Welcome back.
According to the United Nations website, next month’s 27th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change – COP27 – “will build on the outcomes of COP26 to deliver action on an array of issues critical to tackling the climate emergency – from urgently reducing greenhouse gas emissions, building resilience and adapting to the inevitable impacts of climate change, to delivering on the commitments to finance climate action in developing countries”.
Ahead of that, hundreds of activists from countries that are the least responsible for the crisis but are experiencing the worst impacts have gathered in Tunisia to prepare for what they say will be a collective fight for justice. Major issues include adaptation funding and recompense for damage from countries that have been the most responsible for global heating.
Senator Joe Manchin’s stalled fossil infrastructure permitting “reform” package is still looking for an open legislative lane. This has foes of his pet project, the Mountain Valley Pipeline watching closely to see what happens next. The “reforms” proposed in that bill would have gone to great lengths to sidestep legal challenges to the pipeline and authorize the project. Is it good policy to treat a pipeline carrying explosive gas, installed across unstable mountainous terrain, three and a half feet in diameter and designed for a maximum operating pressure of 1,480 pounds per square inch, like nothing more than a check box on a bureaucratic form? Folks living near its path disagree.
Related to gas – Rhode Island utility regulators are beginning to consider how the state’s mandate to zero out greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 will affect its natural gas system. Hopefully they’re watching developments in Massachusetts which began a similar study into the future of gas in 2020. The process resulted in sharp criticism from climate advocates, who say it gave too much control to the gas utilities who wasted time arguing for a business-as-usual approach.
Natural Gas, being almost entirely methane, is a key target of last year’s Global Methane Pledge — an effort to cut global methane emissions by 30 percent in the next decade. But a new report finds that the U.S., E.U. members, and other nations that joined the pledge have plans to keep replacing their coal-fired power plants with natural gas plants — a trend the authors say will make meeting the pledge impossible. On the bright side, a different report singles out Colorado, Illinois and New Mexico as trailblazers in just-transition laws as the coal industry declines.
If you just look at declining US production, you’d probably conclude that King Coal’s long-predicted demise is just around the corner. But hundreds of coal companies around the world are developing new mines and power stations, something researchers describe as “reckless and irresponsible” in the midst of the climate emergency. Almost half the 1,000 companies assessed in a new study are still developing new coal assets, and just 27 companies have announced coal exit dates consistent with international climate targets.
Here’s where the climate crisis gets real: Hurricane Ian intensified by 67 percent in less than 22 hours. Then it quickly strengthened from a Category 3 storm to nearly a Category 5. Was it goosed by global warming? This kind of rapid intensification is becoming more common. And while Ian cut a wide and devastating path, the modern, solar-powered town of Babcock Ranch, near Fort Meyers, FL, successfully rode it out with little damage and no loss of power. Climate resiliency was built into the fabric of the town with stronger storms in mind.
Elsewhere, we take a look at efforts to harness wave energy, which can be more consistent than wind or solar. In the right locations, it may dramatically cut the costs of buying storage batteries needed to backstop intermittent renewables. An Australian company that has just finished a 12-month trial of its pilot plant on a beach at King Island, north of Tasmania.
Those stationary energy storage batteries can consist of banks of retired electric vehicle batteries, and a prototype system that can test and sort used battery cells for second life applications has been developed by four companies in the UK in a government-funded initiative. The system has the potential to significantly reduce the unnecessary waste of the raw materials used to build batteries.
Meanwhile, the EV boom is about to hit the US, just as its growing charging network wrestles with providing fast, reliable, curbside stations.
Closer to home, Efficiency Maine is kicking off a program with $4 million in grants to help communities with fewer than 5,000 residents install heat pumps and other energy saving measures in public buildings. The new program is intended to accelerate the transition to electric heat pumps in the state’s smallest towns.
We’ll wrap with a note about a recent major plastics industry conference in Chicago, where executives said they were betting on “advanced recycling” as a green response to the plastic waste problem, despite market headwinds and growing opposition from environmentalists. It’s no surprise that the industry’s solution to plastic waste involves making and using more plastic products. Observers outside the plastics industry are far less enthusiastic.
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
PROTESTS AND ACTIONS
Young people demand climate justice in run-up to Cop27 UN talks
Activists from global south demand recompense for damage from countries most responsible for crisis
By Sandra Laville, The Guardian
October 3, 2022
» Read article
PIPELINES
Pressing Safety Concerns, Opponents of the Mountain Valley Pipeline Gear Up for the Next Round of Battle
Although a proposal to fast-track the natural gas project has been derailed in Congress, worries about pipe corrosion, landslides and other dangers remain omnipresent in West Virginia.
By Phil McKenna, Inside Climate News
October 7, 2022
[…] The 303-mile pipeline, which would carry fracked gas from northwestern West Virginia to southern Virginia, has stirred significant safety concerns and faced a series of legal and regulatory hurdles since it was first proposed in 2014. For those living near the pipeline, which is mostly completed, those worries remain front and center despite the latest political setback to the project.
Last week, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer agreed to a request by Manchin to withdraw a provision tying the pipeline’s approval to a must-pass budget bill, leaving the 8-year-old project’s completion in limbo. The provision, which had drawn bipartisan opposition, would have sped approval by revising the federal permitting process.
Still, foes of the pipeline are bracing for more. Manchin, who chairs the Senate’s Energy and Natural Resources Committee, has vowed to continue to push for a permitting bill that would speed approval of the $6.6 billion project. And Schumer, a New York Democrat, is in his corner: Over the summer, he pledged to help ease the way for the pipeline’s completion in exchange for Manchin’s recent support of the Inflation Reduction Act, which included more than $350 billion in climate and clean energy funding.
Although the Mountain Valley Pipeline Project is 94 percent complete, according to its developer, it still needs final approval from multiple federal agencies.
Johnson and many other landowners along the pipeline’s route are campaigning to block those approvals: Already they view the project as a scar across two states that cuts through forests and farmland and fouls mountain streams and wells with construction sediment. They also worry about a potential for a rupture in the high-pressure pipeline, which measures three and a half feet in diameter.
[…Safety] experts cite two factors that could make the Mountain Valley Pipeline prone to rupturing: aging sections of pipe that have been stored for years above ground, and the region’s steep, unstable terrain.
If the Mountain Valley Pipeline were ever to explode, they warn, the impact could be catastrophic. When a Pacific Gas and Electric gas pipeline ruptured in San Bruno, California, on Sept. 9, 2010, the explosion killed eight people and destroyed 38 homes.
That pipeline, measuring two and a half feet in diameter, was transporting gas that was pressurized to less than 400 pounds per square inch, according to the PHMSA. The Mountain Valley Pipeline is three and a half feet in diameter and is designed for much higher pressures, with a maximum operating pressure of 1,480 pounds per square inch, allowing it to ship higher volumes of gas.
» Read article
With Manchin’s Permitting Reform on Ice, Mountain Valley Pipeline Again Faces Uncertain Future
Senator Joe Manchin’s proposed permitting reform would have fast-tracked the troubled gas pipeline. The bill’s failure throws the project back into limbo.
By Nick Cunningham, DeSmog Blog
September 29, 2022
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) pulled the plug on his permitting reform bill on Tuesday, ending what would have been a major overhaul of bedrock environmental laws that date back to the 1970s. The demise of Manchin’s bill also means that a long-distance fracked gas pipeline named in the proposed reform is once again facing long odds of moving forward.
Framed by Democratic leadership as a companion piece to the Inflation Reduction Act, and as a “dirty side deal” by activists, Senator Manchin’s permitting reform legislation sought to streamline the regulatory and legal process in order to speed up the construction of a variety of energy, minerals, and electric transmission infrastructure projects, both clean and dirty. It would have placed time limits on environmental reviews, shortened the window for legal challenges, curtailed the ability of states to use the Clean Water Act to reject projects, and created a list of vital energy projects in the national interest that would be prioritized.
One of the more controversial elements of Manchin’s package was the explicit greenlighting of the Mountain Valley pipeline (MVP), a long-distance pipeline that would carry fracked Marcellus shale gas from West Virginia through Virginia, with a possible extension into North Carolina.
[…] The Mountain Valley pipeline has been bogged down in legal problems, delays, and ballooning costs for several years. Even though the pipeline had not cleared all the regulatory and legal hurdles, it began construction anyway. It was originally expected to be completed by 2018, but has been repeatedly pushed back by federal court decisions.
In the course of construction, the project has racked up more than 500 violations of permit conditions, environmental laws, and regulations, according to a recent report from Appalachian Voices, a regional group opposed to the project.
The original price tag was $3.7 billion, but that has since exploded to at least $6.6 billion. “The Mountain Valley Pipeline project is a financial debacle, and forcing through permits for the project will not change that basic fact,” Suzanne Mattei, an energy policy analyst with the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), told DeSmog in an email.
The company claims that it is over 90 percent completed, but local activists say that figure overstates the progress of the project. The most technically complex sections of construction remain, and Appalachian Voices estimates that the project is only 55 percent complete.
[…] In a highly unusual move, Manchin’s permitting reform went to great lengths to sidestep legal challenges to the pipeline and authorize the project. The bill would have required federal agencies to issue “all approval and permits necessary” for the construction of the project and then prevented any judicial review of those permits. It would have also shifted legal questions regarding the legislation out of the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit — where MVP has repeatedly run into a brick wall — and into the D.C. Circuit Court, where it might receive more favorable treatment.
» Read article
GAS BANS
Rhode Island starts to wrestle with what its net-zero goal means for natural gas
The state has a mandate to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. A discussion is underway about where that will leave the state’s natural gas distribution industry, which heats about half of the state’s homes.
By Lisa Prevost, Energy News Network
October 3, 2022
Rhode Island utility regulators are beginning to consider what the state’s mandate to zero out greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 means for its natural gas system.
The state Public Utilities Commission, or PUC, has opened a docket to investigate the future of the gas distribution business, a response to the passage last year of the Act on Climate.
The investigation could bring about “wide-ranging and significantly impactful” changes, such as moratoriums on new hookups, incentives for renewable natural gas, and transitioning customers to alternative heating fuels like electricity, the commission said in its notice of the proceeding.
Hank Webster, Rhode Island director for the Acadia Center, a clean energy advocacy organization, said it’s crucial for the state to start this discussion now.
“The gas distribution system is one of the major sources of greenhouse gasses,” he said. “Every time a new gas connection is made, adding to ratepayer costs, it locks in long-term fossil fuel use.”
Building emissions, including those that result from the use of natural gas, account for about 35% of Rhode Island’s total emissions, according to the most recent state inventory. About half of the state’s households are heated with gas.
The neighboring state of Massachusetts began a similar study into the future of gas in 2020. But that process has resulted in sharp criticism from climate advocates, who say it gave too much control to the gas utilities. Earlier this year, Attorney General Maura Healey — who is running for governor — filed a scathing set of comments on the proposals emerging, saying the result would be an energy system that “pumps more money into gas pipelines and props up utility shareholders.”
Massachusetts “almost wasted a year by putting it in the hands of the utilities to control things from the beginning,” said Larry Chretien, executive director of the Green Energy Consumers Alliance. “No consensus has been reached, not even close.”
The Rhode Island PUC is currently seeking public comment on the scope of its gas docket — what questions the investigation should seek to answer and what goals it should meet. Chretien said he is encouraged that they “are asking a lot of the right questions.”
» Read article
» Read the docket
GREENING THE ECONOMY
Countries pledged to slash methane — but they’re still replacing coal with natural gas
A new report argues that countries shutting down coal plants should ‘leapfrog’ to renewables.
By Emily Pontecorvo, Grist
October 5, 2022
Just over a year ago, President Joe Biden joined with Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, to announce the Global Methane Pledge — an effort to cut global methane emissions by 30 percent in the next decade. Methane is a greenhouse gas some 80 to 90 times more powerful than carbon dioxide during the first 20 years it spends in the atmosphere. It’s emitted by many diffuse sources, the biggest culprits being farms and oil and gas infrastructure. More than 100 countries signed onto the pledge.
But a new report out this week finds that the U.S., E.U. members, and other nations that joined the pledge have plans to keep replacing their coal-fired power plants with natural gas plants — a trend the authors say will make meeting the pledge impossible. Methane is the main component in natural gas and is known to leak out of wells, pipelines, and other infrastructure on the way to natural gas power plants.
“Calling gas ‘clean’ or ‘green’ will never change the fact that it’s just as bad for the climate, and in some cases worse, than coal,” said Jenny Martos, a project manager at Global Energy Monitor and one of the authors, in a press release. Global Energy Monitor is a nonprofit research organization that identifies and maps existing and proposed energy projects. The new report is based on data from its Global Gas Plant Tracker.
[…] The report found that East Asia has the most coal-to-gas switching projects, followed by Europe and North America. However, of the three regions, the U.S. is investing the most money in new natural gas infrastructure — an estimated $389 billion, with $257 billion going toward new liquified natural gas export terminals. The Biden administration has promised to expedite permitting of these facilities in order to send more natural gas to Europe in an effort to help the region reduce its dependence on Russian natural gas in the wake of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
» Read article
» Read the report
The best policies to help coal towns weather the switch to renewables
A new report singles out Colorado, Illinois and New Mexico as trailblazers in just-transition laws. Could fossil strongholds Wyoming and West Virginia follow suit?
By Alison F. Takemura, Canary Media
October 3, 2022
In the face of competition from cheaper and cleaner sources of energy, coal mines and plants have been shutting down across the U.S. for the past decade.
“We’ve lost 45,000 coal [mining] jobs since 2012,” said Jeremy Richardson, manager of the carbon-free electricity program at RMI, a clean-energy think tank. The energy transition “is already happening.” (Canary Media is an independent affiliate of RMI.)
For towns living through this transition, it can be devastating. Coal workers lose well-paying jobs, and communities lose a bedrock of their economies. How communities weather these choppy seas depends on the level of support they receive, which varies from state to state. That’s one of the takeaways of a new report by RMI, which analyzed 16 bills passed by states since 2011, all aimed at easing the transition away from fossil fuels and into the clean energy economy.
The report’s findings enable lawmakers to learn from what has been done before to support a just transition for coal communities, Richardson told Canary Media.
Three states in particular stand out for their policies, according to Richardson: Colorado, New Mexico and Illinois. Here’s what they’re getting right.
» Read article
» Read the RMI report
CLIMATE
How climate change is fueling destructive storms like Ian
By Dharna Noor, Boston Globe
September 29, 2022
Tropical Storm Ian charted a path of destruction across Florida on Thursday. It’s now headed up toward the Carolinas, where it’s expected to wreak more havoc.
Scientists haven’t yet attributed the storm to climate change, but it certainly bears hallmarks of the crisis.
Ian intensified by 67 percent in less than 22 hours from Monday to Tuesday. Then, from Tuesday night to Wednesday morning, Ian quickly strengthened from a Category 3 storm to nearly a Category 5.
This kind of “rapid intensification,” as scientists call it, used to be exceedingly rare. But it’s becoming more common amid the climate crisis, which is pushing up ocean temperatures.
Technically, rapid intensification indicates an increase of at least 35 miles per hour in the maximum sustained winds over 24 hours. Ian officially met that threshold on Monday.
Storms pick up speed when they move over warm parts of oceans — it’s why they so often form in the tropics. Ian, in particular, gained steam fast when it moved over warm waters in the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico.
As we burn fossil fuels and spew out greenhouse gases, oceans are heating up, so this kind of intensification is happening more.
Since the 1980s, the likelihood of a hurricane undergoing rapid intensification has increased from 1 percent to 5 percent, studies show. Since 2017, 30 other Atlantic tropical storms have undergone rapid intensification.
Climate change is also heating up air temperatures. Warmer air can hold more water vapor, meaning storms are getting wetter, raising the risk of damages from floods.
» Read article
CLEAN ENERGY
This 100% solar community endured Hurricane Ian with no loss of power and minimal damage
By Rachel Ramirez, CNN
October 2, 2022
Anthony Grande moved away from Fort Myers three years ago in large part because of the hurricane risk. He has lived in southwest Florida for nearly 19 years, had experienced Hurricanes Charley in 2004 and Irma in 2017 and saw what stronger storms could do to the coast.
Grande told CNN he wanted to find a new home where developers prioritized climate resiliency in a state that is increasingly vulnerable to record-breaking storm surge, catastrophic wind and historic rainfall.
What he found was Babcock Ranch — only 12 miles northeast of Fort Myers, yet seemingly light years away.
Babcock Ranch calls itself “America’s first solar-powered town.” Its nearby solar array — made up of 700,000 individual panels — generates more electricity than the 2,000-home neighborhood uses, in a state where most electricity is generated by burning natural gas, a planet-warming fossil fuel.
The streets in this meticulously planned neighborhood were designed to flood so houses don’t. Native landscaping along roads helps control storm water. Power and internet lines are buried to avoid wind damage. This is all in addition to being built to Florida’s robust building codes.
Some residents, like Grande, installed more solar panels on their roofs and added battery systems as an extra layer of protection from power outages. Many drive electric vehicles, taking full advantage of solar energy in the Sunshine State.
Climate resiliency was built into the fabric of the town with stronger storms in mind.
So when Hurricane Ian came barreling toward southwest Florida this week, it was a true test for the community. The storm obliterated the nearby Fort Myers and Naples areas with record-breaking surge and winds over 100 mph. It knocked out power to more than 2.6 million customers in the state, including 90% of Charlotte County.
But the lights stayed on in Babcock Ranch.
» Read article
Wave energy machines on Australian south coast would slash renewable energy costs, CSIRO says
Report commissioned by Wave Swell Energy says the machines would make a future clean electricity grid more stable and more reliable
By Graham Readfearn, The Guardian
October 4, 2022
» Read article
ENERGY EFFICIENCY
Maine program aims to help small towns electrify heat in public buildings
Efficiency Maine announced the availability of $4 million in grants to help communities with fewer than 5,000 residents install heat pumps and other energy saving measures in public buildings.
By Sarah Shemkus, Energy News Network
October 4, 2022
A new grant program in Maine aims to help accelerate the transition to electric heat pumps in the state’s smallest towns.
In August, Efficiency Maine announced a $4 million program to help towns with fewer than 5,000 residents cut energy use in public buildings.
Though the plan is modest in size, organizers hope it will help accelerate the move from fossil fuels to electrified heat across the state.
“We just need to spur this market transformation,” said Michael Stoddard, executive director of Efficiency Maine. “These public dollars are incredibly helpful to get that going.”
The program, funded through the federal American Rescue Plan, is part of a recent focus by Efficiency Maine on helping underserved communities access the benefits of energy efficiency and clean energy technology. This summer, the agency announced an $8 million initiative to help pay for electric vehicle chargers in rural areas.
The latest program focuses on a particularly pressing issue for Maine: The need to transition to a cleaner heating fuel. The state experiences cold winters – temperatures routinely drop below zero – and some 60% of households in the state use heating oil to stay warm, the highest proportion of any state in the country. Heating oil is among the dirtiest heating fuels available and prices, which have long been volatile, have doubled in the past year.
Widespread adoption of electric heat pumps is a major part of the state’s environmental agenda. The only emissions associated with heat pumps are those produced by the electricity that powers them. And the cost of using heat pumps is typically well below that of using heating oil. In 2019, Maine set a goal of installing 100,000 heat pumps by 2025, a target it is well on the way to meeting.
As adoption continues to grow, Efficiency Maine wants to make sure that smaller towns and cities have a chance to get in on the financial and environmental benefits.
» Read article
Investigation triggers fresh fight over New Hampshire efficiency programs
The state’s consumer advocate says an investigation into energy efficiency programs by state utility regulators “is a direct affront” to legislation from earlier this year that codified the programs into state law.
By Lisa Prevost, Energy News Network
October 5, 2022
An investigation by New Hampshire utility regulators into the state’s energy efficiency programs is drawing loud objections from the state consumer advocate, the utilities that operate the programs, and efficiency advocates.
It was less than a year ago that the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission issued a now infamous order that rejected the utilities’ proposed three-year plan to expand the ratepayer-funded programs, which operate under the umbrella NHSaves. Instead, the commission slashed the rates that support the programs and said cuts would continue in the future in order to transition to “market-based” programs.
That decision prompted lawsuits, widespread criticism and cries of foul from energy contractors with jobs in the pipeline. In response, state lawmakers came up with a legislative solution, passed early this year, that established funding levels going forward for NHSaves, although at levels considerably lower than had been anticipated.
The statute, known as House Bill 549, sets a deadline of July 1, 2023, for the utilities to submit their next Triennial Energy Efficiency Plan, which will outline the 2024-2026 spending plan for services such as energy audits, home weatherization, and appliance rebates, for commission approval.
But about two months ago, the commission issued a notice that it is opening an investigation ahead of that filing to explore “whether changes to current efficiency programming, planning, performance incentives, and evaluation are warranted.”
The proceeding “is a direct affront” to the legislative directives in HB 549, said Donald Kreis, the state consumer advocate, in a motion calling for the cancellation of the proceeding.
[…] HB 549 sets the parameters for NHSaves, including funding levels, the method for measuring cost-effectiveness, and utility filing requirements. Yet the investigative docket “seems to question what was set in statute,” said Nick Krakoff, a staff attorney for the Conservation Law Foundation, an intervenor in the proceeding.
For example, he said, “the statute establishes the primary test to be used to determine cost-effectiveness. So really that should be the end of the matter. That the commission seems to want to reexamine that is very concerning.”
» Read article
» Read NH-PUC’s order
» Read HB 549
ENERGY STORAGE
Prototype system for sorting battery cells for second life energy storage systems developed in UK
By Cameron Murray, Energy Storage News
October 3, 2022
A prototype system that can test and sort used battery cells for second life applications has been developed by four companies in the UK in a government-funded initiative.
The system, pictured above, relies on a combination of robotics, software and automation to detect the health of individual cells taken from end-of-life battery projects like EVs.
The project has been underway since May 2021 and was part-funded by Innovate UK, the UK’s innovation agency. It involved four companies and organisations including Aceleron, the battery energy storage system solution company which designs its systems to be easy to disassemble and re-purpose.
Other participants include Innvotek, a specialist in the automation of inspection, maintenance and the digitisation of processes; MEV, an ultrasonics specialist company providing equipment and expertise in operating systems and bespoke application software; and the Brunel Innovation Centre, part of Brunel University.
The companies said the prototype has the potential to significantly reduce the unnecessary waste of the raw materials used to build batteries.
Carlton Cummins, Aceleron’s CTO and co-founder said that at the end-of-life point, half of the battery cells in an EV battery will typically still have a state of health higher than 80% which could give them a lifetime of a decade or more in the stationary energy storage sector.
Second life solutions company Connected Energy’s CEO Matthew Lumsden, who Energy-Storage.news recently interviewed, says that a 25% degraded battery is still good for ten years of energy storage.
Cummins added: “As we increasingly turn to electricity to power our lives, the issue of battery waste is of serious concern and this new system has the potential to preserve cells that would otherwise have been discarded. With Lithium shortages being forecast as soon as 2035, this machine has enormous potential to preserve what is left – and ensure that we maximise the use of the raw materials used to make battery products.”
» Read article
CLEAN TRANSPORTATION
The American EV boom is about to begin. Does the US have the power to charge it?
States have plans to ban gas-powered cars and the White House wants chargers along highways, but implementation is a challenge
By John Surico, The Guardian
October 3, 2022
» Read article
FOSSIL FUEL INDUSTRY
‘Reckless’ coal firms plan climate-busting expansion, study finds
Coal is the most polluting of all fossil fuels and investors must stop funding it, say campaigners
By Damian Carrington, The Guardian
October 6, 2022
» Read article
PLASTICS RECYCLING
The Plastics Industry Searches for a ‘Circular’ Way to Cut Plastic Waste and Make More Plastics
Environmentalists smell a ruse, saying the industry’s talk of “advanced recycling” is nothing more than a fancy approach to a dirty business, incinerating plastics.
By James Bruggers, Inside Climate News
September 30, 2022
CHICAGO—Plastics executives embraced climate solutions at a major industry conference here last week and said they were betting on “advanced recycling” as a green response to the plastic waste problem, despite market headwinds and growing opposition from environmentalists.
But their version of climate solutions involves making and using more plastic products, and their push for advanced recycling—also known as chemical recycling—will require industry-friendly legislation and subsidies, company officials said at GPS + PEPP, the industry gathering put on by a Dow Jones Company, Chemical Market Analytics by OPIS.
For too long, the plastics executives acknowledged, their industry has been a “linear” economy, in which plastic products are made from fossil fuels and then end up as litter or waste in landfills, waterways and incinerators. In the United States, less than 6 percent of plastic waste is recycled.
The alternative, they said, is a “circular” plastics economy that produces little or no waste once various plastic waste products are heated and treated with chemicals that turn them into fuels or new plastic feedstocks, although the processes for doing this are new and, so far, largely unproven.
[…] Inside a dimly lit conference room at the Radisson Blu Chicago hotel, speakers described the plastics industry as anything but an environmental health menace.
“It’s time for the industry to keep talking about not only are we against (plastics) bans, but what we can say ‘yes’ for,” said John Thayer, senior vice president of sales and marketing for NOVA Chemicals, a plastics manufacturer owned by Mubadala Investment Company of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
And that, he said, includes defending plastics as a solution to climate change. Thayer cited a recent report from the consulting firm McKinsey & Co. that found in 13 of 14 applications it analyzed, plastics had a smaller carbon footprint than nonplastic alternatives, like paper, glass and wood.
Environmentalists say such life cycle analyses can be misleading and inaccurate because there are no widely agreed upon methods or standards for evaluation. Plastics, they note, are made from fossil fuels, which drive climate change.
The International Energy Agency has called plastics and petrochemical production “the blind spot” of the global energy system, with those sectors set to account for more than a third of the growth in world oil demand through 2030, and nearly half the growth through 2050, as well as spurring new natural gas production.
Other reports have found plastics production is actually replacing coal as a major climate threat.
» Read article
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No Fracked Gas in Mass 