Welcome back.
West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin’s notorious side deal that allowed the Inflation Reduction Act to proceed included a hefty push to resurrect the fortunes of the troubled Mountain Valley Pipeline. The sudden national publicity around this bad idea has drawn a lot of unwanted attention. Yesterday, thousands of protesters gathered in Washington, DC to demand a stop to this particular pipeline madness.
Aside from that notably crummy deal, the law is pretty good. Billions of dollars in new federal funds are expected to reshape the struggle over gas bans and electrification in residential and commercial buildings. How this plays out will influence emissions and fossil fuel development for decades. It has also accelerated the pace of clean energy projects all over the country. And the right technologies are working toward commercial scale – the exciting news about batteries this week involves Massachusetts-based Ambri, currently deploying their antimony-based liquid metal battery in Aurora, Colorado to field test under harsh conditions. Antimony isn’t supply-constrained like lithium, and the batteries should last much longer.
Those are big batteries, but small ones matter too. It won’t be long till thousands – even millions – of electric vehicles will be in direct communication with the grid, offering a couple kWh here and there for a fee collected by each vehicle’s owner.
All that electrification (both supply and demand) requires modernization of the grid, but a new study from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory finds that if the US economy decarbonizes its grid in just 13 years it would save up to $1.2 trillion in avoided health and climate costs. Right now, Team Electrification is feeling pretty good.
And for those folks looking at their soaring electric bills and wondering why, exactly, are we proposing to plug in even more stuff, we offer an excellent article explaining what’s been happening to utilities recently – particularly in New England where we sleep-walked into an over-dependence on natural gas power plants. Read that and then take a look at what’s happening in Asia – getting in really deep with its own build-out of fossil fuel infrastructure. Then swing back around to Europe, waking up to the environmental consequences of their move toward biomass – but seemingly unable to kick the habit. The problem is our species’s obsession with burning stuff.
Taking a wider look at greening the economy, the U.S. Department of Energy on Wednesday published an industrial decarbonization road map, laying out a comprehensive strategy to reduce emissions associated with five sectors: chemical manufacturing, petroleum refining, iron and steel, cement production, and the food and beverage industry. All this economy-altering investment is opening a path to good jobs – many of them strategically targeted to areas, like Appalachian coal country, that have been losing fossil industry employment for years.
We’ll wind down with a report on the cryptocurrency Ethereum, which has just kicked off “The Merge” – intended to shift to an energy-efficient blockchain transaction verification protocol that should reduce its electricity consumption by an estimated 99.95 percent. We hope it works, because last week the cryptocurrency network was estimated to use as much electricity annually as the country of Bangladesh.
And we’ll close with how the plastics industry. Facing global pressure to curb massive volumes of waste, it’s floating all sorts of chemical recycling proposals. But close examinations by environmental advocates and media organizations over the last few years have found few commercial successes, and concerns about environmental risks.
For even more environmental news, info, and events, check out the latest newsletter from our colleagues at Berkshire Environmental Action Team (BEAT)!
— The NFGiM Team
PIPELINES
Dangerous Mountain Valley Pipeline Has No Place in Manchin’s Deal With Democrats
By Jacob Hileman, Truthout | Opinion
September 5, 2022
Thanks to Sen. Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia) conditioning his vote for the Inflation Reduction Act on a backroom permitting reform deal that would complete the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), this highly contentious fracked gas pipeline has become a household name.
The attention is not good news for the MVP.
While the MVP has long been a scourge to rural Appalachian communities in Virginia and West Virginia, with Manchin’s help, the MVP has morphed into a full-blown national scandal.
Before Congress considers any legislation addressing the MVP, it is vital to understand why this pipeline is a terrible idea.
Firstly, the MVP is not just another pipeline.
At 42 inches in diameter and 303 miles long, the MVP is among the largest methane gas pipelines in the U.S. However, what sets the MVP apart is the unprecedented level of risk associated with the pipeline’s route. Over 200 miles of the MVP crosses areas that have experienced landslides in the past and are highly susceptible to future landslides, including over 75 miles of steep mountain slopes.
No other gas transmission pipeline in the U.S. has ever attempted to cross so many miles of such unforgiving terrain.
According to data from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, from 2001-2020, landslides were one of the most frequent causes of “significant incidents” involving gas transmission pipelines in Appalachia. The MVP has already been impacted by multiple landslide events during construction, including one where “the installed pipe shifted … in at least three locations.”
When a high-volume, high-pressure gas pipeline like the MVP ruptures, the common industry assumption is that there is at least an 80 percent chance of an explosion. Landslides have caused no fewer than five major gas pipeline explosions in Appalachia in just the past four years. Thankfully, gas has never flowed through the MVP — the blast zone is nearly a half-mile wide.
Secondly, the MVP cannot rightly be considered a critical infrastructure project.
If it were, then it stands to reason the developers would have selected the route that would give the MVP the greatest chance of success. Not the shortest, and presumably cheapest, route between its beginning and endpoint. Appalachia is crisscrossed by many major gas pipelines — including pipelines considerably longer than the MVP — yet none come close to crossing as many steep, landslide-prone slopes.
There is no guarantee that the MVP, if completed, will be able to provide the safe and reliable supply of gas touted by its developers. Furthermore, given the increase in heat waves and wildfires in the West, catastrophic flooding in Appalachia and worldwide droughts being driven by climate-busting fossil fuels, bringing any additional methane gas out of the ground is inherently unsafe.
» Read article
» More about pipelines
PROTESTS AND ACTIONS
Appalachian, Indigenous pipeline foes protest climate deal
By Ellie Silverman, Washington Post
September 8, 2022
[…] To secure the support of Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), Democratic leadership reached a side deal with Manchin that would overhaul the process for approving new energy initiatives and expedite the 300-mile-long Mountain Valley Pipeline project — a natural gas pipeline across West Virginia and Virginia that those rallying in D.C. on Thursday have opposed for years.
[Roishetta] Ozane, an organizer for Healthy Gulf, an environmental justice organization, was one of the hundreds protesting Thursday at the Robert A. Taft Memorial Carillon, joining people from Appalachia and as far away as Alaska to demand that lawmakers reject this side deal, said Grace Tuttle, a lead organizer of the rally who has been advocating against the Mountain Valley Pipeline for three years. Tuttle said the demonstration will be a show of solidarity among communities affected “first and worst” by fossil fuel developments.
The landmark Inflation Reduction Act will significantly advance the fight against climate change, spending about $370 billion to bring the country closer to achieving the emissions cuts scientists say are required to avoid the devastating consequences of the Earth’s warming.
Rally organizers argue that the side deal, if passed, would “gut bedrock environmental protections, threaten tribal authority, endanger public health, fast-track fossil fuel projects, cut public input and push approval for Manchin’s pet project, the Mountain Valley Pipeline.”
[…] Those rallying are especially concerned with the easing of permitting restrictions, warning it could weaken an important environmental protection law that Indigenous people have frequently used to challenge projects they believed would harm their communities.
» Read article
» More about protests and actions
NATURAL GAS BANS
‘Huge amount of money’ in climate law could spawn gas bans
By David Iaconangelo, E&E News
September 7, 2022
The climate and energy law signed by President Joe Biden last month may reshape a national tug of war over gas bans and electrification, with the outcome influencing emissions and fossil fuel development for decades.
Billions of dollars in new federal funds from the Inflation Reduction Act are set to flow to building owners and residents who swap out gas boilers, stoves and water heaters for electric-powered technologies. The dollars come on top of city-level policies in at least seven states banning fossil fuels in new buildings, including dozens of municipalities in California that followed the city of Berkeley in enacting the nation’s first gas ban in 2019. New York City, Seattle and much of the state of Washington followed with similar measures.
Additional bans could emerge in new jurisdictions partly because of the new federal law, some electrification advocates said.
The climate law signed by Biden in August “totally transforms all of those conversations [over banning fossil fuels] and makes all of this so, so much easier,” said Ben Furnas, a former sustainability chief for New York City, where lawmakers passed a law last year prohibiting new buildings from using fossil fuel heat, starting in 2023.
Yet gas advocates are vowing to fight electrification mandates, and they may get help from state officials, existing statutes and a lawsuit in California. Twenty states also have passed laws that preempt cities from restricting buildings’ access to fossil fuels, meaning the Inflation Reduction Act’s voluntary electrification programs won’t lead to New York City-style bans.
“Over the past three years, we have seen the energy policy debate veer away from reducing greenhouse gas emissions to an anti-fossil fuel and anti-infrastructure push,” said George Lowe, vice president of governmental affairs and public policy for the American Gas Association, in a written statement.
Limiting fossil fuel access is a “mistake” that would “negatively impact customers and keep us from achieving our shared goals” for decarbonization, Lowe added. “Over the next several years, we will continue to see these debates play out in state capitols across the country,” he predicted.
The climate law provides tax credits for installing heat pumps, rebates for whole-home retrofits, and extra financing for local and state programs that promote electrification of buildings. Under the plan, U.S. manufacturers of heat pumps could also see the Department of Energy step up as a buyer, drawing from $500 million in new Defense Production Act funds.
In some cases, funds from the law could pay for higher-performing gas products, but billions are allocated explicitly for abandoning fossil fuels.
One such program, known as the High-Efficiency Electric Home Rebate Program (HEEH), sets aside $4.5 billion in rebates for homeowners who switch out fossil fuel appliances for electric heat pumps, water heaters and induction stoves. Up to $8,000 can be provided per household for electric heat pumps, which can cost in the vicinity of $20,000.
“Every ambitious city councilperson or mayor of small or medium cities could see it as a real feather in their cap to push for this stuff, and they’ll know the feds have got their back,” added Furnas, who is now executive director of the 2030 Project, a climate initiative at Cornell University.
However, a factor working against the law is that states led by Republican critics may have significant influence over funds funneled through the Department of Energy.
» Read article
» More about gas bans
GREENING THE ECONOMY
To decarbonize industry, DOE road map focuses on efficiency, electrification and low-carbon fuels
By Robert Walton, Utility Dive
September 8, 2022
The U.S. Department of Energy on Wednesday published an industrial decarbonization road map, laying out a comprehensive strategy to reduce emissions associated with five sectors: chemical manufacturing, petroleum refining, iron and steel, cement production, and the food and beverage industry.
Heavy industry is the source of about 30% of primary energy-related carbon dioxide emissions in the United States, the department says. Its approach will focus on energy efficiency improvements, electrification, the use of low-carbon fuels, and carbon capture utilization and storage, or CCUS.
Alongside the new road map, DOE announced a $104 million funding opportunity for industrial decarbonization technologies. The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy called the road map a “landmark plan” to help companies address emissions at scale.
The United States has been investing in clean industry technologies for years, but the plan released yesterday “embodies a bolder approach,” according to ACEEE Industrial Program Director Edward Rightor, who is also co-chair of the team that developed the DOE report.
DOE’s new plan is “a more ambitious strategy, grounded in a cohesive approach incorporating partnership opportunities for industry to accelerate decarbonization,” Rightor said.
The road map will focus on five of the most CO2-intensive industries, which DOE says represent slightly more than half of energy-related CO2 emissions in the U.S. industrial sector and 15% of economywide total CO2 emissions.
The industrial sector is “critical to our economy and daily lives, yet it currently accounts for an enormous portion of greenhouse gas emissions, and is particularly difficult to decarbonize,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in a statement.
The strategy and funding opportunity “couldn’t come at a better time,” White House National Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy said in a statement. The announcements build on funding in the Inflation Reduction Act and bipartisan infrastructure law, she said, and the initiatives will make investments “in our workforce while reducing pollution burdens on fenceline communities.”
The strategy leans on energy efficiency, the electrification of industrial processes, use of low-carbon fuels — including green hydrogen and biofuels — and CCUS, which DOE said will focus on “permanent geologic storage as well as developing processes to use captured CO2 to manufacture new materials.”
» Read article
» Read DOE’s Industrial Decarbonization Roadmap
‘This is the future’: rural Virginia pivots from coal to green jobs
Region’s long awaited energy and economic transition will be substantially boosted by US’s first climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act
By Nina Lakhani, The Guardian
Photographs by Mike Belleme
September 8, 2022
» Read article
» More about greening the economy
CLIMATE
The most influential calculation in US climate policy is way off, study finds
Carbon emissions cost society at least three times more than the government’s official estimate.
By Emily Pontecorvo, Grist
September 1, 2022
The United States doesn’t have any federal laws that say electric utilities have to switch to carbon-free power. We don’t yet have any national rules mandating the sale of electric vehicles or plans to phase out oil and gas drilling. Despite years of talk about a tax on carbon, we don’t have that either. What we do have, when it comes to regulations that address climate change, is a decidedly duller but still effective tool called the social cost of carbon, or SCC.
The social cost of carbon is a dollar amount that approximates the cost to society of adding — or the benefits of not adding — 1 metric ton of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. It is underpinned by scientific models that look deep into the future to estimate what that CO2 will mean in terms of lost lives, reduced crop yields, and damage caused by rising seas. The government uses this number as one of several key metrics to evaluate the costs and benefits of policies that affect greenhouse gas emissions, like fuel economy standards for vehicles or oil and gas leasing plans. It makes decisions that increase carbon output look a lot more expensive than those that do the opposite.
But perhaps not expensive enough. A new study published in the journal Nature on Thursday found that the social cost of carbon should be more than three times higher than the $51 dollar figure the Biden administration currently uses.
“We are vastly underestimating the harm of each additional ton of carbon dioxide that we release into the atmosphere,” said Richard Newell, president of the nonprofit think tank Resources for the Future and one of the authors of the study, in a press release. “The implication is that the benefits of government policies and other actions that reduce global warming pollution are greater than has been assumed.”
The study arrives as the administration’s plans to re-evaluate this crucial metric have stalled. One of Biden’s first executive actions called for publishing a new social cost of carbon by January 2022 along with recommendations for improving the way it is calculated. Progress was delayed by lawsuits, and the administration has not announced a new timeline for the update. In the interim, the government is using a social cost of carbon of about $51, relying on the methodology used by the Obama administration.
“This Administration remains committed to accounting for the costs of greenhouse gas emissions as accurately as possible,” a spokesperson for the White House’s Office of Management and Budget told Grist. “We continue to assess how best to account for these costs in regulatory and budgetary contexts in the future.”
The new study finds that each ton of carbon dioxide emitted costs society about $185 in today’s dollars.
» Read article
» Obtain the study
US flood maps outdated thanks to climate change, Fema director says
Deanne Criswell makes admission as ‘extremely dangerous and life-threatening situation’ hits Georgia
By Edward Helmore, The Guardian
September 4, 2022
» Read article
» More about climate
CLEAN ENERGY
Clean Energy Projects Surge After Climate Bill Passage
Investments in battery factories, solar panel manufacturing and mining will help the Biden administration meet targets for reducing greenhouse gases.
By Jack Ewing and Ivan Penn, New York Times
September 7, 2022
In the weeks since President Biden signed a comprehensive climate bill devised to spur investment in electric cars and clean energy, corporations have announced a series of big-ticket projects to produce the kind of technology the legislation aims to promote.
Toyota said it would invest an additional $2.5 billion in a factory in North Carolina to produce batteries for electric cars and hybrids. Honda and LG Energy Solution announced a joint venture to build a $4.4 billion battery factory at a location to be named.
Piedmont Lithium, a mining company, said it would build a plant in Tennessee to process lithium for batteries, helping to ease America’s dependence on Chinese refineries — a key aim of the Biden administration. First Solar, a big solar panel manufacturer, said it would invest up to $1.2 billion to build its fourth factory in the United States, probably somewhere in the Southeast, largely because of renewable energy incentives in the climate bill.
But those projects, announced last week, also illustrate how much work remains to be done. Factories take time to build, and until then electric vehicles are likely to remain scarce and expensive. Toyota’s factory in North Carolina and Honda’s venture with LG will not produce batteries until 2025.
Some of the projects were in the works before the federal legislation passed, and before California added an extra push by banning sales of new gasoline cars by 2035. The big climate bill, the Inflation Reduction Act, is the latest in a series of policy moves and geopolitical developments that have pushed automakers and suppliers to invest in the United States. The trade war with China, disruption of supply chains by the pandemic, changes in free-trade agreements with Canada and Mexico, and the bipartisan infrastructure law last year have all had a powerful impact on where companies decide to build factories.
The timing of Toyota’s announcement, two weeks after Mr. Biden signed the climate law, was a coincidence, said Norm Bafunno, a senior vice president at Toyota Motor North America whose responsibilities include the North Carolina plant.
But he added that the legislation could be a “catalyst for our domestic battery production.” And he said Toyota was working hard to fulfill provisions of the bill that encourage companies to get raw materials and components for batteries from the United States and its trade allies.
» Read article
» More about clean energy
ENERGY STORAGE
Liquid battery startup Ambri ready to embark on first utility demonstration project with Xcel Energy
By Emma Penrod, Utility Dive
September 6, 2022
Massachusetts-based startup Ambri plans to begin heating up the battery market — quite literally — over the next few years.
Xcel Energy and Ambri announced on August 25 that the two companies would install a liquid battery system in Aurora, Colorado, to evaluate the technology’s performance in real-world, grid-connected scenarios at the Solar Technology Acceleration Center.
“We are pleased to work with Ambri as we continue bringing our customers the clean, affordable energy they depend on,” Alice Jackson, senior vice president, system strategy, and chief planning officer at Xcel, said in a statement. “We look forward to learning what their technology can accomplish in a range of extreme environmental conditions as we look to build out the long-duration energy storage that will help us reach our carbon reduction goals.”
Although Ambri is also trialing its batteries at a data center, Briggs said the company aims to continue demonstrations with utilities and other large-scale applications through the year to come because the company believes its technology is particularly well suited to grid-scale applications.
Unlike lithium-ion batteries, which must be cooled while operating to avoid overheating, Ambri’s liquid batteries operate in a high-temperature environment, Briggs explained. The batteries are housed within insulated containers so that after the start-up phase, the heat from their own operation keeps the batteries online. This removes the cost and energy loss associated with cooling systems, Briggs said.
The antimony-based technology also has the added benefit of having a longer lifespan relative to lithium-ion technology, with Ambri’s batteries experiencing minimal capacity loss over a 20-year lifespan, Briggs said. One study cited by NREL put the average lifespan of lithium ion battery packs used in EVs at around 10.5 years, although multiple factors influence battery longevity.
» Read article
» More about energy storage
MODERNIZING THE GRID
Building a zero emissions grid in US in just 13 years would save $US1.2 trillion
By Giles Parkinson, Renew Economy
September 4, 2022
A landmark new study from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in the US finds that if the world’s biggest economy decarbonises its grid in just 13 years it would save up to $US1.2 trillion in avoided health and climate costs.
The new study, done in conjunction with the US Department of Energy, plots a range of scenarios on how to reach net zero emissions on the world’s biggest grid in just 13 years.
Three of the four scenarios require additional power systems costs of between $US330 billion and $US400 billion, while a fourth – limited by transmission constraints and amount of wind that can be deployed – requires more storage, and more nuclear, that doubles the cost to around $US740 billion.
But each of the scenarios delivers considerable more benefits in avoided health impacts and climate change because it shuts down the combustion of fossil fuels for electricity.
According to NREL, those savings from a net zero grid include avoiding 130,000 premature deaths, saving up to $US400 billion, with a further saving of more than $US1.2 trillion when factoring in the avoided cost of damage from the impacts of climate change.
“Decarbonizing the power system is a necessary step if the worst effects of climate change are to be avoided,” said Patrick Brown, an NREL analyst and co-author of the study.
“The benefits of a zero-carbon grid outweigh the costs in each of the more than 100 scenarios modeled in this study, and accelerated cost declines for renewable and clean energy technologies could lead to even larger benefits.”
The biggest challenge, according to the study, is finding a solution to the last 10 per cent to net zero.
The NREL says there is a growing body of research that shows that switching to high renewable energy power systems are possible and cost effective. But the “last 10 per cent challenge” is the part that adds significant costs because of the seasonal mismatch between variable renewables (wind and solar) and consumption.
NREL says it has been studying how to solve the last 10% challenge, including outlining key unresolved technical and economic considerations and modeling possible pathways and system costs to achieve 100% clean electricity.
Among the potential solutions cited by NREL are green hydrogen, advanced nuclear, price-responsive demand response, carbon capture and storage, direct air capture, and advanced grid controls. But they all require further R&D.
“There is no one single solution to transitioning the power sector to renewable and clean energy technologies,” said Paul Denholm, the principal investigator and lead author of the study.
“There are several key challenges that we still need to understand and will need to be addressed over the next decade to enable the speed and scale of deployment necessary to achieve the 2035 goal.”
» Read article
This New England utility will soon pay EV owners to help to back up the grid
The New Hampshire Electric Co-op is testing a “transactive” energy rate that pays owners of electric vehicles and battery storage systems for discharging power back onto the grid during periods of high demand
By Lisa Prevost, Energy News Network
September 7, 2022
The largest electric distribution co-op in New England is experimenting with real-time energy rates meant to help members wring more value out of their electric vehicles and battery storage devices.
The New Hampshire Electric Co-op plans to offer members what is called a transactive energy rate as soon as the end of this year. It will essentially enable members to become partners with the co-op, supplying energy from their batteries when it is most needed, and charging up when demand — and prices — are low.
“We recognize that members can provide the resources that we need through their distributed energy resources,” said Brian Callnan, vice president of power resources and access. “We need to create a system that allows them to participate.”
A central goal of the co-op’s strategic plan, the transition to a transactive energy model is key to integrating distributed energy resources into the grid, while also making adoption of the technologies more affordable for members, and increasing system reliability, he said.
Here’s how it will work: The co-op has developed a pricing signal that can be routinely sent out over the internet showing the price of power during every hour of the following day. That’s the transactive energy rate.
Customers may choose to use that pricing signal to pre-determine their charging — or discharging — behavior. They may simply limit their energy usage during peak hours, thereby saving money on their bill. Or they might use bi-directional charging technology to discharge power to the grid during those peak hours and receive a bill credit for that discharge at the transactive rate, Callnan said.
While participating members will benefit from lower energy bills, the rate’s impact on moving load around should increase overall system reliability — a benefit for all 85,000 customers, Callnan said.
The co-op, which is based in Plymouth, New Hampshire, has partnered with the state university there to test the rate’s application. The results so far are promising.
» Read article
» More about modernizing the grid
CLEAN TRANSPORTATION
A better way to do smart EV charging: Talk to the car
Telematics can give utilities and companies like WeaveGrid and ev.energy more ways to tap EVs to help the power grid — and make sure EV owners stay in the driver’s seat.
By Jeff St. John, Canary Media
September 6, 2022
Some electric-vehicle owners may be happy to earn money by letting utilities control when they charge, a way to lessen strain on the power grid. But they also want to be confident they’ll have a full battery when they need it. What’s a good way to ensure that happens? Enable utilities to communicate directly with EVs.
That’s why Apoorv Bhargava, CEO of WeaveGrid, sees telematics — the onboard computers and communications tech inside EVs — as a focal point of smart EV-charging programs. While most utilities have relied on EV chargers to serve that role, WeaveGrid partners with utilities to enable them to tap into telematics for the information they need to manage smart-charging programs. The company’s utility customers include Baltimore Gas & Electric, Xcel Energy in Colorado, Oregon’s Portland General Electric and, most recently, California’s Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E).
That connection to the EV itself can “build a cleaner picture of what’s happening in mobility to inform what’s happening in electricity,” he said. “How does a customer behave? What value can that behavior create for the electric grid? Having an incomplete picture on the data side makes that very difficult.”
Getting accurate data about customer needs is particularly important if EV owners are facing an impending grid blackout, such as those occasionally triggered in California to reduce the risk of sparking a raging wildfire.
Last week, WeaveGrid and PG&E teamed up to launch evPulse, a smart-charging pilot program available exclusively to customers who live in areas at risk of having their power shut off as part of PG&E’s regime of wildfire-prevention grid outages on hot and windy days. These “public-safety power shutoffs,” or PSPS events, have left hundreds of thousands of customers without power, some for days at a time, over the past three years — and for EV drivers, that loss of power could leave them stranded.
The evPulse program, designed to support between 8,000 and 16,000 customers when fully rolled out, will alert EV owners before these outages occur, Bhargava said. That can help “ensure that their cars are charged whenever they need them to go, whether it’s to drive to Grandma’s during a PSPS event,” or, as vehicle-to-home charging technology becomes more widely available, “to have them on hand whenever they need their [home electricity] to be backed up.”
» Read article
» More about clean transportation
ELECTRIC UTILITIES
Why electricity prices are rising unevenly across New England
By Miriam Wasser – WBUR, and Mara Hoplamazian, on New Hampshire Public Radio
September 8, 2022
You may have noticed that your most recent electric bill is higher than usual — and if that change hasn’t happened yet, it’s probably coming this fall. These price spikes are occurring across New England, but bills are rising more in some places than others.
Some ratepayers in New Hampshire saw the price of electricity double this summer, resulting in bills up to $70 higher, while many in Massachusetts are only paying an extra $11 per month.
If it seems unfair, blame the energy markets. And if it’s confusing because everyone in New England shares an electricity grid, well, read on.
What’s happening is complicated and poses a disproportionate burden on those who can least afford higher monthly bills. But it also opens up some interesting conversations about what a future powered primarily by renewable energy sources like wind and solar could mean for your electric bill.
Here’s what you need to know:
[…] The primary reason for the spike is our reliance on fossil fuels. Specifically, natural gas.
Natural gas accounts for about 38% of the country’s electricity, though here in New England, it’s more like 53%. And the price of our main source of energy is anything but stable.
[…] Historically, New England burned oil and coal for power, but we switched many of our plants over to natural gas after the “fracking boom” in the early 2000s. Supply was high and prices were cheap, which was good for consumers, but not sustainable, said Dennis Wamsted, an analyst at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.
Indeed, prices started to rise after the U.S. began turning its glut of natural gas into liquefied natural gas (LNG) and exporting it.
The COVID pandemic in 2020 temporarily disrupted this trend; the global economy came to a halt and many oil and gas operations curtailed production. But as demand for fossil fuels began to rebound in 2021, supplies haven’t recovered as quickly. This has meant steadily rising prices. Add in some record-setting cold temperatures in many parts of the country this past winter, and prices have gone up even more.
“And then Russia invaded Ukraine and the world changed,” said Dan Dolan, president of the New England Power Generators Association. “We are now facing the largest international energy crisis of my lifetime. [We’re] seeing enormous volatility across all the energy commodities, and in particular, natural gas and oil.”
» Read article
» More about electric utilities
CRYPTOCURRENCY
How The Merge will slash Ethereum’s climate pollution
If The Merge is successful, it will drastically shrink the cryptocurrency’s energy use
By Justine Calma, The Verge
September 6, 2022
Ethereum just set The Merge in motion — and the stakes are huge for the planet. The Merge is arguably one of the most anticipated events yet in cryptocurrency history, when the Ethereum blockchain will switch from a disturbingly energy-hungry method of validating transactions to a new strategy that uses a fraction of the electricity as the network gobbled up before.
The transition is supposed to slash Ethereum’s energy consumption by a whopping 99.95 percent. That’s a seriously big deal since, just last week, the cryptocurrency network was estimated to use as much electricity annually as the country of Bangladesh. All that energy, of course, comes with a lot of carbon dioxide pollution that’s exacerbating climate change. Ethereum’s native token, Ether, is the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization after Bitcoin.
How is nearly all the pollution Ethereum was previously pumping out supposed to virtually disappear? It’s complicated, so let’s break it down as simply as we can.
It boils down to a dramatic change in how transactions are recorded on the Ethereum blockchain. A blockchain is a record of transactions that’s maintained communally rather than by a single institution like a bank. “Blocks” of transaction records are added to the chain by many different players, which is why blockchains are often described as “distributed ledgers.”
With so many players — also known as nodes — involved, blockchains need a security system to make sure no one screws with or takes over the ledger. Ethereum’s old version of a security system happens to be intentionally energy-intensive, so the network is switching to a new one through The Merge.
» Read article
» Read The Verge’s handy blockchain explainer
» More about crypto
FOSSIL FUEL INDUSTRY
Exclusive: The $500bn Asia gas trap
Asian countries are investing at least $490bn in new gas infrastructure, in plans that are laden with climate and financial risk.
By Nick Ferris, Energy Monitor
September 6, 2022
Countries across Asia are investing in $500bn of new gas infrastructure, reveals an investigation by Energy Monitor. The figure is based on a new analysis of exclusive datasets provided by GlobalData, Energy Monitor’s parent company.
The investment will lock countries into polluting power generation, heating and industrial activities for decades to come. This future is incompatible with net zero by 2050 and limiting global warming to 1.5°C.
It also risks forcing consumers to pay inflated prices for energy – as current soaring energy prices in Europe demonstrate – as opposed to cheaper energy from low-cost renewables like solar and wind.
In all, the data shows that $186bn is being spent on new gas-fired power plants, $112bn on developing new gas fields, $81bn on new gas pipelines, $77bn on new regasification plants, $13bn on new liquefaction plants, $8bn on new storage facilities, and $4bn on new gas-processing facilities. These figures include facilities under construction, as well as those that are in the process of permitting, or have simply been announced.
“Gas used to be a regional fuel that was delivered nearby by pipelines, but it is clear that gas is going global,” says Deborah Gordon, senior principal at the think tank RMI. “Gas is becoming akin to oil: with arbitrage, geopolitical pressures, weaponisation and increasing price volatility.”
“The findings here demonstrate just how big the bubble for natural gas and LNG in Asia is getting,” adds Sam Reynolds, from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA).
» Read article
Radioactive Waste ‘Everywhere’ at Ohio Oilfield Facility, Says Former Worker
Community groups present health and environmental justice concerns to the EPA, alleging workers at Austin Master Services are coated in dangerous levels of radioactive waste.
By Justin Nobel, DeSmog Blog
August 31, 2022
As Bill Torbett and his colleagues went about their work, handling the sloppy radioactive detritus of oilfields in a cavernous building in eastern Ohio, their skin and clothing often became smothered in sludge. Waste was splattered on the floor and walls, even around the electrical panels. At the end of their shifts, they typically left their uniforms in the company washing machine, which didn’t always work, and left their sludge-caked boots and hard hats in the company locker room. But when the men arrived home after a long day, the job came with them too.
“We were literally ankle-deep in sludge and a lot of times knee-deep in different spots. All that shit is dripping down on you,” says Torbett, a 51-year-old former employee of Austin Master Services, a radioactive oilfield waste facility in Martins Ferry, Ohio. “You’re saturated in it, your hands are covered in it, the denim of your uniform would hold it, and the moisture would soak right through your under-clothes and into your skin.”
“How wet?” Torbett says. “Like if you got caught outside in the rain without an umbrella. Soaking wet.”
In fact, so alarming are the conditions at Austin Master and so lax is the oversight that workers have taken things into their own hands. In one case, a second former worker has covertly passed along their dirty boots, hard hat, and headlamp for independent radiological analysis. The levels of the radioactive element radium found in the sludge on this worker’s boots was about 15 times federal cleanup limits for the nation’s worst toxic waste sites.
And yet, Austin Master appeared to keep workers in the dark about what they were handling. “They really didn’t tell me the gist of the material, I just knew it came from frack sites,” according to Torbett, who worked at the facility from November 2021 to February 2022. “There was no discussion of the material and its radioactivity.”
In April, DeSmog revealed that Concerned Ohio River Residents, a local advocacy group, had documented elevated levels of radium outside the main entrance to the Austin Master facility, that state inspection reports showed a lengthy history of concerning operating practices, and that rail cars leaving the facility for a radioactive waste disposal site in the Utah desert had arrived leaking on five occasions.
The situation at the Ohio facility appears so severe that top officials from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 5, which covers much of the Midwest, joined local organizers in a conference call in July and made an in-person visit to the area earlier this month.
The state of Ohio has authorized Austin Master Services to receive 120 million pounds of radioactive oilfield waste at its Martins Ferry location each year.
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BIOMASS
Europe Is Sacrificing Its Ancient Forests for Energy
Governments bet billions on burning timber for green power. The Times went deep into one of the continent’s oldest woodlands to track the hidden cost.
By Sarah Hurtes and Weiyi Cai, New York Times
Photographs by Andreea Campeanu
September 7, 2022
Burning wood was never supposed to be the cornerstone of the European Union’s green energy strategy.
When the bloc began subsidizing wood burning over a decade ago, it was seen as a quick boost for renewable fuel and an incentive to move homes and power plants away from coal and gas. Chips and pellets were marketed as a way to turn sawdust waste into green power.
Those subsidies gave rise to a booming market, to the point that wood is now Europe’s largest renewable energy source, far ahead of wind and solar.
But today, as demand surges amid a Russian energy crunch, whole trees are being harvested for power. And evidence is mounting that Europe’s bet on wood to address climate change has not paid off.
Forests in Finland and Estonia, for example, once seen as key assets for reducing carbon from the air, are now the source of so much logging that government scientists consider them carbon emitters. In Hungary, the government waived conservation rules last month to allow increased logging in old-growth forests.
And while European nations can count wood power toward their clean-energy targets, the E.U. scientific research agency said last year that burning wood released more carbon dioxide than would have been emitted had that energy come from fossil fuels.
“People buy wood pellets thinking they’re the sustainable choice, but in reality, they’re driving the destruction of Europe’s last wild forests,” said David Gehl of the Environmental Investigation Agency, a Washington-based advocacy group that has studied wood use in Central Europe.
The industry has become so big that researchers cannot keep track of it. E.U. official research could not identify the source of 120 million metric tons of wood used across the continent last year — a gap bigger than the size of Finland’s entire timber industry. Researchers say most of that probably was burned for heating and electricity.
Next week, the European Parliament is scheduled to vote on a bill that would eliminate most industry subsidies and prohibit countries from burning whole trees to meet their clean energy targets. Only energy from wood waste like sawdust would qualify as renewable, and thus be eligible for subsidies.
But several European governments say that now is no time to meddle with an important energy industry, with supplies of Russian gas and oil in jeopardy. In the Czech Republic, protesters have mobbed the streets, furious with rising energy costs, and the French authorities have warned of rolling blackouts this winter.
Internal documents show that Central European and Nordic countries, in particular, are pushing hard to keep the wood subsidies alive.
The debate is an acute example of one of the key challenges that governments face in fighting climate change: how to balance the urgency of a warming planet against the immediate need for jobs, energy and economic stability. The European Union has been a leader in setting green policies, but it is also racing to find energy sources as Russia throttles back its supply of natural gas.
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PLASTICS RECYCLING
A Houston Firm Says It’s Opening a Billion-Dollar Chemical Recycling Plant in a Small Pennsylvania Town. How Does It Work?
Gov. Wolf touted jobs and less plastic pollution when the plans were announced in April, but a professor from Carnegie Mellon who’s studied the technology says it can lead to “sustainability fraud.”
By James Bruggers, Inside Climate News
September 6, 2022
POINT TOWNSHIP, Pennsylvania—Randall Yoxheimer, chairman of the locally elected board of supervisors here, has seen economic development proposals come and go, but the latest one—a $1.1 billion chemical recycling plant for plastic waste—has left him, and even some scientists, perplexed.
Announced in April, the plant would use first-of-its-kind technology and employ hundreds of workers to turn waste plastic into new plastic. With the promise of taking a bite out of a serious global plastics problem, the new facility sounds like a terrific idea, Yoxheimer said as he sat under the bright fluorescent lights of the township’s office.
[…] With the plastics industry facing global pressure to do something to curb its waste that has touched all corners of the planet—microplastics have also been detected in human blood, feces and even human placentas—chemical recycling proposals like Encina’s have sprung up across the United States.
The concept of breaking down plastics into their core chemical elements and then using those chemicals to make new plastics in a sort of “closed loop” or “circular” economy, is advanced by many industry representatives as a desirable goal because it would, in theory, reduce the need to drill for more fossil fuels, the primary source of plastic products.
That’s how Encina officials see their efforts, said Sheida R. Sahandy, the chief sustainability officer and general counsel for the company.
“When we say that it’s circular, the idea is that you get it back to virgin quality, you can just keep reusing it and reusing it or reformulating it into another product and reformulating it into another product,” she said.
[…] But close examinations by environmental advocates and media organizations over the last few years have found few commercial successes with the chemical recycling of plastics, and concerns about environmental risks. They’ve found plants that do little more than make new fossil fuels, and produce a lot of waste, falling short of the promise of a circular economy.
“This whole chemical recycling is a charade,” said Jan Dell, a chemical engineer who has worked as a consultant to the oil and gas industry and now runs The Last Beach Cleanup, a nonprofit that fights plastics pollution and waste. “It’s a hoax. And it’s been perpetrated for 30 years. Every time the public has some interest in, ‘Oh, there’s too much plastic waste,’ they trot it back out again.”
[…] The global news agency Reuters last year published a report that found most of some 30 advanced recycling operations it examined internationally were operating on a modest scale or had shut down. The industry faces “enormous obstacles,” the news agency found, including the cost of collecting and managing plastic waste and creating products that can compete economically with fossil fuels or virgin plastic.
Environmental organizations have come to similar conclusions.
Greenpeace in 2020 found that most advanced plastics recycling plants that were being promoted by the industry were not recycling plastic waste into new plastics, but rather they were making fuel for combustion and barely putting a dent in the glut of waste plastics.
Greenpeace sees the industry efforts more as a form of public relations known as greenwashing, rather than a viable solution, similar to other unproven or uneconomical industry-backed solutions to intractable environmental problems, such as capturing and storing greenhouse gases to curb climate change.
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