Strike mandate vote on the way for Ontario colleges
Tue., December 7, 2021
For the second time in just four years, Ontario's 24 public colleges look to potentially be on the cusp of a work stoppage.
Members of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) will vote from December 9-11, but local Union President Grant Currie who represents St. Lawrence College faculty and counselors says a strike is a last resort that faculty hope to avoid.
"We believe there will be a strong mandate for a strike but that is not to say a strike will happen," Currie explained.
"We are fighting to say that the faculty across the province believe in this agenda that our bargaining team is putting forward and hope it's going to send a message to the College Employer Council to come back to the table and negotiate what is best for the students and what is best for the faculty."
Currie says he doesn't anticipate the union to choose to strike, and says the College Employer Council (CEC) either locking out faculty or unilaterally imposing terms and conditions of employment would be the more likely scenario.
After months of talks between OPSEU and the CEC, the two sides seem to be at an impasse.
Much of the sticking points in negotiations have centered around addressing equity and Indigenization, in school counselors, use of faculty produced materials, and adjusting the workload agreement for staff.
Currie says the current workload agreement was negotiated in 1984 and has seen only minor tweaks since.
Specifically, faculty are seeking evaluation time for each student to be raised from 5 minutes and 24 seconds per week to 7 minutes and 12 seconds per week for a 3 hour course.
In a written statement to YGK News, Council CEO Graham Lloyd says that the union "seeks immediate changes such as those to the workload formula, with resulting cost increases that are prohibited by Bill 124."
With the gulf between the two parties seeming too large to bridge, the faculty team offered Voluntary Binding Interest Arbitration in front of arbitrator William Kaplan.
The CEC, however, has not agreed to that, and has instead proposed Final Offer Selection which would lead to Kaplan selecting one side or the other in its totality.
In a November 25 letter to the Chair and President of union bargaining, Lloyd says on behalf of the CEC that the union should have no issue with this style of arbitration over what they say are reasonable, moderate and necessary demands.
"Assuming those assertions accurately reflect the CAAT-A team’s confidence in your demands," Lloyd writes.
"We trust that you will be prepared to place them entirely before Arbitrator Kaplan."
Currie says this type of negotiation leads to toxic labour relations, leaving no room for compromise between the two sides.
"It's basically a coin toss," Currie said.
"It's either/or and I don't think that serves the students or the colleges at all."
Both sides have maintained that they are negotiating with the students' best interests in mind, and hope to avoid a strike or lockout.
On November 26 the Canadian Federation of Students penned a letter in support of faculty negotiations they say are aiming for the betterment of the college education system.
A strike could very well impact students the Winter semester, with the 16th being the first possible day, but Currie says the bargaining team is unlikely to declare a strike date and hopes to still work out a fair agreement.
Owen Fullerton, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, YGK News
Thursday, December 09, 2021
Employees in auditor general's office to protest lack of pay equity Thursday
The newly renovated Sir John A. Macdonald building in Ottawa on Monday, June 15, 2015.The building which was formerly the Bank of Montreal, is now adjoined to a new building to form a new Government reception centre. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick
A group of about 170 employees within the Office of the Auditor General of Canada (OAG) have planned a protest on Thursday to demand pay equity.
The Audit Services Group, composed of staff whose work goes into the making of the auditor general’s reports, is taking issue with the fact that they haven’t seen the same kind of salary increases as other government departments and still lack a formal wage grid.
“They’re the lowest paid workers at the OAG. Essentially what this fight is about is pay equity. We’re seeking the same economic increases that were achieved elsewhere under Treasury Board, the same increases that other workers at the OAG, managers, and executives got," said Alex Silas, the Public Service Alliance of Canada’s regional executive vice-president for the National Capital Region in an interview with CTVNews.ca.
“This is only group at the OAG that doesn’t have a wage grid, so we’re trying to establish the same wage grid that non-unionized workers, managers, and executives have.”
Silas said that 75 per cent of the Audit Services Group is composed of women.
“These members are super mobilized, super united, they’ve really come together in this fight for fairness and they’re standing up to an employer that is opposing fairness,” he said.
The protest is set to take place tomorrow outside Ottawa’s Sir John A. Macdonald building just before the auditor general holds a press conference to debut four new reports on the government’s response to COVID-19.
The group has been on strike since Nov. 26 and conducted a full walkout last Wednesday. According to Silas, management has taken the step of suspending pay during the strike.
“Typically the Treasury Board of Canada doesn’t actually withhold pay during a strike…and then those wages are reimbursed to the employer but the Office of the Auditor General has decided to take a harsher approach,” he said.
In a statement to CTVNews.ca, Yan Michaud, director of communications for the Office of the Auditor General of Canada, said the office continues to administer pay and benefits for all employees “per its established practices, which is to pay our employees in an accurate and timely manner for the hours that they work.”
According to a government website, in the event of labour disruptions, pay cheques and direct deposit payments will continue to be produced and issued to striking employees on the regular payday.
Salary “overpayments” due to striking will be recovered from a later pay period.
Michaud's statement also said a new offer was presented on Wednesday but out of respect for the collective bargaining process, the OAG couldn’t comment on it.
Silas said the new offer doesn’t address the group’s main concerns.
“It’s essentially the same as the old offer that members have already rejected,” he said. “We’re seeking a three-year contract, they’ve offered us a four-year contract with the same increase in year four and year five...It brings down the total average increase.”
The newly renovated Sir John A. Macdonald building in Ottawa on Monday, June 15, 2015.The building which was formerly the Bank of Montreal, is now adjoined to a new building to form a new Government reception centre. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick
CTVNews.ca Producer
Wednesday, December 8, 2021
Wednesday, December 8, 2021
A group of about 170 employees within the Office of the Auditor General of Canada (OAG) have planned a protest on Thursday to demand pay equity.
The Audit Services Group, composed of staff whose work goes into the making of the auditor general’s reports, is taking issue with the fact that they haven’t seen the same kind of salary increases as other government departments and still lack a formal wage grid.
“They’re the lowest paid workers at the OAG. Essentially what this fight is about is pay equity. We’re seeking the same economic increases that were achieved elsewhere under Treasury Board, the same increases that other workers at the OAG, managers, and executives got," said Alex Silas, the Public Service Alliance of Canada’s regional executive vice-president for the National Capital Region in an interview with CTVNews.ca.
“This is only group at the OAG that doesn’t have a wage grid, so we’re trying to establish the same wage grid that non-unionized workers, managers, and executives have.”
Silas said that 75 per cent of the Audit Services Group is composed of women.
“These members are super mobilized, super united, they’ve really come together in this fight for fairness and they’re standing up to an employer that is opposing fairness,” he said.
The protest is set to take place tomorrow outside Ottawa’s Sir John A. Macdonald building just before the auditor general holds a press conference to debut four new reports on the government’s response to COVID-19.
The group has been on strike since Nov. 26 and conducted a full walkout last Wednesday. According to Silas, management has taken the step of suspending pay during the strike.
“Typically the Treasury Board of Canada doesn’t actually withhold pay during a strike…and then those wages are reimbursed to the employer but the Office of the Auditor General has decided to take a harsher approach,” he said.
In a statement to CTVNews.ca, Yan Michaud, director of communications for the Office of the Auditor General of Canada, said the office continues to administer pay and benefits for all employees “per its established practices, which is to pay our employees in an accurate and timely manner for the hours that they work.”
According to a government website, in the event of labour disruptions, pay cheques and direct deposit payments will continue to be produced and issued to striking employees on the regular payday.
Salary “overpayments” due to striking will be recovered from a later pay period.
Michaud's statement also said a new offer was presented on Wednesday but out of respect for the collective bargaining process, the OAG couldn’t comment on it.
Silas said the new offer doesn’t address the group’s main concerns.
“It’s essentially the same as the old offer that members have already rejected,” he said. “We’re seeking a three-year contract, they’ve offered us a four-year contract with the same increase in year four and year five...It brings down the total average increase.”
Gig economy workers to get employee rights under EU proposals
Draft legislation would improve status of millions of workers, with likely knock-on effect on UK despite Brexit
Draft legislation would improve status of millions of workers, with likely knock-on effect on UK despite Brexit
Dutch company Just Eat Takeaway offers employee status to workers who have been on the platform for more than 100 hours. Photograph: Robin Utrecht/Rex/Shutterstock
Jennifer Rankin in Brussels
Thu 9 Dec 2021
Gig economy companies operating in the European Union, such as Uber and Deliveroo, must ensure workers get the minimum wage, access to sick pay, holidays and other employment rights under plans for new laws to crack down on fake self-employment.
Publishing long-awaited draft legislation on Thursday, the European Commission said the burden of proof on employment status would shift to companies, rather than the individuals that work for them. Until now, gig economy workers have had to go to court to prove they are employees, or risk being denied basic rights.
Nicolas Schmit, EU commissioner for jobs and social rights, told the Guardian and other European newspapers that internet platforms “have used grey zones in our legislation [and] all possible ambiguities” to develop their business models, resulting in a “misclassification” of millions of workers.
Companies that did not allow people to work for other firms, or had rules about appearance and how to carry out tasks, could be classed as employers, under the proposals, under criteria used to determine employment status. The new rules would not apply to genuinely indepdent contractors.
Brexit would be better for UK workers, Boris Johnson promised. But will it?
In the EU’s 27 member states, about 5.5 million workers are misclassified as self-employed, when they should be treated as employees with benefits and protection, such as accident insurance, according the commission. Firms would only have to pay minimum wages, where they already exist. About 28 million people work for platforms in the EU, but this is expected to reach 43 million by 2025.
The proposals are an attempt to provide legal certainty, after European courts have been asked to settle about 100 disputes relating to gig economy companies. France, Italy, Spain, Greece and Portugal tightened up domestic laws, but EU officials believe no government has fully addressed the problem.
Since Brexit, the UK government has no obligation to follow EU laws, while judges have been left to clarify employment law for a new generation of internet companies. In 2016 an employment court found that Uber drivers are not self-employed and should be paid the minimum wage, a verdict upheld by the supreme court in February.
Tim Sharp, senior employment rights policy officer at the Trades Union Congress, said there had not been any “significant government intervention in the UK” to address what unions see as abusive and problematic aspects of platform working.
“If the European Union is seen to be taking a robust approach on platform operators, I think there will be more pressure on the government here to take measures to protect vulnerable workers,” he said.
The EU proposals will be amended by national ministers and MEPs before they become law.
Schmit, a former labour minister in his native Luxembourg, said some services might cost “a bit more”, but argued consumer convenience should not be at the expense of workers.
Services, such as food delivery, were not free, he said. “I cannot consider if somebody brings the pizza at 11 o’clock in the evening to my home … that I have not to pay for that. This is a service. And if it’s a service, the guy who performs the service has also rights.”
Under the directive, workers would also gain rights over algorithms, to stop situations where people are denied jobs, working hours or even fired as a result of machines’ decisions. Instead, workers would have the right to receive explanations for and contest automated decisions, while companies would have to ensure access to a human contact for anything that would have a significant impact on the person.
The European Trade Union Confederation’s Ludovic Voet said the directive should “signal the end of the free for all” for companies such as Uber, Deliveroo and others. “For too long platform companies have made huge profits by dodging their most basic obligations as employers at the expense of workers while peddling the lie that they provided choice to workers,” he said.
Companies in the gig economy have taken different approaches. Just Eat Takeaway, a Dutch company that is one of the world’s biggest food delivery firms, announced last year that gig workers would become employees with benefits.
MoveEU, a body representing ride-hailing apps, such as Uber, has argued EU action could cost jobs. “Platform work is very diverse, and a one-size-fits-all approach could carry weight on the business model of platforms and ultimately negatively affect the many independent workers relying on them,” it said in a recent paper.
George Maier, a specialist on digital technology at the London School of Economics, said companies would have to adapt to stay in markets. “For a lot of these platforms, because they are realising their model is not profitable, there is a big question over what change they can do and what change they can’t do.”
“We have seen some evidence of platforms trying to get around the tightening grip of legislation by changing their business model. The alternative is to pull out of a country where they don’t see a profitable future.”
This article was amended on 9 December 2021. Text that was removed in the editing process was restored in order to clarify the criteria under which companies could fall under the EU proposals.
Jennifer Rankin in Brussels
Thu 9 Dec 2021
Gig economy companies operating in the European Union, such as Uber and Deliveroo, must ensure workers get the minimum wage, access to sick pay, holidays and other employment rights under plans for new laws to crack down on fake self-employment.
Publishing long-awaited draft legislation on Thursday, the European Commission said the burden of proof on employment status would shift to companies, rather than the individuals that work for them. Until now, gig economy workers have had to go to court to prove they are employees, or risk being denied basic rights.
Nicolas Schmit, EU commissioner for jobs and social rights, told the Guardian and other European newspapers that internet platforms “have used grey zones in our legislation [and] all possible ambiguities” to develop their business models, resulting in a “misclassification” of millions of workers.
Companies that did not allow people to work for other firms, or had rules about appearance and how to carry out tasks, could be classed as employers, under the proposals, under criteria used to determine employment status. The new rules would not apply to genuinely indepdent contractors.
Brexit would be better for UK workers, Boris Johnson promised. But will it?
In the EU’s 27 member states, about 5.5 million workers are misclassified as self-employed, when they should be treated as employees with benefits and protection, such as accident insurance, according the commission. Firms would only have to pay minimum wages, where they already exist. About 28 million people work for platforms in the EU, but this is expected to reach 43 million by 2025.
The proposals are an attempt to provide legal certainty, after European courts have been asked to settle about 100 disputes relating to gig economy companies. France, Italy, Spain, Greece and Portugal tightened up domestic laws, but EU officials believe no government has fully addressed the problem.
Since Brexit, the UK government has no obligation to follow EU laws, while judges have been left to clarify employment law for a new generation of internet companies. In 2016 an employment court found that Uber drivers are not self-employed and should be paid the minimum wage, a verdict upheld by the supreme court in February.
Tim Sharp, senior employment rights policy officer at the Trades Union Congress, said there had not been any “significant government intervention in the UK” to address what unions see as abusive and problematic aspects of platform working.
“If the European Union is seen to be taking a robust approach on platform operators, I think there will be more pressure on the government here to take measures to protect vulnerable workers,” he said.
The EU proposals will be amended by national ministers and MEPs before they become law.
Schmit, a former labour minister in his native Luxembourg, said some services might cost “a bit more”, but argued consumer convenience should not be at the expense of workers.
Services, such as food delivery, were not free, he said. “I cannot consider if somebody brings the pizza at 11 o’clock in the evening to my home … that I have not to pay for that. This is a service. And if it’s a service, the guy who performs the service has also rights.”
Under the directive, workers would also gain rights over algorithms, to stop situations where people are denied jobs, working hours or even fired as a result of machines’ decisions. Instead, workers would have the right to receive explanations for and contest automated decisions, while companies would have to ensure access to a human contact for anything that would have a significant impact on the person.
The European Trade Union Confederation’s Ludovic Voet said the directive should “signal the end of the free for all” for companies such as Uber, Deliveroo and others. “For too long platform companies have made huge profits by dodging their most basic obligations as employers at the expense of workers while peddling the lie that they provided choice to workers,” he said.
Companies in the gig economy have taken different approaches. Just Eat Takeaway, a Dutch company that is one of the world’s biggest food delivery firms, announced last year that gig workers would become employees with benefits.
MoveEU, a body representing ride-hailing apps, such as Uber, has argued EU action could cost jobs. “Platform work is very diverse, and a one-size-fits-all approach could carry weight on the business model of platforms and ultimately negatively affect the many independent workers relying on them,” it said in a recent paper.
George Maier, a specialist on digital technology at the London School of Economics, said companies would have to adapt to stay in markets. “For a lot of these platforms, because they are realising their model is not profitable, there is a big question over what change they can do and what change they can’t do.”
“We have seen some evidence of platforms trying to get around the tightening grip of legislation by changing their business model. The alternative is to pull out of a country where they don’t see a profitable future.”
This article was amended on 9 December 2021. Text that was removed in the editing process was restored in order to clarify the criteria under which companies could fall under the EU proposals.
Anthrax arms race helped Europeans evolve against disease
New research from the Cornell College of Veterinary Medicine has revealed how humans evolved greater resistance against anthrax multiple times during history: when they developed a diet of more ruminants, and when agricultural practices took hold.
Anthrax grabbed the nation's attention when it was used in bioterrorism attacks in 2001, but the disease has haunted humans for much longer. Over millennia, humans and anthrax have co-evolved. According to a study in Nature Communications from the lab of Charles Danko, this resulted in humans, particularly humans of European descent, evolving fewer anthrax receptors that allow the disease to take hold in the body.
"We found evidence of multiple stages of adaptation in humans, which is one of the more important aspects of our discovery," said Danko, the Robert N. Noyce Associate Professor in Life Science and Technology.
Anthrax bacteria's main host are ruminants such as cattle and sheep. The grazing animals inhale the bacteria spores and become infected, and soon die from toxins produced from the bacteria. The decaying carcass returns the bacteria to the soil and vegetation, repeating the cycle. How humans became entangled in this host-pathogen affair was not entirely clear, until the Danko team began diving into the genetic patterns.
Lauren Choate, former Danko lab doctoral student and currently a genomics fellow at the Mayo Clinic, explored genomic sequences from many species by examining both existing human population databases and running experiments on human and nonhuman primate samples.
She found that the gene expression for anthrax toxin receptor 2 (ANTXR2), which allows the toxin access into host cells, was abundant across the mammalian family tree, including primates. That wasn't the case when it came to humans. "The ANTXR2 gene is fairly constrained in its expression level over 100 million years of evolution," Danko said. "But in humans, we saw this large decrease—and that's what made it so interesting to us."
Essentially, Darwin's law was at work: At the dawn of humans' emergence in sub-Saharan Africa, hunter-gatherer cultures began to eat more and more ruminants, encountering anthrax more regularly than their primate ancestors. The disease would have wiped out many of these early humans, leaving survivors who had a natural genetic resistance to anthrax—i.e., fewer anthrax receptors.
Next, the lab looked at the gene expressions of different human populations, including those of European, Chinese, Japanese and Yoruba (a sub-Saharan African ethnic group) ancestry. They found that while all showed a reduction in anthrax receptor expression compared to most mammals, the European group had an even greater reduction—and a reduction in expression meant a reduced risk of the anthrax bacteria taking hold. This follows observations that Europeans seem to be less sensitive to anthrax toxins compared with Africans or Asians.
"Our finding shows that there is genetic evidence that Europeans have been living with anthrax for a longer period of time," Danko said, allowing that population to build up a natural immunity against the disease due to natural selection.
This follows the path of human migration and agricultural practices. For example, England was long plagued by "wool-sorter's disease," caused by the inhalation of anthrax spores from infected wool by working-class people who sorted wool in the 1800s.
Ultimately, Danko team's study has opened a door to the way molecular evolution of gene expression can lead to real-world differences in disease resistance. Next steps in the research could go in several directions. "It would be interesting to see the impact of the spread of anthrax on additional human populations that were historically more isolated, and if that mimics the evolution that we found in our study," Choate said.
Other avenues of inquiry may entail finding the exact DNA sequences that underlie the expressed genes or looking for other host-pathogen co-evolution
France begins vaccinating cows, sheep against anthrax
More information: Lauren A. Choate et al, Multiple stages of evolutionary change in anthrax toxin receptor expression in humans, Nature Communications (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-26854-z
Journal information: Nature Communications
Provided by Cornell University
Dinosaur-era swamp ecosystem preserved in amber
Rocks that formed in a swamp in what is now Spain 110 million years ago contain both dinosaur bones and amber rich in invertebrate fossil
Part of a feather preserved in amber from the Santa Maria coal mine
Sergio Avarez-Parra
An impressive trove of fossil-filled amber has come to light at a 110-million-year-old site that has already yielded dinosaur bones in Ariño, north-eastern Spain. The amber contains an unusually diverse range of insect, plant and vertebrate fossils and provides a rare insight into the life that inhabited what would have been a coastal freshwater swamp during the Cretaceous period.
“Having two different yet complementary windows of preservation from a given fossil [site] – the bonebed and the …
Mammoths, Yukon wild horses lived thousands of years longer than believed: Canadian permafrost study
Researchers used DNA capture-enrichment technology developed at McMaster University to isolate and rebuild the fluctuating animal and plant communities during the Pleistocene-Holocene transition. (Illustration by Julius Csotonyi)
Researchers used DNA capture-enrichment technology developed at McMaster University to isolate and rebuild the fluctuating animal and plant communities during the Pleistocene-Holocene transition. (Illustration by Julius Csotonyi)
Michael Lee
A new study analyzing soil samples and DNA from Canada's permafrost has found evidence that woolly mammoths and Yukon wild horses may have survived thousands of years longer than previously thought.
The paper, published in the journal Nature Communications, compiled a 30,000-year DNA record of past environments, based on cored permafrost sediments taken from the Klondike region of central Yukon.
The researchers, who hail from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont., the University of Alberta, the American Museum of Natural History and the Yukon government, say in a news release that their analysis reveals mammoths and horses were already in steep decline prior to the climatic instability of the Pleistocene-Holocene transition between 11,000 and 14,000 years ago, during which a number of large species such as mammoths, mastodons and sabre-toothed cats disappeared.
However, the researchers say mammoths and horses didn't immediately disappear as a result of overhunting by humans as previously believed.
Instead, they say the DNA evidence shows both the woolly mammoth and North American horse were around until as recently as 5,000 years ago during the mid-Holocene — the epoch humans currently live in, which began about 11,000 years ago.
The study builds on previous research done by McMaster scientists, who in 2020 reported that woolly mammoths and the North American horse were likely in the Yukon about 9,700 years ago.
"The rich data provides a unique window into the population dynamics of megafauna and nuances the discussion around their extinction through more subtle reconstructions of past ecosystems," said Hendrik Poinar, an evolutionary geneticist and lead author on the paper, who also serves as director of the McMaster Ancient DNA Centre.
Using tiny soil samples containing billions of microscopic genomic sequences from animal and plant species, as well as DNA capture-enrichment technology developed at McMaster, the researchers were able to reconstruct ancient ecosystems at different points in time during the Pleistocene-Holocene transition.
The researchers say the Yukon environment continued to experience massive change throughout the early Holocene, with formerly rich grasslands known as the "Mammoth Steppe" becoming overrun by shrubs and mosses.
Due in part to a lack of megafaunal "ecological engineers" such as large grazing herds of mammoths, horses and bison, grasslands no longer prosper in northern North America, according to a news release on the study.
"Now that we have these technologies, we realize how much life-history information is stored in permafrost," said Tyler Murchie, a postdoctoral researcher in McMaster's department of anthropology and a lead author of the study.
"The amount of genetic data in permafrost is quite enormous and really allows for a scale of ecosystem and evolutionary reconstruction that is unparalleled with other methods to date."
Co-author Ross MacPhee of the American Museum of Natural History added that while "mammoths are gone forever, horses are not."
"The horse that lived in the Yukon 5,000 years ago is directly related to the horse species we have today, Equus caballus. Biologically, this makes the horse a native North American mammal, and it should be treated as such."
Meanwhile, the researchers caution that permafrost is at risk of being lost forever as the Arctic warms, stressing the need to gather and archive more samples.
CTVNews.ca Writer
Wednesday, December 8, 2021
Wednesday, December 8, 2021
A new study analyzing soil samples and DNA from Canada's permafrost has found evidence that woolly mammoths and Yukon wild horses may have survived thousands of years longer than previously thought.
The paper, published in the journal Nature Communications, compiled a 30,000-year DNA record of past environments, based on cored permafrost sediments taken from the Klondike region of central Yukon.
The researchers, who hail from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont., the University of Alberta, the American Museum of Natural History and the Yukon government, say in a news release that their analysis reveals mammoths and horses were already in steep decline prior to the climatic instability of the Pleistocene-Holocene transition between 11,000 and 14,000 years ago, during which a number of large species such as mammoths, mastodons and sabre-toothed cats disappeared.
However, the researchers say mammoths and horses didn't immediately disappear as a result of overhunting by humans as previously believed.
Instead, they say the DNA evidence shows both the woolly mammoth and North American horse were around until as recently as 5,000 years ago during the mid-Holocene — the epoch humans currently live in, which began about 11,000 years ago.
The study builds on previous research done by McMaster scientists, who in 2020 reported that woolly mammoths and the North American horse were likely in the Yukon about 9,700 years ago.
"The rich data provides a unique window into the population dynamics of megafauna and nuances the discussion around their extinction through more subtle reconstructions of past ecosystems," said Hendrik Poinar, an evolutionary geneticist and lead author on the paper, who also serves as director of the McMaster Ancient DNA Centre.
Using tiny soil samples containing billions of microscopic genomic sequences from animal and plant species, as well as DNA capture-enrichment technology developed at McMaster, the researchers were able to reconstruct ancient ecosystems at different points in time during the Pleistocene-Holocene transition.
The researchers say the Yukon environment continued to experience massive change throughout the early Holocene, with formerly rich grasslands known as the "Mammoth Steppe" becoming overrun by shrubs and mosses.
Due in part to a lack of megafaunal "ecological engineers" such as large grazing herds of mammoths, horses and bison, grasslands no longer prosper in northern North America, according to a news release on the study.
"Now that we have these technologies, we realize how much life-history information is stored in permafrost," said Tyler Murchie, a postdoctoral researcher in McMaster's department of anthropology and a lead author of the study.
"The amount of genetic data in permafrost is quite enormous and really allows for a scale of ecosystem and evolutionary reconstruction that is unparalleled with other methods to date."
Co-author Ross MacPhee of the American Museum of Natural History added that while "mammoths are gone forever, horses are not."
"The horse that lived in the Yukon 5,000 years ago is directly related to the horse species we have today, Equus caballus. Biologically, this makes the horse a native North American mammal, and it should be treated as such."
Meanwhile, the researchers caution that permafrost is at risk of being lost forever as the Arctic warms, stressing the need to gather and archive more samples.
‘Disastrous’ plastic use in farming threatens food safety – UN
Food and Agriculture Organization says most plastics are burned, buried or lost after use
Food and Agriculture Organization says most plastics are burned, buried or lost after use
Farmers cover a field with plastic films in Yuli county, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, northern China.
Photograph: Xinhua/Rex/Shutterstock
Damian Carrington
Damian Carrington
Environment editor
THE GUARDIAN
Tue 7 Dec 2021
The “disastrous” way in which plastic is used in farming across the world is threatening food safety and potentially human health, according to a report from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization.
It says soils contain more microplastic pollution than the oceans and that there is “irrefutable” evidence of the need for better management of the millions of tonnes of plastics used in the food and farming system each year.
The report recognises the benefits of plastic in producing and protecting food, from irrigation and silage bags to fishing gear and tree guards. But the FAO said the use of plastics had become pervasive and that most were currently single-use and were buried, burned or lost after use. It also warned of a growing demand for agricultural plastics.
There is increasing concern about the microplastics formed as larger plastics are broken down, the report said. Microplastics are consumed by people and wildlife and some contain toxic additives and can also carry pathogens. Some marine animals are harmed by eating plastics but little is known about the impact on land animals or people.
“The report serves as a loud call for decisive action to curb the disastrous use of plastics across the agricultural sectors,” said Maria Helena Semedo, deputy director general at the FAO.
“Soils are one of the main receptors of agricultural plastics and are known to contain larger quantities of microplastics than oceans,” she said. “Microplastics can accumulate in food chains, threatening food security, food safety and potentially human health.”
Global soils are the source of all life on land but the FAO warned in December 2020 that their future looked “bleak” without action to halt degradation. Microplastic pollution is also a global problem, pervading the planet from the summit of Mount Everest to the deepest ocean trenches.
The FAO report, which was reviewed by external experts, estimates 12.5m tonnes of plastic products were used in plant and animal production in 2019, and a further 37.3m in food packaging.
Plastic is a versatile material and cheap and easy to make into products, the report says. These include greenhouse and mulching films as well as polymer-coated fertiliser pellets, which release nutrients more slowly and efficiently.
“However, despite the many benefits, agricultural plastics also pose a serious risk of pollution and harm to human and ecosystem health when they are damaged, degraded or discarded in the environment,” the report says.
Data on plastic use is limited, it says, but Asia was estimated to be the largest user, accounting for about half of global usage. Furthermore, the global demand for major products such as greenhouse, mulching and silage films is expected to rise by 50% by 2030.
Only a small fraction of agricultural plastics are collected and recycled. The FAO said: “The urgency for coordinated and decisive action cannot be understated.”
The hills are alive with the signs of plastic: even Swiss mountains are polluted
Prof Jonathan Leake, at the University of Sheffield in the UK and a panel member of the UK Sustainable Soils Alliance, said: “Plastic pollution of agricultural soils is a pervasive, persistent problem that threatens soil health throughout much of the world.”
He said the impact of plastic was poorly understood, although adverse effects had been seen on earthworms, which played a crucial role in keeping soils and crops healthy.
“We are currently adding large amounts of these unnatural materials into agricultural soils without understanding their long-term effects,” he said. “In the UK the problems are especially serious because of our applications of large amounts of plastic-contaminated sewage sludges and composts. We need to remove the plastics [from these] before they are added to land, as it is impossible to remove them afterwards.”
As a solution, the FAO report cites “the 6R model” – refuse, redesign, reduce, reuse, recycle, and recover. This means adopting farming practices that avoid plastic use, substituting plastic products with natural or biodegradable alternatives, promoting reusable plastic products and improving plastic waste management.
Tue 7 Dec 2021
The “disastrous” way in which plastic is used in farming across the world is threatening food safety and potentially human health, according to a report from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization.
It says soils contain more microplastic pollution than the oceans and that there is “irrefutable” evidence of the need for better management of the millions of tonnes of plastics used in the food and farming system each year.
The report recognises the benefits of plastic in producing and protecting food, from irrigation and silage bags to fishing gear and tree guards. But the FAO said the use of plastics had become pervasive and that most were currently single-use and were buried, burned or lost after use. It also warned of a growing demand for agricultural plastics.
There is increasing concern about the microplastics formed as larger plastics are broken down, the report said. Microplastics are consumed by people and wildlife and some contain toxic additives and can also carry pathogens. Some marine animals are harmed by eating plastics but little is known about the impact on land animals or people.
“The report serves as a loud call for decisive action to curb the disastrous use of plastics across the agricultural sectors,” said Maria Helena Semedo, deputy director general at the FAO.
“Soils are one of the main receptors of agricultural plastics and are known to contain larger quantities of microplastics than oceans,” she said. “Microplastics can accumulate in food chains, threatening food security, food safety and potentially human health.”
Global soils are the source of all life on land but the FAO warned in December 2020 that their future looked “bleak” without action to halt degradation. Microplastic pollution is also a global problem, pervading the planet from the summit of Mount Everest to the deepest ocean trenches.
The FAO report, which was reviewed by external experts, estimates 12.5m tonnes of plastic products were used in plant and animal production in 2019, and a further 37.3m in food packaging.
Plastic is a versatile material and cheap and easy to make into products, the report says. These include greenhouse and mulching films as well as polymer-coated fertiliser pellets, which release nutrients more slowly and efficiently.
“However, despite the many benefits, agricultural plastics also pose a serious risk of pollution and harm to human and ecosystem health when they are damaged, degraded or discarded in the environment,” the report says.
Data on plastic use is limited, it says, but Asia was estimated to be the largest user, accounting for about half of global usage. Furthermore, the global demand for major products such as greenhouse, mulching and silage films is expected to rise by 50% by 2030.
Only a small fraction of agricultural plastics are collected and recycled. The FAO said: “The urgency for coordinated and decisive action cannot be understated.”
The hills are alive with the signs of plastic: even Swiss mountains are polluted
Prof Jonathan Leake, at the University of Sheffield in the UK and a panel member of the UK Sustainable Soils Alliance, said: “Plastic pollution of agricultural soils is a pervasive, persistent problem that threatens soil health throughout much of the world.”
He said the impact of plastic was poorly understood, although adverse effects had been seen on earthworms, which played a crucial role in keeping soils and crops healthy.
“We are currently adding large amounts of these unnatural materials into agricultural soils without understanding their long-term effects,” he said. “In the UK the problems are especially serious because of our applications of large amounts of plastic-contaminated sewage sludges and composts. We need to remove the plastics [from these] before they are added to land, as it is impossible to remove them afterwards.”
As a solution, the FAO report cites “the 6R model” – refuse, redesign, reduce, reuse, recycle, and recover. This means adopting farming practices that avoid plastic use, substituting plastic products with natural or biodegradable alternatives, promoting reusable plastic products and improving plastic waste management.
Greece, a green energy laggard in Europe, boosts renewable energy
Key hydroelectric projects are being revived as part of a push by Athens to decarbonise and meet irrigation needs.
Key hydroelectric projects are being revived as part of a push by Athens to decarbonise and meet irrigation needs.
The Mesohora dam, completed 20 years ago, towers 135m across a ravine cut by the Acheloos river, but its resevoir is empty
[John Psaropoulos/Al Jazeera]
By John Psaropoulos
Local resistance
Although Greeks overwhelmingly support decarbonisation, they often oppose energy projects in their back yard. Local opposition has killed large wind farm projects on the islands of Serifos and Skyros, and it was a campaign coordinated by environmental groups that stopped the Acheloos dams.
Many of the villagers of Mesohora, which would be flooded if the dam reservoir were filled, are still against the project. The problem, says Panayotis Kotronis, who served as Mesohora community president in the 1980s, is that irrigation priorities sullied green energy priorities.
“This began as a small hydro-electric dam that would go to a height of 80 metres [260 feet],” he says. “The lake would not then flood the village, only about 10 houses. Then, as part of the Acheloos diversion project, it reached 135 metres [443 feet].”
The higher water level caused new problems, says Kotronis. “Now the lake would reach just below the village square. But the top half of the village will also slide into the lake. The studies say there will be slippage.”
The PPC, which built the dams, proposed relocating Mesohora entirely, but a new site was never settled upon.
Locals also have environmental concerns, reflecting growing scepticism about dams.
“The river’s flow is already falling,” says Yiorgos Sakkas, who was community president in 2002-10. “When it doesn’t rain, it’s just a stream. The water flows so slowly it looks green from all the algae that grow in it. We used to call it aspropotamos [the white river].”
Argyro Karayiorgou, a Mesohora resident since birth, dismisses the broader national goal of producing clean energy. “Destroying one environment to save another?” she asks. “If you destroy enough small environments, you destroy the Earth.”
Other Mesohora residents do see the broader good. Konstantinos Kotronis, the nephew of Panayotis, who also served as community president, points to the current energy crisis.
“If a country isn’t energy-autonomous, this has an impact on its people. Energy becomes expensive … [Russian President Vladimir] Putin closes the tap and gas prices shoot up,” he says
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA
By John Psaropoulos
Published On 7 Dec 2021
Acheloos, Greece – In some of the remotest gorges of western Greece, at the ends of roads that wind like small intestines, sit the country’s biggest white elephant projects.
The Mesohora dam, completed 20 years ago, towers across a ravine cut by the Acheloos river, but its reservoir is empty.
Downstream lies the unfinished Sykia dam.
When work crews departed in 2009, its clay core stood to a fraction of the 150-metre (492 feet) height it is supposed to reach, the gravel buttresses even lower.
The two dams were supposed to produce at least 890 gigawatt hours per year (GWh), enough to power tens of thousands of homes, but the Acheloos continues to flow around them through diversion tunnels.
This is because Mesohora and Sykia, along with two other hydroelectric dams on which construction had not started, were part of a system with a dual purpose. They were designed to sustain enormous reservoirs – almost three-quarters of a billion tonnes between them – in order to divert 600 million tonnes of water each year to the Thessaly plain, Greece’s biggest farming region. A 17km (10.5 miles) tunnel bored under the Pindos mountains for the purpose, but never lined with concrete, is now in danger of collapsing.
Unsustainable farming practices have led Thessaly to pump its underground aquifer almost dry, and desertification now threatens this region of one million people. Since 2000, the Council of State, Greece’s top administrative court, has repeatedly ruled that cultural and environmental impacts of the Acheloos diversion have not been properly assessed, bringing works to a halt. That left more than a billion dollars of taxpayer money literally sunk in the ground.
Now amid rising temperatures linked to climate change and the obligation to meet clean energy goals, the conservative New Democracy government tells Al Jazeera it is reviving the dam projects as part of a plan to meet both Greece’s decarbonisation targets and its irrigation needs.
“The works of the upper Acheloos will be completed in the next five to six years, based on new and improved studies,” the environment ministry told Al Jazeera in written answers.
Acheloos, Greece – In some of the remotest gorges of western Greece, at the ends of roads that wind like small intestines, sit the country’s biggest white elephant projects.
The Mesohora dam, completed 20 years ago, towers across a ravine cut by the Acheloos river, but its reservoir is empty.
Downstream lies the unfinished Sykia dam.
When work crews departed in 2009, its clay core stood to a fraction of the 150-metre (492 feet) height it is supposed to reach, the gravel buttresses even lower.
The two dams were supposed to produce at least 890 gigawatt hours per year (GWh), enough to power tens of thousands of homes, but the Acheloos continues to flow around them through diversion tunnels.
This is because Mesohora and Sykia, along with two other hydroelectric dams on which construction had not started, were part of a system with a dual purpose. They were designed to sustain enormous reservoirs – almost three-quarters of a billion tonnes between them – in order to divert 600 million tonnes of water each year to the Thessaly plain, Greece’s biggest farming region. A 17km (10.5 miles) tunnel bored under the Pindos mountains for the purpose, but never lined with concrete, is now in danger of collapsing.
Unsustainable farming practices have led Thessaly to pump its underground aquifer almost dry, and desertification now threatens this region of one million people. Since 2000, the Council of State, Greece’s top administrative court, has repeatedly ruled that cultural and environmental impacts of the Acheloos diversion have not been properly assessed, bringing works to a halt. That left more than a billion dollars of taxpayer money literally sunk in the ground.
Now amid rising temperatures linked to climate change and the obligation to meet clean energy goals, the conservative New Democracy government tells Al Jazeera it is reviving the dam projects as part of a plan to meet both Greece’s decarbonisation targets and its irrigation needs.
“The works of the upper Acheloos will be completed in the next five to six years, based on new and improved studies,” the environment ministry told Al Jazeera in written answers.
The upper Acheloos river is also known as Aspropotamos, or white river, because of the limestone pebbles that form the river bed [John Psaropoulos/Al Jazeera]
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis recently said the government will launch public-private project funding for more than a billion dollars’ worth of irrigation infrastructure works, including dams, lakes and pipe networks.
“The government plans to construct 21 major irrigation works,” Mitsotakis told a gathering of regional prefects on November 9. “These are of paramount importance for a country that invests in primary industry and wants its farmers not to have to worry about their primary resource, which is water.”
The Acheloos projects are not included in the current round of funding.
Turning to face the sun and wind
Given its ample sun and wind, Greece is a green energy laggard in Europe.
In 2019, it produced just 29 percent of its electricity from renewable sources, compared with an EU average of 34 percent.
Portugal, a country of similar wealth and population to Greece, already produces two-thirds of its electric power from renewable sources.
Greece’s straggling is partly because its main energy producer, the Public Power Corporation (PPC), has for 20 years fought tooth and nail to maintain coal as its main energy source. That left the production of electricity from renewables and gas entirely in the hands of private producers. The result of the PPC’s policy was that its share of the electricity market shrank over two decades from 100 percent to 40 percent.
Now, the PPC is turning itself around and turbocharging the green energy revolution.
The beginning of this turnaround came in September 2019, when Mitsotakis announced that the PPC would phase out coal by 2028. At September’s UN General Assembly, he suggested that could now happen as early as 2025.
“We have very poor quality [coal], and have to burn a lot of it to produce the energy we need,” says energy expert Miltiadis Aslanoglou. “Natural gas produces about 300-350 grammes of carbon dioxide per megajoule. A good quality coal produces about 800 grammes of carbon dioxide per megajoule. Our lignite coal produces 1,200 grammes of carbon dioxdie megajoule in the best-case scenario.”
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis recently said the government will launch public-private project funding for more than a billion dollars’ worth of irrigation infrastructure works, including dams, lakes and pipe networks.
“The government plans to construct 21 major irrigation works,” Mitsotakis told a gathering of regional prefects on November 9. “These are of paramount importance for a country that invests in primary industry and wants its farmers not to have to worry about their primary resource, which is water.”
The Acheloos projects are not included in the current round of funding.
Turning to face the sun and wind
Given its ample sun and wind, Greece is a green energy laggard in Europe.
In 2019, it produced just 29 percent of its electricity from renewable sources, compared with an EU average of 34 percent.
Portugal, a country of similar wealth and population to Greece, already produces two-thirds of its electric power from renewable sources.
Greece’s straggling is partly because its main energy producer, the Public Power Corporation (PPC), has for 20 years fought tooth and nail to maintain coal as its main energy source. That left the production of electricity from renewables and gas entirely in the hands of private producers. The result of the PPC’s policy was that its share of the electricity market shrank over two decades from 100 percent to 40 percent.
Now, the PPC is turning itself around and turbocharging the green energy revolution.
The beginning of this turnaround came in September 2019, when Mitsotakis announced that the PPC would phase out coal by 2028. At September’s UN General Assembly, he suggested that could now happen as early as 2025.
“We have very poor quality [coal], and have to burn a lot of it to produce the energy we need,” says energy expert Miltiadis Aslanoglou. “Natural gas produces about 300-350 grammes of carbon dioxide per megajoule. A good quality coal produces about 800 grammes of carbon dioxide per megajoule. Our lignite coal produces 1,200 grammes of carbon dioxdie megajoule in the best-case scenario.”
Greece’s Ptolemaida I-IV power station, which burns coal, is to be decommissioned by 2023 under broader plans to phase out use of the energy source within the next decade [John Psaropoulos/Al Jazeera]
That has led to skyrocketing costs for the PPC, which drew 27 percent of its power from coal last year, and has to buy the right to pollute from Europe’s carbon market. Those polluting rights will burden its balance sheet by about $1bn this year because the cost of carbon permits has more than doubled to more than $70 per tonne since January.
The PPC this year announced an 8.4bn-euro ($9.46bn) investment plan to acquire or create 9.1GW of renewable generating capacity by 2026. This would effectively double the PPC’s current generating capacity, and allow it to shut down its remaining lignite-burning plants. It has raised some of the capital through a capital share increase and by spinning off 49 percent of the country’s low-voltage network, the Hellenic Distribution Network Operator.
The rising cost of carbon permits has been one driver of change. Privatisation has been the other. The Independent Power Transmission Operator, Greece’s high-voltage transmission network, was spun off from the state-controlled PPC during Greece’s economic crisis in 2011, and has since attracted investors.
The result is a $5bn project, currently under way, connecting the biggest Aegean islands to the grid via undersea cables by the end of the decade. This allows the PPC to stop generating electricity from diesel generators on the islands, and reduce the carbon it pumps into the atmosphere each year by almost three million tonnes – about a fifth of its emissions.
By 2030, renewables are expected to exceed 61 percent of Greece’s electricity mix, surpassing EU targets, according to its latest National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP).
That has led to skyrocketing costs for the PPC, which drew 27 percent of its power from coal last year, and has to buy the right to pollute from Europe’s carbon market. Those polluting rights will burden its balance sheet by about $1bn this year because the cost of carbon permits has more than doubled to more than $70 per tonne since January.
The PPC this year announced an 8.4bn-euro ($9.46bn) investment plan to acquire or create 9.1GW of renewable generating capacity by 2026. This would effectively double the PPC’s current generating capacity, and allow it to shut down its remaining lignite-burning plants. It has raised some of the capital through a capital share increase and by spinning off 49 percent of the country’s low-voltage network, the Hellenic Distribution Network Operator.
The rising cost of carbon permits has been one driver of change. Privatisation has been the other. The Independent Power Transmission Operator, Greece’s high-voltage transmission network, was spun off from the state-controlled PPC during Greece’s economic crisis in 2011, and has since attracted investors.
The result is a $5bn project, currently under way, connecting the biggest Aegean islands to the grid via undersea cables by the end of the decade. This allows the PPC to stop generating electricity from diesel generators on the islands, and reduce the carbon it pumps into the atmosphere each year by almost three million tonnes – about a fifth of its emissions.
By 2030, renewables are expected to exceed 61 percent of Greece’s electricity mix, surpassing EU targets, according to its latest National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP).
The Acheloos flows around the construction site of the Sykia dam through a diversion tunnel [John Psaropoulos/Al Jazeera]
Local resistance
Although Greeks overwhelmingly support decarbonisation, they often oppose energy projects in their back yard. Local opposition has killed large wind farm projects on the islands of Serifos and Skyros, and it was a campaign coordinated by environmental groups that stopped the Acheloos dams.
Many of the villagers of Mesohora, which would be flooded if the dam reservoir were filled, are still against the project. The problem, says Panayotis Kotronis, who served as Mesohora community president in the 1980s, is that irrigation priorities sullied green energy priorities.
“This began as a small hydro-electric dam that would go to a height of 80 metres [260 feet],” he says. “The lake would not then flood the village, only about 10 houses. Then, as part of the Acheloos diversion project, it reached 135 metres [443 feet].”
The higher water level caused new problems, says Kotronis. “Now the lake would reach just below the village square. But the top half of the village will also slide into the lake. The studies say there will be slippage.”
The PPC, which built the dams, proposed relocating Mesohora entirely, but a new site was never settled upon.
Locals also have environmental concerns, reflecting growing scepticism about dams.
“The river’s flow is already falling,” says Yiorgos Sakkas, who was community president in 2002-10. “When it doesn’t rain, it’s just a stream. The water flows so slowly it looks green from all the algae that grow in it. We used to call it aspropotamos [the white river].”
Argyro Karayiorgou, a Mesohora resident since birth, dismisses the broader national goal of producing clean energy. “Destroying one environment to save another?” she asks. “If you destroy enough small environments, you destroy the Earth.”
Other Mesohora residents do see the broader good. Konstantinos Kotronis, the nephew of Panayotis, who also served as community president, points to the current energy crisis.
“If a country isn’t energy-autonomous, this has an impact on its people. Energy becomes expensive … [Russian President Vladimir] Putin closes the tap and gas prices shoot up,” he says
.
Konstantinos Kotronis is in favour of the Mesohora dam being operated [John Psaropoulos/Al Jazeera]
In January 2009, Russian gas monopoly Gazprom shut down gas flow to Europe through Ukraine because of a disagreement over arrears owed by the Ukrainian gas operator. Europe relies on Russia for more than a third of its gas, and southeast Europe is almost a Russian monopoly. The 2009 shutdown led to power outages, factory stoppages and unheated homes in the region, and was a wake-up call for Europe’s energy security.
Self-reliance was the goal when the PPC was founded. It drew on water and coal, both abundant in Greece.
Western Greece became the birthplace of the country’s renewable energy industry, because it receives most of the country’s rainfall, as weather systems move from west to east.
This is where the country’s first dam was built, on the Arachthos river system, in 1950. In the 1960s, three dams went up on the lower reaches of the Acheloos. The PPC drew almost 14 percent of its power from hydroelectricity last year, and most of that came from the Arachthos and Acheloos.
The completion of the Mesohora and Sykia dams is bound to stir controversy anew, but this time local residents may not be an insuperable obstacle. That is because a 2018 law encouraged Greeks to place solar panels on the roofs of the country’s 4.5 million homes, increasing citizen participation in green energy.
A recent study by the environmental think-tank GreenTank revealed that some 466 megawatts of capacity have already been installed, representing four percent of the country’s installed renewable electricity capacity, and a further 4,235MW have been applied for.
“I’m putting solar panels up on my roof [in Trikala],” says Konstantinos Kotronis. “When I’m choosing an environmentally-friendly form of energy at home, I can’t say I’m against it elsewhere.”
In January 2009, Russian gas monopoly Gazprom shut down gas flow to Europe through Ukraine because of a disagreement over arrears owed by the Ukrainian gas operator. Europe relies on Russia for more than a third of its gas, and southeast Europe is almost a Russian monopoly. The 2009 shutdown led to power outages, factory stoppages and unheated homes in the region, and was a wake-up call for Europe’s energy security.
Self-reliance was the goal when the PPC was founded. It drew on water and coal, both abundant in Greece.
Western Greece became the birthplace of the country’s renewable energy industry, because it receives most of the country’s rainfall, as weather systems move from west to east.
This is where the country’s first dam was built, on the Arachthos river system, in 1950. In the 1960s, three dams went up on the lower reaches of the Acheloos. The PPC drew almost 14 percent of its power from hydroelectricity last year, and most of that came from the Arachthos and Acheloos.
The completion of the Mesohora and Sykia dams is bound to stir controversy anew, but this time local residents may not be an insuperable obstacle. That is because a 2018 law encouraged Greeks to place solar panels on the roofs of the country’s 4.5 million homes, increasing citizen participation in green energy.
A recent study by the environmental think-tank GreenTank revealed that some 466 megawatts of capacity have already been installed, representing four percent of the country’s installed renewable electricity capacity, and a further 4,235MW have been applied for.
“I’m putting solar panels up on my roof [in Trikala],” says Konstantinos Kotronis. “When I’m choosing an environmentally-friendly form of energy at home, I can’t say I’m against it elsewhere.”
A mural near the Mesohora dam calls residents to a ‘struggle for land and for freedom’ – many of the surrounding villages have opposed the damming of the Acheloos [John Psaropoulos/Al Jazeera]
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA
Greek official: ‘Investing in natural gas is both rational and unavoidable’
By Kira Taylor | EURACTIV.com
Dec 7, 2021 (updated: Dec 8, 2021)
"Investing in natural gas as a fuel that will cover baseload demand and will increase flexibility is both rational and unavoidable, at least for the medium term," said Alexandra Sdoukou, the Secretary General for Energy and Mineral Resources in Greece
Greece is transitioning away from coal, but investments in natural gas are “rational and unavoidable” because they are needed to support renewable energy, Alexandra Sdoukou told EURACTIV.
Alexandra Sdoukou is Secretary General for Energy at the Greek Ministry of Environment. She spoke to EURACTIV’s Kira Taylor about the energy transition in Greece.
Greece is planning to phase out coal by 2028 at the latest – how much of that will be replaced by wind energy? Will it be offshore/onshore/floating? What is the timeline for that?
Indeed, Greece has announced and is already implementing an ambitious plan to move away from lignite coal. This plan consists of the decommissioning of all currently operating lignite-fired generation assets until 2023 and the phase-out of all lignite production by 2028.
To offset this extensive decommissioning of thermal capacity, we rely heavily upon new renewable energy source (RES) capacity additions in our generation mix. According to our National Energy and Climate Plan, Greece will double its wind and solar PV capacity until 2030, with RES contributing up to 64% to the country’s electricity production.
Moreover, the European Commission approved a few days ago our new RES Auctions support scheme for 2021-2025. The scheme will provide incentives of approximately €2,27 billion for the addition of 4.2GW of new RES capacity.
The new capacity will be allocated through joint technology auctions, so there’s no concrete administrative allocation between technologies. Be that as it may, it is foreseen that no technology will take up more than 70% of the total capacity auctioned, so at least 30% is guaranteed for each technology in order to avoid “technology monoculture” in our RES mix.
Moreover, an additional 2GW of offshore wind has been recently announced by the Prime Minister as a target for 2030; a discreet support scheme for this offshore wind capacity will be notified to the Commission in the first semester of 2022. Finally, significant interest has been shown in concluding merchant Power Purchase Agreements for new RES capacity, outside the aforementioned support schemes.
In light of the above, it is evident that Greece will continue to rely on wind power, both on- and offshore, as a key element, a cornerstone of its green transition strategy in the coming decade.
What challenges need to be overcome to allow the needed growth of wind power? Are there any issues with people’s perception of wind turbines?
In Greece, as well as in most parts of the world where wind power has achieved a mainstream status in electricity production, awareness of this technology increases in the general public. And, as many more people become aware of the many positives of clean and cheap energy from the wind, we also see that “not-in-my-back-yard” concerns also increase.
As policymakers, we need to take these concerns into consideration and address them honestly, with fact-based analyses and scientific evidence. We also need to put in place a series of measures that instil trust and incentivize the local populations that are asked to “host” electricity production units.
In Greece, we have a very thorough licensing process that examines numerous environmental criteria and ensures respect for both natural and anthropogenic environment. Moreover, we are in the process of fully revising our spatial planning framework, to adapt to the current realities of new RES technologies.
Moreover, a system of financial benefits for municipalities and local populations is in place to ensure that they are compensated for the establishment of RES units in their territories; this system is, again, under reexamination and optimization to make sure that the financial benefits RES producers provide for local communities and residents are more visible and transparent. This combination of safeguards and incentives can help address most concerns, at least those that are offered in good faith.
At the end of the day, though, suitable sites for the development of wind power assets are limited on land. That is why we recently concluded (and will soon put up for public consultation) a comprehensive framework for the development of offshore wind power, with a controlled and planned deployment of offshore wind on carefully selected sea plots. Moreover, we are considering ways to increase the output of already selected onshore sites through the repowering of existing, older installations with new, more efficient turbines.
Those measures will decrease the pressure for the identification of new suitable sites without jeopardising Greece’s ambitious plans for doubling its installed RES capacity by 2030.
What are the biggest challenges for Greece in the shift from fossil fuel to renewable energy?
Our plan to phase out lignite coal at such a rapid pace comes with a number of unique challenges, both technical and socioeconomic.
From the technical perspective, a complete rethinking of our energy sector is needed. Apart from plans to replace the obsolete lignite-fired units with new RES capacity, a need for flexibility arises.
This need is being addressed through a number of targeted measures to support the deployment of new natural gas assets, to promote storage, both in the form of batteries and of pumped hydro, and to increase demand-side response.
Apart from those measures, though, a broad programme to increase energy efficiency is underway, which includes focused sub-programs for residences, public buildings and commercial/industrial usage.
Energy efficiency is crucial in making a smooth transition to a sustainable energy mix, and we include it in our strategic priorities, as is evident both in our N.E.C.P. (which adopts targets for energy efficiency much higher than the average E.U. target) and in our Recovery and Resilience Plan (which allocates approximately 50% of our “Green Pillar” grants to energy efficiency Actions).
The challenges associated with de-lignitisation go beyond the technical. Regions in Western Macedonia as well as in Central Peloponnese have hosted lignite mining and electricity production activities for decades and rely heavily upon revenues associated with these operations.
The phase-out of lignite coal will drastically change the way of life in those regions; it is our job as policymakers to make sure that this change is for the better. That is why we have introduced a Just Transition Plan for the affected regions that will ensure jobs, rehabilitation of affected territories and new developmental opportunities for those regions and their residents.
Our goal is to turn this challenge into an opportunity and to make sure that, at the end of this process, the main beneficiaries of the energy transition are the populations of the areas in transition, with tangible positive effects in their income, their health, their prosperity and way of life.
How could Greece enable the import of renewable energy from places like Africa?
Greece stands at the crossroads of three continents and it is our vision to facilitate the transport of energy between these continents.
A dimension of this vision is a planned Subsea Cable Interconnection between Greece and Egypt. Recently, political endorsement to this ambitious project has been provided by the signing of a Memorandum of Agreement between the Minister of Environment and Energy of Greece, Kostas Skrekas, and the Egyptian Electricity Minister, Mohamed Shaker.
Of course, the technical challenges associated with such a demanding project are many. Despite that, we are confident in Greece’s experience in subsea interconnections, which includes the already active interconnection between the Peloponnese and Crete (the longest AC interconnection in the world at 174km and 1000m depth) and the even longer- interconnection between Attika and Crete, which is currently being built.
This experience, along with the close cooperation and share of knowledge with our Egyptian counterparts, I think will be sufficient to ensure the project’s technical viability.
Greece has been very active in the discussion about energy prices, what is the issue in Greece and how can it be solved?
The recent price spike experienced across Europe is the result of a “perfect storm”. As such, it is far from a Greek issue; indeed, both the causes and the effects of this “perfect storm” are made evident across European energy markets, both for natural gas and for electricity.
In the short term, our priority regarding the energy price spike is to alleviate its results for the consumers. That is why we have introduced a very generous support program for end-users, particularly residential consumers and small businesses, in order to absorb most of the adverse effects of the increased prices.
In the long term though, we are confident that the prices of electricity will drop as the energy mix of our Continent moves towards renewable energy, what is today universally accepted as the cheapest form of energy available.
The process towards the energy transition will not be without challenges and obstacles and we will remain alert to address those when and as they arise, but we remain confident that once this process advances, we will become more resilient against imported fuels and price volatility and will enjoy clean, but also cheap and abundant, energy from the sun and the wind.
There has been some criticism that Greece is replacing its coal capacity with fossil gas, including investments in new fossil fuel infrastructure, what is your response to this?
We all know that an electricity system relying on high penetration of renewables requires stable baseload production as well as increased flexibility. Greece is currently implementing a widespread programme to procure significant amounts of storage, amounting to 1.4 GW, in the coming years and in the form both of batteries and of pumped hydropower.
This programme though still has some years until its full completion. Moreover, Greece has no serious alternative to add new dispatchable sources of generation to its production, such as nuclear power or major new hydroelectric generation.
To this effect, investing in natural gas as a fuel that will cover baseload demand and will increase flexibility is both rational and unavoidable, at least for the medium term.
Having said that, all new natural gas infrastructure to be constructed in Greece, including a much needed strategic gas storage facility, is designed to be hydrogen-ready and able to accommodate low carbon and renewable gases, in order to avoid.
By Kira Taylor | EURACTIV.com
Dec 7, 2021 (updated: Dec 8, 2021)
"Investing in natural gas as a fuel that will cover baseload demand and will increase flexibility is both rational and unavoidable, at least for the medium term," said Alexandra Sdoukou, the Secretary General for Energy and Mineral Resources in Greece
Greece is transitioning away from coal, but investments in natural gas are “rational and unavoidable” because they are needed to support renewable energy, Alexandra Sdoukou told EURACTIV.
Alexandra Sdoukou is Secretary General for Energy at the Greek Ministry of Environment. She spoke to EURACTIV’s Kira Taylor about the energy transition in Greece.
Greece is planning to phase out coal by 2028 at the latest – how much of that will be replaced by wind energy? Will it be offshore/onshore/floating? What is the timeline for that?
Indeed, Greece has announced and is already implementing an ambitious plan to move away from lignite coal. This plan consists of the decommissioning of all currently operating lignite-fired generation assets until 2023 and the phase-out of all lignite production by 2028.
To offset this extensive decommissioning of thermal capacity, we rely heavily upon new renewable energy source (RES) capacity additions in our generation mix. According to our National Energy and Climate Plan, Greece will double its wind and solar PV capacity until 2030, with RES contributing up to 64% to the country’s electricity production.
Moreover, the European Commission approved a few days ago our new RES Auctions support scheme for 2021-2025. The scheme will provide incentives of approximately €2,27 billion for the addition of 4.2GW of new RES capacity.
The new capacity will be allocated through joint technology auctions, so there’s no concrete administrative allocation between technologies. Be that as it may, it is foreseen that no technology will take up more than 70% of the total capacity auctioned, so at least 30% is guaranteed for each technology in order to avoid “technology monoculture” in our RES mix.
Moreover, an additional 2GW of offshore wind has been recently announced by the Prime Minister as a target for 2030; a discreet support scheme for this offshore wind capacity will be notified to the Commission in the first semester of 2022. Finally, significant interest has been shown in concluding merchant Power Purchase Agreements for new RES capacity, outside the aforementioned support schemes.
In light of the above, it is evident that Greece will continue to rely on wind power, both on- and offshore, as a key element, a cornerstone of its green transition strategy in the coming decade.
What challenges need to be overcome to allow the needed growth of wind power? Are there any issues with people’s perception of wind turbines?
In Greece, as well as in most parts of the world where wind power has achieved a mainstream status in electricity production, awareness of this technology increases in the general public. And, as many more people become aware of the many positives of clean and cheap energy from the wind, we also see that “not-in-my-back-yard” concerns also increase.
As policymakers, we need to take these concerns into consideration and address them honestly, with fact-based analyses and scientific evidence. We also need to put in place a series of measures that instil trust and incentivize the local populations that are asked to “host” electricity production units.
In Greece, we have a very thorough licensing process that examines numerous environmental criteria and ensures respect for both natural and anthropogenic environment. Moreover, we are in the process of fully revising our spatial planning framework, to adapt to the current realities of new RES technologies.
Moreover, a system of financial benefits for municipalities and local populations is in place to ensure that they are compensated for the establishment of RES units in their territories; this system is, again, under reexamination and optimization to make sure that the financial benefits RES producers provide for local communities and residents are more visible and transparent. This combination of safeguards and incentives can help address most concerns, at least those that are offered in good faith.
At the end of the day, though, suitable sites for the development of wind power assets are limited on land. That is why we recently concluded (and will soon put up for public consultation) a comprehensive framework for the development of offshore wind power, with a controlled and planned deployment of offshore wind on carefully selected sea plots. Moreover, we are considering ways to increase the output of already selected onshore sites through the repowering of existing, older installations with new, more efficient turbines.
Those measures will decrease the pressure for the identification of new suitable sites without jeopardising Greece’s ambitious plans for doubling its installed RES capacity by 2030.
What are the biggest challenges for Greece in the shift from fossil fuel to renewable energy?
Our plan to phase out lignite coal at such a rapid pace comes with a number of unique challenges, both technical and socioeconomic.
From the technical perspective, a complete rethinking of our energy sector is needed. Apart from plans to replace the obsolete lignite-fired units with new RES capacity, a need for flexibility arises.
This need is being addressed through a number of targeted measures to support the deployment of new natural gas assets, to promote storage, both in the form of batteries and of pumped hydro, and to increase demand-side response.
Apart from those measures, though, a broad programme to increase energy efficiency is underway, which includes focused sub-programs for residences, public buildings and commercial/industrial usage.
Energy efficiency is crucial in making a smooth transition to a sustainable energy mix, and we include it in our strategic priorities, as is evident both in our N.E.C.P. (which adopts targets for energy efficiency much higher than the average E.U. target) and in our Recovery and Resilience Plan (which allocates approximately 50% of our “Green Pillar” grants to energy efficiency Actions).
The challenges associated with de-lignitisation go beyond the technical. Regions in Western Macedonia as well as in Central Peloponnese have hosted lignite mining and electricity production activities for decades and rely heavily upon revenues associated with these operations.
The phase-out of lignite coal will drastically change the way of life in those regions; it is our job as policymakers to make sure that this change is for the better. That is why we have introduced a Just Transition Plan for the affected regions that will ensure jobs, rehabilitation of affected territories and new developmental opportunities for those regions and their residents.
Our goal is to turn this challenge into an opportunity and to make sure that, at the end of this process, the main beneficiaries of the energy transition are the populations of the areas in transition, with tangible positive effects in their income, their health, their prosperity and way of life.
How could Greece enable the import of renewable energy from places like Africa?
Greece stands at the crossroads of three continents and it is our vision to facilitate the transport of energy between these continents.
A dimension of this vision is a planned Subsea Cable Interconnection between Greece and Egypt. Recently, political endorsement to this ambitious project has been provided by the signing of a Memorandum of Agreement between the Minister of Environment and Energy of Greece, Kostas Skrekas, and the Egyptian Electricity Minister, Mohamed Shaker.
Of course, the technical challenges associated with such a demanding project are many. Despite that, we are confident in Greece’s experience in subsea interconnections, which includes the already active interconnection between the Peloponnese and Crete (the longest AC interconnection in the world at 174km and 1000m depth) and the even longer- interconnection between Attika and Crete, which is currently being built.
This experience, along with the close cooperation and share of knowledge with our Egyptian counterparts, I think will be sufficient to ensure the project’s technical viability.
Greece has been very active in the discussion about energy prices, what is the issue in Greece and how can it be solved?
The recent price spike experienced across Europe is the result of a “perfect storm”. As such, it is far from a Greek issue; indeed, both the causes and the effects of this “perfect storm” are made evident across European energy markets, both for natural gas and for electricity.
In the short term, our priority regarding the energy price spike is to alleviate its results for the consumers. That is why we have introduced a very generous support program for end-users, particularly residential consumers and small businesses, in order to absorb most of the adverse effects of the increased prices.
In the long term though, we are confident that the prices of electricity will drop as the energy mix of our Continent moves towards renewable energy, what is today universally accepted as the cheapest form of energy available.
The process towards the energy transition will not be without challenges and obstacles and we will remain alert to address those when and as they arise, but we remain confident that once this process advances, we will become more resilient against imported fuels and price volatility and will enjoy clean, but also cheap and abundant, energy from the sun and the wind.
There has been some criticism that Greece is replacing its coal capacity with fossil gas, including investments in new fossil fuel infrastructure, what is your response to this?
We all know that an electricity system relying on high penetration of renewables requires stable baseload production as well as increased flexibility. Greece is currently implementing a widespread programme to procure significant amounts of storage, amounting to 1.4 GW, in the coming years and in the form both of batteries and of pumped hydropower.
This programme though still has some years until its full completion. Moreover, Greece has no serious alternative to add new dispatchable sources of generation to its production, such as nuclear power or major new hydroelectric generation.
To this effect, investing in natural gas as a fuel that will cover baseload demand and will increase flexibility is both rational and unavoidable, at least for the medium term.
Having said that, all new natural gas infrastructure to be constructed in Greece, including a much needed strategic gas storage facility, is designed to be hydrogen-ready and able to accommodate low carbon and renewable gases, in order to avoid.
GREENWASHING
WPC 2021: Oil and gas technology holds key to meeting world’s green energy goals
HOUSTON – As deadlines on ambitious green-energy targets draw nearer, the infrastructure and expertise of the fossil fuel industry has a critical role to play in reaching the world’s decarbonization goals.
“There is a spectrum of willingness” on the part of green energy companies to take advantage of oil and gas technology, Dr. Paula Doyle, SVP Oil & Gas at Cognite AS, said during the 2021 World Petroleum Congress. “The pressure [to meet climate targets] is on, and we don’t have time to go back to the drawing board” to reinvent technologies that have already been developed in the pursuit of fossil fuel development.
Doyle pointed out that subsea construction processes originally developed for deepwater oil and gas installations are proving critical for offshore wind farms, and that transportation infrastructure for fossil fuels can play an important role in the development and adoption of hydrogen as an energy source.
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Critical to leveraging these technologies is digital transformation – in particular, developing new ways to take advantage of the significant amount of data generated across the upstream, midstream and downstream fossil fuel energy journey. Siloed data between and even within systems makes artificial intelligence and machine learning more challenging to leverage, and can ultimately reduce its effectiveness.
“We are dealing with realities, not just dreams and hopes” when it comes to applying legacy expertise to new energy challenges, Dr. Doyle said. “There are major physical realities around completing the energy transition as cleanly as possible. We are doing all we can to accelerate green energy, while also making current systems more efficient.”
Data contextualization, wherein information is collected holistically across an entire system and linked together, plays a key role in this technology and knowledge transfer. To achieve this, data must be democratized for best advantage at scale, across sites, systems and organizations.
Doyle said that Cognite is taking a two-pronged approach, improving data performance to lower the carbon intensity of energy produced, while also reducing the overall volume of energy consumed.
The objective is to “focus on the lowest carbon-intensity possible, going beyond carbon capture, and moving toward using existing networks to produce hydrogen, create renewable energy storage technologies, and improve offshore wind performance” in the broader energy transition, Doyle said. By partnering with oil and gas companies, and working to incorporate renewables into their energy production mix, their financial and technical value can more rapidly industrialize the green energy sector.
Moving from an emphasis on carbon remediation, to eliminating carbon from energy sources in the first place, is one of the benefits of data contextualization.
Fully contextualized data, utilized by artificial intelligence and machine learning systems designed to build upon the expertise and track record of oil and gas production, can “increase efficiency, improve time-to-market on renewable projects, and reduce carbon intensity,” Doyle said.
OF COURSE THEY DID
Oil CEOs clash with U.S. Energy Dept official over energy transition
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| FRACKING WELL |
Top energy executives this week urged a more cautious transition of energy policy away from oil and gas, but a U.S. Energy Department official said the industry has a moral obligation to address climate change and the economic opportunity it represents.
Executives from Saudi Aramco, Exxon Mobil, and Chevron, speaking at the World Petroleum Congress in Houston on Monday, blamed demand for renewables and lack of investment in fossil fuels for recent fuel shortages and price volatility.
The conference was marked by withdrawals of top energy ministers over travel restrictions and concerns over the Coronavirus. The verbal skirmish occurred at a time when oil demand has recovered sharply from a collapse during the coronavirus pandemic even as world governments have stressed the urgency of addressing climate change.
“The volatility in commodity prices and the impact on business and people,” said Equinor ASA Chief Executive Anders Opedal, “illustrates the risks we face in an imbalanced transition.”
U.S. Deputy Energy Secretary David Turk pushed back against the industry position, saying addressing climate cannot be put on the back burner.
“There is not an alternative to stepping up and fixing the threat to climate change,” he said to an audience in a largely empty hall.
Consumers in Asia and Europe have been dealing with shortages of natural gas, coal and power due to production declines that pushed prices to multi-year highs. In the United States, the Biden administration has criticized oil and gas companies, saying they put profits over consumers.
The tension between investing in oil and gas, carbon reduction technologies, and responding to investors demanding higher returns will be a continuing issue for major oil firms, executives said.
“The future of energy is lower carbon from exploration discoveries and production,” said Liz Schwarze, vice president of global exploration at Chevron.
Amin Nasser, CEO of Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil producer, said there are too many incorrect assumptions made about the pace at which consumers will shift to renewables from oil and gas.
People “assume that the right transition strategy is in place. It’s not,” said Nasser. “Energy security, economic development and affordability are clearly not receiving enough attention.”
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