ALBERTA

Fossil fuel workers ready for a just transition, poll finds

By Natasha Bulowski, 

Local Journalism Initiative Reporter National Observer
Wed., July 14, 2021

A majority of Canadians working in fossil fuels are interested in switching to jobs in the net-zero economy, but are worried about being left behind, according to a new poll.

The poll, released Wednesday morning, was done by an oilpatch worker-led organization, Iron & Earth, in partnership with Abacus Data, and surveyed 300 fossil fuel workers across Canada from May 24 to June 11.

Ninety per cent of workers surveyed believe they could transition to at least one type of net-zero technology with 12 months or less of training, according to the poll results.

Edmonton-based machinist Stephen Buhler has worked in oil and gas for over 12 years and says we can’t afford to delay the transition away from fossil fuels any longer.

“Not making the transition means that a lot of workers like myself are going to be stuck with jobs that aren’t in demand the way that they were before,” he said.

Buhler is confident he can transition with little training. Because “whether it’s building a part for a pipeline or building a part for a wind turbine, it’s really no different for me,” he said, but acknowledged that for many workers, it won’t be so easy.

The poll also showed 61 per cent of workers worried about having to invest money into retraining, and 64 per cent were concerned with the time commitment involved.


Nearly 85 per cent of workers said they would participate in a paid training program of 10 days or less, with that number dropping to 70 per cent if they had to pay out of pocket.

“For the vast majority of other workers, taking on the financial burden of a year’s training, or even four years’ training … that’s a pretty tough pill to swallow,” said Buhler, adding the government should step up to help alleviate the financial burden of retraining.

Luisa Da Silva, executive director of Iron & Earth, agrees.

“The key here, really, is paid, rapid upskilling training for fossil fuel workers,” she said.

According to Iron & Earth’s calculations, Da Silva said, it would cost approximately $10,000 on average to rapidly upskill one worker, and to do the entire fossil fuel industry workforce would cost upwards of $5.5 billion.

Because many workers live in rural communities, Da Silva said it’s also vital to bring the training directly to those workers, so it is inclusive and accessible.

The data showed workers in the 45-plus age category were less confident in their ability to thrive in a net-zero economy than younger workers.

“It is definitely a little terrifying to be close to the end of your career, thinking about retirement, and all of a sudden, the entire world around you is going to be changing, and you’re told that the thing you were doing before is no longer needed or wanted,” said Buhler.

As a younger worker, Buhler said older workers should be given supports and noted they will be valuable for the short-term work needed to decommission and refurbish existing infrastructure.

Despite an overall high desire to switch to net zero and broad recognition of the threat of climate change, the poll found 60 per cent of workers worry they’ll be left behind in this transition without further training or career support.

“Until there is action by the government, which includes a just transition plan with paid training for fossil fuel workers, it’s understandable that a lot of workers may be hesitant,” said Da Silva.

Ultimately, it all boils down to jobs, said Ed Brost, who worked for Shell for 30 years before retiring to start his own consulting company.

“People need jobs, they need income, they have to take care of their families and their needs, and people are talking about changing your job … of course, it’s going to be apprehensive. I would be,” said Brost.

He said no one has to be left behind, but it’s up to our governments to show there is a path forward.

Iron & Earth is pushing for the federal government to support a national upskilling initiative so workers can be confident they won’t have to pay out of pocket for training, and it will be quick to make the switch.

Gil McGowan, president of the Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL), said coal transition policies the AFL helped create when Alberta began phasing out coal-fired power plants will serve as a valuable blueprint for the much larger transition away from oil and gas.


Wage top-ups for unemployment insurance, training vouchers for $12,000 and pension-bridging packages were all part of a transition package negotiated with the Alberta government, but McGowan said one thing missing from the coal transition package was a guarantee of employment.


Despite any shortcomings, he said the coal transition has been successful and much quicker than anticipated, lending hope to the idea that an oil and gas transition can follow suit.

“The thing is, the number of workers in coal is tiny compared to the number of people working in oil and gas,” said McGowan. “So scaling up this approach is going to be much more challenging.”

With over 30 years of experience in the oil and gas industry, Brost said transitioning will provide some immunity from boom-and-bust cycles, which, for younger workers especially, should be something to get excited about.

“I’ve been in the sector during good times and the bad, and it’s really scary when you know that the company you’re working for is going to cut the workforce by two or three or five per cent,” he said.

But workers need a just transition plan if they are to benefit from the long-term growth promised by renewable energy and green infrastructure, and McGowan said the Alberta government will continue to bury its head in the sand until “our federal government actually starts implementing policies instead of just talking about them.”

Natural Resources Canada spokesperson Ian Cameron said the government remains fully committed to helping workers “build the clean energy future we need.”

Iron & Earth
https://www.ironandearth.org/

We have had great responses and feedback from workers who want to see themselves and other workers supported through the transition to net-zero. 

Some of the things we are hearing from fossil fuel workers include:

From a former oil and gas worker, in Newfoundland and Labrador: “It’s tough here right now. People are trying to save money, to put away what they can. A lot of people are out of work here, so the cost of retraining is a worry. People need to be retrained to transition but they may not be able to afford it on their own.”

From a worker in Medicine Hat: “I’ve already done four years of technical training and I have 15 years doing electrical work already. I want to work in the net-zero economy, but the biggest thing is now I have to go back and do another year or two of training on top of this. As a father and having a family it’s like, how do you afford all this? “

With the federal election underway, right now is a great opportunity for you to help fossil fuel industry workers be a part of shaping a just and prosperous transition  plan that policy makers will need once a government is  elected. 

All you have to do is share the website for the Prosperous Transition Plan, TransitionNow.ca, with 3 of your fossil fuel industry worker friends or family, and encourage them to sign up for an interview with us by clicking on the “Speak with Us” button at the top. All interviews will remain confidential, and we will only attribute their name to any of your quotes after they have given us permission.  

P.S.: If you are unsure of what to say, here is a short example you can copy and paste into an email, text message, or social media message:

Iron and Earth is looking for input on their Prosperous Transition Plan to help workers just like you get the support needed to prosper in the net-zero economy. Sign up for an interview by clicking the “Speak To Us” button at TransitionNow.ca

CANADA AND USA TOO!

Classrooms in England ‘urgently’ need air filters, school unions say

Seven unions call on education secretary to improve ventilation to protect children ahead of new term

Air filters and monitoring devices are needed in schools to prevent further Covid-related disruption to children’s education, according to the unions.

 Photograph: Chris Bull/Alamy


Richard Adams

Education editor

THE GUARDIAN
Tue 17 Aug 2021

Classrooms in England need air filters and monitoring devices fitted to protect children from Covid-19 and avoid further disruption to their learning, school unions have told the education secretary, Gavin Williamson.

The seven unions – representing teachers, school leaders, administrative and support staff – have written to Williamson asking for “urgent action” to improve ventilation when schools reopen for the autumn term without any requirement for children to wear masks or be grouped in “bubbles”.


Lack of government Covid plan for English schools ‘unforgivable’, says report

The letter, backed by the Liberal Democrats, asks for air purification units to be installed to filter out the virus, as well as carbon dioxide monitors to measure airflow. It follows mounting evidence that coronavirus is transmitted primarily through airborne particles in enclosed spaces.

“There is a strong possibility of steeply increasing Covid cases in the autumn, with some children suffering from long Covid as a result. There are also concerns about a new wave of other respiratory diseases such as flu and RSV which are worse for children than Covid,” the letter warns.

“School staff, some of whom will not be double vaccinated, or are in a vulnerable group, are also in some cases still at risk of serious illness. Staff who are fully vaccinated are also still at risk of catching the virus and potentially developing long Covid, which is already afflicting tens of thousands of school staff.”

The group told Williamson it was “very concerned” that the Department for Education (DfE) had not provided any specific funding for schools to improve ventilation since January. The signatories include Unite, the National Association of Head Teachers, the Association of School and College Leaders, the NASUWT, the National Education Union, GMB and Unison

The DfE said: “We want to ensure schools are both safe and comfortable for students and staff – and good ventilation has consistently been part of government guidance. Areas where ventilation is poor should be proactively identified so that steps can be taken to improve fresh air flow if needed.”

The DfE and the Department for Health are running a £1.75m pilot scheme in Bradford to assess the most effective use of air purification technologies within schools.


DfE swamped teachers with new rules at Covid outbreak, study finds

Patrick Roach, the general secretary of the NASUWT teaching union, said a commitment by the government to fund improved ventilation would be “an extremely positive move. It would be reassuring to those working within our schools and be reassuring for many parents.”

Separately, a coalition of fire safety and education organisations have asked the government to mandate for sprinklers to be included in all new and refurbished school buildings in England.

The group, including the National Fire Chiefs Council and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, said the government’s latest plans would leave “the majority of schools exposed to fires”, with sprinklers only compulsory in boarding or special needs schools or in buildings over 11 metres in height.

The group said that in the five years to March 2020, firefighters attended fires at 1,467 primary schools and 834 secondary schools in England. Forty-seven primary and secondary school buildings were completely gutted and 230 others were seriously damaged.

'MANAGEMENT RIGHTS'

Cambodia jails union leader for two years for ‘incitement’

Court hands maximum penalty to Rong Chhun who was arrested after raising concerns about land rights on the Cambodia-Vietnam border.

Police officials stand guard outside the Phnom Penh Municipal Court in Phnom Penh ahead of the verdict against Rong Chhun [Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP]
18 Aug 2021

A Cambodian court has jailed prominent union leader Rong Chhun for two years – the maximum sentence – after finding him guilty of “incitement” over remarks he made about the Vietnam-Cambodia border last year.

Judge Li Sokha announced the decision during a brief hearing at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Wednesday that was attended by some international diplomats.

KEEP READING

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Alleged abuses linked to China’s ‘Belt and Road’ projects: report

Cambodia’s nightlife scene tests COVID success

Activists Sar Kanika and Ton Mimol, who were also accused of incitement, were also found guilty and jailed for 20 months each.

The three, who have been in custody since their arrest a year ago, were also ordered to jointly pay $100,000 to the government’s border committee.

“It’s so disappointing. This is a serious punishment, and the verdict did not render justice to my three clients,” said lawyer Sam Sokong, who added that Rong Chhun planned to appeal the ruling.

Rong Chhun was arrested on July 31 last year after accusing the government of “irregularities” in the demarcation of its eastern border with Vietnam, and some villagers had lost land as a result. The border is a sensitive issue fuelled by strong anti-Vietnamese feelings among some Cambodians.

Human rights groups have condemned the arrest of Rong Chhun, a veteran labour rights activist and the head of the Cambodian Confederation of Unions, and called for his release.

Cambodia’s government under long-term leader Hun Sen has cracked down on the opposition and critical voices, outlawing the opposition party in the run-up to the 2018 elections and putting its leader on trial for treason.

A 2020 report from the United Nations human rights office found “civic and democratic space in Cambodia had been shrinking”, and the work of human rights and civil society organisations subjected to “undue interference, intimidation or harassment”.

Licadho, a human rights group, says 19 activists, artists and human rights defenders were arrested in the weeks following Rong Chhun’s arrest. Sar Kanika was detained a month after Rong Chhun at a peaceful rally calling for his release, while Ton Mimol was picked up at an October rally outside the Chinese embassy.

Rong Chhun denied the charges against him when he was put on trial in January, and his supporters were angry about Wednesday’s court ruling.

“The court’s decision to sentence Rong Chhun today is a threat to younger generations … to stop thinking about the nation’s problems and social issues,” Ouk Chhayavy, president of the Cambodia Independent Teachers’ Association, told reporters outside the court.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

China’s crackdown on its workplace drinking culture is a problem for the world’s largest liquor company

WORK IS THE CURSE OF THE DRINKING CLASS

DRINK IS THE CURSE OF THE WORKING CLASS

Grady McGregor
Wed, August 18, 2021


China's quest for office sobriety is not going down smoothly for Kweichow Moutai, the Chinese liquor giant and the world’s largest liquor company by market capitalization.

The stock price for Kweichow Moutai has fallen nearly 10% since last Tuesday when China’s top anti-corruption watchdog, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), criticized drinking behaviors in Chinese offices.

The CCDI issued the statement on Aug. 10 in response to online furor regarding an account of a rape case at Chinese tech giant Alibaba. In the incident, a female employee at Alibaba reported that her boss, Wang Chengwen, forced her to go on a business trip in late July, pressured her to drink to the point where she blacked out, and then raped her, the employee wrote on an internal company message board.

The employee’s account went viral on Chinese social media, prompting Alibaba to fire the employee. (In an initial probe, local authorities in China’s eastern city of Jinan described the case as “forcible indecency” and not rape, but their investigation is still ongoing.)

But the case sparked a broader backlash to drinking culture at Chinese companies.

In a note to his employees, Alibaba chief executive Daniel Zhang vowed to rectify an “ugly forced drinking culture” that was plaguing the company. In the Aug. 10 statement, the CCDI said that it would strengthen oversight of Chinese companies to combat toxic work cultures in which employees are pressured to drink.

But if and how regulators will do that remains unclear. Pressuring others to drink is a behavior that is deeply entrenched in China's business culture. It is seen by many as essential to striking deals, hosting banquets, or even conducting a job interview.

"The million dollar question is, does this mean there's going to be a lot of regulation that will follow [the CCDI statement]… Or is this problem with irresponsible drinking something [that China will] address over time," says Euan McLeish, a managing director and senior equity analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein in Hong Kong. McLeish explained that potential regulatory measures could include increased taxes on alcohol, education campaigns to limit drinking, and giving more power to servers to cut off drunk customers. “[This uncertainty] is why the liquor market is pretty jumpy at the moment.”

The share price for Kweichow Moutai competitor Wuliangye is similarly down nearly 8% since the CCDI announcement.

Kweichow Moutai is known for its expensive baijiu, a clear, strong liquor that is often distilled using sorghum or other grains and was famously a drink of choice for China’s founder Mao Zedong. Kweichow Moutai’s elite status has made it a symbol of wealth and power as well as a mainstay at business banquets across the country.

"It's not something that a business would serve day-to-day," says McLeish. "But it still is consumed very much on business occasions, when [businesses] are celebrating or there's someone they are trying to impress."

Kweichow Moutai's popularity has made it one of China's largest companies with a market capitalization of over $313 billion, nearly three times the size of Belgian alcohol giant Anheuser-Busch InBev, and powerful enough to help prop up the finances and fund public infrastructure of Guizhou province, the underdeveloped province in southern China where Kweichow Moutai is headquartered.

Moutai's size and status within China may make the company relatively immune to the CCDI's warning about drinking culture. The company withstood a regulatory crackdown once before, notes McLeish. In the early 2010s, Chinese President Xi Jinping launched an anti-corruption campaign that targeted the lavish spending habits of public officials.

But Brock Silvers, chief investment officer at Kaiyuan Capital in Hong Kong, says that Beijing's latest campaign against drinking culture could spell trouble for Kweichow Moutai, given that Chinese authorities are currently cracking down on the power of many of the country's largest firms.

“In this atmosphere, any regulatory attention will be taken seriously. China’s recent crackdown on workplace alcohol culture is thus an important matter for [Kweichow Moutai],” says Silvers. “It’s likely to affect the company’s bottom line and perhaps even scare investors sober.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Work is the Curse of the Drinking Classes – Quote Investigator

 

JAPAN

NYK assists in Crimson Polaris oil cleanup operations

 August 19, 2021

NYK Line, as the charterer of the Crimson Polaris, has sent teams to assist the cleanup of the oil spill the wrecked wood chip carrier caused off the coast of Hachinohe, Japan last week.

The company said it has dispatched the first group of 10 people for two days and one night and plans to continue sending more personnel to help with the cleanup efforts.

COLLECTING GOODS FOR INSURANCE MONEY YOU SAY

“From the standpoint of being involved in this accident as a charterer, we have decided to first recruit workers to clean the cargo washed ashore on the beach and dispatch them to the site.”

The 49,500 dwt ship broke apart and started spilling oil last Thursday about 4 km off Japan after running aground at the Hachinohe Port a day earlier. The MI-DAS Line-owned vessel had about 1,550 metric tonnes of heavy oil and about 130 metric tonnes of diesel oil onboard.

The oil spill, which spread around 24 km north of the coastline, reached Japanese shores last Friday. The extent of the environmental impact remains unclear, but Japanese media reported that several fishing grounds have been contaminated. Investigations into the accident are ongoing.

AI,AUTOMATION,ROBOTICS TAKE LONGSHOREMAN JOBS

Fully automated container storage system makes first successful trial

 August 19, 2021

DP World has completed testing of the Boxbay fully automated container storage system at its Jebel Ali terminal in Dubai, accomplishing more than 63,000 container moves since the facility was commissioned earlier this year.

The facility, which can hold 792 containers at a time, exceeded expectations, delivering faster and more energy-efficient than anticipated, the Dubai-headquartered terminal operator said.

The solar-powered system stores containers in slots in a steel rack up to eleven high. DP World claims Boxbay delivers three times the capacity of a conventional yard in which containers are stacked directly on top of each other, reducing the footprint of terminals by 70% and energy costs by 29%. Boxbay delivered 19.3 moves per hour at each waterside transfer table to the straddle carrier and 31.8 moves per hour at each landside truck crane.

Boxbay is a joint venture between DP World and the German industrial engineering specialist SMS group. The system moves containers in, out and between slots with fully electrified and automated cranes built into the structure and can access them without moving any others.

“This test proves that Boxbay can revolutionise how ports and terminals operate. The technology we have developed with our joint venture partner SMS group dramatically expands capacity, increases efficiency, and makes the handling of containers more sustainable,” said Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, group chairman and CEO of DP World.

Solar farms are often bad for biodiversity — but they don’t have to be

Yes, we can have clean energy and tortoises too.

An endangered tortoise hunkers under desert foliage outside of the BrightSource Ivanpah Solar construction site in an area deemed safe, in November 2011.

 Mark Boster/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images

By Katherine Harmon Courage 

 Aug 18, 2021
This story is part of Down to Earth, a Vox reporting initiative on the science, politics, and economics of the biodiversity crisis.

Every several years — sometimes just once a decade — when the rains come in just the right amounts and at just the right times, rare flowers speckle the Mojave Desert in California. Some, like the Barstow woolly sunflower, emerge from plants no larger than a thumbnail. They spring forth from seeds that have persisted in the dry soil for years, waiting for just such a sporadic event.

In these brief “super-blooms,” the desert floor looks “like a carpet of wildflowers unfurled across the landscape,” said Karen Tanner, a researcher at University of California, Santa Cruz. The quick flash of flora helps replenish the seeds for future generations.

At other times, large sections of this deceptively fragile ecosystem look “like the moon,” Tanner said. Which, under the punishing sun, makes it seem like an ideal place to build large solar installations. Swaths of the desert, which spans four states, have already been converted to solar facilities, and more are on the way — in the Mojave and across the US. More than 4,600 square miles of land is projected to be covered by solar installations by 2030.

A massive expansion of solar electricity is a crucial part of US plans to reach 80 percent renewable energy by the beginning of the next decade. This is essential to cutting carbon emissions and slowing catastrophic climate change — which poses a dire threat to plants and animals the world over, humans included.

But the race to erect large-scale, maximally efficient solar operations could hurt local ecosystems if operators aren’t careful. Based on her research, Tanner suspects many of these solar projects as they are traditionally executed are causing more local harm than some realize. She has spent nearly a decade closely studying — often on hands and knees with a magnifying glass — experimental solar plots in the Mojave, all located within six miles of four large solar installations. Her most recent findings, published earlier this year, have noted that solar panels changed the immediate microhabitat and had a detrimental impact on rarer plants, such as the Barstow woolly sunflower.

One thing is clear to her: “It’s just not enough to do one survey in one year and be like, ‘Oh yeah, there’s nothing here. Go ahead and install the infrastructure,’” she said.

Solar doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game that prioritizes either clean energy or biodiversity, scientists told Vox. Many projects and studies are currently looking for ways that solar installations can better protect — and potentially even improve — local ecosystems, along with the bottom lines of operators and even nearby landholders like farmers. These solutions can be as simple as prioritizing native plants or picking a location that’s already been disturbed by humans.

The rare and tiny Barstow woolly sunflower in the California Mojave Desert germinates only in exceptional years and would be easily missed by even a year-long environmental site survey for a new solar development, of which there are many in the area. Karen Tanner/UC Santa Cruz

The darker side of solar

Solar installations, on the scale needed to supply power grids, are massive by necessity, transforming the lands where they’re located into a new kind of built environment. They can alter everything from sun exposure to moisture to surface temperatures. This can have unintended and unexpected impacts on local plants, animals, and even the area’s microbiome.

Photovoltaic panels shade the land while blocking some areas from rainfall and dousing others with heavy runoff. This changes the growing conditions for plants, with implications for other connected species. The other prominent form of solar, concentrating solar — in which mirrors focus the sun’s rays — generates so much heat that it “can incinerate insects and burn the feathers of birds that fly through,” Jeffrey Lovich, a research ecologist with the US Geological Survey who studies the environmental impacts of these installations, wrote to Vox.

In areas like the US Southwest, solar installations appear to contribute to bird mortality. Scientists aren’t entirely sure why this is, but one prevailing idea, known as the “lake-effect” hypothesis, is that migrating waterfowl making their way through the arid landscape mistake the installations for bodies of water and crash into them.

Large solar facilities in particular can also fragment important wildlife habitat or migration corridors via fences and landscape alteration, and can restrict gene flow for animal as well as plant populations.

Operators of these installations are generally keen to cut the costs of construction and maintenance, so most solar facilities replace the existing land cover with graded packed dirt, gravel, or mowed grass, further harming local biodiversity. “‘Blade-and-grade’ site prep that removes all vegetation clearly has a negative effect on biodiversity,” Lovich said. He expects mowed grass would “stress plant communities and the animals that use them.”

The Desert Sunlight Solar Farm is a 550-megawat solar power plant in the Mojave Desert. Tim Rue/Corbis/Getty Images

Many of the impacts remain unknown. It’s often difficult for researchers to gain access to solar facilities and the environmental data they collect — “even though the majority of facilities are situated on publicly owned lands,” Lovich and colleagues noted in a 2017 paper.

But it’s possible to dial down the potential harms of big solar farms. The type of solar infrastructure — whether concentrated solar or photovoltaic, and whether panels are fixed or rotating, high, or low — affects the potential downsides of large-scale installations. So does the nature of the landscape itself.

How solar can help native plants and crucial pollinators

Some solar operators are reimagining their facilities as prime protected habitats for native plants, bringing back key local species and potentially improving lands that humans have already disturbed. “Solar can be a net benefit in terms of restoring a native habitat and improving ecosystem services, like storm water control and carbon storage and sequestration,” said Leroy Walston, a landscape ecologist with Argonne National Laboratory who studies the relationship between renewable energy and the environment.

One in-vogue mitigation measure is pollinator-friendly foliage. At one experimental solar installation in Minnesota, pollinator-friendly plants helped boost energy yields a tad (by making the microclimate a touch cooler) and slightly reduced long-term maintenance costs (due to less-frequent mowing), according to a 2019 analysis from the Center for Business and the Environment at Yale University. The report also noted bigger wins: The plants helped reduce erosion, increasing groundwater stores and bolstering crop yields.

“SOLAR CAN BE A NET BENEFIT IN TERMS OF RESTORING A NATIVE HABITAT AND IMPROVING ECOSYSTEM SERVICES” —LEROY WALSTON

Experts have brought up concerns that solar operators will use a few flowers to green the image, but not the substance, of their operations. To help prevent this, some 15 states now have pollinator-friendly solar scorecards that aim to measure the actual impact of solar projects on the crucial creatures that carry pollen from plant to plant.

“They are voluntary, but they do help solar facilities to attain an objective certification that they’re pollinator-friendly, that’s been helpful to encourage some use of pollinator habitat at solar facilities,” said Heidi Hartmann, a colleague of Walston who works as a program manager for land resources and energy policy at Argonne. For example, the California renewable electricity provider MCE is now asking its facilities on arable land to use “reasonable efforts” to hit a certain score on these pollinator tallies.

Walston calls for an even broader approach to solar — one that focuses not only on bees and butterflies, but on native habitat restoration overall. Native plants are keenly tuned to the local environment, thriving in specific climate conditions, improving soil retention, and often benefiting the widest range of other area species, in ways non-native, flashy pollinator species might not.

Hartmann and Walston have modeled the impact of switching from maintained grass to native plantings. They found that in the US Midwest, native plants would bring in three times the number of pollinators. They’d also boost the carbon storage potential of the soil by 65 percent and would be more effective, once established, at keeping weeds at bay, which could reduce the need for harmful herbicide use.

Solar photovoltaic panels generate electricity at an Exelon solar power facility on September 1, 2010, in Chicago. Scott Olson/Getty Images

“The equation is complex,” said Alyssa Edwards, vice president of environmental affairs at solar producer Lightsource BP, about the company’s impact on local habitats. Lightsource advertises itself as protecting ecosystems and boosting biodiversity. “Pollinator habitat, considerations of seed availability, vegetation height, insurance requirements, fire risk, and cost all come into play. Not to mention that pollinator habitat may not be the right choice for all sites, as other initiatives may be more valuable contributions to sustainability.” The company, a joint venture with the oil and gas giant BP, says it’s working on various solar projects that incorporate pollinator habitat, conservation of short-grass prairie land, and even animal grazing.

Wildlife corridors are another way solar installations could help support biodiversity. But for large sites to become a part of corridors, they may require substantial adjustments to fencing and other built infrastructure (and even then, they’d probably pose barriers to some larger species).

As more sites incorporate biodiversity as a benchmark, the devil is in the details. Tanner and others have found that solar panels can actually increase the number of plant species that grow beneath them, especially in harsh environments like the desert. However, some of these additional species are invasive or threaten to outcompete the smaller, rarer native ones that could tolerate such extreme desert conditions.

These kinds of wrinkles make it all the more important that scientists and operators actually measure their impact on ecosystems — that they’re “pausing for a moment and considering what sort of species we are considering that are making up the diversity,” Tanner said.
Build solar on lands that humans have already messed with, one expert says

Solar operators tend to look for new sites based on sun and climate conditions, but also proximity to the existing power grid — and a utility company in the market for their energy. Scientists told Vox that firms should also look for places that humans have disturbed, because the local ecosystem may have less to lose.

Lovich suggests siting more solar farms on “brown fields, roof tops, abandoned agricultural fields, dry lakes, and even airports — where wildlife are unwanted.” They’re also well-suited for canals and human-made reservoirs, where they’re sometimes called “floatovoltaics,” not least because they can slow water loss by evaporation. These less-conventional arrangements may have higher up-front costs, but the eventual environmental costs will be lower.

A solar thermal tower at Ivanpah Solar Project Bechtel in the Mojave Desert. 

Joe Sohm/Visions of America/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

A desert tortoise with radio transmitters installed on his back, in Joshua Tree National Park, California, May 2017. Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images

Building on an ecologically sensitive site can also be costly. Take for example BrightSource Energy, which spent at least $56 million relocating threatened desert tortoises from its Ivanpah solar development site in the Mojave Desert. Although these efforts allowed the project to go through, scientists are still learning about the consequences. An early study found that the relocated tortoises needed more time and effort to settle into normal movement patterns, potentially exposing them to additional threats. But as Lovich pointed out, “since tortoises are long-lived, results for the long term are not yet available.”

Such experiences have not deterred other desert sun-seeking operations. “Solar farms are operating or planned in excellent tortoise habitat affecting hundreds to thousands of tortoises,” Lovich said. Simply moving the tortoises — pricey as it may be — is not a sure cure. “Translocation has a checkered history of success,” he said.

Lovich is currently studying the impact of the Gemini Solar Project in Nevada, which would cover 11 square miles of publicly owned tortoise habitat and is home to hundreds of these long-lived, vanishing animals. For this project, the plan is to capture the animals, place them in a holding center for up to two years during construction, and then release them into the facility grounds “to see how they fare,” Lovich said.

“All energy sources will come with a cost to some wildlife,” Lovich and his colleagues noted in a 2020 paper. “The best mitigation strategy is to avoid developing sensitive and pristine areas.”

Other landscapes would not only tolerate solar farms, but could benefit from them. For example, a pollinator-friendly solar installation could add yield for farmers whose soy, citrus, almonds, cotton, or alfalfa needs some pollination help. More than 500 solar facilities already exist within easy buzzing-distance — less than a mile — from these crops in California, Massachusetts, and North Carolina, respectively, according to a 2018 study by Walston, Hartmann, and their colleagues. Nationally, more than 1,350 square miles of cropland would benefit if existing solar installations added pollinator-friendly plants, they concluded.

As solar has moved into lands that could otherwise be farmed, it has caused some tension with local residents. But solar farms and actual farms don’t necessarily need to be in opposition. It’s possible to co-locate solar and crops into “agrivoltaic systems,” which can feature grazing grass, corn grown for biogas, and even lettuce and tomatoes that may flourish under solar panels. Other crops could even be grown under semi-transparent solar panels.

Solar can protect plants and animals while it helps the planet

Redesigning solar developments — and steering them to the places where they won’t cause harm — isn’t easy. Maximizing energy output means finding locations with the right combinations of sun, temperature, wind, and humidity (one study pegged the best spots as croplands, grasslands, and wetlands) and packing solar-harvesting devices as densely as possible. All of these often work at cross-purposes with supporting a diverse range of plant and animal species.

Bureau of Land Management biologist Larry LaPre and BrightSource biologist George E. Keyes Jr. check on the tortoise population in protective pens at the BrightSource Ivanpah Solar construction site in 2011. Mark Boster/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images

Additionally, permits for these facilities are typically done at a very local level. (President Barack Obama had instructed these sorts of projects on federal lands to have a mitigation strategy — an order that President Donald Trump struck down his second month in office.) So it’s a patchwork of different levels of regulations and approval processes, some of which are more in tune with thoughtful evaluation of sites and long-term impacts. There is “more education that can be done at local government levels,” Hartmann said.

Without more thorough before-and-after research, we may remain in the dark about how these large facilities are changing the landscapes they cover. If site evaluations are performed over a relatively brief period of time — such as a single season in the run-up to the construction of a solar farm — operators could easily miss key aspects of biodiversity, like the Barstow woolly sunflower, which waits for just the right pattern of rare desert rain to emerge.

“We’re just starting to scratch the surface and determine how different organisms are likely to respond” to solar, said Tanner, the UC Santa Cruz researcher. For now, it behooves us to mess with their environment as little as possible, she noted, and to preserve as much as we can. “Especially in a context of climate change, we don’t know what species are going to be able to pass through that aperture in the future.”

As the world barrels toward climate catastrophe, scaling up carbon-neutral energy production as quickly as possible couldn’t be more urgent. “We need all the help we can get, and we need to move quickly,” Tanner said. On a planetary scale, clean electricity can help safeguard all species, and could arguably be worth the trade-off if it harms a few local species in the process.

But maybe there doesn’t need to be a trade-off, Tanner suggested. “I’m not sure it’s an either-or question,” she said.

 

Small changes in diet can yield substantial gains for the environment and human health

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Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Aug 18 2021

Eating a hot dog could cost you 36 minutes of healthy life, while choosing to eat a serving of nuts instead could help you gain 26 minutes of extra healthy life, according to a University of Michigan study.

The study, published in the journal Nature Food, evaluated more than 5,800 foods, ranking them by their nutritional disease burden to humans and their impact on the environment. It found that substituting 10% of daily caloric intake from beef and processed meats for a mix of fruits, vegetables, nuts, legumes and select seafood could reduce your dietary carbon footprint by one-third and allow people to gain 48 minutes of healthy minutes per day.

“Generally, dietary recommendations lack specific and actionable direction to motivate people to change their behavior, and rarely do dietary recommendations address environmental impacts,” said Katerina Stylianou, who did the research as a doctoral candidate and postdoctoral fellow in the the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at U-M’s School of Public Health. She currently works as the Director of Public Health Information and Data Strategy at the Detroit Health Department.

This work is based on a new epidemiology-based nutritional index, the Health Nutritional Index, which the investigators developed in collaboration with nutritionist Victor Fulgoni III from Nutrition Impact LLC. HENI calculates the net beneficial or detrimental health burden in minutes of healthy life associated with a serving of food consumed.

Calculating impact on human health

The index is an adaptation of the Global Burden of Disease in which disease mortality and morbidity are associated with a single food choice of an individual. For HENI, researchers used 15 dietary risk factors and disease burden estimates from the GBD and combined them with the nutrition profiles of foods consumed in the United States, based on the What We Eat in America database of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Foods with positive scores add healthy minutes of life, while foods with negative scores are associated with health outcomes that can be detrimental for human health.

Adding environmental impact to the mix

To evaluate the environmental impact of foods, the researchers utilized IMPACT World+, a method to assess the life cycle impact of foods (production, processing, manufacturing, preparation/cooking, consumption, waste), and added improved assessments for water use and human health damages from fine particulate matter formation. They developed scores for 18 environmental indicators taking into account detailed food recipes as well as anticipated food waste.

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Finally, researchers classified foods into three color zones: green, yellow and red, based on their combined nutritional and environmental performances, much like a traffic light.

The green zone represents foods that are recommended to increase in one’s diet and contains foods that are both nutritionally beneficial and have low environmental impacts. Foods in this zone are predominantly nuts, fruits, field-grown vegetables, legumes, whole grains and some seafood.

The red zone includes foods that have either considerable nutritional or environmental impacts and should be reduced or avoided in one's diet. Nutritional impacts were primarily driven by processed meats, and climate and most other environmental impacts driven by beef and pork, lamb and processed meats.

The researchers acknowledge that the range of all indicators varies substantially and also point out that nutritionally beneficial foods might not always generate the lowest environmental impacts and vice versa.

“Previous studies have often reduced their findings to a plant vs. animal-based foods discussion,” Stylianou said. “Although we find that plant-based foods generally perform better, there are considerable variations within both plant-based and animal-based foods.”

Based on their findings, the researchers suggest:

• Decreasing foods with the most negative health and environmental impacts including high processed meat, beef, shrimp, followed by pork, lamb and greenhouse-grown vegetables.
• Increasing the most nutritionally beneficial foods, including field-grown fruits and vegetables, legumes, nuts and low-environmental impact seafood.

The urgency of dietary changes to improve human health and the environment is clear. Our findings demonstrate that small targeted substitutions offer a feasible and powerful strategy to achieve significant health and environmental benefits without requiring dramatic dietary shifts.”

Olivier Jolliet, U-M professor of environmental health science and senior author of the paper

The project was carried out within the frame of an unrestricted grant from the National Dairy Council and of the University of Michigan Dow Sustainability Fellowship. The researchers are also working with partners in Switzerland, Brazil and Singapore to develop similar evaluation systems there. Eventually, they would like to expand it to countries all around the world.

Source:

University of Michigan

Journal reference:

Stylianou, K.S., et al. (2021) Small targeted dietary changes can yield substantial gains for human and environmental health. Nature. doi.org/10.1038/s43016-021-00343-4.

OLD KING COAL

Just 5% of the world’s power plants produce 73% of the global electricity emissions

These hyper-polluters are truly atrocious.

Despite its bad name, China only has one plant on the “worst offenders” list.

 by Mihai Andrei
August 17, 2021

Belchatow, the world’s most polluting power plant. Image via Wikipedia.

We’re not really doing a great job at reducing our greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, we’re doing a pretty lousy job. Achieving net-zero emissions in a couple of decades seems like a pipe dream at this point, so researchers are looking for ways to at least tackle the worst emitters.

University of Colorado Boulder researchers Don Grant, David Zelinka, and Stefania Mitova used data from 2018 to look at the power plants that produce the most carbon dioxide emissions. They started from the 2009 Carbon Monitoring for Action database (CARMA) and built a more recent update.

Unsurprisingly, coal plants are the worst of the worst. Sure, renewables aren’t perfect and every form of energy comes with its own set of challenges, but coal plants come at a massive environmental cost. Even while some are a bit more efficient than others, even new coal plants produce massive emissions. According to the findings, just 5% of the world’s power plants produce almost three-quarters of the planet’s electricity emissions.

Eight out of the ten worst offenders are in Asia. South Korea has three plants in the “worst” top ten, India has two, and China has one. 

The plant with the highest emissions is in Poland.

Rank Plant Name Country Tons of CO2 Primary Fuel Age Capacity (MW)

1 Belchatow Poland 37,600,000 coal 27 5298
2 Vindhyachal India 33,877,953 coal 14 4760
3 Dangjin South Korea 33,500,000 coal 10 6115
4 Taean South Korea 31,400,000 coal 12 6100
5 Taichung Taiwan 29,900,000 coal 22 5834
6 Tuoketuo China 29,460,000 coal 10 6720
7 Niederaussem Germany 27,200,000 coal 38 3826
8 Sasan Umpp India 27,198,628 coal 3 3960
9 Yonghungdo South Korea 27,000,000 coal 9 5080
10 Hekinan Japan 26,640,000 coal 21 4100

Total 303,776,581 Total 51793

What is perhaps even more encouraging is that by addressing these “worst of the worst”, we could reduce emissions significantly, without adding very much pressure on global energy markets.

5% of the electricity, 75% of the emissions

The authors looked at how much of a country’s electricity pollution was produced by the worst 5% of all its power sector.

“Contrary to the received wisdom that greater environmental harm is a function of greater economic activity, emerging scholarship suggests that polluting releases are disproportionally distributed across units of production,” the study reads.

China has plenty of coal plants, but rather surprisingly, not too many huge offenders. The worst 5% in China accounted for around 25% of the country’s emissions. But in countries like the US, South Korea, Australia, Germany, or Japan, 5% of their plants accounted for around 90% of the carbon emissions in the power sector. Globally, the worst 5% of power plants produce 73% of the emissions.

Of course, these worst 5% of plants tend to produce more than 5% of the electricity — but this is good news, because shutting down a relatively low amount of polluting plants could mitigate a larger part of our emissions. This won’t be easy, but it’s the type of action we need to take as quickly as possible to address man-driven climate heating.

“As the fossil-fuel-burning energy infrastructure continues to expand and the urgency of combating climate change grows, nations will likely need to consider more expedient strategies of this sort,” the authors conclude.

To keep rising temperatures (and all the other effects of climate change) in check, we need to achieve carbon neutrality as quickly as possible — the year 2050 is a commonly mentioned target. But before we can even dream of that, we need to look at the low-hanging fruits and see what we can do about them.

The study has been published in Environmental Research Letters.

CANADA

Nuclear waste-storage research gets $3.3M grant

Western scientists engage with best international minds to ensure safe storage of used nuclear fuel


Western researchers Jamie Noel, Lyudmila Goncharova and Des Moser each hold items pertinent to their work in safeguarding storage of used nuclear fuel. Their team, including professor emeritus Dave Shoesmith (not shown) has been awarded a $3.3-million research grant. Submitted photo

By Debora Van Brenk
August 17, 2021

With a new $3.3-million research grant, Western is solidifying its role as a global, interdisciplinary powerhouse in understanding how to store nuclear fuel waste as safely as possible.

The investment – $2 million from the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC ), and a $1.3-million research grant from Canada’s Nuclear Waste Management Organization – will build on more than two decades of Western’s specialized research in the field, said chemistry professor and corrosion researcher Jamie Noël.

“We’re already recognized as experts in this research. This collaboration makes us a powerhouse and it solidifies our international reach.,” said Noël, an electrochemist and member of the Surface Science Western research group.

The grant includes partnerships with Western chemistry professor emeritus David Shoesmith, a pioneer in Western’s work with the NWMO; and with physics professor Lyudmila Goncharova and earth sciences professor Des Moser.

It also includes partner nuclear waste management organizations in Sweden, Switzerland, Japan and Canada.

Western electrochemist Jamie Noël

“This makes a lot of sense because this work is an international issue; it’s not proprietary to Canada. There’s a very good incentive for collaboration among countries because everyone wants this done in the safest and best way possible,” he said.

Canadian strategy

Including Canada, 32 countries worldwide generate some power from nuclear sources. Unlike using fossil fuels, nuclear energy doesn’t contribute to greenhouse gas emissions. But it does leave a problem of how to manage the still-radioactive fuel pellets, rods or bundles.

Canada’s innovative plan includes a multiple barrier system of loading fuel bundles into steel canisters, electrochemically coated with copper three millimetres thick – about the thickness of two stacked pennies – and then encasing them in a buffer of compacted bentonite clay in a deep vault in bedrock 500 metres below the surface.

Noël’s work focuses on testing ways to make the canisters corrosion-proof, and his team’s expertise includes metallurgy, electrochemistry, corrosion science, thermodynamics, hydrogeology, mineralogy, microbiology, synthetic chemistry and computer modeling.

The addition of Moser and Goncharova to the team provides an even more comprehensive scope, Noël said.




Spent nuclear fuel rods would be placed in a rolled steel canister, coated in electroplated copper about 3mm thick. The canister would then be surrounded by dense bentonite clay and buried in a deep geologic repository as part of a plan to dispose safely of Canada’s radioactive nuclear waste. Supplied photo

Moser’s research, for example, is investigating corrosion-proof analogs that already exist. “Nature put copper out there a billion years ago and it’s still good today, so we know it can be done. Des’s work can help show us how,” Noël said.

He said the team is also working with Indigenous Peoples to integrate into research their long-time traditional relationship with the land, to understand where copper deposits are and how they historically interact with Indigenous culture as well as with surrounding geology and hydrology.

Getting it right

The five-year grant “is a huge investment” of money and public trust, Noël said.

“We want to make sure, really sure, that if we’re going to have a nuclear waste repository that it is safe, and safe the first time around – because there will be no second time.” ~ Western electrochemist Jamie Noël

Some of the joint research includes validating the efficacy of a three-millimetre copper coating, which is unique to Canada, and understanding fuel chemistry and to ensure different forms of nuclear-fuel waste are made both stable and insoluble before long-term storage.

Faculty of Science dean Matt Davison said the long-term international relationships and collaborations Noël continues to build are invaluable in this research.

Laurie Swami, president and CEO of the NWMO, highlighted that the research funding from the organization has been leveraged into additional support from NSERC and other organizations, here and around the world. “It’s important that that work is supported not only in Canada, but internationally.”