Welcome back.
The developers of a proposed gas/oil peaking power plant in Peabody, MA finally presented their project before a public forum on Tuesday. Two hours into what was essentially a sales pitch for this new piece of fossil fuel infrastructure, it was clear that no serious effort had yet been undertaken to develop a non-emitting alternative. We lead with an excellent op-ed from Sarah Dooling, executive director of Massachusetts Climate Action Network (MCAN), in which she lays out the case for a better plan. News from Ireland this week was timely and instructive. It shows how effective battery storage is in providing grid services traditionally handled by fossil peakers, and how batteries are key to rapid deployment of renewable generating capacity.
Elsewhere in Massachusetts, a new tidal turbine design for clean power generation is undergoing tests in the Cape Cod Canal. This includes monitoring effects on marine animals in an attempt to collect data supporting initial observations that fish tend to avoid the spinning blades.
The state’s highly-touted energy efficiency program, Mass Save, could do much more to bring its benefits to underserved communities. And bills making their way through the legislature aim to remake the public utility business model and remove incentives that currently work against decarbonization.
Now that we’ve had time to digest recent news that the Keystone XL pipeline is dead, let’s consider how pivotal it was in tying global heating to fossil fuel dependence in the popular imagination. While protests and actions were already underway, the level of public engagement and the support of key political leaders can be separated into pre- and post-KXL eras.
A number of leading steel manufacturers are attempting to develop zero carbon steel – a critical step toward building a green economy. Swedish joint venture HYBRIT has made significant progress, and moved their process from the lab into pilot phase – one step below full commercialization.
The American west is now in the grip of extreme heat and drought long predicted by climate models. With hundreds of new high-temperature records posted, reservoir water levels at critical lows, and a frightening fire season just beginning, read what climate experts who live there are saying now.
The electric vehicle you drive in the near future may serve as a mini power plant. You’ll have a contract that allows your electric utility to purchase a little of its stored charge to help take the edge off peak demand times. But some auto manufacturers are talking a good game about rolling out electric models while doubling down on their efforts to sell an increasing number of gas-guzzling SUVs in the near term.
As usual, the fossil fuel industry has been up to no good. Stories this week include revelations about massive methane leaks from Europe’s natural gas distribution and storage system, plus a shoot-down of an industry-driven narrative touting oil from offshore drilling as somehow being clean-ish…. And a really scary piece revealing the use of extremely dangerous chemicals in some U.S. refineries located near dense neighborhoods.
We close with news supporting the idea that fortunes may be fading for both liquefied natural gas and biomass, as market forces batter the former and European regulators take aim at the latter.
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
PEAKING POWER PLANTS
No justification for proposed Peabody gas plant
Clean energy future doesn’t begin with a ‘dirty’ peaker
By Sarah Dooling, CommonWealth Magazine | Opinion
June 19, 2021
Sarah Dooling is executive director of the Massachusetts Climate Action Network.
THE MASSACHUSETTS Municipal Wholesale Electric Company and the staff at some participating municipal light plants say that building a new, 60-megawatt combined natural gas and oil peaker power plant in Peabody is absolutely necessary.
The proposed peaker plant will run only when energy demand is high – and will cost ratepayers in 14 communities with municipal light plants $85 million to build. The proposal for a dirty peaker plant, initiated in 2015, is disconnected from the recent landmark passage of the Next Generation Roadmap climate change bill and increasing statewide recognition that Massachusetts must transition away from fossil fuels.
In his June 1 op-ed in CommonWealth, Ronald DeCurzio identified two reasons for building the plant: to prevent an energy crisis like the one that occurred in Texas, and to reduce carbon emissions. These issues are important, but constructing a new fossil fuel power plant in 2021 is not the best way to address them.
While Massachusetts infrastructure is not as vulnerable [as Texas] to extreme cold weather events, there are important lessons the Texas energy disaster offers the Commonwealth. First, the climate emergency is here and is affecting our daily lives now. Scientific research attributed the extreme weather event in Texas to climate change. Continuing to rely on fossil fuels for our energy will worsen the climate crisis and contribute to more extreme fluctuations in weather.
Second, other energy options that can operate independently of the utility grid and large distribution systems — such as battery storage — may be more effective than natural gas peaker plants at increasing resilience at the community level. Distributed clean energy systems, particularly solar paired with battery storage, can prevent outages during extreme weather by quickly responding to grid fluctuations and, when an outage does occur, continuing to provide local power by operating like small, self-sufficient grids, powering essential community services until utility service is restored. A National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s recent study identified a primary benefit of battery storage systems as being the avoided costs of a power outage. Municipal light plants in Massachusetts — including Sterling Municipal Light Plant — experience these benefits first hand.
If municipal light plants and utilities want to prevent a Texas-like crisis, clean technology offers a better solution than continued reliance on peaker plants that run on fossil fuels. By investing in clean technology, the Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric Company can more effectively achieve its goal of meeting the capacity requirements for municipal light plants while reducing harmful emissions.
» Read article
Opponents: Power plant changes a start
By Erin Nolan, The Salem News
June 24, 2021
PEABODY — Plans to build a carbon-emitting “peaker plant” in the city have been in the works since 2015, but this past Tuesday night marked the first major community forum about the project.
“I’m glad this event happened,” said Logan Malik, the clean energy director at Massachusetts Climate Action Network. “I think it was high time for something of this sort to take place, but I think the structure was flawed in that it wasn’t conducive to community members providing feedback.”
During the forum, which lasted four and a half hours and was hosted by the Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric Company (MMWEC) at the Peter A. Torigian Senior Center, Malik and numerous others called for more community meetings to be held in the future.
“MMWEC did answer some questions which is good and we’re grateful for that, but there is very much a feeling that more needs to be done to ensure residents are fully informed,” Malik said. “There needs to be more of these conversations, and we feel strongly that MMWEC should go to every one of the communities investing in this plant and hold a similar meeting.”
The plant, referred to as Project 2015A in public documents, would be owned and operated by MMWEC. Project 2015A was previously approved to be built at Peabody Municipal Light Plant’s Waters River Substation, behind the Pulaski Street Industrial Park, but over the past two months, MMWEC’s plans to build the plant have come under fire by residents, local and state officials, and community groups who say they weren’t informed about the project until recently and are concerned about how the fossil-fuel powered plant could impact the health of the surrounding community.
In a response to the outcry of criticism, MMWEC announced on May 11 they were pausing plans to build the plant. In a statement, MMWEC said the time during which the project is on hold would be used to meet with and seek input from community members, state officials and others in order to address environmental and health concerns and consider alternative energy options.
» Read article
» More about peaker plants
PIPELINES
Requiem for a Pipeline: Keystone XL Transformed the Environmental Movement and Shifted the Debate over Energy and Climate
Its beginnings coincided with a booming oil market, but the pipeline also made a perfect target for activists demanding an end to fossil fuels.
By Marianne Lavelle, Inside Climate News
June 20, 2021
It was meant to be an express line from North America’s largest proven oil reserve to its biggest refining center and to deepen the bond between Canada and the United States as petroleum partners.
And it would have stood—or rather, lain—four feet underground, as a 1,700-mile steel monument to humanity’s triumph over the forces that at the time seemed to threaten the future of an oil-driven economy. Conventional oil reservoirs might be running out and alarms might be sounding over the damage that carbon dioxide pollution was doing to the atmosphere, but the Keystone XL pipeline would show America’s determination to carve out ever new oil corridors.
At least, that’s how it looked in 2008, when TransCanada and its partners announced plans to forge a $7 billion link between Alberta’s tar sands and the Texas Gulf Coast. By the time the company now known as TC Energy announced earlier this month that it was giving up the effort to build the pipeline, it was clear that oil could not so easily conquer the realities of the 21st century.
The 13-year fight over Keystone XL transformed the U.S. environmental movement, and dramatically shifted the political center of the American debate over energy and climate change. Instead of trying to get people to care about the future impact of a gas—carbon dioxide—that they couldn’t smell or see, environmentalists began focusing on the connection between climate change and the here-and-now effects of fossil fuel dependence: the takeover of land; the risk to air and water; and the injustice to those in the path of the fossil fuel industry’s plans. President Barack Obama’s presidency was a barometer of this change. Early on, his administration seemed poised to approve Keystone XL. Near the end of his second term, Obama became the first world leader to block a major U.S. oil infrastructure project over climate change.
» Read article
» More about pipelines
PROTESTS AND ACTIONS
Judge denies ExxonMobil requests to dismiss AG’s lawsuit
By Jeremy C. Fox, Boston Globe
June 23, 2021
A Superior Court judge on Wednesday denied two requests from ExxonMobil Corp. to dismiss a lawsuit brought by Attorney General Maura Healey alleging that the company deceived Massachusetts consumers and investors about the impact of climate change, court documents show.
Judge Karen F. Green refused to dismiss the case, which alleges ExxonMobil misrepresented important facts about climate change, exaggerated the supposed environmental benefits of some of its products, and downplayed financial risks to the company, according to court filings.
Healey said that Green’s “rulings represent a significant step forward for my office’s work to hold Exxon accountable for lying to Massachusetts consumers about the climate harms of using its fossil fuel products and to Massachusetts investors about the negative impact of climate change on the value of its business.”
“To this day, Exxon is continuing to promote its fossil fuel products to consumers as good for the environment and misleading investors that demand for fossil fuels will remain strong for the foreseeable future,” she said in a statement.
» Read article
‘We will not stop’: pipeline opponents ready for America’s biggest environmental fight
Activists have traveled from all over the US to protest against the construction of Line 3, a giant project that crosses Indigenous land
By Sheila Regan, The Guardian
June 20, 2021
» Read article
» More about protests and actions
GREENING THE ECONOMY
Inside Clean Energy: From Sweden, a Potential Breakthrough for Clean Steel
A Swedish partnership is cheering a milestone in its quest to make steel in a way that sharply reduces emissions.
By Dan Gearino, Inside Climate News
June 24, 2021
In the deluge of breathless announcements of emissions-cutting technologies, I often ask myself some variation on the same question: “Is this a big deal?”
Today, I’m going to tell you about one that looks like a big deal, providing hope that the world can find ways to reduce the carbon footprint of heavy industry.
In Sweden on Monday, the partnership of a steel company, a mining company and an electricity producer announced that it had succeeded in producing a form of iron using a nearly emissions-free process.
The companies have been working for five years on a joint venture called HYBRIT, with the goal of using renewable energy to produce hydrogen, and then using the hydrogen, along with iron ore pellets, to make “sponge iron,” which can be used to make steel. Now, the companies report that they are the first to have used this process to produce sponge iron on a pilot scale, which is a step up from laboratory scale and a sign of progress toward being able to do it on a commercial scale.
“This technological breakthrough is a critical step on the road to fossil-free steel,” said Martin Lindqvist, President and CEO of SSAB, a global steel company based in Sweden and one of the partners behind HYBRIT, in a statement. “The potential cannot be underestimated. It means that we can reach climate goals in Sweden and Finland and contribute to reducing emissions across Europe.”
This follows the opening of the HYBRIT plant last year in Luleå, Sweden, a small city near the Arctic Circle.
Corporations throw out words like “breakthrough” way too often, but this time it may be warranted. The steel industry is responsible for 7 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions, with most of the world’s steel produced by burning coal or natural gas in blast furnaces.
The industry has been able to use electric arc furnaces to make “secondary steel,” which comes from melting down and repurposing scrap steel. But the demand for steel exceeds what can be met using scrap, so companies need to find cleaner ways to make “primary steel” from iron ore. HYBRIT is developing one of the most promising options.
» Read article
Boston’s ‘heat islands’ turn lower-income neighborhoods from hot to insufferable
By David Abel, Boston Globe
June 22, 2021
Three years ago, after city officials repeatedly promised that a traffic project in the heart of their neighborhood would create significantly more green space, they left Jamaica Plain residents with more concrete and asphalt.
In an effort to slow traffic and make Hyde Square’s signature rotary easier to cross, the city widened sidewalks, broadened the circle with new pavers, and created multiple large concrete pedestrian islands. There were no new planters or flowers, though the city did add a small tree.
“It’s profoundly disappointing what the city left,” said Richard Parritz, a neighbor who chairs the design committee of Three Squares, a local nonprofit group that has pressed the city to add more green space to the neighborhood. “This is a health and equity issue. It’s not right.”
As Boston warms from climate change, city officials will have to do more to reduce such redoubts of asphalt and concrete, known as “heat islands,” which exacerbate the rising temperatures that residents will endure in the coming years, environmental advocates say.
By the end of the decade, city temperatures could exceed 90 degrees for over 40 days a year — and by as many as 90 days annually in 2070 — compared with an average of 11 days in 1990, according to city projections. Those increases in temperatures could have serious health consequences, with one major study estimating that heat-related deaths in the coming decades could be more than 50 percent higher than they were a few decades ago.
» Read article
» Read the study
» More about greening the economy
CLIMATE
‘Potentially the worst drought in 1,200 years’: scientists on the scorching US heatwave
Researchers had long forewarned of this crisis and now they’re seeing their studies and models become real life
By Maanvi Singh, The Guardian
June 18, 2021
» Read article
» More about climate
CLEAN ENERGY
Harnessing the tides: The future of renewable energy could begin in Cape Cod Canal
By Beth Treffeisen, Cape Cod Times
June 23, 2021
BUZZARDS BAY — Attached to a metal pole, a small tidal turbine resembling a metal rocket ship was placed Tuesday morning under the ripping currents of the Cape Cod Canal.
The tidal turbine could be the start of another form of renewable energy that would be able to provide electricity for decades to come.
“It’s an industry that is well-poised to take off,” said David Duquette, CEO of Littoral Power Systems Inc., based in New Bedford, that provided the model tidal turbine for the demonstration Tuesday. “But it does have some cost constraints, which is why we are looking at things such as saving costs on civil works.”
The tidal turbine, which was not producing electricity, was the first of its kind to be tested on the Bourne Tidal Test Site structure situated next to the railroad bridge near the Buzzards Bay side of the canal. It will be monitored using a camera system to see if it will affect fish and marine wildlife in the area.
“We wanted to spin up something in our backyard here — we’ll do it,” said Duquette before the turbine was launched.
The next generation of the device being tested in the canal will be deployed to Fairbanks, Alaska, where it will be tested in a “mightier” river, Duquette said.
On Monday, two sensors were installed to monitor water conditions and fish behavior. Since video cameras require light to work, which at night would affect fish behavior, an acoustic camera was also deployed.
The model tidal turbine was due to remain in the water for about 48 hours as cameras watch how it affects the environment around it, said John Miller, the New England Marine Renewable Energy Collaborative executive director.
In past experiments, such as in Scotland or in the East River in New York, cameras have found that fish generally avoid the turbines, Miller said.
» Read article
» More about clean energy
ENERGY EFFICIENCY
Energy efficiency is a low-hanging fruit to combat climate change. So why can’t everyone get access to it?
By Yvonne Abraham, Boston Globe
June 12, 2021
Environmental justice isn’t only about where power plants get built and which neighborhoods have enough trees.
Sometimes, it’s about something smaller and less visible than that — about the people who are left out, even when we’re making progress.
Today’s Exhibit A: Mass Save, the free program that brings an energy-efficiency expert into your home to help lower your energy costs. Funded by surcharges on our utility bills, Mass Save provides or subsidizes weather stripping and low-energy light bulbs, and offers rebates and loans that can be worth thousands for better insulation or more efficient boilers. It is a thing of beauty, and it has helped make this state a national leader in energy efficiency — the low-hanging fruit of combating climate change. Every dollar spent on the program yields three dollars in savings, and even more valuable emissions reductions for all of us.
Everybody wins. Except they don’t.
Though Mass Save is available to every ratepayer in the Commonwealth, those who live in affluent towns are more likely to take advantage of it: Participation in places like Bolton, Carlisle, and Hingham is up to seven times greater than in Lawrence, Fall River, and New Bedford.
“The program as designed works really well for single-family homeowners who have money to spend to make their homes more efficient, and who speak English,” said Eugenia Gibbons, Boston director of climate policy at Health Care Without Harm. For others, not so much.
It takes time, trust, and money to participate in Mass Save: time to apply for a visit and to meet with a consultant; trust that the energy utility, which administers the program, is really offering you something for free, with no catch; and money to pay your share of the subsidized insulation and boiler bills. All three are in short supply in places where blue collar workers, immigrants, and renters are concentrated. Language barriers widen the gap.
» Read article
» Read letters responding to this article
» More about energy efficiency
ENERGY STORAGE
Grid services support: Battery projects stepping up and supporting the grid
By Bernice Doyle, Current± | Blog post
June 15, 2021
Bernice Doyle is Head of Grid Services, Statkraft.
In May this year the Irish grid dropped below normal operating range (49.9Hz- 50.1Hz) for about 14 minutes. According to our data, it was the longest under-frequency event seen in years. Statkraft’s Kilathmoy and Kelwin-2 battery storage projects immediately stepped up to support the electricity grid, with data showing they provided an initial response to the event in just 180 milliseconds.
Most of the time batteries such as these sit in standby watching the frequency. But, as soon as it sees the frequency drop below the trigger level, it responds automatically. In the blink of an eye, it injects active power to support the grid and stabilise the system. Over the full period of the under-frequency event, the batteries did just what they were designed to do from the initial drop below the 49.8Hz trigger, to the eventual recovery above that level about 12 minutes later.
Solar and wind power plants provide clean renewable energy, but the electricity grid has historically relied on fossil fuel generators to provide stability in the grid. As renewables grow, displacing fossil fuels, we need to find new ways of providing the stability the grid requires. As this under-frequency event shows, battery storage facilities can provide a vital support to the Irish grid and help us to facilitate more and more renewable energy on the system.
Keeping the power grid stable has become more challenging as we get more and more of our energy from wind and solar power. The major challenge is to ensure we maintain a stable frequency and voltage on the grid.
Here in Ireland, we are not using all of the renewable energy that we are producing. The system operators rely on running gas or coal power plants not for energy purposes, but to provide support services to the grid and in doing so they shut down wind power plants that could have supplied electricity, in order to make room for these fossil fuel plants. We aim to increase the share of renewable electricity from the current 40% to 70% by 2030. If we are to achieve that goal, we must support and progress stability solutions for the grid that do not emit CO2.
Battery technology is a very efficient method of delivering zero-carbon frequency support services such as this. In an emergency, batteries can both absorb and deliver power to the grid in milliseconds. However, batteries are not yet deployed to store large amounts of energy in the Irish market. The battery projects deployed in the Irish market to date have reserves for half an hour of operation, but in the future batteries will deliver longer-duration storage, which will be crucial to enabling our 2030 targets.
» Read article
» More about energy storage
CLEAN TRANSPORTATION
Your electric vehicle could become a mini power plant
And that could make the electrical grid work better for everyone.
By Maria Gallucci, Grist
June 21, 2021
In an asphalt lot just north of New York City, yellow school buses are resting their wheels until classes resume in September. But three electric buses at the depot in White Plains, New York, will be working overtime this summer break. Rather than transport students, they’ll mainly serve as a big battery bank, storing power and feeding it to the local utility’s electrical grid when demand is high. Starting this month, Con Edison will use the buses daily to help keep its grid running smoothly during the hot summer months.
The demonstration project is among dozens of so-called “vehicle-to-grid” initiatives underway in the United States and around the world. As bigger vehicles like buses, garbage trucks, delivery vans, and even the Ford F-150 pickup truck ditch their engines and go electric, their batteries represent a potentially enormous source of energy storage and backup power supply. Although the concept was developed in the late 1990s, vehicle-to-grid is gaining traction now as automakers release more electric models, smart charging technologies improve, and millions of new electric vehicles, or EVs, hit the road every year.
Last December, the buses began exporting power to the grid on weekends during six-hour shifts. On June 25, they’ll begin delivering a combined 33.5 kilowatts, or 0.03 megawatts, of power for six hours every day. That amount of power is relatively tiny, but there’s potential to expand. About 8,000 school buses operate in Con Ed’s service area of New York City and neighboring Westchester County, which includes White Plains. If electrified, the bus fleet could collectively supply more than 100 megawatts of power to the grid for short periods — or nearly 1 percent of Con Ed’s peak summer power demand, an amount Ross said makes a “material” difference. That could reduce Con Ed’s reliance on gas-fired power plants and offset the need to upgrade grid equipment.
“Using electric school buses this way on a wider scale would provide significant benefits,” Ross told Grist.
On a broader level, vehicle-to-grid systems could help utilities navigate the transition to cleaner electricity and transportation. As more wind and solar power comes online, the batteries could absorb excess renewable energy and deliver it later, after the wind stops blowing or the sun goes down. And the systems could prevent electric vehicles from overtaxing the grid by managing how and when they charge. Around 550 million battery-powered vehicles are expected to hit the road globally by 2040 — up from 13 million vehicles today — representing a huge boost in power demand, according to the clean energy research firm BloombergNEF.
» Read article
Automakers Tout EV’s but Keep Pushing Gas-Guzzling SUV’s, Report Finds
By The Energy Mix
June 20, 2021
A new report from Environmental Defence Canada finds that pledges from automakers to drive an EV revolution are at odds with their continued hard-sell of fossil-driven SUVs in Canada.
“The car companies are talking a big game, filled with new promises of a cavalcade of electric cars, trucks, and SUVs that’s just around the corner. But Canadians should take these claims with a big grain of salt,” Programs Director Keith Brooks said in a release. He pointed to GM and Ford, with plans to deliver 300,000 EVs by 2026 in North America, while their output of fossil-fuelled SUVs and trucks will hit five million over that period.
And the larger the fossil-burning vehicle, the higher the emissions.
“Transportation is the second-largest source of emissions in Canada, second only to oil and gas extraction. And it’s a sector in which emissions have been steadily rising for decades even while vehicle fuel efficiency has been steadily improving,” said Brooks.
Noting that 80% of passenger vehicles sold today in Canada are SUVs and light trucks (and only 1.6% of them electric), Environmental Defence says that sales activity has added “about 18 million additional tonnes of carbon emissions” to the global atmosphere since 2010.
Meanwhile, automakers’ advertising budgets remain skewed in favour of fossil-fuelled models, the report states. EVs remain very thin on the ground in dealer lots, and automakers still “lobby against climate policy, including any policy that would force them to sell more EVs.”
What’s needed to counteract this “duplicity,” the organization says, is government intervention in the form of “carrot and stick”–style policy to encourage automakers to walk their talk on EVs while making it easier for Canadians to purchase one. Among the report’s recommendations: new taxes on fossil-fuelled vehicles to fund EV purchasing incentives, and “a strict zero-emission vehicle standard to require car companies to sell an increasing percentage of electric cars,” reaching 100% EV sales by 2035 “at the latest.”
» Read article
» Read the Environmental Defence Canada report
» More about clean transportation
LEGISLATION
Stop sweetheart deals with state utilities
3% revenue increase each year not fair to ratepayers
By Natalie Blais, Joanne Comerford and Daniel Sosland, CommonWealth Magazine
June 24, 2021
Electrifying buildings and appliances that now run on gas, oil, and other fossil fuels will be a key piece of meeting Massachusetts’ climate targets. The region’s investor-owned utilities will be vital partners in making this possible. However, it has recently come to light that Eversource has been quietly funding a campaign to fight against electrification and in support of propping up the gas system, despite the fact that the region must transition away from gas as quickly as possible.
One of the primary reasons utilities like Eversource continue to fight so hard for fossil fuels is because the current utility business model, which has helped deliver reliable energy for almost a century, is no longer compatible with the transformations within the power sector that are necessary to address climate change.
Today, utilities earn income based not on how well they serve residents, but on how expensive it is to run their companies. As expenses for maintaining the grid go up, utilities regularly ask the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities (DPU) for approval to increase customer rates to help cover costs. Regulators usually approve these requests – and as legislators we hear frequently from constituents when they notice these new or increased charges on their electric bills and want to know what they are paying for and why.
Automatically increasing customer rates without requiring real change is not the answer. Massachusetts needs a better deal from its utilities – a real commitment to consumer interests, environmental justice, fighting climate change, and creating a reliable grid powered by clean energy resources.
Under existing state utility regulation, Eversource’s incentives do not serve the interests of the Commonwealth’s residents. Eversource’s own securities filings identify that clean energy alternatives are a risk to its revenues. In other words, the path the Commonwealth is seeking to shift away from fossil fuels is bad for Eversource and its shareholders. This is incongruous with meeting Massachusetts’ ambitious climate goals.
We cannot continue to put the financial health of utility companies on the backs of ratepayers by providing annual revenue increases with little in return for residents or the environment. That’s why we introduced “An Act to Protect Ratepayers” (Bill H.3259/S.2143) and “An Act Promoting Local Energy Investment and Infrastructure Modernization” (Bill H.3261/S.2144). These bills will stop sweetheart deals and ensure broader stakeholder participation in decisions related to modernizing our energy system.
» Read article
» More about legislation
FOSSIL FUEL INDUSTRY
‘Massive’ Methane Leaks Found Coming From Oil and Gas Sites in Europe
For the first time, researchers in Europe use optical imagery to measure methane leaking from oil and gas infrastructure in seven countries. The data reveals a “pervasive” emissions problem.
By Nick Cunningham, DeSmog Blog
June 24, 2021
Leaking methane from oil and gas infrastructure is widespread across the European continent, reveals an investigation of more than 150 sites in seven countries. More than 60 percent of the sites analyzed by researchers using state-of-the-art technology were releasing large volumes of methane – a powerful greenhouse gas – into the atmosphere.
This is the first large investigation of methane leakage from oil and gas sites in Europe.
“We’ve all been shocked by just how pervasive methane emissions are across Europe,” James Turitto, who filmed methane emissions for Clean Air Task Force (CATF), said in a statement. CATF is based in Boston but recently launched a European office.
Deploying an optical gas camera that uses infrared radiation to detect the typically invisible methane leaking from oil and gas infrastructure, CATF conducted a months-long investigation of fossil fuel sites in Europe. This type of camera is used widely by the oil and gas industry itself to find and detect leaks.
Images and video of methane leaks have been increasingly commonplace in places like the Permian basin, where environmental group Earthworks has extensively documented rampant methane leaks at drilling sites, drawing attention to a vast source of once-overlooked climate pollution.
But the documentation conducted by Turitto and CATF using an optical camera shows this isn’t confined to the Permian – it’s an international problem. On June 24, CATF released an online library of videos and data of its research, along with a new website.
“It’s clear that industry best practice is being ignored up and down the supply chain. Even as one person with an infrared camera, I’ve been able to find multiple leaks in every country I’ve visited. It begs the question – why aren’t the companies and national regulators doing this already?” Turitto said in a statement.
Turitto visited Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, and Romania. He documented significant methane leaks at 123 of the 150 sites visited. Overall, more than 60 percent of the surveyed sites had significant concentrations of methane leaking. In some countries, that share stood at more than 90 percent of sites, with Italy and Hungary standing out as particular problems.
Europe is not a large producer of oil and gas, but it is the largest importer of both oil and gas and has an extensive pipeline network and storage facilities. It is at these sites – storage tanks, pipelines, liquefied natural gas import terminals – where methane is leaking in large volumes.
» Read article
The weird argument that offshore oil is good for the climate, debunked
Oil companies are blaming each other for climate pollution.
By Rebecca Leber, Vox
June 22, 2021
When President Biden took office in January, a peculiar idea about oil and gas started to make the political rounds: that certain parts of the industry are more environmentally responsible and can actually reduce emissions, compared to other parts of the industry that are worse for the Earth.
“If you want to reduce emissions, the offshore arena is better,” Scott Angelle, who was the top environmental regulator of offshore energy under the Trump administration, told the trade publication Offshore in late January.
Questionable claims about the climate might be expected from a Trump administration official who rolled back oil and gas regulations, but the same argument has also seeped into Democratic politics.
“Gulf of Mexico oil and gas production produces substantially fewer greenhouse gas emissions than oil and gas production in any other region of the world,” Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, testified to the Senate Energy Committee in May.
Documents show that these claims originated with a little-known lobbying group that advocates for offshore oil — and experts told Vox that they’re dubious at best. By focusing on the emissions of oil and gas production, the industry is ignoring the much larger share of pollution that comes from the burning of fossil fuels. This is a clear attempt at greenwashing: Parts of the oil industry are arguing, perversely, that more fossil fuels can help solve the climate crisis.
Yet these tactics also suggest that fossil fuel companies foresee a fight for survival in a shrinking market for oil and gas — and one emerging industry tactic is pointing fingers to claim that a particular source of oil and gas isn’t as dirty as the next person’s.
“They’re falling over themselves” to claim “their oil is cleaner than someone else,” Lorne Stockman, a research analyst at Oil Change International, a nonprofit advocacy group, told Vox.
What’s worrying is that attempts to rebrand some oil and gas as sustainable has gained traction even among prominent Democrats, and could influence an administration that has pledged to slash emissions by half within the decade in the hope of preventing catastrophic climate change.
» Read article
The Chemical Weapon Next Door
Modified hydrofluoric acid (MHF), used in oil refining, could turn into a flesh-eating vapor cloud if leaked. 400,000 refinery neighbors in LA are at risk.
By Lucy Sherriff, Drilled News
April 16, 2021
The morning of Wednesday, February 18, 2015, had started just like any other day for Summer Spencer. Back then, she was a sixth grader at South High School in Torrance, a coastal city in the South Bay region of Los Angeles County. But at around 9am, Spencer and her classmates were given a ‘shelter in place’ order by their teacher. It was, the now 17-year-old says, pretty exciting at first. “I just figured I might not have to go to my next class.”
Summer’s teachers closed the doors, secured the windows, and pulled the drapes shut. It was only when she went home that day and spoke to her dad, an environmental safety expert, that she realized she, her classmates, and thousands of other Torrance residents, had had a near miss with a chemical so deadly the Department of Homeland Security lists it as a substance of interest for terrorists.
“I told [my dad] all we did was shut the windows and he explained it wouldn’t have been enough to protect the students,” she recalls.
Spencer’s dad explained if the chemical had been released, “thousands of Torrance residents would have died”.
The threat came from the Torrance Refinery, just three miles away from Summer’s school, a 700-acre plot which processes around 155,000 barrels of crude oil every day, and uses hydrofluoric acid (HF)—or “modified hydrofluoric acid” (MHF) as refineries often refer to the substance—to make high octane gasoline. Around 400,000 people live within three miles of the refineries.
On that Wednesday morning, unbeknown to Summer, pent up gases at the refinery, back then owned by Exxon, had triggered an explosion so big that it registered as a 1.7 tremor. A processing unit had burst open, propelling a large piece of equipment into the air, which narrowly avoided hitting a tank that contained more than 50,000-pound of the deadly HF.
“It was a complete surprise. Nobody really knew the danger of the Torrance refinery,” Spencer told Drilled.
Although the 48 US oil refineries that use MHF claim it is safer than HF, both substances are deadly to humans. And in fact scientists say the two substances are virtually identical. When released, both substances travel in a vapor cloud that can reach eight feet in height, penetrating buildings and causing catastrophic eye, bone, deep tissue, lung and nervous system damage. Essentially, as Torrance-based scientist Dr. Sally Hayati put it, the substance can liquefy your organs.
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» More about fossil fuels
LIQUEFIED NATURAL GAS
Global LNG Industry Reeling as its Image as a Climate Solution Shifts to ‘Climate Problem’
Nearly two dozen major LNG projects around the world are struggling to move forward, a new report reveals, as investors grow skittish from poor economics and increasing scrutiny on the industry’s large carbon footprint.
By Nick Cunningham, DeSmog Blog
June 24, 2021
As recently as 2019, the global market for liquefied natural gas (LNG) looked bright. Analysts saw demand for LNG in Asia rising in both a steady and unrelenting fashion, expanding for years or even decades into the future. The industry gave the greenlight to 71 billion tonnes per annum (mtpa) of new LNG capacity in 2019, an all-time record.
But a lot has changed in the past two years, with “business conditions drastically diminished,” and even “the basic rationale of an industry built around a relatively small number of massive but highly vulnerable facilities” now called into question, according to a new report from Global Energy Monitor.
“LNG was sold to policymakers and to investors as a safe, clean, secure bet,” said Lydia Plante, lead author of the report. “Now all those attributes have turned into liabilities.”
Not only did the pandemic disrupt demand projections, but the positive perception of LNG as a somewhat climate-friendly alternative to coal – a perception assiduously promoted by the industry – has fallen apart. “Most striking is the shift in LNG’s public image from climate solution to climate problem,” the report said.
A December 2020 study from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) found that the climate benefit of LNG compared to coal is only modest at best, and because it is a fossil fuel with a large carbon footprint, it ultimately presents a big threat to the climate.
If the U.S. LNG projects on the drawing board went forward as planned, it would result in 130 to 213 million metric tons of new greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, the equivalent of adding 28 to 45 million cars to the road, and enough to wipe out the 1 percent per year decline in emissions the U.S. achieved over the past decade, according to NRDC.
As a result of the increased scrutiny, along with growing financial risks, major LNG projects are struggling to get off the ground. At least 21 major LNG export terminals representing 265 mtpa have either seen their final investment decision (FID) delayed, or are suffering other serious setbacks. That’s roughly 38 percent of the total capacity under development around the world, with ten of those projects located in North America.
» Read article
» Read the Global Energy Monitor report
» Read the NRDC study
Opposition abounds for Nova Scotia’s planned LNG export facility
By Moira Donovan, National Observer
June 22, 2021
For much of the pandemic, Nova Scotia has been closed to the outside world. But a proposed natural gas project in the province — dubbed “the last one standing” by the CEO of the company behind it — is reaching across borders nonetheless.
The Goldboro liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facility, proposed by Calgary-based Pieridae Energy Limited, would see the company exporting 5.2 million tonnes of natural gas annually, mostly for the German utility Uniper, starting in 2025. With many other LNG projects being cancelled, Pieridae CEO Alfred Sorensen has said the Goldboro project looks increasingly like the only one left of its kind in North America (construction on an LNG export facility that will export to Asian markets is underway in B.C., with three others proposed in that province).
As the project approaches the deadline set by Pieridae to decide its fate, it’s facing hurdles, including an as-yet-unsuccessful pitch for nearly $1 billion in federal funding — without which the company has said moving ahead with the project would be “difficult.” Aside from the money, the biggest threat to the project is a pending regulatory decision in Alberta that will determine the viability of its gas supply.
In the interim, Pieridae is being inundated with complaints from communities across North America — from Mi’kmaw groups in Nova Scotia to advocates in Alberta and Massachusetts. They are pushing back against the proposal, citing concerns with everything from the work camps required to construct the facility to the infrastructure required to produce the gas and pipe it to Nova Scotia.
One of Pieridae’s biggest obstacles is in Alberta, where advocates for better management of orphaned oil and gas wells have identified issues with Pieridae’s plan for sourcing the gas that would be exported from the facility.
In 2019, Pieridae made a play to acquire aging sour gas wells and infrastructure in Alberta from Shell to supply the Goldboro LNG facility.
But the transfer of the licences was blocked in May 2020 by the Alberta Energy Regulator, which cited concerns about the division of responsibility (Shell had said it would remain responsible for groundwater contamination, and Pieridae for well cleanup).
The spectre of that transfer has been revived recently after Shell made another bid to sign over the licences to Pieridae, prompting the filing of several dozen statements of concern to the Alberta Energy Regulator.
One of those statements was from the Polluter Pay Federation (PPF). PPF Chair Dwight Popowich — who has seen the effects of orphan wells first-hand after the operator of a well on his land went bankrupt — said the transfer is a clear example of “liability dumping,” whereby oil and gas producers dodge responsibility for well cleanup by selling assets to smaller producers without the resources to manage them in the long term.
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» More about LNG
BIOMASS
EU eyes tighter rules for ‘renewable’ biomass energy – draft
By Kate Abnett, Reuters
June 16, 2021
BRUSSELS, June 16 (Reuters) – The European Union is considering tightening rules on whether wood-burning energy can be classed as renewable and count towards green goals, according to a draft document seen by Reuters on Wednesday.
The aim is to protect delicate ecosystems like old growth forests and stop wood fit for other purposes, like making furniture, from ending up as pellets or chips burned to produce biomass energy.
The draft European Commission proposal to update the EU rules would require biomass-fuelled power and heat plants with a capacity of 5 megawatts (MW) or above to meet sustainability criteria, and provide substantial emissions cuts versus fossil fuels.
Biomass plants with a capacity below 20MW are currently exempt from those requirements.
Renewable sources provide around 20% of EU energy in 2019. More than half of that is biomass, which the EU ranks as having a low carbon footprint since carbon dioxide emissions produced from wood-burning are partly balanced by CO2 absorbed by the trees as they grew.
Environmental groups have criticised that accounting and some said the draft proposal would fail to protect forests.
The draft said biomass-fuelled installations will count as renewable if they produce 70% fewer emissions than fossil fuels. Currently, that applies only to installations that started operating this year.
The draft said national support schemes promoting biomass energy use must follow a “cascading principle” that wood should only be burned for energy as a last resort.
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» More about biomass
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