It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Thursday, November 25, 2021
Oil giant Shell strikes deal to buy power from ‘world’s largest offshore wind farm’
The 15-year power purchase agreement relates to 240 megawatts from Dogger Bank C, the third and final phase of the 3.6 gigawatt Dogger Bank Wind Farm.
“Once the three phases are complete, which is expected by March 2026, Dogger Bank will be the largest offshore wind farm in the world,” Dogger Bank Wind Farm says.
Offshore wind farm. davee hughes uk | Moment | Getty Images
Shell said Wednesday it had signed a deal to purchase power from a development dubbed “the world’s largest offshore wind farm.”
The 15-year power purchase agreement relates to 240 megawatts from Dogger Bank C, the third and final phase of the 3.6 gigawatt Dogger Bank Wind Farm, which will be located in waters off the coast of northeast England.
The agreement builds upon a previous deal to purchase 480 MW from Dogger Bank A and B, meaning that its combined offtake will amount to 720 MW.
On Wednesday, Dogger Bank Wind Farm announced it had also agreed 15-year power purchase agreements for Dogger Bank C with Centrica Energy Marketing & Trading, SSE Energy Supply Limited and Danske Commodities.
“The commercial power agreements provide a route to sell the green energy generated by the third phase of the wind farm into the GB electricity market when it enters commercial operation,” it said.
Dogger Bank A and B represents a joint venture between Equinor, SSE Renewables and Eni, with the companies holding stakes of 40%, 40% and 20% respectively.
This month, it was announced Eni would also acquire a 20% stake in Dogger Bank C, with Equinor and SSE Renewables each holding on to a share of 40%. This deal is slated for completion in the first quarter of 2022.
“Once the three phases are complete, which is expected by March 2026, Dogger Bank will be the largest offshore wind farm in the world,” Dogger Bank Wind Farm says. Despite making deals related to renewable energy, Shell remains a major player in oil and gas. It has pledged to become a net-zero emissions energy firm by 2050.
In a landmark ruling earlier this year, a Dutch court ordered Shell to take much more aggressive action to drive down its carbon emissions and reduce them by 45% by 2030 from 2019 levels. The verdict was thought to be the first time in history a company has been legally obliged to align its policies with the 2015 Paris Agreement. Shell is appealing the ruling, a move that has been sharply criticized by climate activists.
In October, billionaire activist investor Dan Loeb called on the business to break up into multiple companies to strengthen its performance and market value.
Shell acknowledged Loeb’s letter to clients calling for the company to split, saying it “regularly reviews and evaluates the Company’s strategy with a focus on generating shareholder value. As part of this ongoing process, Shell welcomes open dialogue with all shareholders, including Third Point.”
“The simplification will normalise our share structure under the tax and legal jurisdictions of a single country and make us more competitive,” Andrew Mackenzie, the company’s chair, said at the time.
—CNBC’s Sam Meredith and Chloe Taylor contributed to this article.
UK rail sector on track to diesel-free trains by 2040
29 per cent of the UK train fleet still runs on diesel
Passengers board a Eurostar train at St Pancras International station in London. About 29% of the UK train fleet still runs on diesel and freight trains run almost entirely on it. Photo: Tolga Akmen / AFP
As host of the recent COP26 climate summit, Britain’s drive to help slash global carbon emissions will involve keeping to its own target of phasing out diesel trains over the next two decades, industry bodies and observers say.
According to the latest government data, about 29 per cent of the UK train fleet still runs on diesel and freight trains run almost entirely on it.
The government has unveiled plans to electrify an additional 180 miles (288 kilometres) of track in a new rail strategy. This would help “to meet the ambition of removing all diesel-only trains from the network by 2040”, the Department for Transport said.
Diesel dependence
While electric trains emit 60 per cent less carbon than their diesel counterparts, only 42 per cent of the UK rail network is currently electrified, according to official data. That places the UK far behind European neighbours, such as the Netherlands, where 76 per cent of the network is electrified.
Only 42% of the UK rail network is currently electrified, That places the UK far behind European neighbours, such as the Netherlands, where 76% of the network is electrified
With the current surge in electricity prices, some electric-run operators have recently been forced to revert to diesel locomotives, trade body Rail Freight Group (RFG) observed last month. While the RFG described the switch back to diesel as “regrettable”, it insisted it was only temporary.
Its director general, Maggie Simpson, highlighted a need for “more electric wires to support the investment in newer locomotives”. Britain’s rail freight is presently 90 per cent hauled by diesel engines.“Of course, in the long term, we need to move to a decarbonised economy, so more use of electric traction is going to be a huge part of that,” Simpson told AFP.
Last month saw the launch of a new fully-electric passenger train in the UK – Lumo’s London-Edinburgh service carries no auxiliary diesel engine.
Train operators are taking the opportunity to transition also via hybrid models in much the same way as carmakers. Chiltern Railways, which runs passenger services between London in southeast England and the country’s Midlands, recently announced investment in a hybrid battery-diesel train, developed by rolling stock owner Porterbrook and Rolls-Royce, the maker of aircraft engines.
Hydrogen future
As well as increasing electrification of its rail tracks, Britain is in the early stages of producing trains that can run on the renewable energy hydrogen. French train manufacturer Alstom has announced plans to deliver the UK’s first-ever fleet of new hydrogen trains, as opposed to rolling stock that has been remodelled.
“Rail is already the lowest emission transport mode, but we can do even more,” Nick Crossfield, Alstom’s managing director UK and Ireland, said as the group this month unveiled its hydrogen project in collaboration with British trains owner Eversholt Rail.
The COP26 event in Glasgow – attended by Britain’s Prince Charles who is a committed environmental campaigner – showcased a hydrogen-powered train. HydroFLEX, developed by Porterbrook and the University of Birmingham with the help of UK government funding, is a remodelled train that its designers claim can carry sufficient hydrogen to match the performance of a diesel engine.
While Glasgow Central train station displayed HydroFLEX to the general public, the nearby COP26 summit focused on ending sales of road vehicles that run on fossil fuels.
Battery-electric trains can deliver environmental justice, cost savings and resilience to the U.S.
by Kiran Julin
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain
Trains have been on the sidelines of electrification efforts for a long time in the U.S. because they account for only 2% of transportation sector emissions, but diesel freight trains emit 35 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually and produce air pollution that leads to $6.5 billion in health costs, resulting in an estimated 1,000 premature deaths each year. What's more, these deaths and adverse health impacts disproportionately affect disadvantaged and low-income communities, which are more likely to be located near freight rail yards and railways.
The recent dramatic decline in battery prices has created a new possibility for electrification of freight trains. Researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), collaborating with UCLA and UC Berkeley researchers, make the case that the U.S. can retrofit diesel-electric trains with batteries in a way that is cost-competitive with diesel. Doing so would avoid these unnecessary deaths and health impacts and save the U.S. freight rail sector $94 billion over 20 years from reduced air pollution and carbon dioxide emissions. Their study was recently published in the journal Nature Energy.
"A rapid conversion of the freight-rail sector is not only technically feasible and cost-effective, it would bring immediate and lasting health and economic benefits to lower income communities," said Natalie Popovich, Berkeley Lab scientist and lead author of the study. "And it would provide a boost to our nation's efforts to curb climate change, especially considering that U.S. freight rail capacity is expected to double by 2050."
Trains play a significant role in moving goods throughout the U.S., particularly heavy freight such as coal, lumber, and ore. According to the Federal Railroad Administration, 28% of U.S. freight is moved around the country by rail, and that percentage is expected to grow substantially in the next couple of decades. At the recent 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, the U.S. joined a dozen other countries in signing onto new agreements to curtail shipping emissions, and zero-emissions solutions for freight rail transport will be part of that commitment.
Diesel-electric, but not battery-electric
Unlike several other regions in the world, all freight trains in the US are still diesel electric, largely because the typical electrification strategy of building electrified lines over tracks is harder to implement in the U.S. with its vast distances. In diesel-electric trains, a diesel engine is connected to an alternator that then supplies electricity to electric motors connected to the locomotive axles. Retrofitting the trains to be powered by batteries is therefore feasible because diesel-electric trains already have an electric motor.
"Dramatic improvements in battery technology, coupled with the existing electric drivetrain in predominantly diesel-electric freight trains in the U.S., pave the way for a rapid conversion to battery-electric freight rail and with substantial cost savings," said Berkeley Lab scientist Amol Phadke, corresponding author of the study. "Also, the weight of batteries is less of a constraint than it would be for electric vehicles or trucks. We can add a car to a freight train built out with batteries, and the weight of that battery car is not an issue with trains."
Diesel-electric trains have been around since the 1920s, and they started to replace steam trains in the 1930s since they performed better and were less polluting. At that time, using diesel engines to generate power for the motors on trains was cheaper than trying to develop fully electric trains due to high electricity costs. Now, a century later, we are at a point where the price of electricity is competitive with diesel, and the environmental and health costs of continuing to rely on diesel to power freight trains are too devastating to ignore.
"Our analysis shows that a switch to battery-electric freight will cut the industry's annual carbon dioxide emission by more than half, eliminating more than 400 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in 20 years," said Popovich.
The study highlights that additional pathways to electrifying U.S. freight trains exist, such as electrifying trains via overhead power lines or using hydrogen fuel cells in conjunction with battery-powered trains. However, based on the fact that freight trains are already diesel-electric, and considering recent advances in battery technology, the researchers show that the battery-electric pathway offers the most cost-effective, long-term solution with multiple added benefits.
Their analysis shows that existing battery technology could power a freight train for 150 miles (the average daily distance traveled). A battery-powered freight train would use half the energy required by a diesel-electric train, and taking into account falling battery prices and environmental costs of diesel, battery-electric trains are on track to be more cost-competitive than diesel-electric trains. Since freight rail planning is centralized, the study suggests that railroads could achieve high volume use of fast-charging infrastructure, which would further reduce costs.
One major benefit of retrofitting existing diesel-electric freight trains with battery cars—otherwise known as battery tender cars—is that the battery-electric trains can always fall back on the diesel engine as a backup fuel source. This dual-fuel capability, allowing for either battery or diesel usage, is a unique advantage compared to fully electrifying the freight rail system or using hydrogen fuel cells.
Modular batteries offer resilience benefits
Another major benefit is that battery-electric trains can be deployed as clean backup power, thus bolstering the electric grid's resilience. Historically, diesel-electric trains have been used as power generators during emergencies. In early 1998, a series of ice storms left over a million without power in the northeastern U.S. and in parts of Canada. In one suburb of Montreal, the mayor moved an entire diesel-electric locomotive close to City Hall to supply power for their emergency response operations.
With the rise of extreme weather events and power outages, battery-electric trains have the potential to be deployed nationwide to avoid blackouts. These modular, battery tender cars can be transported to where they are needed and charged in locations where the electricity prices are low, thus offering significant advantages over grid-scale storage. Moreover, the battery tender cars could work as modular shipping containers, capable of exchange between freight rail and maritime shipping vessels, with positive benefits to decarbonizing both sectors and expanding the resilience reach.
"Conversion of the U.S. freight rail sector to battery-electric would generate about 220 gigawatt-hours of mobile storage," said Phadke. "Furthermore, these battery tender cars could be deployed during extreme events, such as during the recent catastrophic wildfires in California or the 2021 winter storm in Texas that left millions without access to electricity. This mobile energy storage capability would also create a potential new revenue stream for freight rail operators."
From a technical perspective, the researchers demonstrated that there should not be any constraints in moving to fully battery-electric freight trains, but further research and large-scale demonstration projects are needed to optimize charging infrastructure. "Berkeley Lab's systems and markets analyses shed light on this overlooked area and demonstrated that we can decarbonize some sectors with existing technology, which will help us reach our climate goals that much faster while also advancing environmental justice and grid resilience. It's a win-win-win," said Berkeley Lab Energy Storage Center Director Noel Bakhtian. "The techno-economic analysis of battery-electric freight trains shows that we have viable solutions available to enable the transition to a clean, affordable, and resilient energy future."
More information:Natalie D. Popovich et al, Economic, environmental and grid-resilience benefits of converting diesel trains to battery-electric,Nature Energy(2021).DOI: 10.1038/s41560-021-00915-5
Near elimination of air pollution from diesel-electric freight trains by 2025 is now possible by retrofitting them with battery tender cars. (Credit: BeyondImages/iStock)
Trains have been on the sidelines of electrification efforts for a long time in the U.S. because they account for only 2% of transportation sector emissions, but diesel freight trains emit 35 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually and produce air pollution that leads to $6.5 billion in health costs, resulting in an estimated 1,000 premature deaths each year. What’s more, these deaths and adverse health impacts disproportionately affect disadvantaged and low-income communities, which are more likely to be located near freight rail yards and railways.
The recent dramatic decline in battery prices has created a new possibility for electrification of freight trains. Researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), collaborating with UCLA and UC Berkeley researchers, make the case that the U.S. can retrofit diesel-electric trains with batteries in a way that is cost-competitive with diesel. Doing so would avoid these unnecessary deaths and health impacts and save the U.S. freight rail sector $94 billion over 20 years from reduced air pollution and carbon dioxide emissions. Their study was recently published in the journal Nature Energy.
“A rapid conversion of the freight-rail sector is not only technically feasible and cost-effective, it would bring immediate and lasting health and economic benefits to lower income communities,” said Natalie Popovich, Berkeley Lab scientist and lead author of the study. “And it would provide a boost to our nation’s efforts to curb climate change, especially considering that U.S. freight rail capacity is expected to double by 2050.”
Trains play a significant role in moving goods throughout the U.S., particularly heavy freight such as coal, lumber, and ore. According to the Federal Railroad Administration, 28% of U.S. freight is moved around the country by rail, and that percentage is expected to grow substantially in the next couple of decades. At the recent 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, the U.S. joined a dozen other countries in signing onto new agreements to curtail shipping emissions, and zero-emissions solutions for freight rail transport will be part of that commitment.
Diesel-Electric, but not Battery-Electric
Unlike several other regions in the world, all freight trains in the U.S. are still diesel electric, largely because the typical electrification strategy of building electrified lines over tracks is harder to implement in the U.S. with its vast distances. In diesel-electric trains, a diesel engine is connected to an alternator that then supplies electricity to electric motors connected to the locomotive axles. Retrofitting the trains to be powered by batteries is therefore feasible because diesel-electric trains already have an electric motor.
“Dramatic improvements in battery technology, coupled with the existing electric drivetrain in predominantly diesel-electric freight trains in the U.S., pave the way for a rapid conversion to battery-electric freight rail and with substantial cost savings,” said Berkeley Lab scientist Amol Phadke, corresponding author of the study. “Also, the weight of batteries is less of a constraint than it would be for electric vehicles or trucks. We can add a car to a freight train built out with batteries, and the weight of that battery car is not an issue with trains.”
Diesel-electric trains have been around since the 1920s, and they started to replace steam trains in the 1930s since they performed better and were less polluting. At that time, using diesel engines to generate power for the motors on trains was cheaper than trying to develop fully electric trains due to high electricity costs. Now, a century later, we are at a point where the price of electricity is competitive with diesel, and the environmental and health costs of continuing to rely on diesel to power freight trains are too devastating to ignore.
“Our analysis shows that a switch to battery-electric freight will cut the industry’s annual carbon dioxide emission by more than half, eliminating more than 400 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in 20 years,” said Popovich.
The study highlights that additional pathways to electrifying U.S. freight trains exist, such as electrifying trains via overhead power lines or using hydrogen fuel cells in conjunction with battery-powered trains. However, based on the fact that freight trains are already diesel-electric, and considering recent advances in battery technology, the researchers show that the battery-electric pathway offers the most cost-effective, long-term solution with multiple added benefits.
Their analysis shows that existing battery technology could power a freight train for 150 miles (the average daily distance traveled). A battery-powered freight train would use half the energy required by a diesel-electric train, and taking into account falling battery prices and environmental costs of diesel, battery-electric trains are on track to be more cost-competitive than diesel-electric trains. Since freight rail planning is centralized, the study suggests that railroads could achieve high volume use of fast-charging infrastructure, which would further reduce costs.
Battery-tender cars are modular and can be deployed in different configurations to locations experiencing power outages as well as to other sectors, such as to for electrifying ships. (Credit: drogatnev/iStock)
One major benefit of retrofitting existing diesel-electric freight trains with battery cars – otherwise known as battery tender cars – is that the battery-electric trains can always fall back on the diesel engine as a backup fuel source. This dual-fuel capability, allowing for either battery or diesel usage, is a unique advantage compared to fully electrifying the freight rail system or using hydrogen fuel cells.
Modular Batteries Offer Resilience Benefits
Another major benefit is that battery-electric trains can be deployed as clean backup power, thus bolstering the electric grid’s resilience. Historically, diesel-electric trains have been used as power generators during emergencies. In early 1998, a series of ice storms left over a million without power in the northeastern U.S. and in parts of Canada. In one suburb of Montreal, the mayor moved an entire diesel-electric locomotive close to City Hall to supply power for their emergency response operations.
With the rise of extreme weather events and power outages, battery-electric trains have the potential to be deployed nationwide to avoid blackouts. These modular, battery tender cars can be transported to where they are needed and charged in locations where the electricity prices are low, thus offering significant advantages over grid-scale storage. Moreover, the battery tender cars could work as modular shipping containers, capable of exchange between freight rail and maritime shipping vessels, with positive benefits to decarbonizing both sectors and expanding the resilience reach.
“Conversion of the U.S. freight rail sector to battery-electric would generate about 220 gigawatt-hours of mobile storage,” said Phadke. “Furthermore, these battery tender cars could be deployed during extreme events, such as during the recent catastrophic wildfires in California or the 2021 winter storm in Texas that left millions without access to electricity. This mobile energy storage capability would also create a potential new revenue stream for freight rail operators.”
From a technical perspective, the researchers demonstrated that there should not be any constraints in moving to fully battery-electric freight trains, but further research and large-scale demonstration projects are needed to optimize charging infrastructure. “Berkeley Lab’s systems and markets analyses shed light on this overlooked area and demonstrated that we can decarbonize some sectors with existing technology, which will help us reach our climate goals that much faster while also advancing environmental justice and grid resilience. It’s a win-win-win,” said Berkeley Lab Energy Storage Center Director Noel Bakhtian. “The techno-economic analysis of battery-electric freight trains shows that we have viable solutions available to enable the transition to a clean, affordable, and resilient energy future.”
The research was supported by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, by way of the Berkeley Lab Foundation.
# # #
Founded in 1931 on the belief that the biggest scientific challenges are best addressed by teams, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and its scientists have been recognized with 14 Nobel Prizes. Today, Berkeley Lab researchers develop sustainable energy and environmental solutions, create useful new materials, advance the frontiers of computing, and probe the mysteries of life, matter, and the universe. Scientists from around the world rely on the Lab’s facilities for their own discovery science. Berkeley Lab is a multiprogram national laboratory, managed by the University of California for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science.
DOE’s Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit energy.gov/science.
Additional information:
To catalyze solutions and partnerships around specific challenges to America’s energy storage future Berkeley Lab is convening a national summit on energy storage. The National Energy Storage Summit, Jumpstarting America’s Energy Storage Future, will be open to the public and take place March 8-9, 2022.
Britain's military clarifies reports about possible closure of Alberta training base
Author of the article:
Postmedia News
Publishing date:
Nov 24, 2021 •
Armoured vehicles are shown during an exercise at CFB Suffield in 2001.PHOTO BY POSTMEDIA ARCHIVES
Article content
Britain’s Ministry of Defence says it will not be shutting down its southern Alberta training base.
A report published in The Telegraph said the British military’s training bases at CFB Suffield and CFB Wainwright would be shut down and moved to the Middle East.
However in a tweet, the Ministry of Defence denied the reports about CFB Suffield.
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“Canada is one of the UK’s oldest and closest allies,” reads the tweet. “Contrary to reports today, we are not closing BATUS (British Army Training Unit Suffield).
“It will continue to be a vital training base for the British Army.”
The tweet makes no mention of the army’s second, smaller Alberta training base at CFB Wainwright, which is near Edmonton.
Britain’s defence secretary Ben Wallace told a British news website that while BATUS is not closing, the activities that happen there will change.
“Of course, we’ll change what we do there because some of those forces we might use elsewhere but no we’re not closing BATUS,” he told Forces.net .
Area residents are likely to be particularly sensitive to fires on the base because a fire spread from CFB Suffield in September 2017 and burned about 90,000 acres of grassland, killed 160 cattle and forced some residents in its path to flee their homes.
Suffield Base in Alberta is the largest chemical biological weapons research centre in North America, and one of only three NATO CBW research projects world ...
FRANCE IS NUCLEAR POWER
Large Insurers Are Hatching a Plan to Take Down Coal
Thomas Buberl, the chief executive of the French insurance company AXA, wants the industry to stop covering mines and plants. In 2015, AXA, lead by Thomas Buberl, became the first insurer to start divesting from coal.
This article is part of our latest DealBook special report on the trends that will shape the coming decades.
Insurers have a uniquely powerful role in addressing climate change — and one that may help determine the coal industry’s very existence in the next two decades, if not sooner. Insurers are not only among the largest institutional investors, their ability to withdraw insurance coverage can hinder a company’s operations.
Insurance companies also pay when climate change causes natural disasters, which cost the industry $82 billion last year, according to the insurer Munich Re.
AXA, the French insurance company, has eagerly leaned into its levers for reducing carbon emissions. In 2015, AXA became the first insurer to start divesting from coal, and it is now chair of the Net-Zero Insurance Alliance, a pledge signed by eight of the world’s largest insurers and reinsurers who have committed to have underwriting portfolios with net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
The majority of the signatories are European insurers. U.S. insurers, including AIG and Berkshire Hathaway, have not agreed to the terms. AXA’s chief executive, Thomas Buberl, has made it his mission to change that.
You were perhaps the first to embrace insurers’ role in climate change. What drove your decision?
We saw this whole question around climate transition very early on because as an insurer, you basically have two perspectives: You have the investment perspective, and you’ve got the underwriting perspective. And from the underwriting perspective, you also see, later on, the claims. And what we’ve seen from very early on was: Yes, investment in coal, and so on, seems to be quite an isolated and attractive investment — but then when you blend in the claims side, what happens to natural catastrophes and companies that we insure in terms of flooding, fires and so on? What happens to the patients that we have with their health? The equation doesn’t work.
AXA has worked towards reducing carbon emissions.
Credit...James Hill for The New York Times
Why do you believe that underwriting is the key to driving out the coal industry?
Even if all the insurers say, “We don’t invest in coal anymore,” even if all the banks say, “We don’t invest in coal anymore,” there is still private individuals who say, “I’ll give you the money for coal.” Whereas on the insurance side, if you don’t have the insurance, you will have no financing — whether it’s private, public, from an insurer, from an asset manager, whatever.
And so we said, “Look, by bringing the majority of this market together, because [there’s] only let’s say 12, 15 actors globally who do this business — if we get together and if we agree on principles of what to do we still insure and what do we not insure anymore — without violating any antitrust rules — we will create a very powerful coalition to really drive this market out.
There are a couple ways in which the government could step in on this issue. A regulator could integrate capital charges for unsustainable investments. Or it could take a taxonomy approach for green activities like it has in the European Union. Should, or will, that happen in the U.S.?
Look at other areas like diversity quotas. Why have they arrived? Because companies haven’t done their job early enough. Being proactive and making sure that there is enough diversity on their boards, on their management teams and so on. And so I’m always a believer of the basis that you don’t need government if you have sorted it out yourself. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always happen. But in this case, we are still early enough I think, to sort it out ourselves.
You’ve met personally with executives of major insurers to encourage them to sign the pledge. When you talk to them, what is their biggest concern?
It’s a question of, if I exclude customers, what does it mean for my relationships, what does it mean for my business. Because it is true, all those industries in question on the insurance side, the underwriting side, are very large customers.
Mr. Buberl has been Chief Executive Officer and director of AXA since September of 2016.
Credit...James Hill for The New York Times
When we went out of coal investment — I had a whole speech from my investment team. “Are you crazy? You will never find investments that have the same yield.” When I look now, five years later, we have allocated over $20 billion — our aim is now to go even further to $24, $25 billion — we have allocated that money into green investments. The yield is not so different to what we would have seen in the coal sector. The same was true on the underwriting side. We had to let go of a significant amount of business by not ensuring corporate use anymore. But have you seen any dip in our gross numbers? No, you haven’t.
The DealBook Newsletter Our columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin and his Times colleagues help you make sense of major business and policy headlines — and the power-brokers who shape them. Get it sent to your inbox.
In 20 years, will major insurance companies be underwriting coal?
You don’t need to wait 20 years for that.
Will they be out in five years?
No, but if you take us: We are completely out of coal in O.E.C.D [Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development] by 2030 and non-O.E.C.D. by 2040. I do believe that also, in non-O.E.C.D. countries, the pressure is rising every day. So those dates will probably be brought forward. I would say in 10 years from now, you will be mostly out.
Lauren Hirsch joined the New York Times from CNBC in 2020, covering business, policy and mergers and acquisitions. Ms. Hirsch studied comparative literature at Cornell University and has an M.B.A. from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. @laurenshirsch
B.C.’s sick leave law will provide workers five paid days minimum starting Jan. 1
Labour Minister Harry Bains says the five paid days are fair and were determined following a consultation period that generated 60,000 responses.
Author of the article:
The Canadian Press
Publishing date:
Nov 25, 2021 •
Labour Minister Harry Bains PHOTO BY DON CRAIG/GOVERNMENT OF B.C. /PNG
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VICTORIA — Workers in British Columbia will be eligible for “fair and balanced” sick leave pay that provides a minimum of five days a year starting Jan. 1, Labour Minister Harry Bains said Wednesday.
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The new sick leave policy affects all workers covered by the province’s Employment Standards Act, including part-time workers, he said.
“I firmly believe that no worker should have to choose to go to work sick or stay home and lose wages,” said Bains. “But about half of the B.C. workforce does not have paid sick leave. The workers without coverage are usually the most vulnerable in our society, those in low-paying jobs, often women and racialized people.”
The government says more than one million workers in B.C. don’t have paid sick leave.
Bains said a government consultation period gathering feedback on sick leave options of three, five or 10 days generated 60,000 responses.
“We promised to listen to everyone’s perspective and develop a fair and balanced regulation,” said Bains. “Not surprising, some have called for three days or less while others have asked for 10 days or more. Five days is a sustainable solution based on the challenges faced by many sectors.”
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He said employer and employee data gathered during the survey from within and outside of Canada found the average amount of sick time workers used during a year amounted to 4.8 days.
But Laird Cronk, president of the B.C. Federation of Labour, said the B.C. government’s data indicates that while workers may take an average of 4.8 sick days annually, countries like New Zealand, Australia, Sweden and Germany have 10 days or more.
“That’s really what it takes to make sure throughout the entire year workers have the economic ability to stay home when they are sick,” Cronk said in an interview.
Unifor president Jerry Dias said in a statement the B.C. government’s five-day policy is a “failure in leadership,” citing the federal government’s pledge to deliver 10 paid sick days for workers regulated by Ottawa.
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In May, the province gave all workers up to three days of paid sick leave because of COVID-19 until Dec. 31.
Bains said the pandemic showed that when workers do not have paid sick leave, many end up going to work, which hurts co-workers and employers.
He said during a two-month period when pandemic cases surged, workplace outbreaks of COVID-19 led to the shutdowns of almost 200 businesses in the region covered by Fraser Health.
Surrey Board of Trade president Anita Huberman said her organization supports the five-day program because it protects employees and their employers.
“Your workforce is your most important asset,” she said. “That’s what the Surrey Board of Trade believes. Too many Canadians are going to work sick. Why, because they have no other choice.”
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Fiona Famulak, president of the B.C. Chamber of Commerce, said the concern with permanent paid sick leave is that it will create additional financial challenges for small businesses at a time when they are trying to recover from the pandemic.
“Unlike the temporary paid sick days program, the cost for permanent paid sick leave will be born solely by employers,” she said in a statement. “We have called, and continue to call, on the B.C. government to find ways to reduce costs for B.C. businesses.”
The Opposition B.C. Liberals said the New Democrats are downloading the costs of sick leave onto employers, while the Green party said the government should match countries with leave provisions of 10 days or more.
