Brazil’s Bolsonaro faces more corruption accusations

President Jair Bolsonaro is accused of involvement in scheme to skim his aides’ salaries, news website UOL reported.

Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro looks on during a ceremony at the Planalto Palace in Brasilia, Brazil, on June 29 [Adriano Machado/Reuters]

5 Jul 2021

Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro has been accused of being involved in a scheme to skim salaries of his aides while a federal deputy, Brazilian website UOL reported on Monday, heaping more political pressure on the far-right leader.

Citing what it said were audio recordings of Bolsonaro’s former sister-in-law explaining his role in the alleged racket, UOL said the racket involved hiring close associates as employees and then receiving a cut of their public salaries back from them.
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The UOL report is the first time Bolsonaro has been directly implicated in such a scheme, known locally as rachadinha.

Rio de Janeiro state prosecutors have formally pressed charges against federal Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, the president’s eldest son, over his alleged participation in a similar racket when he was a state lawmaker.

Monday’s report comes as Bolsonaro is facing widespread public anger and mass protests over his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic – and fielding questions about alleged corruption in the government’s vaccine procurement efforts.

The populist leader was elected in 2018 on a promise to root out corruption after several high-profile scandals rocked Brazil.

But Bolsonaro’s handling of the coronavirus, which has killed more than 524,000 people across the South American nation, has caused a steep decline in his popularity – and he faces a Senate commission investigation into his government’s pandemic policies.

Thousands of people protested across Brazil during the weekend to demand his resignation over the crisis.

Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Rosa Weber also on Saturday authorised a criminal investigation into Bolsonaro’s response to allegations of potential corruption within his health ministry in the process of procuring an Indian COVID-19 vaccine.

He has been implicated in alleged irregularities surrounding a 1.6 billion reais ($315m) contract signed in February with a Brazilian intermediary of the vaccine’s maker, Indian pharma company Bharat Biotech, for 20 million doses. Bolsonaro has denied any wrongdoing.

The UOL report is based on audio recordings of Bolsonaro’s former sister-in-law, Andrea Siqueira Valle, provided by a source.

A woman holds a placard reading ‘Impeachment is little, more than 500 thousand deaths, #out Bolsonaro’ as she takes part in a protest in Rio de Janeiro on July 3 [Pilar Olivares/Reuters]In one recording, Siqueira Valle explains that her brother, André Siqueira, who was also on Bolsonaro’s payroll, was fired for refusing to hand back the agreed amount to the now-president.

“André had a lot of trouble because he never returned the right money that had to be returned,” she said on the recording.

“Eventually, Jair said … ‘Enough. You can get rid of him because he never gives me the right amount of money’.”

Bolsonaro’s office declined to comment to the Reuters news agency. A lawyer representing Bolsonaro contacted by UOL denied illegalities.

The recent scandals could pose a problem for Bolsonaro as Brazil prepares for presidential elections next year.

Former left-wing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is expected to run – but has not confirmed his candidacy – and recent polling shows Lula stands a good chance of defeating Bolsonaro.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA, REUTERS

Gulf of Mexico fire: Dramatic blaze renews safety concerns for US pipelines


Thousands of miles of offshore oil and gas pipelines lack ‘robust oversight,’ watchdog warned

Alex Woodward
New York



Gulf of Mexico: an undersea gas pipeline ruptured causing the sea to 'catch fire'


A ring of fire on the surface of the Gulf of Mexico following a ruptured gas pipeline has renewed scrutiny into the state of thousands of miles of oil and gas infrastructure in the gulf.

Footage of the fire – appearing to boil the ocean’s surface with bright orange flames – went viral on 2 July after a leak was reported near a platform used for offshore drilling by Mexico’s state-owned oil company Pemex. In a surreal scene, the blaze appeared to dwarf three firefighting boats blasting water cannons.

In the US, however, the agency tasked with supervising a sprawling network of active offshore oil and gas pipelines – nearly 9,000 miles of them in the Gulf of Mexico alone – does not have a “robust oversight” process or require any below-surface inspections, according to a recent federal government watchdog report.

The same goes for more than 18,000 miles of abandoned pipelines and wells, part of a vast ocean of infrastructure without any clear decommissioning standards or process for removal.

A report from the US Government Accountability Office found that the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) under the US Interior Department has allowed the oil and gas industry to leave 97 per cent of unused pipelines in place since the 1960s.

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“Such a high rate of approval indicates that this is not an exception, however, but rather that decommissioning-in-place has been the norm for decades,” the report found.

The bureau does “not observe any pipeline decommissioning activities, inspect pipelines after their decommissioning, or verify most of the pipeline decommissioning evidence submitted,” according to the report. “If these pipelines later pose safety or environmental risks, there’s no clear funding source for their removal.”

Miyoko Sakashita, oceans program director for the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement that the report “shows how corporations profit from polluting our water and air, leaving the rest of us to pay the price.”


The report was released the day after the 11th anniversary of the BP oil disaster and explosion at the Deepwater Horizon platform that killed 11 people and spewed millions of gallons of crude into the gulf for weeks.

The bureau – which was created in the wake of that catastrophe – “recognizes the importance of active pipeline integrity and is continually seeking to address the safety and environmental risks associated with decommissioning,” it said in a statement in response to the report.

The fire on 2 July was roughly 150 yards from the Ku Maloob Zaap drilling platform in the Yucatan peninsula, after a leak was reported around 5.15am. Workers began to “close the interconnection valves in the pipeline, extinguishing the fire and the gas emanation” to control the leak by 10.45am, more than five hours later, the company reported.

Pemex provided few details about the leak but pledged to “carry out a root cause analysis of this incident,” while the chief of Mexico’s oil safety regulator claimed that the incident “did not generate any spill” but did not explain what caused a fire on the water’s surface.

Ku Maloob Zaap is Pemex’s biggest crude oil producer, accounting for more than 40 per cent of its daily output of nearly 1.7m barrels.

The scale of that production poses “an extreme risk for accidents,” according to Greenpeace Mexico.

Gustavo Ampugnani, the organisation’s executive director, said in a statement that “as part of the fossil fuel extractivist model, these are the risks we face on a daily basis and which call for a change in the energy model.”

In 2015, four workers were killed, 16 were injured and more than 300 people had to be evacuated after an explosion on the company’s Abkatun A-Permanente platform in the gulf.

And in January 2013, an explosion caused by a gas build up at the company’s Mexico City headquarters killed 37 people.

The company also is saddled with $107bn in debt, making it one of the most indebted oil companies in the world, as of 2019.

In the US, legal battles over company responsibility for cleanup costs have played out in bankruptcy courts, as companies look to profit by offloading billions of dollars in such costs to other oil and gas entities amid shifting political sands and the fates of fossil fuel industries.

Lawmakers on the House Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources introduced the Offshore Pipeline Safety Act, which would require BSEE to charge an annual fee against owners of offshore pipelines to fund pipeline removal if they file for bankruptcy, among other measures.

“The business model of drilling our oceans for a quick buck and sticking the public with the cleanup bill is coming to an end,” Chair Raul Grijalva said in a statement. “Our oceans are there for all of us, not just oil and gas companies, and if they can’t behave responsibly on their own, this Congress will be happy to step in and set some overdue boundaries.”

During his campaign, President Joe Biden vowed to ban “new oil and gas permitting on public lands and waters” as part of his energy and environmental justice platform.

A federal judge blocked his administration’s suspension of new oil and gas leases in federal lands and waters and issued an injunction against the US Department of Interior from “implementing the pause” while the case from Louisiana’s Republican Attorney General Jeff Landry and 12 other state attorneys general plays out in court.

The administration is performing a review of the state of oil and gas drilling in the US, which Interior Secretary Deb Haaland told members of Congress will be due in “early summer”. The agency will then “outline next steps and recommendations” for Congress, according to a statement from the agency.

 

Climate change: Planting trees increases European rainfall

Nature Geoscience

July 6, 2021

Expanding European forest cover could enhance rainfall and partly counteract future drying trends expected with climate change, according to a paper published in Nature Geoscience this week.

Several countries worldwide are considering planting more trees in efforts to tackle rising global temperatures. Such widespread reforestation could also influence local rainfall by altering the transfer of water, energy and momentum between the land surface and the atmosphere. However, the extent to which reforestation may affect rainfall is largely unknown.

Ronny Meier and colleagues used an observation-based continental-scale statistical model to assess how forest cover influences rainfall across Europe. The authors found that converting agricultural land to forest triggers substantial changes, tending to increase both local and downwind rainfall. Based on these results, the team showed that a realistic reforestation strategy (based on a global reforestation potential map) could enhance European summertime rainfall by an average of 7.6%, and partly offset drying trends that are expected with climate change. On the other hand, the expansion of forests could exacerbate climate-induced intensification of rainfall in winter.

These findings demonstrate the relevance of land-management in the assessment of climate mitigation pathways. They also reveal the importance of considering impacts on rainfall when planning reforestation strategies.

doi:10.1038/s41561-021-00773-6

Original article 

GOP House members want FBI to investigate BDS movement

Three Republican House members are calling on the FBI to investigate dubious connections between the BDS movement and terrorism.

BY MICHAEL ARRIA JULY 2, 2021

TIM BURCHETT. CREDIT: DANANDREWSREPORTER VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Three Republican House members are calling on the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to investigate dubious connections between the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS) and terrorism.

Last month Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) led a letter, cosigned by Rep. Greg Steube (R-FL) and Maria Salazar (R-FL), that was sent to FBI’s Counterterrorism Division. It claims that there are “serious concerns” that Americans who donate to BDS-affiliated organizations might be financing terrorist groups. The letter specifically cites the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) and The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) for having alleged links to “designated terror groups” like Hamas and Palestine Islamic Jihad.

In March Burchett sent a similar letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, asking them to investigate the fundraising app ActBlue for allegedly funneling money to terrorists.

“President Biden has said he opposes the anti-Semitic BDS movement,” he declared on Twitter. “I agree. We must stand with our ally Israel.”

When asked about BDS during a 2018 interview Burchett said, “They totally disgust me. I remain loyal to Israel.”

In March a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit targeting the BNC and the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR) for alleged connections to terrorism. That lawsuit was filed by the pro-Israel Jewish National Fund (JNF) and 12 American citizens living in Israel. In his ruling the judge said the claims were “to say the least, not persuasive.”

UAE company cracks down on ‘Block the Boat’ picket line in Canada
BY MARION KAWAS JUNE 28, 2021
PROTESTERS AT THE BLOCK THE BOAT DEMONSTRATION IN OAKLAND HARBOR, 2014

A small town in northern British Columbia was recently the backdrop for a chilling display of how Emirati influence and power can be used to attempt to suppress popular support for Palestine. On June 14, Prince Rupert was the scene of a Block The Boat community picket against the Israeli Zim Volans ship that had been chased away from Oakland. For a day and a half, members of ILWU 505 had respected the picket line and the Volans had sat idle. Eventually, an emergency injunction was granted, and the Volans was finally unloaded and left for Shanghai, China.

A week later, DP World, the company that handles the specific terminal in Prince Rupert Port where the Volans docked, sent out notices delivering a 3-day suspension to 94 port workers who had respected the picket. DP World stands for Dubai Ports World, and its parent company is state-owned Dubai World. DP World is a huge global enterprise that manages 78 operating terminals in over 40 countries, several of which are in Canada. There was pushback from the union and the suspensions were eventually reduced to one day recorded on their files, but the message was clear, be it in Seattle where 10 protesters were arrested or in Prince Rupert where workers were punished: Block The Boat is becoming a growing movement that has to be stopped.

So a company from the United Arab Emirates aided the Israeli Zim shipping company in trying to squash grassroots support for Palestine in a remote northern BC town, whose port is under the jurisdiction of Canada’s Minister of Transport, Arab-Canadian Omar Alghabra. A scenario that even the most creative writer could not possibly make up.

Let’s look closer at Dubai Ports World. In September 2020, it reportedly signed a deal with the Israeli company DoverTower to participate in a joint bid on the privatization of the Haifa Port. This was another one of the new “normalization” deals between the United Arab Emirates and Israel, and may potentially even involve a direct shipping line between Eilat and Dubai’s port Jebel Ali.

This is not the first time that Dubai Ports World has tried to punish workers who respected a community picket and upheld principles of solidarity. In December 2018, on Canada’s east coast, dockworkers refused to cross a picket protesting Canada’s arms sales to Saudi Arabia. According to Labour Against the Arms Trade, in that case there was also an attempt to seek “reprisals… Employer? You guessed it, DP World”.

Block The Boat BTB actions have signalled a new trend in Palestine solidarity organizing, a trend of direct action and militancy that represents the increasing frustration amongst Palestinians and their supporters dissatisfied with the failed approaches of the past. It is a trend that has been seen across the globe as new youth forces come forward to join with the voices still calling for return and liberation in Palestine.

Lara Kiswani, the Executive Director of Arab Resource & Organizing Center (AROC), explained it this way:

“The #BlockTheBoat campaign has now successfully prevented ZIM, Israel’s largest shipping company, from unloading cargo in Oakland for seven years and counting. And across the world, from South Africa to Italy to Vancouver and Prince Rupert, we have made it clear that the ZIM shipping line, and all those who do business with, profit from, or are connected to Israeli apartheid will be boycotted. Blocking ZIM, as part of the global BDS movement, is in fact isolating Israel economically, and politically.”

It is not surprising then, that repression against BTB pickets and solidarity rallies have taken on an increasingly nasty tone. Along with the police brutality in Seattle and the reprimand of workers, there was an opinion article in Newsweek entitled: “‘Block the Boat’ is a Wake-Up Call to Prioritize U.S. Port Security.” This inflammatory article even went so far as to suggest that “any protesters and longshoremen who deliberately interfere with port operations run afoul of the Hobbs Act’s definition of extortion.” And then concludes with “…federal action would send a clear message that extortionate disruption of interstate commerce by any entity will not be tolerated.”

The pro-Israel lobby and the complicit Western governments that enable Israeli apartheid have good reason to be worried. Palestine solidarity work is entering a new phase, a phase that will be based on connections with other diverse struggles and communities and will be centered around Palestinian voices that refuse to compromise or be intimidated.

Despite PA crackdown, Palestinians continue protests over killing of Nizar Banat
Despite an ongoing crackdown and the harassment campaign targeting activists on social media, protests against the PA and the killing of Nizar Banat are ongoing.
BY YUMNA PATEL JULY 5, 2021


PALESTINIAN DEMONSTRATORS PROTESTING PALESTINIAN PRESIDENT MAHMOUD ABBAS IN THE AFTERMATH OF THE DEATH OF ACTIVIST NIZAR BANAT LIFT BANNERS WHICH SAY “LEAVE” DURING A RALLY IN RAMALLAH IN THE OCCUPIED WEST BANK ON JULY 3, 2021. (PHOTO: STR/APA IMAGES)


In the early morning hours of June 24th, Palestinian Authority security forces raided the home of prominent Palestinian activist and dissident Nizar Banat. His family says he was pepper sprayed and brutally beaten with metal clubs and rifle butts before he was taken into custody. Just a few hours later, he was pronounced dead.

The killing of Banat instantaneously sparked outrage on social media, and demonstrations in the occupied West Bank, primarily in the city of Ramallah, the de facto capital of the PA and a stronghold for President Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah party.

The very beginning of the protests against Banat’s killing in cities like Ramallah, Hebron, and Bethlehem were relatively small and went on undisturbed. Small crowds, including the elderly, women, and children, gathered in central locations in their cities, and held up posters of Banat, calling for those responsible for his killing to be held accountable.

In Ramallah, a short while after the demonstration began in the al-Mara Square on the afternoon of the 24th, PA forces dispersed the peaceful protests with tear gas and sound bombs as soon as people started chanting “Leave leave Abbas.”

As protesters tried to make their way to the ‘muqataa’, or the Presidential Compound, in the center of the city, their paths were blocked by dozens of armed security forces and police.

PA POLICE BLOCK PROTESTERS OUTSIDE THE PRESIDENTIAL COMPOUND IN RAMALLAH, OCCUPIED WEST BANK, DURING DEMONSTRATIONS OVER THE KILLING OF ACTIVISTS AND DISSIDENT NIZAR BANAT. JUNE 24, 2021 (PHOTO: YUMNA PATEL)

On the third day of protests, things took a turn as the PA launched a brutal crackdown on protesters, primarily young Palestinian men and women, who were peacefully marching through the city of Ramallah.

PA security forces fired tear gas and sound bombs at the crowds, while plain clothes officers with the PA intelligence and preventative security services, along with Fatah loyalists, attacked protesters with rocks and wooden bats. Many protesters were physically assaulted by the plain clothes officers and dragged through the streets before they were detained by uniformed officers.

The brutal treatment of the protesters sparked even more outrage on social media, and led to larger and more frequent protests that spread to other areas of the West Bank. In response, Fatah loyalists and PA officials have staged several pro-Abbas demonstrations in Ramallah, Bethlehem, Hebron, and other areas.
Attacking journalists

During demonstrations in Ramallah last week, PA forces were accused of directly attacking journalists and human rights workers documenting the protests.

Several accounts surfaced on social media of journalists being physically and verbally assaulted by plain clothes officers. Others had their cameras broken, and activists and human rights observers having their phones stolen.

Many of the accounts of physical and verbal assault came from Palestinian women journalists, who say in addition to being beaten up and directly targeted while wearing their press jackets, they were harassed by plainclothes officers, and even threatened with rape.

While covering protests in the city of Bethlehem, the Mondoweiss team and other journalists, who were clearly marked as press, were threatened on several occasions by masked plain clothes officers to stop filming the protests.

Palestinian journalists have called on their local authorities and the UN to protect press freedoms in the wake of the crackdown. Last week, a group of more than 50 journalists submitted a letter to the UN to take “necessary and immediate measures” to protect local journalists.

Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh called for “respect for press freedoms” and for “everyone to exercise a higher sense of responsibility,” while the Palestinian Journalists Union called for the dismissal of the Palestinian police chief, for “failing to protect journalists who have been assaulted and threatened by plainclothes in plain sight of the police.”

For many journalists, however, these calls were mere rhetoric, as little has been done to protect them since, or hold accountable those responsible for the attacks on the press.

On social media, many Palestinian journalists posed photos of their cut-up Press IDs, in protest of the failure of the journalists union to protect them.
Sexual harassment of female protesters

In addition to attacks on journalists, the PA and Fatah loyalists have waged a harassment campaign on social media targeting protesters and activists, specifically women.

During protests in Ramallah, several instances were reported of female protesters having their phones stolen by plain clothes officers. In the days following, Facebook pages associated with PA officers began posting private and compromising photos taken from the stolen phones of female protesters.

Sources told Mondoweiss that Whatsapp groups being run by local Fatah officials and members of the party were circulating private photos stolen from womens’ phones, along with degrading messages, many of which were sexual in nature.

Despite efforts by activists on social media to report the pages and have them taken down, the online harassment of female activists and protesters has continued, in what they say is an effort to intimidate them and weaponize their bodies against them.
Israel, PA arrest activists

The crackdown of Palestinian activists and critics has continued in recent days, with Israeli forces detaining prominent human rights lawyer and activist Farid al-Atrash over the weekend as he was passing through a military checkpoint on his way home to Bethlehem.

Al-Atrash, who has been targeted and arrested several times by Israeli authorities has been active in the protests over the killing of Nizar Banat, and has been vocal in his criticism of the PA and its treatment of protestors.

Many Palestinians have speculated that Israel’s arrest of al-Atrash was done in coordination with the PA. It is a common practice for the PA to arrest Palestinian activists wanted by Israel and then hand them over to the Israeli authorities, and vice versa, as part of the widely-condemned policy of security coordination.

On Sunday, PA forces arrested Palestinian human rights activist and lawyer Muhannad Karajeh, who was also an active participant in the recent protests.

Over the weekend Palestinian journalist and activist Alaa Rimawi announced that he would be going on hunger strike in protest of his detention by the PA. Rimawi’s family says that he has not been charged with anything, and was detained on “political grounds” by the “corrupt PA”.

Less than a month ago, Rimawi was released from Israeli detention after he went on a similar hunger strike.

Prior to the arrest and killing of Banat, PA forces had also detained prominent Palestinian activist Issa Amro, a popular critic of the PA who recently faced trial in Israeli military courts for his activism in the West Bank.
Protests to continue

Despite the ongoing crackdown and the harassment campaign targeting activists on social media, protests against the PA and the killing of Nizar Banat are ongoing.

On Saturday, Ramallah saw what was perhaps the largest protest against the PA since demonstrations began two weeks ago. People continued to call for the end of the PA, and the immediate fall of Abbas and his regime.

Protests like the one on Saturday are expected to continue, as there has yet to be any formal action taken against those responsible for Banat’s killing.

Last week, the PA justice minister and head of the investigation committee into the death of Banat said the activist was subjected to physical violence and his death was “unnatural”. The investigation concluded that Banat died as a result of “neurological shock” and “acute heart and pulmonary failure.”

The investigation was handed over to Prime Minister Shtayyeh “who in turn will pass it on to the head of the military judiciary in order to take legal measures and investigate suspects,” Al Jazeera reported.

Banat’s family has continued to denounce his killing as an “assassination” and has called for the security officers responsible for his death to be publicly tried in the courts.

Liebreich: ‘Oil sector is lobbying for inefficient hydrogen cars because it wants to delay electrification’

Influential analyst and adviser explains why powering cars with H2 is a terrible idea, no matter what the hydrocarbons industry says


Michael Liebreich, CEO of Liebreich Associates.Photo: Liebreich Associates


30 June 2021 
By Leigh Collins

Michael Liebreich, the charismatic founder of BloombergNEF who is now an independent analyst and adviser, is extremely passionate when talking about clean hydrogen as a tool for decarbonisation — but not in the way you might think.

As a firm advocate of decarbonising our planet as quickly and cost-effectively as possible, he is strongly against using clean hydrogen in certain sectors where there are cheaper and more efficient electric solutions, such as cars and domestic heating — in stark contrast to elements within the oil & gas sector that are spending tens of millions of euros on lobbying for such uses.

Michael Liebreich's "hydrogen ladder" chart identifying the merits of use cases for clean hydrogen. Photo: Liebreich Associates

In an attempt to guide governments and industry players away from the spin, he has created what he calls his Hydrogen Ladder, a simple chart (pictured) showing which use cases for H2 are uncompetitive, which are unavoidable for decarbonisation, and which sit somewhere in the middle.

So at the top of his ladder, at the “unavoidable” end, lie the existing uses of highly polluting grey hydrogen produced from unabated fossil fuels — such as ammonia-based fertiliser and oil refining, which are responsible for 3-4% of all global carbon emissions. Seasonal power storage, steel, chemicals, shipping and long-haul aviation (using liquid hydrogen or synthetic fuels derived from H2) are also high up.

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At the bottom “uncompetitive” end of the ladder are hydrogen cars and domestic heating — which he says make no sense when you have battery-powered electric vehicles (BEVs) and heat pumps.

Liebreich — a pro-business supporter of the UK Conservative Party, who sits on the British government board of trade and is also an advisor to Norwegian oil giant Equinor — believes that oil & gas companies know that hydrogen is a poor choice for these two segments, but are pursuing them nonetheless.

“If you're an oil and gas company, in a way, talking about hydrogen is kind of a two-way bet because if it works, then you're embedded in the hydrogen industry — but if it doesn't work, you've delayed the transition to the thing you don't make, which is electricity,” he tells Recharge. “So why wouldn't you promote hydrogen for inappropriate use? For the things that are not at the top of the ladder, that are fairly down — so local trains, local buses, cars, delivery vehicles — why not promote it? Because at worst it creates confusion, which is great [for them]. And these companies have an interest in this [electric] stuff not moving too fast, I'm afraid — for all their good words.”

Liebreich gives an example of Shell being happy to spend $12bn on a floating liquefied natural gas (LNG) platform, the Prelude, which has seen a host of problems, “but they won't spend $12bn just producing blue, green, pink, or any other sort of clean hydrogen for those [existing] uses where we currently are driving 3-4% of global emissions”.

He points to a report last year by lobbying watchdog Corporate Europe Observatory, which found that the “hydrogen lobby, whose main players are fossil gas companies, declared a combined annual expenditure of €58.6m trying to influence Brussels policy making”.

“So what they want to do is fund people to go and lobby in Brussels for uses of hydrogen, where they basically think that because politicians like having photos taken [with hydrogen cars and trains], they will tolerate [the existing use of grey hydrogen],” says Liebreich. “I don't know whether it's disingenuity or a phony war, but we’re talking at cross purposes if we’re using dirty hydrogen [for existing uses], but we’re talking about clean hydrogen [for cars].

“If I were a [government] minister, what I would be saying is anytime anybody wants to come through the door and talk about hydrogen… and they want to start making presentations about cars and trucks and trains, I'd be, like, “wait, let me stop you. What's your plan for fertiliser? What’s your plan in your refinery, you're taking [unabated] natural gas and you're using it in fertilser or in hydrocracking. What's your plan [to switch to cleaner hydrogen], but also, what do you need?”
The argument against hydrogen cars

Liebreich says that people in the oil industry are smart and understand the inefficiencies and expense of hydrogen-powered fuel-cell electric vehicles (FCEVs).


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“It's so obvious that hydrogen is less efficient because it's got these chemical processes and… everybody's done the numbers that show that if you have clean electricity and you want to drive somewhere, the last thing you would do is stick it in an electrolyser and then have all these other [energy] losses and then put it in a fuel cell and have more losses. You can't break the laws of physics — this is thermodynamics, it's the microeconomics of something that's very simple versus something that's very complex.

“The other argument that never gets surfaced enough is that if you look at the cars and you look at the competitive dimensions, basically, electric wins on everything… sometimes by large margins. Nought to 60 in four seconds [for a battery electric vehicle (BEV)] versus nine seconds [in an FCEV], being able to fold the seats down and put loads of luggage in versus no, sorry, there's a hydrogen cylinder in there [taking up space]. [BEVs are] three times as efficient, and by the way, hydrogen [cars] don’t win on weight, they tend to be heavier, so they don’t even have that.

“What they win on is being able to connect it to the nozzle and fill it with hydrogen for 400 miles in five minutes — setting aside the fact that the nozzle then gets really cold and actually the next person has to wait for it to warm up. That's very important if you're going on a trip that's 400 miles, because under that you might as well just buy the cheaper and better electric car.

“So right now, the single advantage of the hydrogen car, wherever you can buy one, is that it can drive somewhere where you can't refuel because there's no hydrogen [filling stations].”

He continues: “Even if that were fixed, even if we threw enough taxpayers' money at it so that then when you drive your 350-400 miles, there was a hydrogen fuelling station, that would save you the 45 minutes that you would otherwise have to charge [a BEV] to get back.

“Okay, so you've saved 45 minutes. The rest of the year, you're back at home and back to your boring commute, and you're driving your 20 miles a day. Well, every time you do 300 miles, you have to go to a hydrogen filling station [unlike a BEV that you can charge at home]. So 40 times a year, you have to waste 10 minutes and maybe more driving to a hydrogen filling station. That's 400 minutes and you've saved yourself 45 minutes on the, maybe, two to five times that you actually drive to your cottage or to the Alps, or wherever. So even on the time spent, on an annual basis, it's not a win, it's a big loss for most people.”


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Recharge pointed to its recent interview with Hydrogen Council boss Daryl Wilson, who said that hydrogen cars will be needed because the electricity infrastructure won’t be able to cope with charging millions of BEVs.

“That's nonsense,” says Liebreich. “[In] 1995, [people said] ‘we'll never use the internet because there are not enough modems’. [In] 2000, ‘we'll never do online video because there isn't enough bandwidth’, then, ‘you can't do multiple streams of video because you will never get fibre to the home’. We’ve got 30 years between now and 2050 [when countries plan to reach net-zero emissions] and we will simply have more and more investment. We’ve dug up the streets for cable, phone, gas, cable, fibre, electricity. It's a thing we do. We know how to just build slowly over time. This is not rocket science.

“Plus, there's smart charging. And of course, we know we're going to be doing this because we're also going to be having to add capacity because of electric heating. And so the idea that you'll say, ‘no, no, we mustn't do that extension of existing infrastructure, we must build a completely new one [for hydrogen refuelling], it's nonsense, frankly.”
The argument against hydrogen for domestic heating

Some elements of the hydrocarbons sector, particularly gas distribution companies, have been lobbying to convert their gas grids to run on H2 — and have had some success, with the UK, for example, spending tens of millions of pounds on domestic hydrogen heating trials.

As Recharge has previously reported, converting gas networks to hydrogen — which has smaller molecules than natural gas — would require all underground metal gas pipes to be replaced by polyethylene ones, including those concealed in walls and under floorboards in people’s homes. Every gas valve and compressor in each network would also have to be replaced, plus the energy needed to pump H2 around the gas grid would be three times higher than for natural gas.

And of course, heat pumps are almost six times more energy efficient than hydrogen boilers, requiring 150% less primary energy to produce the same amount of heat.


Global green-hydrogen pipeline exceeds 200GW — here's the 24 largest gigawatt-scale projectsRead more

There are also issues around the safety of using flammable hydrogen in people’s homes, as well as air quality, because burning hydrogen produces poisonous nitrous oxides that are also powerful greenhouse gases, Liebreich points out.

“Hydrogen heating is just not going to happen,” he says.

The reason why gas distribution companies are lobbying for hydrogen use in domestic heating is not because they want the world to go green, but because “they want to get us locked into using their gas pipes for decarbonisation, because that's their asset”, Liebreich adds.

And the idea of blending clean hydrogen into the natural gas grid to reduce carbon emissions is “stupidly inefficient”, he adds.

“If you put 20% hydrogen into your gas, 20% of your volume is only 7% by energy. And if it’s green hydrogen, you’ve started with electricity. One unit of that electricity could have produced three units of heat [with a heat pump]. Instead, you've put that unit into the gas grid that you've turned into hydrogen. So you've lost 30% of [the energy]. Then you put it in the gas grid, compressed it and done all sorts of things to it. And then you put it in your boiler and got 85% efficiency out of it. So from 1kWh of electricity, you’ve got heating worth half a kilowatt-hour.

“If it’s blue hydrogen [derived from natural gas with carbon capture and storage], you’re always going to come back to my previous point, which is, ‘I’m not prepared to have this discussion until you've told me how you're going to decarbonise fertiliser!’”(Copyright)

Liebreich: Capturing only 90% of CO2 emissions in blue hydrogen production ‘ain’t good enough’

Influential analyst Michael Liebreich tells Recharge that blue H2 producers should should work to eliminate carbon dioxide from the production process


Michael Liebreich, speaking at a press conference at UN headquarters

 in New York in 2016.Photo: Pacific Press/Getty

2 July 2021 
By Leigh Collins

Low-carbon blue hydrogen — derived from methane with carbon capture and storage (CCS)— has long been controversial, with many climate campaigners and renewables advocates arguing against any kind of subsidy support for the technology, saying that the world should instead focus on zero-carbon green hydrogen produced from renewable energy.

Michael Liebreich, the independent analyst who founded BloombergNEF and acts as an advisor to blue-hydrogen leader Equinor, tells Recharge he does not share that view, but has reservations over the technology, particularly when it comes to the fact that the CCS part of the process only captures about 90% of the CO2 emitted.

Almost all of the 70 million tonnes of hydrogen produced globally each year are derived from unabated natural gas or coal, which results in nine to 12 tonnes of CO2 emitted for every tonne of H2 produced. If those emissions were to be reduced by 90% using CCS, it would still means that about a tonne of carbon dioxide would be released into the atmosphere for every tonne of blue hydrogen.

“There are three reasons that people use to explain why they don't like blue hydrogen. Two of them are legitimate and one is illegitimate,” Liebreich tells Recharge.

“The first legitimate one is fugitive emissions. As long you use [natural] gas, the risk is that some of that methane, whether it's biomethane or fossil methane, is going to end up in the air. And you can invest to reduce that to almost zero. But it’s just been in the news that Gazprom just had the biggest single accidental emission of methane of the year.”

Methane is 84 times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period.

“The second reason is incomplete capture of the CO2. We call it ‘carbon capture and storage’, we don't call it ‘carbon capture (90%) and storage’. And there's a reason for that — 90% ain't good enough. The existing plants that capture carbon, they’re 85%, 70%, they don't go to 100%.”

It is, however, possible to get to 100% capture, Liebreich explains.

“Principally, the easiest way to do 100% capture would be to use pre-combustion — if you burn your [natural] gas in oxygen, then all you get out at the back end is water and CO2. So you can condense out the water, and you’re left with pure CO2 and you can grab all of it. The reason why you only get 70- 90% is if you've burnt it in air, then what you get is water and CO2 mixed with nitrogen, because the air is 78% nitrogen. So it’s separating the CO2 from the nitrogen that’s very expensive.

“And here's a very interesting thought — we’re going to have a lot of oxygen, we're going to have surplus oxygen. Why? Because we're going to electrolyse [the process of using an electric current to split water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen]. So there is a model that says, instead of throwing this oxygen away, why don't we use it to pre-combust methane?

“There’s a very interesting process, the Allam Cycle, which could then generate the power out of the exhaust of that and capture the CO2.”

This view is backed up by a recent report from the Global CCS Institute, which wrote that blue hydrogen production based on the Allam Cycle “may produce hydrogen with 100% CO2 capture at significantly less cost than current blue hydrogen production facilities”.

“And then the third reason why people hate [blue hydrogen] is because it involves oil & gas companies,” Liebreich continues. “You get this kind of allergic reaction from a lot of campaigners, who say they mustn't be involved at all and we can't be paying them to clean up their own mess.

“Now the idea that you will have a large-scale inflammable gas being moved around — bought, sold, traded, used, created, managed — and you'll do it somehow without involving all of the existing companies that have capabilities at that. And you're going to create some new group of industrialists [to do this] — and, by the way, none of them must come from the oil industry because they'd be tainted. It’s just fantasy land. It's ridiculous. It's just not a legitimate objection, it's self-harming.

“So I've got nothing against blue hydrogen, as long as there are no fugitive [methane] emissions and [it has] 100% capture, or high-90s per cent capture.”
The cost of blue vs green

Whether or not blue hydrogen will be economic is another question.

“Of course, if somebody gives you a subsidy to produce green [hydrogen], which is not available for blue, then clearly the blue will be uncompetitive,” says Liebreich. “But if you just look at the fundamental economics… I think green hydrogen in the really good places [where wind and solar power is cheap] will cross over [to become cheaper than blue] by 2030.”

“[But] it’s very unlikely that green hydrogen will beat blue in Northern Europe this decade and possibly even halfway through next decade [because green H2 would largely be produced at scale using more expensive offshore and floating wind power]. I think, ultimately, the learning [curve] of electrolysers and green electricity will win. I think there’s no question that green will beat blue by 2050.

“But don't forget that, the oil & gas sector also brought in the innovations around fracking. So they can also push costs down.”

He adds: “Grey hydrogen [from unabated fossil fuels] currently costs €1-1.50, blue hydrogen is probably €2-3, and green is probably right now €3-5. It'll all crunch down — exactly where it crosses over will be a local game.

“Ultimately, it will come down to, ‘what is your carbon price?’”(Copyright)

The World Has Achieved Huge Milestones in 6 Areas of Renewable Energy So Far This Year
By Andy Corbley
-Jul 1, 2021

Despite a few national governments continuing to keep their coal and oil projects afloat, market demand and private entrepreneurship is driving what can only be described as a revolution in renewable energy.

SWNS

These latest achievements might have been thought unbelievable when global climate change was first being discussed as a serious threat, but today each successive development of renewable energy, nuclear fusion, and electric cars, makes subsequent developments cheaper and easier to scale.

Just six months into 2021, we have already seen some amazing progress in wind, solar, and EVs.
Tapping the African sunshine


A half million people living in the Northern DR Congo cities of Gemena, Isiro, and Bumba, are in for a surprise, as a trio of UK, French, and Spanish solar power companies look to close deals to supply the region with reliable renewable energy.

Citizens from the DRC suffer from the lowest rates of reliable electricity in the world, and the solar power plants are set to help this problem with 18 months of construction commencing.

In West Africa, the Senegalese cities of Kael and Kahone will find 60MW of solar power available to them in the coming months as a variety of institutions offer the government financing for sustainable energy. Senegal is a heavy net energy-importer, placing enormous financial burdens on people, and thus the imports have generally been cheap i.e. brown coal and oil.

Lastly in Nigeria, one of Africa’s largest economies, the Solar Power Naija program is looking to equip 500,000 homes with solar panels, generating electricity for 25 million Nigerians over the next few years.

The community of Jangefe has already tasted the start of the mammoth green electrification, with 1,000 homes already equipped with rooftop solar panels.
The windiest on record

Pixabay

2021 was the single best year on record if you are a firm who manufactures wind turbines, or an institution that finances them, with 93 new gigawatts added—equaling a 53% increase since 2020. The 2021 Global Wind Report is a jaw-dropper, and it’s enough to quote the executive summary.

“Through technology innovations and economies of scale, the global wind power market has nearly quadrupled in size over the past decade and established itself as one of the most cost-competitive and resilient power sources across the world.”

READ: Joint Venture With Love’s Truck Stops Will Produce 80M Gallons of Renewable Biodiesel Made From 100% Waste

“Today, there is now 743 GW of wind power capacity worldwide, helping to avoid over 1.1 billion tons of CO2 globally—equivalent to the annual carbon emissions of South America.”

The aluminum chancellor

Andrew Roberts

Data assembled back in March from Germany’s largest automotive industry review produced a startling statistic for anyone who’s ever looked at a full long-term airport parking lot—that 1 in 5 cars made in Germany can be plugged in.


The Schmidt Automotive Research Center found that 74,000 of the 373,900 cars that left German assembly lines were either electric or hybrid vehicles.

That was the story for the supply side, and on the demand side things are just as rosy. Germany is the fourth largest auto market in the world, and electric car registrations—that’s bought and driven EVs—grew from a 4% national market share in December 2019, to a whopping 26% market share just 12 months later. 24% of these EVs were made by Volkswagen.

Hybrids also jumped from 3% to 13%, meaning that there are more hybrids and EVs on German roads than gasoline-powered cars.

CHECK OUT: Researchers Boost Performance of Solar Cells By Using Human Hair From a Barbershop

This is just in the background of a global surge in EV purchasing that climbed 40% during 2020, when most markets were suffering from COVID-related issues.
The green new pension

As the holders of the largest state-controlled pension fund on Earth, the South Korean monetary authorities released a statement in May that the $771 billion National Pension Fund will cease all investments related to coal power both at home and abroad.

The fund also announced that they would revamp guidelines for investment strategies to ensure a more sustainable pattern emerges in the future.

Adios, coal: Spain hits 50% renewable milestone

Coal mining: Parolan Harahap, CC license

Back in mid-May, the Spanish legislature announced it would be phasing out all oil, coal, and gas production by 2042, and that all carbon-emitting vehicle sales would be banned by 2040.

In the short term, the Spanish lawmakers want 74% of the national energy consumption to be entirely renewable by the end of the decade. They are quite close to that goal already, as the month of May saw 50% of the nation’s energy demand fulfilled by green energy.

Romania also joined the effort, alerting the EU that through its National Recovery and Resilience Plan the country would cease all coal production by 2032, at which time it hopes to have installed 34% renewable electricity to take over the baton.

RELATED: Solar-Rich California Hits 95% Renewable Energy On a Recent Day Across 80 Percent of the State

G7, the world’s seven largest developed economies, all agreed to stop coal financing by the end of the year, leaving the big African emitters, India, and China as the last remaining holdouts now that Japan, part of G7, has got on board.
Green oil

All is not business-as-usual in the boardrooms of some of the world’s largest petroleum producers.

In a landmark court decision, a judge in the Netherlands ordered Royal Dutch Shell to cut emissions by 45% after 17,000 people brought a lawsuit that suggested Shell’s rather large footprint on the greenhouse gas situation merits a significant investment in CO2-slashing as a debt to society.

MORE: Retired Wind Turbine Blades Get Turned into Bridges and Reinforced Concrete

Elsewhere in Europe, the Italian oil company Eni became the first European oil company to launch a corporate bond that is linked to sustainability.

The €1 billion 7-year bond is linked to two key performance indicators: “Increasing renewable installed capacity to 5GW by the end of 2025; and halving the net carbon footprint of its upstream business to 7.4 million tons of CO2-equivalent by the end of 2024 from 2018 levels,” reports Dow Jones.

Lastly, Engine No.1, a shareholder group of ExxonMobil, managed to get two of their candidates elected to the American company’s board on the argument that the company’s long-term business strategy didn’t take into account all of the value loss potential from climate change, both from shareholders jumping ship, and potential damages from extreme weather events.

BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager with $8.6 trillion in private capital, and whose sustainable investment strategies GNN has reported extensively on, ensured the Engine No.1 candidates got the positions by utilizing their vote as large shareholders.

GREEN UP Pals’ News Feeds With This Good News…

 

Jeff Bezos-backed BC energy company to build fusion plant in UK

Jun 29 2021, 9:48 am

Rendering of Fusion Demonstration Plant in the UK / General Fusion

Written for Daily Hive by Jonathon Narvey, founder & CEO of the Mind Meld PR agency in Vancouver. Connect with him at jonathon.narvey@mindmeldpr.co

BC-based General Fusion appears to have hit critical mass in its aim of powering up the world with clean, safe and abundant fusion energy. It has just announced an agreement with the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) to build and operate a Fusion Demonstration Plant (FDP) at UKAEA’s Culham Campus. This marks an ambitious milestone for the Burnaby-based, Jeff Bezos-backed energy company.

The Culham Campus is recognized as a world leader in fusion energy development and innovation. “By locating at this campus, General Fusion expands our market presence beyond North America into Europe, broadening our global network of government, institutional, and industrial partners,” General Fusion CEO Christofer Mowry told Daily Hive. 

“This is incredibly exciting news for not only General Fusion, but also the global effort to develop practical fusion energy.”

The FDP will showcase General Fusion’s Magnetized Target Fusion (MTF) technology

The FDP is the result of over a decade of development, a company spokesperson explained. It assembles proven components into a scaled version of their commercial machine.

While the deal might seem sudden, it actually marks the end of a deliberate three-year global site selection process.

The partnership aims to accelerate General Fusion’s timeline to deliver a net-zero carbon future by the early 2030s. 

Tapping into the UKAEA’s expertise in operating large fusion machines will help General Fusion rapidly advance its technology, ensuring it continues to lead the pack in commercializing fusion energy. This next step will confirm the performance and economics of their MTF technology at power plant-relevant scale. As their first project in Europe, the company will showcase how it can enable utilities to source on-demand and clean electricity to power cities around the world. 

A range of tech advances could bring fusion energy online much faster than expected 

Fusion power seems like a futuristic technology, but researchers have actually been studying this since the 1970s, General Fusion’s spokesperson said. Now, almost 50 years later, this demo plant will be the first privately funded MTF prototype in history. The UK-based FDP will be operational by 2025 and General Fusion will have a commercial power plant by the early 2030s.

More recent disruptive innovations seem to have accelerated progress on a technology that perpetually seemed at least 20 years away. 

The company points to advances in computational power and big data analytics. The company spokesperson said they have conducted more than 200,000 hydrogen plasma tests, running up to 100 per day. Data analytics and high-speed computers allow them to rapidly interpret these measurements and quickly adjust our test programs to optimize performance. The company also uses this data to develop simulations that allow us to recreate our plasma tests virtually. The level of detail and speed we can achieve now was simply not possible 20 years ago, they said.

High-speed digital control systems have also sped up development. They use high-powered pistons to compress plasma to fusion conditions. High-speed digital controls manage and synchronize the timing of the individual pistons. The advancements in this technology have allowed General Fusion’s scientists to achieve coordinated accuracy within microseconds.

Finally, 3D printing has enabled the company to create components for testing that would have been far more challenging and costly to develop otherwise. 

Could General Fusion’s solution be a major solution to concerns over climate change?

Fusion is reliable, clean, and affordable, the company spokesperson noted. Since they expect fusion energy to be commercialized by the 2030s – that could be in time to make a difference in the fight against climate change. On-demand 24/7, fusion could extend the benefits of renewables to meet society’s energy needs to fuel net-zero cities by 2050. Unlike solar panels or wind farms, fusion energy is on-demand and independent from the weather. Fusion technology could produce power with zero greenhouse gas emissions, emitting only helium as exhaust. It also requires less land than other renewable technologies. 

General Fusion’s progress powered by people

The company is expanding its global headquarters and research facilities in Vancouver. General Fusion intends to formally announce the site of its new headquarters in Metro Vancouver this summer, for its staff of about 140 workers. 

According to the spokesperson, General Fusion is also in the process of tripling its employee base to support the FDP project and further development of their technology.