if they fear their answers may incriminate them.”
New investigations will shed light on the money behind House Bill 6 – For all of the investigations swirling around the 2019 enactment of House Bill 6 by the Ohio General Assembly, a lack of official scrutiny for the legislation’s primary beneficiary has been confounding. Now, it appears at least two government agencies are taking a look at Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp., which, with its affiliates, is believed to have been the major source of $61 million in dark money contributions that federal investigators allege were made to secure the $1.3 billion utility company bailout engineered in HB 6. Two nuclear power plants whose future is tied to the legislation were owned by a FirstEnergy subsidiary, FirstEnergy Solutions, which is now called Energy Harbor. The Davis-Besse nuclear power plant in Ottawa County and the Perry plant in Lake County are to receive subsidies beginning next year, courtesy of electric utility customers throughout Ohio who will be required to pay new fees under HB 6. As currently on the books, most ratepayers will be dinged 85 cents a month through 2027 to help support the nuclear plants and will continue to pay up to $1.50 a month through 2030 to prop up two coal-fired power plants – one of them in Indiana – that are owned by a group of electric companies including AEP in Columbus. There has been a broad clamor for repeal of the tainted legislation but so far no serious indication that state lawmakers will deliver the do-over that polls suggest most Ohioans want. HB 6 had plenty of detractors, including this editorial board, while it was being debated and ultimately passed by state lawmakers. And following the bill’s enactment, a campaign remarkable for its intensity and dirty tricks withstood a vigorous effort to beat back the law through a proposed referendum which ultimately failed to win a slot on the November 2019 ballot. The entire affair was malodorous from the beginning. FirstEnergy and company officials have not been charged in relation to HB 6 activities. The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio said last week it has asked FirstEnergy and its subsidiaries to demonstrate by Sept. 30 that their political and charitable spending in support of the legislation was not funded by Ohio ratepayers. Electric utility ratepayers across the state deserve answers regarding the money trail behind HB 6.
Committee adjourns on eve of deadline to repeal bailout law (AP) – On the eve of a deadline, the Ohio House committee set up to determine the fate of the law now tainted by a $60 million federal bribery investigation adjourned for the coming weeks with no immediate plans for repeal in place. Lawmakers left Wednesday’s hearing of the House Select Committee on Energy Policy and Oversight with no projected timeline of repealing or replacing the bailout legislation that passed last year in a process federal prosecutors called the ‘largest bribery, money-laundering scheme’ in state history. Starting Jan. 1, the law will add a fee to every electricity bill in the state, and direct over $150 million a year, through 2026, to two nuclear plants near Cleveland and Toledo. House lawmakers had until Thursday to repeal the law in order to avoid the fees that will begin to be charged to 90% of the state’s electric consumers starting in the new year. Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost filed a lawsuit last week in an effort to block the two nuclear plants from collecting the fees on the electricity bill if the Legislature does not act in time. The committee has been the scene of heightened tensions between the state’s two political parties since the chamber’s former House speaker and four of his associates were accused of shepherding energy company money for personal and political use as part of an effort to pass the legislation, then kill any attempt to repeal it at the polls. All five men have pleaded not guilty to the charges. Rep. David Leland, the ranking Democrat on the House committee, has been pushing for action before the Thursday deadline for weeks. “House Republicans are going to let October 1st go by without doing anything to stop this ratepayer rip-off,” Leland said in a statement this week. “That means, in the middle of a global pandemic and an unemployment crisis, House Republicans are going to make hardworking Ohioans pay more on their utility bills.”
FirstEnergy could reap $355M from scandal-plagued law — Thursday, October 1, 2020 — A seemingly innocuous provision in H.B. 6, an Ohio energy law dogged by claims of bribery, could bring hundreds of millions of dollars to one of the state’s largest utility companies. Is it a “smoking gun”?
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