Welcome back.
First, a quick note that the Weymouth compressor station is attempting another startup, following three emergency shut-downs with large natural gas releases – all within the first eight months of operation. Efforts continue to shutter the facility permanently. A story with similar plot lines is gathering momentum a little farther north, where six-year-old plans to build a nat-gas peaking power plant at Peabody Municipal Light Plant’s Waters River electrical substation is finally getting a public hearing – and an earful from folks who complain that plans have progressed without appropriate public disclosure and comment. If constructed, the plant would be instantly obsolete relative to battery storage, a liability against Massachusetts’ aggressive emissions reduction goals, and a potentially expensive stranded asset on Peabody MLP’s books.
Other New England nat-gas infrastructure projects are attracting protests, with considerable activity focused on the proposed Killingly, CT generating plant.
Democratic leaders in 16 states and the District of Columbia have moved to support Michigan’s Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s fight to shut down Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline where it crosses the environmentally-sensitive Straits of Mackinac. They submitted an amicus brief in U.S. district court, arguing that jurisdiction in this case belongs at the state – not federal – level.
In support of the fossil fuel divestment movement, we posted a story aimed at college students, describing how to get your institution to commit. And a related article reporting that student divestment organizers from all eight Ivy League colleges have joined forces to define timelines and acceptable levels of divestment.
Some fossil fuel workers are already finding good jobs in the green economy. Oil workers from the Gulf coast are applying their specialized skills to the booming offshore wind energy sector, set to employ thousands.
An upcoming UN climate report will stress the critical importance of quickly reigning in methane emissions. While methane enters the atmosphere from many sources – both natural and industrial – the oil and gas industry is a major emitter that can significantly reduce its methane emissions by implementing better practices. To that end, the fossil fuel industry may welcome the recent U.S. Senate vote to reinstate methane rules dropped by the Trump administration. Now legitimate operators can’t be undercut by those who reduce costs by allowing excessive emissions during extraction and transport.
It’s easy to sign up for a clean energy plan from electricity suppliers who simply buy enough renewable energy credits to cover their needs. But the electrons powering their customers’ appliances may still be produced in local fossil fuel plants. It’s much harder to commit to sourcing “24/7 clean electricity”, which requires the use of actual renewable energy electrons – and the Biden administration just put the federal government on course to do that.
We have updates on energy storage technologies, and we take the long view on clean transportation, looking at the future of carbon-free ships and electric aircraft, including an important article from last year describing the engineering breakthrough that opens the path to reliable, affordable, solid-state EV batteries.
This week’s wrap-up includes a helpful piece explaining how woody biomass sourced from American forests became the “zero-emissions” fuel of choice in European power plants. And early research indicates that bacteria might be useful in removing some microplastics from the aquatic environment.
For even more environmental news, info, and events, check out the latest newsletters from our colleagues at Berkshire Environmental Action Team (BEAT) and Berkshire Zero Waste Initiative (BZWI)!
— The NFGiM Team
WEYMOUTH COMPRESSOR STATION
Compressor station coming back online after April 6 shutdown
By Jessica Trufant, The Patriot Ledger
April 27, 2021
WEYMOUTH — The energy company that owns the natural gas compressor station on the banks of the Fore River plans to start the facility back up, several weeks after the third unplanned gas release at the site since September.
Enbridge, the Canadian-based energy company that built the compressor station, notified the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection this week that it may vent gas from the facility between April 29 and May 5 while it brings it back into service.
Enbridge spokesman Max Bergeron said in an email that the process will take a few days and involve ” controlled venting of natural gas through a stack specifically designed” for venting.
“We are planning to use advanced specialized equipment to minimize the volume of natural gas vented into the atmosphere,” he said. “In order to ensure awareness, we have notified state and local officials of these activities. We are proceeding with public health and safety as our priority.”
The compressor station is part of Enbridge’s Atlantic Bridge project, which expands the company’s natural gas pipelines from New Jersey into Canada. Since the station was proposed in 2015, residents have argued it presents serious health and safety risks.
On April 6, the compressor unit had an issue and shut off to prevent equipment damage, Bergeron said. The facility then vented natural gas, which Enbridge was required to report to MassDEP. Bergeron said Enbridge has [resolved] the issue.
» Read article
» More about the Weymouth compressor
PEAKING POWER PLANTS
Residents, officials speak out against plant
By Erin Nolan, The Salem News
April 27, 2021
PEABODY — For Mireille Bejjani, the Department of Public Utilities hearing on Monday morning felt like the first time Peabody and other North Shore residents could voice their concerns about plans to build a 60-megawatt gas-powered plant in the city.
“A lot of folks said this morning this process has been marked by a lack of transparency and public engagement,” said Bejjani, a community organizer for Community Action Works, a nonprofit that works with communities to prevent and clean up pollution. The group has been holding community meetings to educate people about the proposal.
“This hearing, while there were members of the public able to attend and speak, that does not correct all those years where the public wasn’t included,” Bejjani said, “and there is a lot more work to be done in order to make this a fully transparent process.”
At the hearing, more than 20 people — including several local and state officials — spoke against Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric Company’s years-old plan to build a gas peaking power plant at the Peabody Municipal Light Plant’s Waters River substation, behind the Pulaski Street industrial park.
» Read article
» More about peaking power plants
PROTESTS AND ACTIONS
As New England Wind Power Grows, Local Activists Try To Halt Natural Gas Projects
By J.D. Allen & Patrick Skahill, NHPR
April 21, 2021
The fight against fossil fuel expansion in New England has a new front in Killingly, Connecticut. Climate activists want the state to reject a proposed natural gas plant there, which is tied to the company behind a controversial pipeline development currently underway in Minnesota and a recently completed natural gas line in New England.
Connecticut’s activists say construction of new climate-warming infrastructure like this is out of step with the clean energy goals of most New England’s governors and President Joe Biden.
This month, a group of climate activists went door-to-door to banks in New Haven, Connecticut, to tell management to divest from energy projects that contribute to greenhouse gas pollution.
Melinda Tuhus, a long-time climate activist, and the group made stops at TD Bank, Bank of America, Chase and Wells Fargo, all banks that have provided financial support to the energy company Enbridge, which is currently working to upgrade a 1,000-mile pipeline and have it carry tar sands oil from Canada across Indigenous land in Minnesota to a crude oil transportation hub on Lake Superior.
“People haven’t been sitting down — doing incredibly creative, courageous and non-violent civil disobedience and halting construction for various periods of time,” Tuhus said.
To activists, the danger — in addition to the destruction of tribal territory — is that the breakdown of sands oil into gasoline releases up to three times the carbon emissions of crude oil.
» Read article
» More about protests and actions
PIPELINES
17 state leaders join Michigan’s plea for state sovereignty in Line 5 battle
By Beth LeBlanc, The Detroit News
April 23, 2021
Democratic leaders in 16 states and the District of Columbia have taken Michigan’s side in its fight to have a state court, not a federal judge, decide whether the state has the authority to shutter Enbridge’s Line 5 oil pipeline in the Straits of Mackinac.
The states submitted an amicus brief earlier this month, arguing that federal courts don’t have the jurisdiction to rule on disputes over state property rights even if the pipeline alleged to be in violation of those property rights is federally regulated.
Attorney General Dana Nessel asked Ingham County Circuit Court last year to uphold Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s revocation of Enbridge’s easement in the Straits of Mackinac as well as her order to shutter the pipeline by May 12.
But Enbridge removed Nessel’s case to federal court, where the Canadian oil giant also sued to stop the closure on the premise that regulation of the pipeline is exclusive to federal authorities, namely the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.
Nessel has asked U.S. District Judge Janet Neff to send the case back to Ingham County Circuit Court. She was joined Friday by 15 attorneys general and two governors who also believe a state court should decide the issue.
“Despite federal safety regulations for pipelines, states are free to exercise their public trust powers to determine whether and where pipelines may cross their sovereign lands,” the states said in their filing.
In a Friday statement, Whitmer said Enbridge’s argument that Michigan has no further say in the pipeline’s regulation after signing the 1953 easement is “absurd and antidemocratic.”
“I’m thrilled to have the support of so many other governors and attorneys general who recognize the important rights states have over the location of pipelines within their boundaries,” Whitmer said.
» Read article
» More about pipelines
DIVESTMENT
How to get your university to divest from fossil fuels
By Siobhan Neela-Stock, Mashable
April 28, 2021
University of Michigan students know a little something about how difficult it can be to get a resistant administration to stop investing in fossil fuels.
Even convincing the school to greenlight a committee to just explore the issue was a hair-pulling hassle. In 2015, a group of University of Michigan law students tried to do just that but “basically got the middle finger from the university,” says Jonathan Morris, a University of Michigan Ph.D. student who has long been involved in divestment efforts.
It took years of demonstrating, building coalitions, and hard work, but this year that middle finger turned into a hard-won handshake. The University of Michigan has committed to discontinue its investments in fossil fuel companies and approved $140 million in renewable energy investments.
The University of Michigan isn’t the only one to cave to student demands. Universities are divesting billions from fossil fuels because of student action. The groups behind those campaigns, which stretch across the globe from the U.S. to the UK to Australia, give similar advice if you want to encourage your university to divest too: Keep applying pressure and don’t give up.
Over half of the UK’s more than 150 universities have made some sort of divestment commitment. In the U.S., which has roughly 4,000 colleges and universities, about 60 have done the same, according to data compiled by Fossil Free, a divestment tracking project by environmental advocacy group 350.org.
Many schools argue they won’t divest because they have a responsibility to increase income from their donations, and they are working to find climate change solutions via university research versus withholding their pocketbooks, the Associated Press reported. Some also generally contend that as investors in fossil fuel companies they can develop stakeholder sway over energy company decisions.
But J. Clarke of People & Planet, a social and environmental justice group that works with students to get UK universities to divest, sees a different motivation.
“I think the biggest reason why universities don’t want to divest is the biggest reason why students do,” says Clarke. “It’s a political statement… [Universities] don’t want to be seen as taking a side.”
» Read article
All eight Ivy League student governments sign resolution calling for fossil fuel divestment
By Elizabeth Meisenzahl and Delaney Parks, The Daily Pennsylvanian
April 28, 2021
All eight Ivy League student body presidents signed a joint resolution authored by Penn’s Student Sustainability Association calling for each school to fully divest from fossil fuels.
The resolution, which also contains contributions from Penn’s Undergraduate Assembly, considers full divestment to be an end to new investments by Fiscal Year 2021, and complete divestment by Fiscal Year 2025. The resolution defines divestment as no investments in any of the top 200 fossil fuel companies; in companies that extract, process, transmit, or refine coal, oil, or gas; or in any utilities whose primary business function it is to burn fossil fuels for electricity.
University spokesperson Stephen MacCarthy did not respond to a request for comment on whether Penn’s administration is aware of the resolution or if it plans to act on it.
College junior and SSAP Co-Chair Vyshnavi Kosigishroff said Penn’s 2020 announcement not to invest in coal and tar sands, as well as its recent commitment to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions from endowment investments by 2050, are misleading and insufficient.
“SSAP, generally speaking, considers this announcement [of divestment by 2050] to be a lot of greenwashing, not really a commitment to anything, and really unambitious. [It] continues the narrative of Penn being really far behind our peer institutions,” Kosigishroff said.
Climate activists from SSAP and Fossil Free Penn criticized Penn’s plan for continuing to invest in fossil fuels. Penn’s plan for net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 puts it on the same timeline as that of the oil company BP.
» Read article
» More about divestment
GREENING THE ECONOMY
Gulf Coast Oil Workers Are Building America’s Offshore Wind Industry
More than a decade after the Deepwater Horizon disaster, Gulf Coast oil workers are transitioning into offshore wind.
By Sara Sneath, Drilled News
April 20, 2021
“The biggest misconception about transitioning from offshore drilling to offshore wind is the idea that oil platforms can be reused to hold wind turbines,” Louisiana state Representative Joseph Orgeron said in a recent phone interview. Offshore platforms in the Gulf of Mexico weren’t designed to handle that sort of load. The weight distribution of an offshore wind turbine is like trying to mount a “pumpkin on a pole,” Orgeron said.
To function, the vertical base needs to be stout enough to handle the movement of the blades spinning and the face rotating directions with the wind.
But while offshore drilling platforms don’t quite work as offshore wind platforms, what can be repurposed are the workers and building techniques that have supported offshore oil drilling. A single offshore wind farm could employ more than 4,000 people during construction and 150 people long-term, according to a 2020 analysis by the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory, a national laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy.
Rep. Orgeron didn’t start out considering the engineering difficulties of renewable energy. He grew up in the bayous of Louisiana, the homebase for his family’s business of offshore oilfield service vessels. When the oil work started to dry up, he realized that offshore wind could help his family’s company, Montco Offshore Inc, stay afloat.
“I was fully enamored by offshore wind,” he said. “They’ll need offshore energy production expertise to do those buildouts. The people of South Louisiana would be prime to facilitate that.”
Montco was one of several Louisiana-based companies that helped build the first U.S. offshore wind farm, off the coast of Rhode Island. But exporting Louisiana knowledge gleaned from offshore drilling was just the first step. Next, Orgeron wants to see wind farms built in the Gulf of Mexico. Louisiana’s governor supports the idea. Gov. John Bel Edwards asked the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to develop a plan for renewable energy production in the Gulf.
“This is not some ‘pie in the sky’ promise of economic opportunity,” Edwards said last November. “We already have an emerging offshore wind energy industry, and Louisiana’s offshore oil and gas industry has played a key role in the early development of U.S. offshore wind energy in the Atlantic Ocean.”
» Read article
The six ‘critical actions’ that every nation must take to reach net zero
Major report sets out practical pathways to hit carbon neutrality, including a ten-times-faster renewables build-out and ‘clear plans’ to phase out natural gas
By Leigh Collins, Recharge News
April 26, 2021
The global pace of the renewables build-out needs to increase by a factor of between five and seven by 2030 and by a factor of ten by the mid-2030s if the world is to reach net zero emissions by mid-century, says a new study by influential climate business think-tank Energy Transitions Commission* (ETC).
Power sectors in developed nations should reach near-total decarbonisation by the mid-2030s, with the use of coal eliminated “almost immediately” and clear plans to phase out unabated natural gas, according to the ETC report, Making Clean Electrification Possible: 30 Years to Electrify the Global Economy.
It adds that developing economies should commit to net-zero goals for 2060 and achieve full decarbonisation of their electricity sectors by the mid-2040s, phasing out existing coal plants in the 2030s and early 2040s.
Low-income countries, meanwhile, should aim to massively expand clean electricity provision without ever relying on fossil fuels for power generation.
The report also explains that there must be massive investment in transmission and distribution, the electrification of transport, heating and heavy industry, and the build-up of clean hydrogen — mainly green H2 produced from renewable energy with a small proportion of blue H2 derived from natural gas with CCS — to help decarbonise hard-to-abate sectors such as steel, shipping and aviation.
This entire energy transition will require trillions of dollars of investment, but will ultimately pay for itself, “if managed effectively”, the study says.
“These feasible objectives will only be met if countries take strong action in the 2020s, setting out both what needs to be achieved by 2030 and how they will achieve it,” it explains.
» Read article
» Read the ETC report
» More about greening the economy
CLIMATE
Halting the Vast Release of Methane Is Critical for Climate, U.N. Says
A major United Nations report will declare that slashing emissions of methane, the main component of natural gas, is far more vital than previously thought.
By Hiroko Tabuchi, New York Times
April 24, 2021
A landmark United Nations report is expected to declare that reducing emissions of methane, the main component of natural gas, will need to play a far more vital role in warding off the worst effects of climate change.
The global methane assessment, compiled by an international team of scientists, reflects a growing recognition that the world needs to start reining in planet-warming emissions more rapidly, and that abating methane, a particularly potent greenhouse gas, will be critical in the short term.
It follows new data that showed that both carbon dioxide and methane levels in the atmosphere reached record highs last year, even as the coronavirus pandemic brought much of the global economy to a halt. The report also comes as a growing body of scientific evidence has shown that releases of methane from oil and gas production, one of the biggest sources of methane linked to human activity, may be larger than earlier estimates.
The report, a detailed summary of which was reviewed by The New York Times, singles out the fossil fuel industry as holding the greatest potential to cut its methane emissions at little or no cost. It also says that — unless there is significant deployment of unproven technologies capable of pulling greenhouse gases out of the air — expanding the use of natural gas is incompatible with keeping global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, a goal of the international Paris Agreement.
The reason methane would be particularly valuable in the short-term fight against climate change: While methane is an extremely potent greenhouse gas, it is also relatively short-lived, lasting just a decade or so in the atmosphere before breaking down. That means cutting new methane emissions today, and starting to reduce methane concentrations in the atmosphere, could more quickly help the world meet its midcentury targets for fighting global warming.
By contrast, carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, lasts for hundreds of years in the atmosphere. So while it remains critical to keep reducing carbon emissions, which make up the bulk of our greenhouse gas emissions, it would take until the second half of the century to see the climate effects.
» Read article
» More about climate
CLEAN ENERGY
Why the federal government is buying into the promise of 24/7 clean power
How “24/7 clean electricity” could drive a whole new era of energy use.
By Shannon Osaka, Grist
April 21, 2021
Over the past decade, hundreds of cities, companies, and states have started buying renewable energy to power their Wi-Fi routers, run their refrigerators, and otherwise keep the lights on. The Empire State Building, for instance, is powered entirely by wind energy; the small city of Burlington, Vermont is run entirely on biomass, wind, solar, and hydropower; and the tech giant Google has been powering its data centers and office buildings with renewables since 2017.
Or have they? Plenty of cities and companies are aiming to run on 100 percent clean energy, but it’s not exactly what it sounds like. The truth is that for the past several years, they’ve been trying to cut carbon emissions on what could be termed “Easy” mode. Yes, they buy enough renewable energy to run on clean power all the time, but that energy isn’t necessarily what’s providing the power for their air conditioners and microwaves at any given point in time.
Now, however, some are pushing governments and companies to switch from “Easy” to “Hard.” They want to deploy something called “24/7 clean energy” — a goal that could drive a whole new phase of clean energy use. And they’ve just convinced the Biden administration to bring it to every single federal building in the United States.
[Michael Terrell, the director of energy at Google] says the benefit of 24/7 goals is that they guarantee clean power be available on the grid where the company or building operates (as opposed to thousands of miles away in Iowa) and they can boost demand for clean energy that isn’t wind or solar. In the long run, because solar and wind aren’t available all the time, electricity grids are going to need to be outfitted with “firm” power sources that can kick in at any time. That will push developers to build big batteries, nuclear reactors, geothermal plants pulling heat from under the Earth’s surface, or even natural gas plants with carbon capture capabilities.
“When you’re thinking about sourcing energy in every location on a 24/7 basis, it really motivates you to think even more about how to get the electricity grids to carbon-free faster,” Terrell said.
» Read article
A battle to get more clean energy into New England’s electric grid is underway. Here’s what you need to know.
By Jan Ellen Spiegel, The CT Mirror
April 26, 2021
In January 2020, Katie Dykes, commissioner of Connecticut’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection — speaking to environmental advocates attending the Connecticut League of Conservation Voters annual environmental summit — leveled this broadside at the independent system operator that runs the six-state New England electricity grid and the federal authorities that govern it:
“Because of the lack of leadership on carbon at the ISO-New England, we are at the mercy of a regional capacity market that’s driving investment in more natural gas and fossil fuel power plants that we don’t want and that we don’t need,” she said. “This is forcing us to take a serious look at the costs and benefits of participating in the ISO-New England markets.”
It was widely misunderstood.
“People interpreted that as physically leaving the grid,” Dykes said a year later. “Ratepayers have gotten a lot of benefits of more reliable and affordable power by participating in a regional grid.”
What she had been talking about was a market paradigm the ISO uses to purchase power for the grid. Not much more than a year later, she is still talking about it. And with nothing short of evangelical zeal and little deference to a potentially paralyzing pandemic, Dykes has commandeered the other five New England states, the ISO, system stakeholders and more than a little national interest into a bona fide effort to figure out how to increase renewable power, decrease the use of fossil fuels and lower costs — or at least not let them go through the roof — and keep everyone on civil terms with each other.
In Connecticut, the ISO’s rules could make it difficult for the state to meet its greenhouse gas emissions goals and Gov. Ned Lamont’s executive order to have a 100% clean electric grid by 2040. And it makes the clean energy the state has already approved for development even more expensive.
The proposed Killingly natural gas plant has become the poster child for the failures of the existing system. The ISO has approved it through the [Forward Capacity Market], while those concerned about climate change — including Gov. Lamont — say it’s the wrong choice and unnecessary
» Read article
» More about clean energy
ENERGY STORAGE
ESS Inc’s all-iron flow battery will add long-duration storage to microgrid in Patagonia, Chile
By Andy Colthorpe, Energy Storage News
April 28, 2021
ESS Inc, currently the only maker in the world of a commercially available flow battery using iron electrolytes, will deploy an energy storage system with more than six hours duration to a microgrid in Chile.
The company’s flow battery will be integrated with renewable energy in the microgrid, to help a local utility reduce its reliance on diesel generators in the unspoiled Patagonia plateau which extends across southern Argentina into Chile. ESS Inc will install a 300kW / 2MWh version of its recently-launched Energy Warehouse battery energy storage system (BESS) for the utility, Edelaysen.
Edalaysen’s grid is served by run-of-the-river hydroelectric turbines, but these vary seasonally in output and are not sufficient to meet customer demand all year round, so diesel is called into action several times a year. ESS Inc claimed that its battery’s installation as part of the renewable microgrid will enable Edelaysen, a subsidiary of Chilean utility group GRUPO SAESA, to cut three-quarters of the diesel generator use it currently runs. Work is already underway on the project and is expected to be completed later this year, with the battery storage system expected to last 25 years in operation.
“Our analysis showed that if they used lithium-ion batteries, Edelaysen could only shut down their diesel gensets for about three months per year. Instead, our long-duration iron flow storage system will reduce the need to run them by three times as much – the equivalent of nine months a year. That’s a huge reduction in emissions, noise and cost,” ESS Inc CEO Eric Dresselhuys — who joined the northwest US-headquartered company earlier this month — said.
ESS Inc has long argued that its systems pose far less fire risk than lithium-ion batteries but that the iron solution used for electrolyte is cheaper than the vanadium used by rival flow battery companies. Even if the electrolyte were to leak, the company has said that third-party safety research showed the contents of the battery to be basically fertiliser.
» Read article
GE, others see hybrid storage as ‘the future’ of grid reliability but face technology, optimization challenges
By Jason Plautz, Utility Dive
April 26, 2021
As utilities rapidly expand their renewable energy offerings, hybrid solar and storage solutions are a key technology for maintaining grid reliability, speakers said at an annual Energy Storage Association Conference last week. “Hybrids are the future,” said Mike Bowman, chief technology officer for GE’s renewable hybrids arm, adding that they’re a “natural progression” for the grid.
The hybrid systems, which co-locate generators and batteries on the same site, have the advantage of reducing transmission and sharing on installation costs and permitting. They can also offer greater dispatch flexibility for grid operators.
However, hybrid systems are hampered by the constantly-evolving technology, the high up-front cost of the systems and uncertainty about integration into the larger grid. “Interconnection rules and tying interconnection to optimize hybrid … is something the industry is struggling with right now,” said Evan Bierman, director of energy storage product management and renewable integration for EDF Renewables.
» Read article
» More about energy storage
CLEAN TRANSPORTATION
Shipping Looks to Hydrogen as It Seeks to Ditch Bunker Fuel
Discord within oil-reliant industry over how to power the workhorses of global trade in the net zero era.
By Harry Dempsey, Financial Times, in Inside Climate News
April 28, 2021
The Compagnie Belge Maritime du Congo launched its first steam-powered ship, the SS Leopold, on its maiden trip from Antwerp to Congo in 1895. Today CMB, the colonial-era group’s successor, carries commuters between the Belgian city and nearby Kruibeke on a ferry fueled by hydrogen.
“This is the fourth energy revolution in shipping—from rowing our boats to sails to steam engine to diesel engine and we have to change it once more,” said Alex Saverys, CMB chief executive and scion of one of Belgium’s oldest shipping families.
Shipping produces about 3 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and without action its contribution is likely to rise for decades as global trade grows. The International Maritime Organization, the UN agency that regulates the global industry, wants to at least halve its impact by 2050.
Many industry figures are pinning their hopes on blue or green hydrogen—produced using natural gas with carbon capture or renewable electricity and whose only byproduct when combusted is water—to help steer away from polluting bunker fuel.
“There is no question whether hydrogen will be the energy carrier of shipping in 2050,” said Lasse Kristoffersen, chief executive of Norway’s Torvald Klaveness. “The question is, how do you produce it and which form do you use it as a carrier?”
Hydrogen has low energy density compared with heavy fuel oil. Storing it in its liquid form below minus 253 degrees Celsius requires heavy cryogenic tanks that take up precious space, rendering it unfeasible for large cargo ships.
“With the current state of technology, we cannot use hydrogen to fuel our vessels,” said Morten Bo Christiansen, head of decarbonization at AP Moller-Maersk, MSC’s larger rival.
However, the industry has grown increasingly optimistic about using ammonia, a compound of hydrogen and nitrogen, to fuel the workhorses of global trade without belching out greenhouse gases.
Though foul-smelling and toxic, ammonia is easy to liquify, is already transported worldwide at scale and has nearly twice the energy density of liquid hydrogen.
» Read article
Battery Breakthrough Gives Boost to Electric Flight and Long-Range Electric Cars
New battery technology developed at Berkeley Lab could give flight to electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft and supercharge safe, long-range electric cars
By Theresa Duque, Berkeley Lab News Center
July 20, 2020
In the pursuit of a rechargeable battery that can power electric vehicles (EVs) for hundreds of miles on a single charge, scientists have endeavored to replace the graphite anodes currently used in EV batteries with lithium metal anodes.
But while lithium metal extends an EV’s driving range by 30–50%, it also shortens the battery’s useful life due to lithium dendrites, tiny treelike defects that form on the lithium anode over the course of many charge and discharge cycles. What’s worse, dendrites short-circuit the cells in the battery if they make contact with the cathode.
For decades, researchers assumed that hard, solid electrolytes, such as those made from ceramics, would work best to prevent dendrites from working their way through the cell. But the problem with that approach, many found, is that it didn’t stop dendrites from forming or “nucleating” in the first place, like tiny cracks in a car windshield that eventually spread.
Now, researchers at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), in collaboration with Carnegie Mellon University, have reported in the journal Nature Materials a new class of soft, solid electrolytes – made from both polymers and ceramics – that suppress dendrites in that early nucleation stage, before they can propagate and cause the battery to fail.
» Blog editor’s note: this is an article, but I’m including it because it describes a key engineering breakthrough that opened a pathway to much better (and more sustainable) EV batteries in the near future.
» Read article
Bye Aerospace announces eFlyer 800 eight-seater electric aircraft
By Ben Coxworth, New Atlas
April 22, 2021
Colorado-based electric aviation startup Bye Aerospace is currently best known for its two-seater eFlyer 2 aircraft. That may soon change, though, as the company has now unveiled a planned battery-powered eight-seater.
Named the eFlyer 800, the turboprop class airplane will be able to seat a maximum of seven passengers, along with one or two pilots in front.
Thrust will be provided by two wing-mounted ENGINeUS electric motors, manufactured by project partner Safran Electrical & Power. These will be powered by quad-redundant lithium battery packs, for an estimated range of 500 nautical miles per charge (575 miles/926 km). The plane will have a rate of climb of 3,400 feet (1,036 m) per minute, and a ceiling of 35,000 feet (10,668 m).
» Read article
» More about clean transportation
FOSSIL FUEL INDUSTRY
US Senate votes to reinstate methane rules loosened by Trump
Congressional Democrats move to reinstate regulations designed to limit potent greenhouse gas emissions from oil and gas fields
By Associated Press, in The Guardian
April 29, 2021
Congressional Democrats are moving to reinstate regulations designed to limit potent greenhouse gas emissions from oil and gas fields, as part of a broader effort by the Biden administration to tackle climate change.
The Senate approved a resolution Wednesday that would undo an environmental rollback by Donald Trump that relaxed requirements of a 2016 Obama administration rule targeting methane emissions from oil and gas drilling.
The resolution was approved, 52-42. Three Republican senators – Susan Collins of Maine, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Rob Portman of Ohio – joined Democrats to approve the measure, which only needed a simple majority under Senate rules.
The legislation now goes to the Democratic-controlled House, where it is expected to win approval.
The EPA approved the looser methane rule last year. The agency’s former administrator, Andrew Wheeler, declared the change would “strengthen and promote American energy” while saving companies tens of millions of dollars a year in compliance requirements.
Democrats and environmentalists called it one of the Trump administration’s most egregious actions to deregulate US businesses. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming, packing a stronger punch in the short term than even carbon dioxide.
» Read article
California takes steps to ban fracking by 2024 and will halt oil extraction by 2045
Executive order is a reversal for Governor Gavin Newsom, who faced pressure from environmental groups for previously resisting a ban
By Maanvi Singh, The Guardian
April 23, 2021
California’s governor has moved to ban new fracking permits by 2024 and halt all oil extraction by 2045.
California, the most populous US state, produces the third largest amount of oil in the country. It would be the first state to end all extraction.
Gavin Newsom’s executive order, issued on Friday, paves the way for the state to stop issuing new fracking permits within the next few years, giving California’s Department of Conservation, which regulates the oil and gas industry, until 2024 to draft a mandate. The order also directs the California Air Resources Board to evaluate how to enact a ban on all extraction over the next 25 years.
The agency will study the environmental and health benefits of ending oil extraction, and determine how to mitigate the effect on local economies.
“The climate crisis is real, and we continue to see the signs every day,” Newsom said in a statement. “I’ve made it clear I don’t see a role for fracking in that future and, similarly, believe that California needs to move beyond oil.”
The order is a bold reversal for Newsom, who had initially resisted calls to enact a narrower ban on new fracking permits, arguing he lacked the authority. Fracking only accounts for about 1.5% of the state’s oil production. The controversial extraction method gets fuel out of the ground by using water and chemicals to crack open geological formations and stimulate them to release gas or oil, with the risk of causing earthquakes, water contamination and disastrous spills.
Research has found that fracking and other types of extraction are dangerous for the people who live near drilling sites – causing higher rates of asthma and cancer, as well as preterm births.
“We’re very excited about this order,” Dan Ress, a staff attorney at The Center on Race, Poverty, and the Environment told the Guardian. “This is a big, bold step.”
Newsom’s announcement comes as he faces a likely recall election, and pressure from environmental groups who in recent months questioned his lukewarm support for broader legislation that would have banned fracking.
A bill that would have imposed tough restrictions on oil and gas failed to attract the five votes it needed to pass through the California senate’s natural resources committee last week. The legislation would have not only banned new fracking permits but also required a 2,500-foot buffer zone between drilling sites and schools, playgrounds and residences.
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BIOMASS
Paris climate agreement overlooks wood pellet loophole
“This rule that was designed to prevent you from counting carbon twice has effectively become a rule in which no carbon is counted at all.”
By Cameron Oglesby, Environmental Health News
April 26, 2021
With the U.S. back in the Paris Agreement, and with governments across the country evaluating how they can cut carbon emissions, a question remains about one contentious “carbon neutral” energy source: wood pellets.
Wood pellets are burned as a form of biomass energy, or bioenergy, and are touted as a “carbon neutral” energy source in the global transition away from fossil fuels. It became an energy staple for European countries in 2009 when the European Union set goals to cut carbon emissions by 20 percent of 1990 levels by the year 2020. In 2019, the EU accounted for approximately 75 percent of global wood pellet consumption.
A 2012 study projected that by 2020 about 60 percent of the EU’s renewable energy would come from burning wood pellets as a carbon neutral alternative to coal. And data released by the EU at the end of 2020 indicates that they were set to meet this 20 percent goal while on track to reduce emissions by 37 percent by 2030.
But this latest report did not directly mention the use of wood pellets in the EU, primarily for residential heating, in its energy budget. This exclusion is emblematic of a flawed carbon accounting system for wood pellets that is leaving a chunk of emissions uncounted, and experts say the Paris Agreement will only create more missed emissions from the biomass sector.
Producers harvest about 4.9 million metric tons of wood annually from the biodiverse forests of the Southeast U.S. These felled trees release carbon when cut and their end-use is as a fuel, which makes for tricky climate accounting.
“The way that emissions in general are reported at the national level as well as to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is by energy use and land use. Unfortunately, bioenergy falls into both categories,” Rita Frost, campaigns director for the Southeastern forest protection nonprofit the Dogwood Alliance, told EHN. “We created accounting rules that said for bioenergy purposes, we’re going to count the carbon emissions when you cut down the tree, so you don’t have to count it when it goes out of the smokestack.”
When a forest is cut down in North Carolina to make wood pellets, the carbon is supposed to be counted by the U.S. in their annual climate reports as a carbon sink loss. Forests, especially old growth forests like those found in the Southeast U.S., are an important source of carbon removal from the atmosphere, so when a forest is cut down, the emissions are, in theory, counted as a land use emission.
The emissions from wood pellets are not counted in the energy sector, “to do so would erroneously double count the climate impact of wood pellets in both the land sector and the energy sector,” wrote a representative from the largest biomass supplier in the world, Enviva Biomass, in an email to EHN.
However, because of the way forests are classified in the U.S., these emissions aren’t counted in either the land or energy sectors, Frost said.
“If you clear-cut a forest, as long as you don’t turn the land into a parking lot or a tobacco farm, that land is still accounted for as forest,” she said. “So this rule that was designed to prevent you from counting carbon twice has effectively become a rule in which no carbon is counted at all, and biomass looks like it’s carbon neutral.”
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PLASTICS IN THE ENVIRONMENT
Scientists find way to remove polluting microplastics with bacteria
Sticky property of bacteria used to create microbe nets that can capture microplastics in water to form a recyclable blob
By Sofia Quaglia, The Guardian
April 28, 2021
Microbiologists have devised a sustainable way to remove polluting microplastics from the environment – and they want to use bacteria to do the job.
Bacteria naturally tend to group together and stick to surfaces, and this creates an adhesive substance called “biofilm” – we see it every morning when brushing our teeth and getting rid of dental plaque, for example. Researchers at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) want to use this sticky bacteria property and create tape-like microbe nets that can capture microplastics in polluted water to form an easily disposable and recyclable blob.
Although these findings, presented on Wednesday at the Microbiology Society’s annual conference, are still preliminary, this invention could pave the way for sustainably lowering plastic pollution levels in the long run by simply using something found in nature.
“It is imperative to develop effective solutions that trap, collect, and even recycle these microplastics to stop the ‘plastification’ of our natural environments,” said Sylvia Lang Liu, microbiology researcher at PolyU and lead researcher on this project.
Microplastics are the plastic fragments, usually smaller than 5mm, which are accidentally released into the environment during production and breakdown of, for example, grocery bags or water bottles – or during everyday activities such as washing synthetic clothes such as nylon or using personal care products with scrubbing microbeads in them.
Although they are tiny, the risk they post to the environment is huge. Microplastics are not easily biodegradable, so they stick around for long periods of time and they also absorb and accumulate toxic chemicals. They disperse into wastewater and into the oceans, endangering marine animals who end up eating them and eventually trickling into the food chain and harming human health too. Microplastics had been found in more than 114 aquatic species in 2018, according to the International Maritime Organization, and they have been found in salt, lettuce, apples, and more.
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