#BDS #BOYCOTTISRAEL

‘I thought I was a free man’: the engineer fighting Texas’s ban on boycotting Israel



Erum Salam
Tue, December 7, 2021, 1:00 AM·6 min read

For more than two decades, Texan civil engineer Rasmy Hassouna was a contractor for the city of Houston. Hassouna has consulted the city on soil volatility in the nearby Gulf of Mexico – a much needed service to evaluate the structural stability of houses and other buildings.

He was gearing up to renew his government contract when a particular legal clause caught his eye: a provision that effectively banned him or his company, A&R Engineering and Testing, Inc, from ever protesting the nation of Israel or its products so long as his company was a partner with the city of Houston.

For Hassouna – a 59-year-old proud Palestinian American – it was a huge shock.

“I came here and thought I was a free man. It’s not anybody’s business what I do or what I say, as long as I’m not harming anybody,” he told the Guardian. “Were you lying all this time? If I don’t want to buy anything at WalMart, who are you to tell me not to shop at WalMart? Why do I have to pledge allegiance to a foreign country?”

But Hassouna’s reaction did not stop at anger. He took action, launching a case that is challenging the Texas law and – by example – similar provisions that have spread all over the US that seek to stop government contractors from boycotting Israel and can be found in more than 25 US states. Along with the Arkansas Times newspaper, A&R Engineering and Testing Inc is now one of only two companies fighting this kind of law in the nation.

Hassouna’s case – which was filed on his behalf by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) – will be heard in federal court on Tuesday and is based on the idea that such laws violate free speech. If ruled unconstitutional, the 2019 ban on boycotting Israel will be illegal in the state of Texas.

But Hassouna’s decision to sue is not without a price. It could cost him a substantial amount of his yearly revenue, his lawyer said.

“They weren’t counting on Rasmy Hassouna from Gaza, whose family has suffered so greatly. He believes that Americans have the right to boycott whatever entity, foreign or domestic, that they want to. That’s what he’s doing – putting his money where his mouth is,” said Gadeir Abbas, a senior litigation attorney for CAIR who is representing Hassouna.

Hassouna first set foot on American soil in 1988. Like many immigrants, Hassouna’s first experience of the US was New York’s JFK airport. However, his final destination was the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, the university at which he planned to study civil engineering. “Regardless how long it was going to take or how hard I had to work, I was going to keep aiming toward my goal,” he said.

As a Palestinian under Israeli occupation, Hassouna had no claim to citizenship, so he had to get permission from Israeli officials in order to leave his home in Gaza, an area described by humanitarian organizations and politicians as an open-air prison.

“For almost two months every day, I left the house and I took a cab to the center of Gaza city. I gave [Israeli officials] my government application, my ID. I went to the gate and waited from 7 in the morning until 5 in the evening. You’re looking at the month of June and July in the sun, just standing there.”

After two months Hassouna finally secured clearance to travel to the United States for his university studies. Since Palestine is not recognized as a country, he was not issued a passport, but rather an Israeli travel document that stumped customs agents at every step of the journey.

When the time came for Hassouna to leave for the US, his neighborhood in Gaza was placed under a curfew. This meant that he had to escape under the cover of night if he was to make his flight. He recalled walking five miles behind his father, luggage in tow, to his cousin’s house, an area just outside the designated curfew zone. That was the last time he saw his father, who died before they could meet again.

Hassouna’s college experience was not unlike that of most American students. He recalled living with three roommates and surviving off the modest stipend from his teaching assistant position.

After graduating, Hassouna moved to Houston, Texas, in August 1992. Though he had a comprehensive background in his field, Hassouna’s early career was uncertain and tumultuous. He worked odd jobs at a Stop N Go gas station and convenience store before becoming a technician.

“Back then, I would work 11-7 at the convenience store and 8-5 at the company. One of my students [from South Dakota] was my supervisor, making three or four times what I was making. She used to come and ask me for advice.”

Finally, he was hired for an engineering position at another company with a starting pay of $24,000 – what he described as half of what most engineers were making at the time.

Hassouna has come a long way since then. Along the way, he got married and had two now-teenage sons. His mother died a few years after his father, but due to travel and visa restrictions for Gaza, Hassouna was unable to see her or attend the funeral. In 2005, Hassouna became an American citizen. His place of birth listed on his certificate of citizenship read ‘Israel,’ a statement with which he took issue.

“I went to the lady who was giving the certificates away and told her I didn’t want Israel on my certificate. She told me to go to the immigration center and that they would take care of it. I explained to them that my place of birth was not Israel, it was the Gaza Strip in Palestine. They told me ‘Palestine was not in the system.’”

Hassouna handed the certificate back to the immigration official and asked them to return his green card to him, explaining he would rather not be a citizen than be designated as Israeli by birth. After much deliberation, the immigration office conceded and mailed him a new certificate with his place of birth listed as ‘Gaza Strip’.

In 1999, he and his friend Alfred started their own company, A&R (Alfred and Rasmy) Engineering. Together, they secured contract work for the city of Houston. Some 25 years later, Alfred has sold his share in the company to Hassouna, who is now the sole owner.

Now, Hassouna’s loyalty to his homeland is being tested. After reading the most recent city contract, he wrote a letter to the city asking them to remove the Israel boycott ban clause from the contract, arguing that it was his constitutional right to boycott Israel if he so desired. City officials said it was out of their hands.

Now it is in the hands of a judge. If things don’t go Hassouna’s way, he said he is more than prepared to suffer the financial consequences.

“I want to stay working with the city and any other government entity. The thing is, I want to do it with my freedom intact and my dignity intact,” he said.

California Is Addicted To Oil From The Amazon

Editor OilPrice.com
Mon, December 6, 2021

California is by far the most ambitious U.S. state when it comes to things like emission standards, EV sales, and renewable energy. California is shutting down its nuclear power plants to double down on wind and solar.

It is also importing more oil from the Amazon rainforest than any country in the world.

Ecuador accounted for a little over 24 percent of California’s oil imports as of 2020. That equaled 55,219 barrels daily, according to the California Energy Commission. Interestingly, this is a substantial increase from the previous year, when Ecuador accounted for 18.22 percent of California’s oil imports, and from the year before, when Ecuador accounted for 14 percent.

This oil from Ecuador, according to a recent investigation by NBC News, comes from the Amazon rainforest—an area that is the target of massive conservation efforts and yet remains one of the most exploited parts of the world because of its natural resource wealth.

Ecuador is home to the Yasuni National Park, which contains some of the most diverse ecosystems globally, including two uncontacted indigenous tribes. For these tribes, the government even approved a so-called Intangible Zone—a border not to be crossed in order to protect these tribes. But that was before 2019. Two years ago, the government of Ecuador approved a plan to open up Yasuni National Park to oil and gas drilling.

Ecuador is a frequent reference in oil news, but the South American country has proven crude reserves estimated at 8.3 billion barrels, which makes it the third-largest oil country in Latin America, after Venezuela and Brazil. Yet, it doesn’t produce anywhere close to what Brazil pumps and what Venezuela did before the U.S. sanctions. Its average for 2020 was 483,000 bpd, according to the Energy Information Administration. But this is changing.

The president of the tiny South American nation, who took office this May, pledged to double the country’s oil production and is working on this through some major reforms aimed at facilitating the participation of private companies in Ecuador’s oil industry. According to Argus Media, the rush aims to monetize the country’s oil assets before the energy transition kills demand for the fossil fuel. Yet judging from California’s appetite for Ecuadorian oil, this killing might take a while.

According to the NBC investigation, which was based on a report by Stand.earth and Amazon Watch, 66 percent of the oil produced in Ecuador is exported to the United States, and most of that ends up in California. As the two environmentalist groups put it, 1 in 7 tanks of gasoline, diesel, or jet fuel sold in California came from the Amazon rainforest. And that’s not all.

Some of the biggest corporate users of Amazon oil in California are PepsiCo, Costco, and Amazon. All three have made emission-related pledges, with PepsiCo vowing to reduce absolute greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent from 2015 levels by 2030 and net-zero status by 2040 and Amazon promising billions in investment to become a net-zero emitter by the same year.

“This is no longer one of those things where we’re supposed to have sympathy for a crisis that’s happening somewhere else,” Angeline Robertson, a senior researcher at Stand.earth and the lead author of the report, told NBC. “It’s occurring in California, and it’s linked to Amazon destruction.”

It is also the latest proof that moving away from oil and gas is a lot easier said than done. For all of its anti-oil rhetoric, California is a major importer of the commodity. Before Ecuador became its top source of the commodity, it was importing most of its oil from Saudi Arabia and Iraq and smaller amounts from Colombia, Mexico, Nigeria, and Angola. California, therefore, is very much like any other oil importer in the world with one difference: while other importers simply do not have the domestic production to use, California is purposefully squeezing its oil industry.

There are plans in place to ban fracking by 2024, with Governor Newsom saying in May that “As we move to swiftly decarbonize our transportation sector and create a healthier future for our children, I’ve made it clear I don’t see a role for fracking in that future and, similarly, believe that California needs to move beyond oil.”

This move would necessitate weaning the state off the more than 200,000 bpd of foreign oil it imports on top of more than 460,000 bpd in local production. It’s going to be difficult. There is also a proposal to ban offshore drilling after an oil spill in October added fuel to arguments about whether oil had a future in California or not.

In Ecuador and in the Yasuni National Park, oil definitely has a future, unlike an attempt by a previous government to save its unique ecosystems by calling on the international community to provide $3.5 billion for conservation efforts. NBC recalls the government of Rafael Correa abandoned its plan to protect its share of the Amazon six years with international donations after it only managed to raise a tenth of what was needed. And then it lifted the drilling moratorium for Yasuni, with President Correa saying, “The world has failed us.”

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

‘Your generation got us in this mess’: children of big oil employees discuss the climate crisis with their parents


Emma Pattee
Tue, December 7, 2021, 

What do you do when your family has deep ties to the oil and gas industry, yet all agree that burning fossil fuels is accelerating the climate crisis?

For one family, the fossil fuel industry’s role in stoking the climate emergency is more than just a dinner table debate. It’s their legacy. Andy and Wendy met in the 70s while working as engineers for Exxon. They spent decades working in oil and gas while raising their children.

Now retired, Andy and Wendy drove from their home in Washington state to spend the holidays with their son, James, and their daughter, Liz, who has two young sons with her husband, Dara. The family sat down with the Guardian the day before Thanksgiving to discuss how the three generations view the climate crisis and how the family reckons with their fossil fuel connection.


Participants include:


Andy, 65, retired engineer,


Wendy, 62, retired engineer


Liz, 33, environmental safety manager


Dara, 35, Liz’s husband and engineer


James, 31, IT consultant

Andy and Wendy, you met while working at Mobile?

Andy: In those days, we were doing synthetic fuels. We were trying to address the energy crisis by making new kinds of fuels. And Wendy and I met in that group. After the merger with Exxon, they moved us from New Jersey down to Texas, there was a big group of us that made that move. That forms certain bonds.

In that group, was global warming even part of the conversation?

Wendy: We talked more about air quality and what was happening from burning fossil fuels. There’s so much pollution in Houston that sometimes the kids’ sports were canceled because of air quality. So we talked more about the downside of fossil fuels around air quality than global warming.

We bought a Prius in 2004, right when Priuses came out, and drove it to Exxon every day. There was this whole conversation with all of our co-workers about driving a Prius.

Andy: Colleagues were giving me the eyeball. They just didn’t understand why anyone would ever do such a thing.

Liz and James, do you remember when you first became aware of what your parents did for work?

Liz: In the 90s there were a lot of Bring Your Kids to Work days. And so I used to go with my dad into work when he worked at Mobile. But it wasn’t until high school that I really understood what the oil and gas industry is and how it impacts people.

James: For me, it was a byproduct of us moving around. Because of the merger with Exxon Mobil, we relocated a couple times so people would ask me, oh, are your parents in the military? And I had to say, no, they’re oil and gas.

Did you guys feel uncomfortable when you were younger telling people your parents worked in fossil fuels?

Liz: I don’t remember feeling a sense of shame then. But I felt a very strong pull when I was in college to go into a career where I could reverse the effects of climate change. I studied environmental science at the University of Washington. And it was also in college that I learned about how long Exxon had known about climate change and had covered it up. I felt strongly that I don’t want to purchase Exxon gas.

James: I was in high school at the time of the BP spill, the Deepwater Horizon, and so being in Bellingham, which is such a liberal area, obviously a lot of my peers were very upset about it. I was upset about it. But at the same time, my mom was working for BP.

[To Wendy] You were wanting to defend your company. And so there were a lot of words said: this could have happened to anyone, there was a significant amount of risk getting taken in the Gulf at the time, a lot of companies were cutting corners. But, you know, you still have to hold people responsible for the choices that they make.

Eleven people died after BP’s offshore oil rig Deepwater Horizon exploded on 21 April 2010. Photograph: US Coast Guard/Getty Images

Liz: I was deeply disturbed by the incident, more so than maybe anyone else in the family. What really aggrieved me was the fact that people are still continuing to fill up their cars with gas every day. And maybe they’re boycotting BP gas, but by continuing to consume, people are contributing to the problem. And so there’s this awful hypocrisy in that after each of these incidents. We can all play the blame game and yet there hasn’t been any shift away from consuming gasoline and diesel.

Andy: I wouldn’t say there’s not been any shift.

Liz: Maybe. Slow and gradual.

Andy: Right, right not fast enough for where we want.

Wendy, you worked for BP when that spill happened. Can you speak a little bit about that?

Wendy: It really affected me. The environmental part, of course, but the safety part in terms of the loss of life of colleagues. I mean, I started tearing up hearing the kids talking about it right now.

It was a total moral reckoning. It became apparent that the fossil fuel industry is wrong on so many levels. I realized I lost my way. I started in synthetic fuels and the path led to conventional oil and gas.

But at that point, I was so far along in the industry. I had two kids in college, so I asked myself ‘what can I do within this industry to do something impactful and valuable?’ That’s why I accepted a safety project in Alaska.

What are the family conversations about fossil fuels like at the dinner table?

Dara: What I like about the conversations that we have with Andy and Wendy: I think we hold them accountable. Your generation, you guys got us in this mess and they admit that. I mean, I don’t think you guys disagree.



We can all play the blame game, yet there hasn’t been any shift away from consuming gasoline and diesel

Liz: I remember the first time that I picked my own electricity provider and there was a 100% renewable option and I was so excited about it. The first thing I did was call my dad and say, Dad, tell me you’re purchasing 100% renewable power. Then a year later, we started with a garden and I bought a big composting bin for the back yard. And calling Dad, hey Dad, you guys are composting, right?

Liz, it’s hard to imagine you came to this career in environmental protection accidentally, that it’s unconnected from your parents’ career choices.

Going into college, I just knew I wanted to do the opposite [of my parents]. I wanted to do everything that I could to deter climate change. And I spent the first 11 years of my career working in the oil and gas industry and in the environment, health and safety field, and there’s a lot of opportunities to talk about sustainability within that framework.

But my personal experience is, you can be as loud as you want but unless you have buy-in from the top, it’s not going to happen. There are plenty of energy companies out there who see environmental social governance reporting as the latest way to pacify shareholders without driving real change.

Andy and Wendy, what comes up hearing Liz say that she wanted to do the opposite of what you had done, career-wise?

Andy: Liz, we can feel her passion and she does push us. And that’s a positive influence. We’re feeling the push. That’s our way of saying we’re not stuck in the blame game. That’s very complicated. But no matter what, that’s all in the past.

Liz and Dara, your kids are three and five. How has the arrival of this newest generation changed things?

Wendy: When we sit down to Thanksgiving dinner, we’re having stuffed acorn squash, the vegan version. The climate for us is a big part of our plant-based eating. So, you know, we’ll have that conversation with the boys around why there’s not a turkey on the table.

Liz: The previous generation, the way people talked about race was in coded and polite ways. And now we talk openly about racism and Black Lives Matter. It’s the same thing to me with climate change. We’re not beating around the bush. We have books for our kids about climate change. And when we tell them bedtime stories, it’s about climate change. We want them to understand it and name it and talk to their friends about it.

Dara: I think Liz and I disagree a little bit. When I do night-time stories about climate change with the five-year-old, it opens up a can of worms of questions on why did this happen? Who did it? I don’t know if it’s necessarily healthy for him to know all of that information. And sometimes I don’t even have the answers.

This story is published as part of Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of news outlets strengthening coverage of the climate story

Wealthy people cause climate change much more than poorer people do, report finds

Ben Adler

·Senior Climate Editor

Tue, December 7, 2021

The disparity in greenhouse gas emissions between rich and poor countries — and rich and poor people within countries — is just as extreme as economic inequality, a new report finds.

Overall, emissions are closely correlated with income, according to a report released Tuesday by the World Inequality Lab, a Paris-based research organization.

“Wealthy individuals pollute much more than low-income groups,” Lucas Chancel, the co-director of the World Inequality Lab and lead author of the report, told Yahoo News in an email. “An extreme illustration of this is when billionaires decide to do a nine-minute trip to space. Estimates suggest this adds 75 tonnes of carbon per passenger. It takes a lifetime for about a billion people on earth to reach this level of per capita emissions.”

A woman walks on the outskirts of Dhaka, Bangladesh. (Mohammad Ponir Hossain/Reuters)

Emissions inequality accompanies another form of climate inequality: the tendency of the adverse impacts of climate change to fall hardest on poorer communities and poorer countries.

“Climate change is going to exacerbate global inequalities, which are already very high,” Chancel noted. “Poorest countries like Bangladesh or Small Island States will be hit very hard by rising sea levels or extreme weather events. In rich countries, the poorest groups of the population are also more vulnerable to floods or forest fires induced by climate change, because they have fewer resources to recover after their homes are destroyed.”

Traffic streams along the San Bernardino Freeway in Los Angeles. (Luis Sinco/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

The report’s key findings include striking differences in emissions between nations and between individuals, based largely on income:

• There is a huge gap in emissions between countries. The top 10 percent of highest-emitting countries are responsible for 48 percent of all emissions, while the bottom half of countries produce just 12 percent of the total.

• That gap is even wider when adjusting for population. “Average emissions in Sub-Saharan Africa are close to 50% above the 1.5°C sustainable level and about half of the 2°C budget,” the report concludes. “At the other end of the spectrum, per capita emissions in North America are 21 tonnes per capita (three times the world average and six times higher than the 2°C sustainable level).”

• This gap grows even further when historical emissions are considered, because rich countries industrialized first. In cumulative emissions, North America accounts for 27 percent of the total and Europe for 22 percent, whereas Latin America has contributed only 6 percent and sub-Saharan Africa only 4 percent.

• Even compared with its income, the United States is an outsized climate polluter. “US average emissions are 3.2 times the world average, while its average income is three times the world average, and Europe’s emissions are less than 1.5 times the world average while the income figure is close to two,” the report notes.

• There is very little left in the so-called carbon budget, meaning the amount of greenhouse gases that can still be emitted before the world breaches the threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius warming that scientists say will trigger a cascade of devastating impacts. “At current global emissions rates, the 1.5°C budget will be depleted in six years and 2°C budget in 18 years,” the report states. At current rates, the rich countries that account for most emissions are taking up almost all of that budget.

• Individuals who burn the most fossil fuels account for a disproportionate share of emissions within their countries. In North America, the bottom half of residents emit fewer than 10 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year, compared with over 70 tons for the top 10 percent.

Source: World Inequality Lab

It’s easy to understand why these big discrepancies exist. Richer people have larger homes with more high-energy amenities like air conditioners. They are more likely to own cars, to have bigger cars and to take airplane trips. They buy more new products, from smartphones to clothes, that each have their own carbon footprint.

It’s also unsurprising that the average American produces more emissions, adjusted for income, than their European counterparts: Americans tend to have larger homes and to drive more and in less efficient cars. That’s largely because of different government policies. Gasoline taxes in the United States are the second-lowest, after Mexico, of any country in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The average American pays $0.56 per gallon in gasoline taxes. In the United Kingdom, the average gasoline tax per gallon is $2.82; in Japan it’s $1.91, and in Germany it’s $2.79.

Source: World Inequality Lab

“Carbon emissions of individuals are broadly due to three dimensions: first, petrol people put in their cars or energy used to heat their homes; second, the carbon embedded in the services and goods people buy; and third the carbon associated with investments people make,” said Chancel. “Poorest groups purchase less goods and services than the richest individuals — and the poorest half of the population in a country like the U.S. makes little or no investments because they own so little wealth. Therefore we see that countries with large economic inequalities will also have large carbon inequalities. In the U.S., the poorest half of the population emits about 10 tonnes of carbon per year, while the richest 10% emit about 75 tonnes.”

This means that to avert catastrophic climate change, not only do rich countries need to rein in fossil fuel consumption, the richest residents of every country also have to dramatically cut their emissions.

“The poorest half of the population in rich countries is already at (or near) the 2030 climate targets set by rich countries, when these targets are expressed on a per capita basis,” the report finds. “This is not the case for the top half of the population. Large inequalities in emissions suggest that climate policies should target wealthy polluters more.”

Source: World Inequality Lab

Cover thumbnail photo: Charlie Riedel/AP

Why Helium Could Be The Hottest Commodity Play Of 2022


Editor OilPrice.com
Mon, December 6, 2021

Helium is already 100x more expensive than natural gas—even with skyrocketing oil and gas prices.

And the helium land rush is on in full force.

It’s made easier by the fact that the bulk of helium comes from natural gas fields, and what investors should be paying attention to now is the largest conventional gas field in the United States.

This is where we could find the biggest potential beneficiary of a helium shortage that will dictate the future of everything from supercomputing and space travel to MRIs and medical research across the board.

Helium plays in general are strong bets because we no longer have a federal reserve of helium—as of this year—and we’re looking at an extremely tight supply picture coupled with fast-growing high-tech demand.

But Total Helium (TSX.V:TOH) is the furthest along and its advantages are clear …

It has a helium play in the biggest conventional natural gas field in the United States, Hugoton, in the Kansas-Oklahoma panhandle.

The company reports it already has a deal with a member of the helium oligopoly—Linde (NYSE:LIN), one of the biggest downstream companies in the sector.

And it’s got superb sponsorship: Behind Total Helium is Craig Steinke, the founder of Reconnaissance Africa, the bold junior explorer taking on the giant Kavango Basin in Namibia and Botswana, with an estimated potential of 120 billion boe.

Here are 5 reasons we plan to keep a very close eye on Total Helium (TSX.V:TOH) right now:

#1 The Biggest Helium Play in North America

Discovered in 1922, the Hugoton natural gas field isn’t just the largest in the United States—it’s reportedly the largest conventional gas play in all of North America.

It has a potential 75 trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas.

And it’s not only the historical center of conventional natural gas production—it's a helium behemoth that’s already produced approximately 300 BCF of helium.

Now, Total Helium is expanding this massive field, armed with new technology and a market that will be starving for more helium supplies.

So far, Total Helium has approximately 86,000 acres of leases on hand at Hugoton—about 46,000 in leases and about 40,000 in farmout agreements with Scout Energy, one of the largest producers in the basin.

And the leasing campaign is still ongoing. The end game here is said to be a 1.65 million-acre extension.


And Total Helium’s extension area is said to have proven concentrations of helium:


Total Helium (TSX.V:TOH) is targeting 70 billion cubic feet of helium here, along with 8.5 trillion cubic feet of produced gas, enriched with liquids.

They estimate that the average well they drill could be able to produce over 27,000 Mcf of helium.

At today’s natural gas and helium prices, we think this is a play that’s hard to beat, and there’s even more upside here when we consider the methane potential …

So why hasn’t Hugoton been on the mainstream radar in recent years?

In the previous century, this was a monster gas producer for the United States. But a lack of technology kept us from realizing its full, continued potential. And then the shale boom hit. The advent of fracking—even though exorbitantly expensive and environmentally questionable—took all attention away from the technology to recover Hugoton’s remaining gas riches.

A key issue was water.

While the rest of the world was distracted by unconventional oil and gas, Steinke—a long-time wildcatter—found a different niche: proven reservoirs with high water concentrations. This is what Hugoton is. And without the right technology, it can be just as challenging as fracking.

But that technology now exists, and while the world has remained distracted … Steinke has not.

Steinke and his team are experienced in this kind of reservoir. Now, in Hugoton, they have a significant injection zone for the additional volumes of water that get produced. Hugoton was a problem earlier on because no one had the right technology to be able to handle the water. Total Helium does. Water disposal is an important part of the economic equation here.

This is a natural gas, methane, and helium play, and with the right water disposal system, which is said to have been already secured, it should be easy to get at.

Geological storage studies have already been completed and engineering studies are underway.

Everything appears to be lined up for this play and the critical infrastructure is in place, with a massive pipeline network.

#2 Soaring Gas Prices as First Wells Are Spudded

Total Helium (TSX.V:TOH) started drilling its first well, Boltz 35B, on November 14th. The process includes installing a 3-phase power for operating a submersible pump, building a pipeline connection to sell produced gases, and establishing disposal lines for connecting the well to the existing salt-water disposal well.

In December, they intend to start testing, completion, and production at Boltz 35B.

This one is moving fast, and the news flow from now through the end of the year could be extremely defining for this exciting new stock.

All the more so when the company’s projected return on investment for a single well is 877%.


* RPS Competent Person Report –P50 Case

Total Helium says it will also be keeping costs down by paying their farmout partner, Scout Energy, 15 cents per barrel for disposal, which is a very nominal fee—even when you have agreed to sell Linde 10,000 Mcf of helium per month at $212 per Mcf—the discounted price until Linde recoups its investment. Anything beyond that 10,000 Mcf will could go at market price for up to $500 per Mcf. And even at $212/Mcf, it’s profitable.

And we think there is plenty of additional upside here, as well.

Total Helium’s total prospect area is approximately 1.65 million acres, representing a 19x growth opportunity.

There’s even more upside in the potential to competitively bid up excess helium, which is selling for anywhere between $300/Mcf to $600/Mcf. That excess helium alone has a potential for a 1.8x growth scenario for Total Helium.

Finally, the company’s helium storage JV with Linde has ongoing revenue potential.

#3 Total Helium Has Critical Partnership & Sponsorship

A partnership with a huge multinational industrial gas company makes this opportunity a rare one for a junior player.

Linde (NYSE:LIN) is a $160-billion-market-cap major that provides atmospheric gases to customers in multiple trillion-dollar industries, from petroleum refining, aerospace, electronics, and healthcare to manufacturing, food and beverage, chemicals and water treatment industries.

This isn’t just any partnership deal. Total Helium (TSX.V:TOH) and Linde have a JV deal that may see them create the only alternative helium storage facility to the U.S. federal helium reserve in the entire world. The U.S. federal helium is planned to be auctioned off to private investors.

This partnership deal also looks like an ideal setup for generating cash flow for Total Helium. The company has already received $950,000 in the form of an upfront payment from Linde. And they’re set to receive another $950,000 as they spud their first wells.

They also have a $360,000 consulting contract with Linde for establishing underground helium storage facilities, with 50/50% ownership deal.

So far, Total Helium has generated over $2.2 million in current and upcoming cash flows from its partnership with Linde.

The deal with Linde isn’t the only thing that sets Total Helium apart. This is a level of sponsorship we don’t often see in a small-cap play like this.

The man behind Total Helium, Craig Steinke, is also behind the most exciting oil play we’ve seen in a decade, at least—Recon Africa’s Kavango Basin with an estimated potential of up to 120 billion boe. Steinke is great at making moves on huge hidden, or forgotten gems and swooping in to acquire big plays that are usually reserved for supergiants.

Now, Steinke is aiming to do something similar with Total Helium (TSX.V:TOH), as the bit hits the ground in North America’s largest conventional natural gas field.

Except that now, it’s about a basket of high-priced gases, including helium and methane …

#4 North America is Desperate for Home-Grown Helium

Helium is extremely lightweight, non-reactive, and can liquify at extremely low temperatures. It’s also completely non-renewable. In other words, there is nothing that can replace it.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) first jumped on helium in WWI, feeding technology that sent helium balloons to bomb our adversaries. Since then, helium has been considered a strategic gas held in a federal reserve. During the Cold War, helium was used for cooling the tips of missiles.

Now, helium is a key to our supercomputing power. A key to big data. Our hard drives are now “helium drives”. Fiber-optic telecommunications might be impossible without helium. So may medical research, and even MRIs. A NASA space shuttle requires 1 million cubic feet of helium just during the launch countdown.

Linde bought much of its past helium from the BLM, but now they have to look elsewhere. That search has taken them as far away as Russia and Qatar, but transporting helium that far is a risk because it is not bound to the earth by gravity and can leak away. Industrial Gas Companies have been paying a premium to Russia and Qatar for helium, so a sizable North American option is not only ideal—it’s vital.

#5 Bottom Line: Impressive ‘Helium Enhanced’ Economics

Natural gas is trading at just under $5 right now. And that’s about $2 more than the norm in recent years. Helium still blows it away at up to $500/Mcf.

And now that the BLM is out of business, North America could find itself facing a helium shortage.

One of the most innovative wildcatters on the natural resources scene has scooped up tens of thousands acres of leases for the largest natural gas field in North America, and a venue that serves as the epicenter of American helium.

Unique water disposal technology could make this one of the most profitable helium producers out there, which is exactly why they’ve attracted giant Linde as a JV partner with a helium offtake deal.

Both Total Helium (TSX.V:TOH) management and Linde have significant skin in this game which could provide a serious boost in investor confidence.

And they’ve just spudded their first well, with completion targeted for this December. We’re looking at a fast-moving play with world-class helium potential and a management team of world-renowned wildcatting fame. The clock is ticking on this one and it goes way beyond party balloons.

Other companies looking to capitalize on the alternative resource space:

Air Products & Chemicals (NYSE:APD) has been at the forefront of global hydrogen production for years. They recognize that this clean alternative fuel can help make an impactful dent in boosting our country's green energy initiatives as well as reducing carbon emissions across industries by decreasing reliance on fossil fuels like coal and petroleum products, etc., which Air Product’s own extensive experience with helping others achieve sustainability goals through chemical innovation will bring about even more progress than before

Air Products and Chemicals has well over 60 years of experience producing hydrogen, and more than two decades designing fueling stations. It’s SmartFuel stations have been deployed across the globe and support a number of different unique and interesting transportation applications. The fully-integrated stations include compression, storage and dispensing systems that have proven to be safe and reliable for its customers. Though Air Products has been around for some time, the $66 billion company has had a particularly strong year in 2021 thanks to the growing interest in Hydrogen applications.

Dow Chemical Company (NYSE:DOW) is an American multinational chemical corporation headquartered in Midland, Michigan with over a century in operation. This company has been called "the chemical companies' chemical company" as its sales are to other industries rather than directly to end-use consumers and it employs around 54 thousand people worldwide. Along with being one of the three largest producers of chemicals in the world, they also make plastics, agricultural products and more.

George Kehler, Dow’s commercial manager for Fuels and Energy, notes, “One of Dow’s options to develop a diverse portfolio to power our facilities is to produce energy off the grid through cogeneration, as well as having renewables become an increasingly more important part of the mix”

Dow is also teaming up with GM to produce hydrogen for fuel cells and reduce their reliance on natural gas. Dow produces chemicals that help the environment as well as plastics, which can be used in everyday items like water bottles or cell phones; but now they're looking into something more than just a single product line! In addition to reducing costs by using another company's resource (hydrogen), this partnership will also provide clean energy while making it easier - these two companies are committed not only toward improving our technological future...but extending it so we never run out!

Dozens of Seal Pups and a Rare Sea Turtle Have Washed Up on UK Beaches Following Storm Arwen

Madeline Buiano

Mon, December 6, 2021

Extreme weather occurrences are becoming increasingly common as the climate crisis continues to impact the environment. One of the latest events was Storm Arwen, which hit the United Kingdom hard last week with exceptionally strong winds of almost 100 mph—an event the country hasn't seen for nearly 60 years. In its wake, dozens of seal pups washed up on UK beaches, as well as a very rare Kemp's Ridley sea turtle that was discovered on a beach in North Wales, around 4,700 miles from its home, CNN reports.

According to the National Wildlife Federation, Kemp's Ridley Sea Turtles are considered "the smallest marine turtles in the world and are also the most endangered." The turtle that washed ashore during Storm Arwen was discovered on Talacre Beach in North Wales, a far journey from its native home in the Gulf of Mexico. Matthew Westfield, the coordinator of Marine Environmental Monitoring in the Welsh town of Cardigan, was first alerted about the turtle on November 28. "If they get caught in a current, they can be taken into deeper water," Westfield told CNN. "What's probably happened with this one is that it's been floating around for a week or so, and then Storm Arwen hit it and then blew it onto UK waters."

grey seal pup on rocky beach

Kerrin / 500px / Getty Images

Although they originally believed the turtle was dead, Westfield said it's not uncommon for the animals to go into "cold water shock" mode, which results in their entire system shutting down. The turtle, who is projected to be around two or three years old, has been named Tally and is currently being cared for at the Anglesey Sea Zoo in Wales. Tally has been placed in an incubator to offset the effects incurred by the cold shock. Of the 72 Kemp's Ridley sea turtles that have washed up in the UK, Tally is one of only 27 that were found alive.

Aside from Tally, dozens of seal pups have also washed up on British beaches as a result of the storm. Em Mayman, the out-of-hours coordinator for the organization British Divers Marine Life Rescue, told CNN that many of the pups were found malnourished with some under the birth weight of around 28.6 pounds, meaning they never had a chance to feed from their mother after birth. "These pups are often only a matter of days or weeks old, and have been prematurely separated from their mothers during the critical time in which they normally feed to gain necessary body fat," Mayman said. The seal pups that are treatable are sent to rehabilitation centers where they're constantly monitored until they're healthy enough to be released.

Dutch court to rule on Palestinian's case against Israeli defence minister


FILE PHOTO: Israeli cabinet meeting in Jerusalem

Mon, December 6, 2021
By Stephanie van den Berg

THE HAGUE (Reuters) - An appeals court in the Netherlands rules on Tuesday in a case alleging war crimes against Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz, who is blamed by a Dutch Palestinian for the loss of six relatives in an Israeli air strike on Gaza in 2014.

Ismail Ziada filed the civil case against Gantz and another former senior Israeli military official, seeking unspecified damages under Dutch universal jurisdiction rules. His case was thrown out by a lower Dutch court in January 2020.

Universal jurisdiction allows countries to prosecute serious offences such as war crimes and torture no matter where they were committed.

But the lower court ruled that the principles of universal jurisdiction could be applied for individual criminal responsibility, but not in civil cases.

Ziada appealed, arguing that universal jurisdiction should be applied in civil cases if the alleged conduct involved serious violations of international humanitarian law. He asked the appeals judges to reverse the decision, which effectively granted Gantz immunity from prosecution.

Gantz, a career soldier turned politician, was commander-in-chief of the Israeli armed forces during a war against Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip in 2014, when the incident took place.

About 2,200 Palestinians are estimated to have been killed, up to 1,500 of them civilians, in the conflict, according to U.N. figures. Ziada said he lost relatives when his family home in Gaza was bombed during a June 2014 Israeli air strike. On the Israeli side, 67 soldiers and five civilians were killed.

Gaza is controlled by the Palestinian Islamist Hamas movement, regarded by the West as a terrorist organization. Israel says Hamas puts civilians in harm's way by deploying fighters and weaponry inside densely populated areas of Gaza.

Human rights groups have accused both sides of war crimes in the 2014 conflict. The International Criminal Court (ICC) is currently investigating alleged war crimes committed on Palestinian territory since June 2014 by both Israeli defence forces and Palestinian armed groups.

(Reporting by Stephanie van den Berg in The Hague with additional reporting by Jeffrey Heller in Jerusalem; Editing by Anthony Deutsch and Mark Heinrich)

Montana Gov. Gianforte, AG Knudsen try to stop American Prairie’s bison through political pressure

Darrell Ehrlick

Great Falls Tribune
Mon, December 6, 2021, 

Bison calves being moved at the American Prairie Reserve.

One of the most common observations made by early European explorers in Montana was the immense buffalo herds and the Native people who hunted and used the huge animals.

A 2016 article in the Intermountain Journal of Sciences by James A. Bailey chronicles the observations.

The Crows were reported to kill “upwards of a thousand” bison in a day in 1824; meanwhile, George Catlin recorded 500 Shoshone tribal members slaughtered more than 1,400 in one day in 1832.

Yet as tribes and Montana begin to see more bison repopulate a state where they were once taken by the hundreds, two of the state’s top officials, along with heads of several key state agencies, want to put a stop to a private nonprofit organization’s attempt at placing small bison herds on lands where the animals once roamed.

American Prairie, formerly known as “American Prairie Reserve,” has purchased thousands of acres throughout Montana and has had grazing leases that have been tied to the lands for years. That’s why when it came to renewing those leases through the federal government’s Bureau of Land Management, the organization wasn’t expecting the furor that came from state leaders.

When the BLM’s own assessment determined that no significant harm would come from the grazing or leases, Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte, along with the leaders from the state’s department of agriculture and the Wildlife, Fish and Parks as well as Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen, objected, urging the federal leaders to reconsider and hold more public meetings.

When the BLM, which had used a standard public comment period and public meeting, rebuffed the state leaders’ requests, Knudsen held his own public comment meeting and rejected an offer from American Prairie to meet, leading to an ongoing cold war in which the same leaders criticizing the nonprofit also refused to engage in conversation, leaving little more than an exchange of inflammatory letters and accusations that bison conservation will lead to the death of cattle ranching in central and northern Montana.

Gianforte and Knudsen were both contacted for the story, and neither office responded to requests for interviews.

The case of science vs. politics

When the BLM released its findings of no negative impacts for the grazing leases, that set into motion a concerted effort by state leaders to get the federal government to reconsider. At the heart of the argument is a disputed theory that federal grazing law did not allow for bison, rather only animals raised for commercial ranching, like cattle and sheep. Bison have also been raised in Montana for commercial production for decades.

Meanwhile, outside the legal process, ranchers opposed to American Prairie worry about escaped bison or the spread of disease. Yet scientists who study bison say that question — a recurring one in debates in Montana — has been largely settled in favor of the two animal species successfully living together without harming each other.

While the BLM and the federal government are standing by their public comment and input, as well as their findings regarding the grazing leases, the state may not be able to stop the federal permits, but it could make it more difficult to manage them.

Federal public lands have a checkerboard pattern of state lands intermixed among them. As a matter of law, the two are separate, but in practice, state governments often defer to the federal Bureau of Land Management to help manage lands that it technically owns on behalf of the state, but is surrounded — often like an island — in a sea of federal public land. That makes sense because animals don’t just graze according to land boundaries without fencing.

Yet separate management is one of the options the state of Montana said it would consider if the BLM doesn’t take more input. Technically, Montana could decide to wall off or separate its public grazing lands, but that would take thousands of dollars in fencing, something that, even with money from grazing leases, would likely not even pay for itself in the first 20-year lease. Moreover, the state would then have to decide how to manage its portion of the land, including access for any other leaseholders.

This is the first time some of the leases have come up with American Prairie as the leaseholder tied to the land.

Bovine vs. bison

While the conversation about bison and American Prairie has largely boiled down to bison conservation versus cattle ranching, the science on that is no longer in doubt.

Sam Fuhlendorf is the regents professor and Groendyke chair in wildlife conservation at Oklahoma State University. He works around the country with both conservation and ranching efforts, studying both animals.

He admits it’s hard to compare them because they’re very similar. They both forage and utilize similar food. One of the biggest differences, though, is “thermal stressors.” Cattle become stressed in high heat and chilly temperatures.

“Bison show extreme thermal tolerance,” Fuhlendorf said.

That means the blasting summer sun of the Montana prairie isn’t as big of a threat for bison, and neither is the prolonged cold of an intense winter.

Both can co-exist. Both can exist on the same land.

“They’re both big, bulk roughage eaters,” Fuhlendorf said.

As for managing bison versus managing cattle, Fuhlendorf, whose research is in range management, said it’s all a matter of managing. Bison range managers can be just as detrimental as cattle range operators. He said sometimes when a bison wallows in dust, people tend to view it as a spiritual experience, but when a bovine cow does it, it’s dirty. He said there’s nothing inherently bad or good about either, just small differences that depend on the management.

“Really, when we’re talking management, we’re talking about the middle,” Fuhlendorf said. “We want to make sure nothing is too heavily grazed and nothing is too little.”

He said the one difference in management is that bison, because they haven’t been domesticated like cattle, can get a reputation of being harder to handle.

“There’s nothing magically good or evil about bison, though,” Fuhlendorf said. “The most important decision is how many animals will be out there. For bison – if a bison can get out, it will. But the key is not making them want to get out of wherever they are.”

As for the politics of bison in Montana, that’s something that not even studying the animals for decades has given him a clear handle on. A sign that’s popped up throughout central and northern Montana that says, “Save the Cowboy, Stop APR,” is one indicator of the tensions.

“Most of it is a red herring,” Fuhlendorf said. “At Wichita Mountain (cattle and bison) are in the same pasture all the time and none of the ranchers are troubled by the connection. Ranchers in quite a few other states just don’t have a problem.

“Ranchers, by nature, are conservative. But even if they wouldn’t do something with their property, they understand the rights of others because of private property.”
Follow the law

One thing that both sides agree on: the other side is not following the law.

In Gianforte’s letter to the federal agency, he said the BLM lacks the authority to issue a grazing permit for “domestic indigenous animals.” The governor also argues that using the grazing permits for “non-production-oriented, wildlife management” would rob other ranchers of economic opportunities.

Finally, Gianforte criticizes the BLM in a September letter for holding a public hearing session via remote meeting “in the middle of a summer afternoon when the vast majority of those affected were trying to wrest their livelihoods from a devastating drought.”

Pete Geddes, American Prairie’s vice president, told the Daily Montanan he’s still surprised by the amount of public rebuke they’ve gotten. That includes a public campaign complete with yard signs and banners that advocates ending APR. And Geddes says American Prairie used a conservative playbook by buying their own private property for grazing bison. And when it comes to Montana, he is still flummoxed by the opposition from Lewistown legislator Dan Bartels who was unsuccessful in an attempt to pass legislation that would have prohibited nonprofits from acquiring land — an idea that riled even some conservative ranchers in the area.

“We’re building a National Discovery Center in downtown Lewistown and creating jobs and tourism there. I would think he’d be interested in employees and in private land,” Geddes said.

Gianforte’s Department of Natural Resources and Conservation also objected during the federal open commenting period, noting that it has roughly 5,000 acres of the 155,000 acres of BLM and private land in question. Montana’s Fish, Wildlife and Parks division added a three-page letter of concerns, including concerns about transmitting disease and whether cattle and bison can co-exist. Two additional letters were submitted by the state, including the Department of Livestock and the Department of Agriculture, which largely restate the same objections, but bring the total number of pages opposing American Prairie to more than 30.

In a letter, AG Knudsen accuses the BLM of creating a new term not found in the Taylor Grazing Act.

“Now they’ve conjured a new classification — indigenous livestock — and insist that bison fit inside,” Knudsen said. “The law requires more than clever linguistic re-jiggering. APR doubtlessly paid a lot for the legal brain that suggested, ‘We only need to stop calling bison non-livestock and call them indigenous livestock.’”

He also accused the BLM of not adequately calculating the cost of allowing American Prairie bison to graze on federal and state lands, saying its analysis failed to recognize the negative impacts to ranchers and farmers.

“APR’s mission is to displace Northeastern Montana’s livestock industry and replace it with a large outdoor zoo,” Knudsen said. “APR’s my-way-or-the-highway approach is nothing more than a reflexive threat to subject other permits to burdensome administrative protests and is, to be polite, unneighborly. No wonder APR has generated intense local opposition to its efforts.”

But being neighborly, American Prairie contends, is a two-way street. They confirmed that they’ve reached out to both Gianforte and Knudsen, inviting them to see their operations, to ask questions and to communicate. They said that neither has ever visited or accepted an invitation.

“The governor is very interested in public access and economic development and we are, too,” Geddes said. “In fact, we’d like to believe we’re partners. We’ve created high-paying jobs. We’ve opened more area for engaging in Montana’s outdoors. He has a standing invitation to visit.”

The Daily Montanan sent several requests in the past month to talk to both the governor and the attorney general about their actions involving American Prairie and the battle overgrazing. Neither office responded.

Geddes points out that American Prairie is so concerned about its neighbors that when it first set up operations, it had good-neighbor agreements with landowners surrounding it, saying that if APR didn’t manage to recapture an escaped animal off its property within 24 hours, the other property owner could shoot it. Never once has that happened, he said, because they try to respond immediately and have on-site managers.

He said it’s important to know that landowners who border American Prairie’s borders were not among those chiefly concerned with the permit.

“Once we’re people in the neighborhood, we’re not such a concern,” Geddes said. “We’re not going anywhere. We’re a Montana-led, Montana-based operation, and our intent is to be a really good neighbor.”

When Knudsen held a forum in Malta, according to the Glasgow Courier, he admitted that the BLM fulfilled its obligation for public comment, but claimed it was dominated by out-of-state interests. Knudsen also told audience members he was surprised that no one from APR showed up to the meeting he called.

However, officials at APR said they were not invited to the meeting and pointed out that five days before the meeting, the nonprofit organization sent a four-page letter outlining their position, including adding jobs and increasing public access. The letter offers to meet to discuss issues and also pointed out, “The Bureau of Land Management can issue grazing permits or leases and modify existing permits to substitute many different types of livestock for cattle, including bison. It has done this for several decades across the West.”

American Prairie also commissioned John D. Leshy and Justin Pidot to examine the legal issue for the organization and to examine the legal concerns raised by the state.

Leshy served as Solicitor General of the Department of the Interior from 1993-2001 and was a former law professor at the University of California. As cliché as it may sound, he literally wrote the book on public land law, “Federal Public Land and Resources Law,” which has been through seven editions.

Leshy and Pidot, a law professor at the University of Arizona, concluded that current laws do not define the animals that may or may not qualify for grazing permits, including cattle or bison and that the mixed-use nature of the BLM means that some land should be used for grazing, but it doesn’t make the determination of what kind of grazing, leaving it to department officials.

It points out that Montana and Knudsen have used old or overturned court decisions.

“Congress has made the Secretary (of the Interior) the landlord of the public range and basically made the grant of grazing privileges discretionary,” the analysis said. “(The) definition of ‘multiple use’ explicitly proves that a ‘range’ or livestock grazing is just one of many uses and values to be served by the public lands, along with such things as ‘wildlife’ and ‘natural scenic, scientific and historical values.’”

Leshy and Pidot fire back that even Montana law defines “livestock” to include bison.

They point out that in the BLM’s final environmental impact statement, which was revised in 2016, that “bison in private ownership are considered livestock.”

“The primary test in making this distinction is whether or not the animal qualifies as an applicant under the requirements of the grazing regulations,” the two legal scholars wrote. “The grazing regulations define qualified applicants and apply equally to all qualified applicants, regardless of class of livestock.”

The Daily Montanan is a nonprofit news outlet based out of Helena covering statewide policy and politics. It is an affiliate of States Newsroom, a national 501(c)(3) nonprofit supported by grants and a coalition of donors and readers.

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This article originally appeared on Great Falls Tribune: Gov. Gianforte, AG Knudsen try to stop American Prairie’s bison

GOOD NEWS

Holtec says it won't dump radioactive water in Cape Cod Bay in 2022


Doug Fraser, Cape Cod Times
Tue, December 7, 2021

PLYMOUTH — The company in charge of decommissioning Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station announced Monday that it would not discharge radioactive water into Cape Cod Bay in 2022.

"We wanted to share that in the near term the decision at Pilgrim has been made that the processed water will remain on site, safely stored, and that we will not discharge any processed water in 2022 while this evaluation (of alternative disposal options) is undertaken," according to an emailed statement from Patrick O'Brien, a senior manager for government affairs and communications for Holtec Decommissioning International.

The email said the company appreciated and understood the public's questions and concerns, and "remain committed to an open, transparent process on the decommissioning of Pilgrim Station focused on the health and safety of the public, the environment, and on-site personnel.”

The company decommissioning the closed Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth says it will not release radioactive water, which was used to cool components at the facility, into Cape Cod Bay next year.


The news that releasing as much as 1 million gallons of water used to cool radioactive rods and other components in the spent fuel pool and in other parts of the facility was being considered was announced at a Nov. 22 meeting of the Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel.

On Monday, O'Brien reiterated that no decision had been reached on whether to evaporate, discharge or transport the water to another facility.
Radioactive water release plans

But that appeared to contradict an email to U.S. Rep. William Keating's staff last week from Nuclear Regulatory Commission Congressional Affairs Officer Carolyn Wolf that "Holtec has informed the NRC that it plans to discharge liquid effluents sometime in the first quarter of 2022."

At the advisory panel meeting the company said it would be evaluating options over the next six months to a year. Monday's press release committed to at least a year while that process was followed.

Holtec and NRC officials said in interviews that radioactivity and other contaminants like metals in the coolant water would be reduced through a filtering process to levels allowed under federal permits before being released, and environmental impacts and levels in the ocean would be monitored. The plant had released treated radioactive water periodically during the course of its operations, most recently in 2017, O'Brien said.

In an interview Monday, Keating said he was hopeful Holtec would honor the pledge not to release any water into Cape Cod Bay in 2022. But he was disappointed that Monday's press release didn't mention public and stakeholder engagement in making that decision, calling it an "obvious omission."

NRC and Holtec have said repeatedly there is no required public comment in making their decision.

"The NDCAP (advisory panel) is the public forum really for the decommissioning, I’m not sure if EPA/DEP/NRC will have anything else," said O'Brien in an email Monday.
More time to study impact on maritime industries

Keating hoped the year delay would allow the federal Environmental Protection Agency and the state agencies an opportunity to weigh in.

"It's really important we have this period to really look at this issue because once (the disposal option) is implemented, we can't undo it," Keating said.

in an interview Friday, Keating said any release of radioactive water from the plant would impact the region's maritime industries including aquaculture, fishing and recreation — potentially through bioaccumulation in the food chain but also by damaging the region's reputation as a source of seafood and recreational opportunities.

Keating advocated trucking the water to an off-site facility and O'Brien had identified an Idaho plant at the advisory panel meeting as one possible site.

Holtec is paying for the Pilgrim cleanup out of a $1.03 billion decommissioning trust fund that ratepayers paid into over time.

During a Dec. 1 Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works hearing on oversight of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, U.S. Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass., was critical of the agency's handling of decommissioning and lack of public input.

Markey told NRC Chairman Christopher Hanson that his agency has abrogated its responsibility, leaving decisions largely to the private companies that do the work.

"The NRC has decided that the best way to shield itself from criticism is to take itself out of the process," Markey said. He said a new decommissioning rule relegates the agency only to acknowledging receipt of a plan from a private company looking to dismantle a plant.

"It (the NRC) would serve as a glorified filing cabinet. Ceding the job of regulator to the nuclear industry itself is not a win for safety, for communities or for the energy sector," said Markey, who was especially critical the diminished role of public comment.

"I would urge you to insure that there is full NRC and public participation (in vetting decommissioning plans) because the (nuclear power) industry ... has been known to cut corners and ultimately we cannot allow the public safety to be put in jeopardy at all," Markey said.


This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Holtec says it won't dump radioactive water in Cape Cod Bay in 2022

Report says Russian hackers haven't eased spying efforts


 The Kremlin in Moscow, Sept. 29, 2017. The elite Russian state hackers behind last year's massive SolarWinds cyberespionage campaign hardly eased up this year, managing plenty of infiltrations of U.S. and allied government agencies and foreign policy think tanks with consummate craft and stealth, a leading cybersecurity firm reported Monday. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev, File)

ERIC TUCKER and FRANK BAJAK
Mon, December 6, 2021

WASHINGTON (AP) — The elite Russian state hackers behind last year's massive SolarWinds cyberespionage campaign hardly eased up this year, managing plenty of infiltrations of U.S. and allied government agencies and foreign policy think tanks with consummate craft and stealth, a leading cybersecurity firm reported.

Also Monday, Microsoft announced that it had disrupted the cyber-spying of a state-backed Chinese hacking group by seizing websites it used to gather intelligence from foreign ministries, think tanks and human rights organizations in the U.S. and 28 other countries, chiefly in Latin America and Europe.

Microsoft said a Virginia federal court had granted its request last Thursday to seize 42 web domains that the Chinese hacking group, which it calls Nickel but which is also known as APT15 and Vixen Panda, were using to access targets typically aligned with China's geopolitical interests. It said in a blog that “a key piece of the infrastructure the group has been relying on” in its latest wave of infiltrations was removed. The seized domains include “elperuanos.org,” “pandemicacre.com” and “cleanskycloud.com.”


The dual announcements, though unrelated, highlight the unrelenting drumbeat of digital spying by its top U.S. geopolitical rivals, whose cyber-intrusion skillset is matched only by that of the United States.

A year after it discovered the SolarWinds intrusions, Mandiant said the hackers associated with Russia's SVR foreign intelligence agency continue to steal data “relevant to Russian interests” with great effect using novel, stealthy techniques that it detailed in a mostly technical report aimed at helping security professionals stay alert. It was Mandiant, not the U.S. government, that disclosed SolarWinds.

While the number of government agencies and companies hacked by the SVR was smaller this year than last, when some 100 organizations were breached, assessing the damage is difficult, said Charles Carmakal, Mandiant's chief technical officer. Overall, the impact is quite serious. “The companies that are getting hacked, they are also losing information.”

“Not everybody is disclosing the incident(s) because they don’t always have to disclose it legally,” he said, complicating damage-assessment.

The Russian cyber spying unfolded, as always, mostly in the shadows as the U.S. government was consumed in 2021 by a separate, eminently “noisy” and headline-grabbling cyber threat — ransomware attacks launched not by nation-state hackers but rather criminal gangs. As it happens, those gangs are largely protected by the Kremlin.

The Mandiant findings follow an October report from Microsoft that the hackers, whose umbrella group it calls Nobelium, continue to infiltrate the government agencies, foreign policy think tanks and other organizations focused on Russian affairs through the cloud service companies and so-called managed services providers on which they increasingly rely. The Mandiant researchers said the Russian hackers “continue to innovate and identify new techniques and tradecraft” that lets them linger in victim networks, hinder detection and confuse attempts to attribute hacks to them.

Mandiant did not identify individual victims or describe what specific information may have been stolen but did say unspecified “diplomatic entities" that received malicious phishing emails were among the targets.

Often, the researchers say, the hackers' path of least resistance to their targets were cloud-computing services. From there, they used stolen credentials to infiltrate networks. The report describes how in one case they gained access to one victim's Microsoft 365 system through a stolen session token. And, the report says, the hackers routinely relied on advanced tradecraft to cover their tracks.

One clever technique discussed in the report illustrates the ongoing cat-and-mouse game that digital espionage entails. Hackers set up intrusion beachheads using IP addresses, a numeric designation that identifies its location on the internet, that were physically located near an account they are trying to breach — in the same address block, say, as the person's local internet provider. That makes it highly difficult for security software to detect a hacker using stolen credentials posing as someone trying to access their work account remotely.

Microsoft expressed no illusions that the website seizures it announced Monday would discourage the Chinese hackers, who it has been tracking since 2016. It said the takedowns were of infrastructure it has been tracking since 2019, much of it exploiting on-premises —- as opposed to cloud-based — Exchange Server and SharePoint systems. The company has used the legal takedown tactic in 24 lawsuits to date, Microsoft said, knocking out a total of 600 sites used by nation-state actors and 10,000 by cybercriminals.

The SolarWinds hack exploited vulnerabilities in the software supply-chain system and went undetected for most of 2020 despite compromises at a broad swath of federal agencies — including the Justice Department — and dozens of companies, primarily telecommunications and information technology providers and including Mandiant and Microsoft.

The hacking campaign is named SolarWinds after the U.S. software company whose product was exploited in the first-stage infection of that effort. The Biden administration imposed sanctions last April in response to the hack, including against six Russian companies that support the country's cyber efforts.

Microsoft seizes control of websites used by China-backed hackers



Carly Page
Mon, December 6, 2021

Microsoft has seized control of a number of websites that were being used by a Chinese government-backed hacking group to target organizations in 29 countries, including the U.S.

Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit (DCI) said on Monday that a federal court in Virginia had granted an order allowing the company to take control of the websites and redirect the traffic to Microsoft servers. These malicious websites were being used by a state-sponsored hacking group known as Nickel, or APT15, to gather intelligence from government agencies, think tanks and human rights organizations, according to the company.

Microsoft didn’t name Nickel’s targets, but said the group was targeting organizations in the U.S. and 28 other countries. It added that "there is often a correlation between Nickel’s targets and China’s geopolitical interests."

Microsoft, which has been tracking Nickel since 2016 and previously described it as one of the “most active” hacking groups targeting government agencies, said it observed “highly sophisticated” attacks that installed hard-to-detect malware that facilitates intrusion, surveillance and data theft. In some cases, Nickel’s attacks used compromised third-party virtual private network (VPN) suppliers and credentials obtained from spear-phishing campaigns, according to Microsoft, and in others, vulnerabilities in Microsoft’s own Exchange Server and SharePoint system were used to infiltrate companies. However, Microsoft noted that it has “not observed any new vulnerabilities in Microsoft products as part of these attacks."

“Obtaining control of the malicious websites and redirecting traffic from those sites to Microsoft’s secure servers will help us protect existing and future victims while learning more about Nickel’s activities,” wrote Tom Burt, Microsoft’s corporate vice president for customer security and trust. “Our disruption will not prevent Nickel from continuing other hacking activities, but we do believe we have removed a key piece of the infrastructure the group has been relying on for this latest wave of attacks.”

In addition to the U.S., Nickel also targeted organizations in Argentina, Barbados, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Chile, Colombia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, France, Guatemala, Honduras, Hungary, Italy, Jamaica, Mali, Mexico, Montenegro, Panama, Peru, Portugal, Switzerland, Trinidad and Tobago, the United Kingdom and Venezuela.

Microsoft said its Digital Crimes Unit, through 24 lawsuits, had taken down more than 10,000 malicious websites used by cybercriminals and almost 600 used by nation-state actors. Earlier this year, the team took control of malicious web domains used in a large-scale cyberattack that targeted victims in 62 countries with spoofed email