It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Friday, March 05, 2021
Greenpeace paints Air France jet green in daring eco-stunt
Nine Greenpeace activists were arrested for vandalizing an Air France jet with green paint Friday as part of an eco-protest that raised concerns about airport security
ByThe Associated Press
5 March 2021, 09:35
• 2 min read
PARIS -- Nine Greenpeace activists were arrested Friday for vandalizing an Air France jet with green paint in an airport eco-protest that raised concerns about security.
Aeroports de Paris (ADP), the body that runs Paris’ airports, said the activists got inside Charles de Gaulle airport by scaling a fence at the edge of the tarmac.
With an extendable paint roller, they painted on one side of an Air France Boeing 777, which was parked without passengers, before climbing on the jet. Several of the activists refused to climb down off the plane despite orders from security personnel.
ADP said the demonstrators "were immediately intercepted and contained by the police. They were therefore unable to access the runways. Aviation safety has not been compromised and air traffic continues normally.”
Greenpeace said that the stunt was carried out to raise awareness on “greenwashing” of climate change and environmental regulation. It also said it was organized ahead of a climate bill debate in the French Parliament.
“We would like to firmly remind you that the technological innovations so much praised by the Minister for Transport, Jean-Baptiste Djebbari, will not be enough to stem the climate crisis,” the group said in a tweet.
The National Airline Pilots Union (SNPL) was quick to denounce the stunt, saying that the “intrusion into the airport’s secure area” and “deliberate vandalizing” of an aircraft will result in heavy costs to get the plane cleaned.
The SNPL also defended the aviation industry again the activists' claims. It said: “Today, companies buy planes that consume between 2 and 3 liters per passenger per 100 km, which is the consumption of a hybrid car.”
UNION JOBS
Mandatory COVID-19 testing in place as thousands return to LNG work sites, camps in northern B.C.
More than 3,000 industrial workers are set to arrive this month at work camps and construction sites at an energy mega project in northern B.C., with the majority coming from outside the region.
That's according to LNG Canada and Coastal GasLink, as work on their $46-billion natural gas pipeline and LNG export terminal ramps up after slowdowns caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The influx of workers has raised concerns from health officials and residents in the area about the risk of coronavirus transmission in communities close to work sites and camps.
But LNG Canada and Coastal GasLink, who are partners in the project to move natural gas from northeast B.C. to the province's North Coast for export to Asia, say that's being mitigated by the rollout of mandatory COVID testing for all workers, whether they're symptomatic or not.
Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry permitted LNG Canada and Coastal GasLink to gradually increase the number of workers on site earlier this year, under stringent conditions. By the end of March, the number of people working on the pipeline and export terminal is scheduled to increase to almost 6,000 from fewer than 1,000 at the start of the year.
Even while operating with reduced staff, the mega project wasn't immune to the spread of COVID-19.
Northern Health declared four different COVID-19 outbreaks at Coastal GasLink and LNG Canada work sites or camps between November and January, with a total of 128 workers infected. Airport testing
To allay fears of potential future outbreaks, company-funded rapid testing is ramping up for fly-in workers from outside the region, with testing in place at airports in Vancouver, Nanaimo, Kelowna, Calgary, Edmonton, and Ontario.
An LNG Canada spokesperson says the company has already administered antigen tests to 1,700 workers before they boarded charter flights at the Edmonton and Calgary airports.
The company said out-of-town workers are prohibited from leaving the job site except to return home on their days off, and they will be re-tested each time they return to the region. They're also barred from visiting local businesses.
Local workers will be tested every three weeks, said LNG Canada, which is already operating three on-site private health clinics with COVID-19 isolation wings.
Coastal GasLink said it has started testing employees at two work camps using PCR testing, which can deliver results within 48 hours, and plans to expand that to workers along the pipeline's 670-kilometre construction route.
"This is another layer of protection, to keep our workforce and communities safe," said Michael Gibb, Coastal GasLink's director of health, safety and security.
Previously, the private sector wasn't able to requisition test kits and labs, Gibb said.
"In the early days of the pandemic, any available testing and supplies, the government immediately grabbed, as they should, for public health," he said. 'Cadillac private health system'
But Dr. David Bowering, a retired chief medical health officer with Northern Health who lives in the region, says the elevated risk of transmission remains.
He also said it's unfair that mega projects like these can afford to "import this deluxe, Cadillac private health system and level of testing," while the public health system is "rationing COVID testing for people just doing ordinary things like trying to run restaurants and stores."
"It doesn't feel right, the granting of essential service status to these huge projects ... while everything else stops and shuts down and changes so dramatically," Bowering said.
Coastal GasLink's Gibb said it's up to public health officials to determine if there's a need for expanded community testing.
Last year, LNG Canada donated $500,000 for COVID-19 response measures in Kitimat, Terrace, and local Indigenous communities.
District of Kitimat Mayor Phil Germuth welcomes the return of workers to his community, where the LNG export terminal is under construction.
"It's good to see they're going to start ramping up again and get the project back on track," Germuth told CBC News. "Honestly, I haven't had a single person come to me with concerns."
Germuth said LNG Canada's new testing protocols make him "very confident that ... everything will go as smoothly as it can."
Three other large industrial projects in northern B.C. have also been granted permission by provincial health officials to increase their work force.
A spokesperson for the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project said the company expects as many as 1,000 workers will be on the job in the Valemount area, between Jasper and Prince George, within the next three months, as work proceeds on twinning an oil pipeline between Alberta and Burnaby, B.C..
In the Kitimat area, Rio Tinto's B.C. Works project is planning for a "gradual ramp-up ... when it is safe to do so," a company spokesperson told CBC News.
A spokesperson for BC Hydro's Site C dam project near Fort St. John said the number of workers on site is expected to increase to more than 2,300 in the coming weeks, with additional workers expected in summer.
U.S. ITC criticizes Ford for pursuing SK Innovation battery deals
WASHINGTON/SEOUL (Reuters) - The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) on Thursday criticized Ford Motor Co for pursuing battery contracts with SK Innovation after evidence had emerged the South Korean electric vehicle (EV) battery maker misappropriated trade secrets from cross-town rival LG Chem.
The ITC last month sided with LG Chem in its trade secrets claims, issuing a limited 10-year exclusion order prohibiting imports into the United States of lithium-ion batteries by SK Innovation (SK). It permitted SK to import components for domestic production of batteries for Ford's EV F-150 program for four years, and for Volkswagen of America’s MEB electric vehicle line for North America for two years.
In a redacted version of its full 96-page opinion Thursday, the ITC questioned why the second largest U.S. automaker had continued to pursue battery contracts with SK Innovation "after SK's misconduct in this investigation had come to light."
It said Ford had sought business with SK even after a company employee in November 2019 was deposed in the commission's investigation and at a time when it only had a contract with SK to supply batteries for the EV F-150.
"There is no explanation in the record why Ford would choose to ignore or excuse SK's egregious misconduct," the ITC added. "The fault here belongs with SK, as well as with those, like Ford, who deliberately chose to continue to cultivate prospective business relationships predicated on SK's trade secret misappropriation."
The ITC also rejected Ford's request to extend exemptions to Ford's unannounced new EVs.
"Ford's basis for extending the exemption is to take advantage of economies of scope by using similar SK batteries with misappropriated technologies across several unnamed vehicles," it said. "The commission finds the evidence concerning the public interest does not support Ford’s request."
Ford declined to comment on Thursday, referring to its previous statement that the ITC decision supported its efforts to bring its EV Ford F-150 to market in mid-2022.
SK Innovation has warned previously that the decision would force it to halt construction of a $2.6 billion battery plant in Georgia if not overturned by President Joe Biden.
It said on Friday the finding could destroy thousands of high-tech green energy jobs, frustrate plans to protect the environment and "endanger U.S. national security" by making it more dependent on Chinese companies for batteries.
"Thankfully, it is entirely within the discretion of the Biden administration to undo it," SK said.
LG Chem noted the ITC ruling found SK misappropriated LG trade secrets "worth billions of dollars spanning the entire electric vehicle battery business... The release of the ITC's decision puts to rest any questions of whether SK Innovation did anything wrong — they did, repeatedly, and now they must be held accountable."
The ITC said SK Innovation was at least a decade behind LG Chem citing "the very large volume of stolen trade secret documentation, and the expertise improperly acquired by (SK Innovation) from the former LG Chem employees it hired away."
The ITC also found the "investigation demonstrates not merely SK's eagerness to destroy documents, but also SK's callous disregard to ascertain the scope of the destruction after the commencement" of ITC proceedings.
SK Innovation shares fell as much as 6.3% in morning trade, hitting their lowest since mid-January, while LG Chem shares rose 3.7% against a 0.8% decline in the broader KOSPI.
VW has sought at least a four-year extension like Ford.
The ITC opinion said "VW's preference for less expensive batteries using misappropriated LG trade secrets — in perpetuity, no less — is not a compelling public interest."
VW said Thursday the "ruling will only limit competition, reduce U.S. battery capacity, hurt consumers and cost American jobs. Our team is working with the U.S. Trade Representative to avoid these consequences."
(Reporting by David Shepardson in Washington and Heekyong Yang in Seoul; editing by Richard Pullin)
What's really driving coal power's demise
Jeffrey York, Associate Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship, University of Colorado Boulder and David Drake, Assistant Professor of Strategy, Entrepreneurship and Operations Management, University of Colorado Boulder
The use of coal for electric power has been declining fast in the U.S.AP Photo/J. David AkeMon, March 1, 2021
The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work.
The big idea
People often point to plunging natural gas prices as the reason U.S. coal-fired power plants have been shutting down at a faster pace in recent years. However, new research shows two other forces had a much larger effect: federal regulation and a well-funded activist campaign that launched in 2011 with the goal of ending coal power.
We studied the retirement of U.S. coal-fired units from January 2008 to September 2016 and compared the effects of various market factors, regulations and activism on their early closure. In all, 348 coal-fired units either retired or switched to natural gas during that time.
Among the many pressures on coal power that we reviewed, a federal regulation implemented in 2015 had the biggest overall effect. The Cross State Air Pollution Rule requires states to reduce soot and smog pollution that blows across states lines, including from power plants. We estimate that it was responsible for reducing the expected production life of the coal power units that it affected by a total of 1,170 years.
The campaign works by generating public pressure on utilities and state and local politicians to close down coal-fired units, often through targeted lawsuits. When the Beyond Coal campaign targeted a coal-fired unit, we found that the unit’s life expectancy, normally 50-60 years, was reduced by an average of just over two years.
The Cross State Air Pollution Rule was the second-biggest factor per individual plant, though it affected more plants. It reduced the expected life span of each coal-fired generating unit that it affected by an estimated average of about 21 months.
We were surprised to find that neither low natural gas prices nor the adoption of renewable energy significantly reduced the life of coal units. Both have been widely touted by politicians and business leaders as the market-based drivers of coal plant retirement.
Falling natural gas prices had little impact on coal-fired power plant closures.David Drake and Jeffrey York, CC BY-ND
However, while adoption of renewable energy alone did not reduce coal units’ life spans, the average use of each source of renewable energy in an area did have a significant impact. Coal units operating in regions with high average renewable energy use retired an average of 15 months earlier.
It is important to note that a large number of coal plants were already nearing the end of their lifecycles during this period. But through statistical modeling, we were able to isolate the impact of each of these interventions on accelerating the retirement of a given unit.
Why it matters
A rapid transition away from carbon-intensive energy sources such as coal is essential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that are warming the planet. Burning coal releases nearly twice as much carbon dioxide per unit of energy produced as natural gas does, and natural gas’s contribution to global warming is significant.
From 2011 through 2018, coal-fired generating capacity in the U.S. contracted by 23%. We estimate that the emissions impact of the accelerated retirements we studied was equivalent to taking 38 million typical passenger cars off the road.
The Biden administration has already halted new leases for coal, oil and gas extraction on federal lands. And its climate task force – which includes the Cabinet-level department and agency heads – met inFebruary to start coordinating governmentwide climate change solutions. Those likely will include new regulations and could include a price on carbon.
What’s next
Our current work sheds light on where responsibility lies for the acceleration of coal-fired power unit retirements through late 2016.
Next, we are interested in expanding on our findings about differences between renewable energy use and initial adoption. Understanding how to increase use of renewable sources, while creating new businesses and jobs, is a critical research agenda for addressing climate change.
Shale’s Private Army Ramping Up Means Supply Wild Card for OPEC
David Wethe, Kevin Crowley and Sheela Tobben Mon, March 1, 2021
(Bloomberg) -- The battered and bruised U.S. shale industry is finding a resurgence in one of the most unlikely places: private operators most investors have never heard of.
Take the case of little known, closely held DoublePoint Energy. It’s now running more rigs in the Permian Basin than giant Chevron Corp. Meanwhile, family-owned Mewbourne Oil Co. has about the same number of rigs as Exxon Mobil Corp.
That’s emblematic of what’s happening across the industry. Once minor players, private drillers held half the share of the horizontal rig count as of December. It’s the first time in the modern shale era that they have risen to the level of the supermajors.
That’s happening when, after years of unwieldy supply growth, the big guys are finally starting to show restraint. They’ve dialed back drilling after the pandemic sent oil prices into collapse. Now that the market is on the rise again, the majors and publicly-traded counterparts are mostly sticking to the mantra of discipline, all but ending shale’s decade-long assault on OPEC for market share.
But private operators’ ambitious growth plans present the cartel with a wild card as prices rebound and it attempts to lift its own production.
“It’s amazing on both fronts: private companies are getting so much bigger than we ever thought they would and the publics are drilling so much less than we ever thought they would,” said Wil Vanloh, co-founder of the private equity firm Quantum Energy Partners, whose portfolio companies have combined for 18 rigs, trailing only EOG Resources Inc. for most in the nation.
With oil prices up close to 30% in the past two months, traders and analysts are watching shale producers closely for signs that they’re opening the spigots. Most big publicly traded explorers are listening to investors’ pleas and planning to keep production flat. But the contrast in output strategy from the private companies underscores just how anarchic the oil market is.
America’s oil production currently stands at about 9.7 million barrels a day, about 3 million barrels a day less than a year ago before prices collapsed, according to the Department of Energy. That means the U.S. lost production equivalent to Iran and Angola combined, or two Gulf of Mexicos, in just 12 months.
The question is where does it go from here. A Bloomberg survey of major forecasters including Enverus and Rystad Energy showed a variance of 700,000 barrels a day, more than half of Nigeria’s production, indicating how much uncertainty surrounds large, private producers whose plans are mostly shielded from public view.
If private drillers keep expanding at their current pace, it could eventually mean that U.S. production ends up on the higher end of analyst forecasts. And that, of course, could weigh on prices.
“In a few months, a lot of private operators will return in an aggressive manner to add wells and rigs because they are able to realize returns faster as oil prices are improving,” said Artem Abramov, head of shale research at Rystad.
The private drillers are on pace to spend $3 billion in just the first three months of this year, doubling from their lowest levels of 2020, according to industry data provider Lium.
The spending spree is leading to a rig resurgence. The number of U.S. drilling rigs that can bore a hole a mile deep and turn sideways for another two miles has steadily improved since history’s worst crude-price crash forced a 15-year low in August. Most of that growth has come from the private companies.
The private drillers reached a record 50% share of the horizontal rig count in December, up from 40% a year earlier.
“We are expecting output to start growing from the second half of this year, and that will likely come more from drilling by private companies than public ones,” said Bernadette Johnson, vice president for strategy and analytics at Enverus.
DoublePoint Energy, backed by investors including Quantum, has doubled production to about 80,000 barrels a day in the past year and expects to increase to more than 100,000 barrels a day over the next few months, according to Co-Chief Executive Officer Cody Campbell.
“The publics are under a lot pressure to be disciplined with the capital they spend,” Campbell said in an interview. “They don’t have the freedom to go after returns like we can.”
That freedom means the private operators could also become more of a thorn in the side of OPEC+ if they keep expanding over the next six months to a year, said Daniel Cruise, a partner at Lium. The producer group, which meets on March 4 to discuss strategy, has been withholding barrels to support the market even as some key members disagree on the path forward.
“If these guys stay out in the field and keep pumping and shale goes up, then that presents a whole other thing for OPEC,” Cruise said.
Saudis, Russia Differ Again on Oil Strategy Before OPEC+ Meeting
Some of the discipline on the part of the publicly-traded independents comes from experience.
For years, companies pledged sky-high returns even when oil was as low as $50 a barrel. But those promises were never kept. Over the past decade, shale oil and gas producers burned through more than $300 billion in capital spending above the cash generated from oil revenues, according to Deloitte LLP. That resulted in massive flows of oil but little in the way of financial returns to investors.
Indeed, oil’s dizzying collapse last year is still fresh in the minds of many, and shareholders are quick to punish the producers they think are getting too aggressive. Matador Resources Co. was widely questioned when it recently announced plans to add one rig to its Permian Basin holdings. The stock fell as much as 10% after the announcement.
Meanwhile, private equity-backed companies are being driven to pump harder than ever before because of a more complicated exit strategy.
Many of these suppliers started up around 2014 to 2017. At the time, it was enough for a private driller to acquire some land, put in a few wells, and they’d quickly get bought up in a lucrative sale as the public producers tried to increase reserves.
But with the decline in prices, it takes a lot more for a private driller to look attractive enough to tempt the now more-disciplined majors. Many private companies have little choice but to expand output and increase cash flow in the hope that they can lure public companies down the line when oil markets and valuations improve.
“You’ve got Major League Baseball and you’ve got the minor leagues, and the private equity backed companies were kind of like the minors,” Vanloh of Quantum said. “They were serving up opportunity, aggregating land, drilling some wells, proving some things up, but they didn’t really want to run a large-scale drilling program.”
The private companies insist they won’t fall victim to shale’s past losses because all the operational difficulties have now been worked out of the major basins, making it easier to run large rig programs.
REAL BIPARTISASHIP AGAINST PROGRESSIVE IDEAS Republicans and majority of Democrats vote to keep incarcerated people from participating in elections
Charles Davis Tue, March 2, 2021
Cook County jail detainees check in before casting their votes after a polling place was opened in the facility for early voting on October 17, 2020 in Chicago, Illinois. It was the first time pretrial detainees in the jail will get the opportunity for early voting in a general election. Nuccio DiNuzzo/Getty ImagesMore
Progressive Democrats introduced a measure Tuesday to give incarcerated people the right to vote.
The amendment, to major voting rights legislation, failed by a 93-278 vote.
It received no Republican support. A majority of Democrats also voted against it.
"America does not love all its people," Rep. Cori Bush, a progressive Democrat from Missouri, argued on the floor of the House, saying that more than 5 million Americans are prevented from taking part in an election because they are currently incarcerated.
On Tuesday, Bush and Rep. Mondaire Jones, a New York Democrat, offered an amendment to sweeping voting rights legislation, HR 1. The legislation, as written, would already restore that right for those with felony convictions, but not for those who are now behind bars - one in six of whom are Black.
"This cannot continue," Bush said. "Disenfranchising our own citizens is not justice."
The amendment failed. No Republican supported the amendment, and most Democrats opposed it too, leading it to be put down by a vote of 97 to 328.
As it stands, only two states, Maine and Vermont, as well as the District of Columbia never take away the right to vote, even when someone is incarcerated. But, per the National Conference of State Legislatures, 30 states disenfranchise anyone with a felony conviction, even after they have served their prison sentence. And while voting rights are sometimes restored later, there are often additional obstacles.
In Florida, for example, a sweeping majority of voters in 2018 approved a constitutional amendment restoring the right to vote for convicted felons who were no longer imprisoned. But the Republican-controlled legislature eviscerated the measure, requiring those with felonies on their record - disproportionately Black, overwhelmingly Democratic - to pay off any related fines before they could participate in an election again. According to The New York Times, as many as 80% are financially unable to do so.
Despite being denied the right to vote, those who are imprisoned do count: the US Census considers them residents of whichever place they are incarcerated in, meaning Black and Latino prisoners often help boost the congressional representation of largely white, rural populations.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren, chair of the House committee that oversees federal elections, noted that HR 1 would end that practice. Under the bill, incarcerated people would be counted, instead, as residents of their own hometowns. But she said that granting them the right to vote appealed to her sense of justice.
"If you're going to count the individuals for redistricting purposes, in their prisons, then I think they ought to be allowed to vote there," Lofgren commented. "Further, it occurs to me, those who oppose it think that denying a vote would somehow be a deterrent to criminal conduct. In fact, empowering people to be full citizens encourages rehabilitation."
In the meantime, Republicans, in power at the state level, are pushing to roll back access to voting. In Georgia, the GOP, most recently stung by a Democratic sweep of its two Senate seats, is pushing to restrict early voting and limit mail-in ballots.
And at the US Supreme Court, Arizona Republicans are defending a rule that throws out the vote of anyone who casts a ballot somewhere other than their designated polling place. As a lawyer for the party said Tuesday, lifting that restriction "puts us at a competitive disadvantage relative to Democrats." Politics, after all, "is a zero-sum game."
A new bipartisan bill backed by more than a dozen lawmakers would ban members of Congress from trading individual stocks.
Senate Banking Committee Chairman Sherrod Brown (D., Ohio.), Sen. Jeff Merkley (D., Ore.) and Sen. Rafael Warnock (D., Ga.) introduced the bill in the Senate on Wednesday.
Several Democratic lawmakers —including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.), Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D., Ill.) — along with Republicans Rep. Matt Gaetz (R., Fla.) and Rep. Michael Cloud (R., Texas) are pushing the bill in the House.
The Ban Conflicting Trading Act would prohibit members of Congress and senior congressional staff from buying or selling individual stocks and other investments. It would also keep them from serving on corporate boards while in office.
"A lot of members of Congress are still buying or selling individual stocks, and if it isn't a reality, there's a very strong appearance of basically trading based on non-public information," said Krishnamoorthi in an interview with Yahoo Finance Live.
The bill would require new members to sell individual holdings within six months of their election and current lawmakers would have to sell their stocks within six months of the bill's enactment. If they don't want to sell, current lawmakers could hold their investments while in office (with no option to trade until they leave office) — or transfer them to a blind trust.
“As elected representatives, we each have a constitutional obligation to honor the public trust we have been given. Members of Congress should not be permitted to abuse the role in order to make financial gains," said Cloud in a statement.
The bill's backers argue lawmakers and senior staffers have access to to advance notice of investigations, hearings and legislation that could impact stock prices. Last year, several senators came under fire for selling stock ahead of the coronavirus-related downturn. The Department of Justice investigated those senators and ultimately decided not to pursue any charges.
The STOCK Act, passed during the Obama administration, explicitly forbids members of Congress from trading on non-public information — but the new bill would hold lawmakers to a higher standard.
"One of the reasons folks are routinely cleared is because the law [the STOCK Act]... has such a high threshold of what is required in order to establish intent with regard to why people traded their stock, that it's nearly impossible to find people guilty," said Krishnamoorthi.
Though lawmakers have tried to pass bills to ban lawmakers from trading in the past, Krishnamoorthi said he's optimistic now that the effort has bipartisan support. He also argues Americans are becoming more aware of the issue. Krishnamoorthi pointed to a Data for Progress poll that found 67% of Americans support banning lawmakers from holding individual stocks.
"I think they're demanding we make these changes," he said.
If the bill becomes law, lawmakers could still hold diversified mutual funds or exchange-traded funds.
Jessica Smith is chief political correspondent for Yahoo Finance, based in Washington, D.C. Follow her on Twitter at @JessicaASmith8.
