A Plan To Buy Coal Mines And Close Them Down Got Rejected By Investors: Report
By Ben Zeisloft•
Dec 18, 2021 DailyWire.com•

Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images

Citigroup and other firms attempted to launch a fund that would purchase coal mines and close them by 2040, according to The Wall Street Journal; however, the project was allegedly abandoned upon several rejections from investors.

The Wall Street Journal reported:

The bank teamed up with commodities trader Trafigura Group Pte. Ltd. and Resource Capital Funds, a private-equity firm, to pitch an investment vehicle earlier this year known as Coal to Zero. The fund planned to buy mines in the U.S., Australia and South Africa and run them with the promise of shutting them down by 2040, according to people familiar with the matter and a marketing document seen by The Wall Street Journal.

The fund was trying to solve a thorny problem in the green-energy world. Some energy and mining companies have divested coal assets under the pretense of cutting carbon emissions or appeasing shareholders, only to sell them on to owners happy to run them indefinitely. The fixed end date was a compromise.

In addition to the early shutdown plan, the fund would have kept 75% of its coal in the ground. The Wall Street Journal adds that investors were reportedly uneasy with the project:

Some pension funds and other potential investors balked at the investment vehicle because they didn’t want to face criticism for investing in fossil-fuel projects despite the fund’s goal of accelerating the retirement of coal mines, according to some of the people familiar with the matter. The group’s failure to bring financial backers on board demonstrates how taboo thermal coal has become in the investment world.

Another challenge stemmed from fast-moving changes of direction from governments about the future of coal in the energy mix, some of the people said. Germany’s new government, for example, recently said it aims to bring forward the country’s target for shutting coal power plants to 2030 from 2038. This made it difficult to finalize retirement dates for mines and set the fund’s financial objectives.

Indeed, the White House’s emphasis on clean energy projects — and its attempts to stem nonrenewable energy production — has led American investment banks to grow hesitant over coal projects. In a recent letter, the financial officers of 16 Republican states announced that they would “be taking collective action in response to the ongoing and growing economic boycott of traditional energy production industries by U.S. financial institutions.”

“As the Obama Administration’s War on Coal demonstrated, reckless attacks on law-abiding energy companies cut off paychecks for workers and take food off the tables of hard-working families,” said the officials. “The Biden Administration has resumed these attacks by attempting to ban energy exploration on public lands and reportedly pressuring U.S. banks and financial institutions to limit, encumber, or outright refuse financing for traditional energy production companies.”

“We have a compelling government interest, when acting as participants in the financial services market on behalf of our respective states, to select financial institutions that are not engaged in tactics to harm the very people whose money they are handling,” the letter continued. “Further, we have the responsibility, as fiduciaries and stewards of more than $600 billion, to ensure that our financial service providers are free from harmful conflicts of interest that could jeopardize state funds.”

“Any financial institution that has adopted policies aimed at diminishing a large portion of our states’ revenue has a major conflict of interest against holding, maintaining, or managing those funds.”

Green Hydrogen: Geothermal’s route to pseudo-commoditization?

Artist rendering of proposed Meager Creek project 

(source: infographic by Meager Creek/ biv.com)


Alexander Richter16 Dec 2021

In an opinion article, Taylor Mattie provided some interesting food for thought as it relates to the challenges to geothermal. His article shared on LinkedIn is here republished with his permission.

For all the of the many reasons, possibilities and opportunities that have led me to dedicate my career to geothermal energy, as a pragmatist, there is also a clear recognition of the primary challenges to holding the concept back from a rapid global embrace: geographic limitations and development cost.

While it is certainly true that technology is advancing rapidly that targets one, or both, of these barriers by enabling deeper drilling, lower temperature resource utilization, closed loops and enhanced geothermal systems, there is one critical and unchangeable fact: geothermal energy is not a commodity.

One cannot ship a barrel of hot water around the world for consumption, as we do with fossil fuels. Of course, geothermal power can be generated and transmitted over long distances, or in some rare cases, such as Iceland, the hot water piped directly over long distances for heating. But in both cases, there are losses that still restrict the economic utilization of a geothermal resource to being a regional source of renewable energy.

Enter green hydrogen.

In recent times, governments and industries alike have recognized the incredible potential that hydrogen can play in global decarbonization, especially in the context of transportation fuel. In this vision, green hydrogen is the apex, as it is defined as hydrogen produced using renewable energy through electrolysis. Most think that solar, wind, and hydro are the renewable power source behind green hydrogen. However, the real golden ticket is baseload geothermal power.

The advantage of geothermal power generation is that it runs full time and is not impacted by whether or not the sun is shining or wind is blowing; it provides consistent, baseload power output capability that makes it a perfect energy provider for green hydrogen facilities that operate in the same manner.

Geothermal and green hydrogen designated as a system is a symbiotic relationship with incredible advantages that only come when they are paired together; baseload power supply maintains hydrogen production 24 hours a day, surface footprint is minimized, and government subsidies can be stacked to enable development. Since green hydrogen can be transported or stored for later use, it is the method that enables the pseudo-commoditization of geothermal energy.

There are many remote locations around the world, and especially in the Pacific Rim “Ring of Fire,” where vast geothermal resources exist but with small local populations, and therefore limited need to utilize these resources to its full potential or have a means to fund the development. However, coupling this with green hydrogen, there is now a new model emerging that greatly increases the attractiveness of geothermal in remote areas.

This is not going unnoticed by the industry as well: the recent Halcyon Project in New Zealand has just been finished, which is a green hydrogen plant powered by local geothermal power. Other projects like Meager Creek Development Corporation in British Columbia are in planning, but there are also some extremely visionary organizations like Fortescue Future Industries who are laser-focused on bringing green hydrogen to the world and relying on massive amounts of geothermal energy to enable it.

Now that the possibilities of enabling a pseudo-commoditization of geothermal with green hydrogen are taking shape, how is the other primary challenge of development cost covered with this partnership?

While there is government policy being implemented in many countries financing and supporting the development of green hydrogen, I’ll focus just on the USA as an example. The new Infrastructure and Jobs Act (IIJA) created an Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations, with a budget of about $21.5 billion dollars, designated to meet a set of 10 goals. While geothermal energy is not mentioned specifically, it can easily be interpreted that several areas of the funding could go to geothermal developments to help meet the greater goals.

Of that $21.5 billion budget, the largest portion, $8 billion, is designed for “Regional clean hydrogen hubs,” which is inclusive of the producers, consumers and infrastructure needed to build out the network. The Office has the goal of developing at least four hubs in different regions of the U.S., with at least one being a green hydrogen facility. (The others are blue hydrogen, fuelled by splitting natural gas into hydrogen and CO2.)

Of course, there are massive power requirements for green hydrogen generation facilities and networks of this size, and it is interpreted that this funding would be inclusive of the power source required. The actual footprint of how a network would look is beyond my area of expertise, but it seems reasonable to think that there would be a mix of centralized/direct power sources; Centralized geothermal power plants for hydrogen generation and compression facilities, and then decentralized facilities (such as H2 fuelling stations) that would purchase the renewable energy from the grid, or simply be powered by fuelled generators on-site.

Many questions still exist. For example, if a geothermal power plant is built 50 miles from a green hydrogen generation facility, is it considered a part of the hydrogen hub and therefore qualify for funding? However, it is expected the criteria and structure is something that will become clearer as we move though 2022. It seems highly plausible that portions of this $8 billion will become available to geothermal developers and lease holders such as Fervo Energy, Cyrq and Ormat. They have a huge potential to benefit from this, as does the industry as a whole.

Geothermal has always had to struggle to gain visibility for the funding needed to expand development. But with an incredible amount of funding going into green hydrogen, “piggybacking” into this area opens doors for a high volume of geothermal development in more geographically diverse regions.

The green hydrogen industry and geothermal industry have an enormous degree of synergy to offer each other and are better together. A goal of unification, both in terms of joint project development and global policy creation, should be established by leaders of both industries to take full advantage of the opportunities at hand and better foster the energy transition.

The thoughts and opinions in this essay are mine and not those of my employer (Baker Hughes).

Source: Taylor Mattie via LinkedIn

Researchers pioneer viewing deep rock

 fractures for geothermal
 

Model heat conductivity map (source: PNNL)

Alexander Richter18 Dec 2021


Researchers of the Pacific Northwest National Lab in the U.S. have pioneered a new subsurface imaging technique that allows monitoring deep rock subsurface fractures for geothermal.


Scorching hot granite deep underground can be tapped for energy by opening up cracks in the rock. This potential resource, known as enhanced geothermal energy, requires a clear sense of changes happening in the rock over time—a complex picture that can be difficult to capture, so a news update by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL).

A team led by researchers at PNNL has demonstrated a new way to monitor deep subsurface fractures. The technique, electrical resistivity tomography (ERT), gauges underground changes by measuring electrical conductivity in the rock. ERT produces 4D—that is, 3D plus time-lapse—images of the subsurface.

What is an enhanced geothermal system?

Conventional geothermal systems rely on water and flow pathways that are already present within hot rock. An enhanced geothermal system harvests heat trapped within dry rock by introducing water and cracks. Operators drill two underground wells thousands of feet below the surface and then inject fluid at high pressure to fracture the rock between the wells. The fracturing process for heat is similar to what’s known as “fracking” shale rock to release oil and gas.

Temperatures at this level can reach beyond 200 ºC (392 ºF). Water pumped from one well to the other and back up to the surface collects heat from the rock, generating steam that can drive a turbine for electricity.

Enhanced geothermal systems could provide an estimated 100 gigawatts of electricity—enough to power 100 million homes. But such systems involve expensive drilling, and they need better monitoring and prediction of underground changes to reduce the uncertainty and risk associated with a given project.

Like any underground environment, enhanced geothermal systems change over time. Fractures in the rock open and close in response to stresses caused by high-pressure fluid injections, changing the system’s heat output. Seismic activity is one indicator of subsurface stress, but information from microseismic monitoring is limited.

“In these deep, hot rocks, it’s too expensive to drill enough monitoring wells to understand what’s going on using direct sampling,” said Tim Johnson, a computational scientist at PNNL who co-authored the study. “The primary focus of this project is to better understand, and ultimately to predict, how fractures are going to behave in a high-stress environment when you try to connect them between two wells.”

Getting a clearer underground picture

ERT involves placing metal electrodes within monitoring boreholes, then imaging the conductivity of the rock when electric current is sent between them. Increases in conductivity over time show where fractures are opening; when fractures are narrower or closed, conductivity goes down. Johnson developed software called E4D that operates on supercomputing systems and converts all of this electrical information to an image that looks a bit like a heat map, showing variations in conductivity over time. E4D won an R&D 100 Award in 2016.

Check out an animation of the model created here.

“It’s similar to medical imaging, except that you’re doing a time lapse,” Johnson said. “So you’re watching how things change, and usually the change relates to how the fluid is flowing in the subsurface.”

Johnson and other researchers at PNNL have pioneered the use of ERT as a 3D monitoring tool, and E4D at shallower depths of up to 350 feet, where it has been used to detect and trace contaminants, for example. To test it in the deep subsurface, the team deployed it at the Sanford Underground Research Facility in Lead, South Dakota. The work, which is supported by the Department of Energy (DOE)’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy through its Geothermal Technologies Office, is part of a larger collaborative effort across DOE to enhance access to natural resources and storage in the subsurface. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory leads the effort, known as the Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) Collab. Partner labs include PNNL, Sandia National Laboratories, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Idaho National Laboratory, and Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Pioneering a new subsurface imaging technique

The intent of the ERT monitoring at Sanford was to monitor fluid flow, as had been done at shallower levels. But the results initially didn’t seem to align with those earlier uses.

“What we were seeing with the changes in conductivity didn’t make sense in terms of fluid flow,” Johnson said. But if the conductivity wasn’t reflecting the movement of fluids, what was it showing?

After years of hunting for an answer, Johnson found it in scientific papers from the 1960s and 1970s. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and also at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory had observed changes in the conductivity of crystalline rocks in response to stress—squeezing the rock in lab experiments made it less conductive. This meant the ERT wasn’t simply following fluid underground. It was charting the opening and closing of fractures in response to stress.

“Once we made that link, everything made sense in terms of what the time-lapse images were doing,” Johnson said.

ERT offers several advantages. With no moving parts and electrodes installed outside the well casing, the equipment is low maintenance and can operate while injections are happening. And the imaging happens in real time, giving facility operators feedback they can use almost immediately, if needed. However, ERT cannot be used with metal wellbore casings, which are ubiquitous in deep subsurface projects.

There are ways around this hurdle, such as using fiberglass casing, coating the casing with a non-metallic epoxy, or using a different, nonmetallic material altogether. But for now, Johnson and team are continuing to improve and test the use of ERT at the Sanford facility.

The paper, “4D Proxy Imaging of Fracture Dilation and Stress Shadowing Using Electrical Resistivity Tomography During High Pressure Injections into a Crystalline Rock Formation,” was published in October in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth. Co-authors with Johnson were Jeff Burghardt, Chris Strickland, Hunter Knox, Vince Vermeul, and Mark White at PNNL; Paul Schwering and Doug Blankenship at Sandia National Laboratories; Tim Kneafsey at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; and the team at EGS Collab.

Source: release/ Pacific Northwest National Lab

B.C. to surpass Alberta in natural gas production: CER

CER outlook projects Canada's future energy production and use
By Nelson Bennett | December 16, 2021

LNG could make B.C. biggest natural gas producers, but future projects are "uncertain," says CER outlook. | Shutterstock

British Columbia will surpass Alberta as Canada’s biggest natural gas producer by 2028, driven largely by LNG exports, according to a new outlook by the Canadian Energy Regulator (CER).

The Canada’s Energy Future 2021 outlook projects Canada’s energy use and production between now and 2050, with projections varying depending on two main scenarios – current policies and evolving policies. The latter is one in which Canada and other countries adopt even more stringent climate change policies, like higher carbon taxes, than what are currently in place or announced.


Canada’s carbon tax is set to rise by $15 a year until it hits $170 per tonne in 2030 – a current policy. An evolving policy scenario would be one in which the tax would continue to rise past 2030 or increase in price.

In both scenarios, the outlook projects less domestic use of fossil fuels and increased use of electricity. It predicts, for example, that coal will make up less than 1% of Canada’s energy mix by 2035, compared to 5% in 2019.

But production of oil and gas in Canada is not projected to decline commensurate with a decline in fossil fuel consumption in Canada, since much of the oil and natural gas that Canada produces is exported.

In other words, the amount of oil and gas Canada will produce going forward depends not just on Canadian climate action policies, but policies enacted by other countries as well, which will have an impact on demand for things like oil and natural gas.

The CER report predicts oil production in Canada will increase by about 800,000 barrels of oil per day (MMb/d) by 2032 – a 16% increase from today’s 5 million MMb/d – before plateauing.

Generally, the CER predicts Canada will use less energy overall, due to increased efficiency.

“Total primary energy use falls 21% from 2021 to 2050 as energy efficiency improves,” the report projects.”

Despite that decrease in primary energy use, the outlook forecasts a significant increase in the production and use of electricity, as parts of the economy, including transportation, switches from fossil fuels to electricity and hydrogen.

“Despite total energy use declining, electricity demand grows 44% from 2021 to 2050 in the Evolving Policies Scenario, much of it from new areas such as electric vehicles and hydrogen production. Canada’s electricity system also gets greener, going from 82% low and non-emitting in 2021 to 95% in 2050.”

Half of that 44% increase comes from increased electrification in the industrial, residential, and commercial sectors.

“The other half comes from electric vehicles in transportation and the production of hydrogen," the report states.

“Wind and solar generation provide much of this additional electricity over the projection period, given their low cost. Natural gas generation is increasingly equipped with CCS (carbon capture and storage)."

In Alberta and Saskatchewan, coal power will be phased out increasingly by thermal power from natural gas.

“Natural gas-fired electricity generation remains a relatively important share, about 15%, of the electricity supply of Alberta and Saskatchewan in the main net-zero electricity scenario.”

As for oil production, the CER report projects it will increase at a slower pace than in the past decade, topping out at 5.8 MMb/d by 2032, and eventually falling to 4.8 MMb/d by 2050. It projects longevity for Alberta’s oil sands.

“Canadian crude oil production levels are resilient through to 2050 despite the Evolving Policies Scenario’s relatively low prices and steadily more ambitious climate policies," the CER report states. "This largely stems from the nature of the oil sands facilities, which are long-lived and have low operating costs once built. Throughout the projection period, the vast majority of oil sands production is from facilities that are producing today.”

As for pipeline capacity, under the evolving policies scenario, the expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline, “comes close” to providing the takeaway capacity for exports. But continued constraints on export capacity by pipeline and rail is expected to continue to result in a discount on the price Alberta oil producers get for their oil.

Under current policies, Alberta oil exports will continue to be “constrained below projected levels without additional pipeline capacity.”

In other words, even with the completion of the twinning of the Trans Mountain pipeline, there still won't be enough pipeline capacity, under a current policies scenario, so Alberta producers would continue to get less for their oil than if takeaway capacity matched production.

As for natural gas, domestic demand will fall in some areas, but increase in others – power production in Saskatchewan and Alberta, for example, or the production of hydrogen. But falling domestic demand will made up in an expected growth in exports, in the form of LNG exported from B.C.

“Investment in natural gas production is spurred by assumed liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports in both scenarios,” the report states.

“In the Evolving Policies Scenario, nearly 40% of Canadian natural gas production is liquefied and exported to global markets by 2050.”

By 2050, the CER projects natural gas production in Canada will fall by 17%.

Increased natural gas production in the next few decades will be concentrated in the Montney formation, with growth occurring more in B.C.

“In both scenarios, natural gas production from the Montney Formation, which straddles the Alberta-B.C. boundary and is rich in higher value natural gas liquids (NGLs), grows significantly," the report forecasts. "In many other regions, production is stable or declines throughout the projection.

“Much of the production growth related to LNG exports occurs in B.C. and production in B.C. surpasses that of Alberta by 2028.”

However, the CER outlook notes that additional LNG development beyond what is already approved is “uncertain.”

“We assume that 75% of the natural gas that will be liquefied will come from natural gas production dedicated to supplying LNG facilities. This means that this 75% comes from production that only exists because LNG export capacity exists and is above and beyond what would be produced based solely on our North American natural gas price assumptions.

“Future LNG development is uncertain and could be significantly different than implied by these assumptions.”

nbennett@biv.com

KENNEY RECYCLES KLEIN

Braid: Tax cut idea hints at UCP return to election politics as usual

Premier Jason Kenney says the government is considering a return to a flat provincial income tax rate for everyone, most likely at 10 per cent

Author of the article: Don Braid • Calgary Herald
Publishing date: Dec 17, 2021 • 

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney addresses the Calgary Chamber of Commerce on Dec. 8, 2021.

 PHOTO BY JIM WELLS/POSTMEDIA
Article content

Fat trial balloons are suddenly floating high, just before Christmas and the start of a pre-election year.

Premier Jason Kenney says the government is considering a return to a flat provincial income tax rate for everyone, most likely at 10 per cent, the rate that applied in Alberta from 2001 to 2015.

That system exempted the lowest earners from any tax, while the highest paid a pittance in proportion to their incomes.

Among conservatives, o ne argument for a flat tax was rarely mentioned aloud. Wealthy people will often move to a flat tax jurisdiction for the obvious reason.

They are expected to spend freely and use their wealth to generate economic activity at home.

Kenney came close to acknowledging this when he told the National Post in a year-end interview: “I think it was responsible for a huge amount of tax shifting to Alberta as people moved here to benefit 

It’s not clear there was ever a general economic benefit to the flat-tax era, but those were great years for the exotic car dealerships. You were as likely to get sideswiped by a Maserati as a Honda.

NDP Leader Rachel Notley had a quick response Friday.

“Going backwards to a flat tax would make working Alberta families pay even more every month so that the super-rich can get even richer,” she said.

“Under the UCP, Alberta families are already paying more income tax, more property tax, more school fees, more tuition, more interest on student debt, more camping fees, more for utilities and more for car insurance. A UCP flat tax would make life even more expensive for Albertans.”

And yet, the flat tax never hurt Alberta governments politically. The Progressive Conservatives ruled in their usual splendour during the whole period, winning four straight elections with ease.

Then came PC Premier Jim Prentice, one of the very few leaders to be completely honest about Alberta’s finances in an election campaign.

In 2015 he ran on a budget that brought in progressive income tax to deal with weakening finances. The oil price crash was just sinking in.

Prentice also imposed hikes to more than 50 other fees and charges.

He said Albertans should think hard about finances “and look in the mirror” to see who’s responsible.

Famously, he asserted that Alberta “is not an NDP province.”

Then it was. Prentice’s unique tactic — seeking a mandate based on fiscal frankness — completely backfired.

He ended up scaring Albertans more than the NDP did. So ended a regime that had lasted 43 years, impaled on a spasm of honesty.

Notley’s NDP, which has never believed in the flat tax, delightedly kept the core of what Prentice created. (In the cruellest twist of all, he died in a plane crash in October 2016.)

The progressive tax was designed to raise more money, which the Treasury desperately needed.

Today, the need is more serious still, but Kenney suggests abolishing a system that raises more money.

The UCP itself has kept the progressive tax for nearly three years, preaching restraint and spending cuts in all that time.

Taxes have also been de-indexed, effectively increasing what Albertans pay. Only corporate tax rates have been cut.

But as we edge closer to the election in the spring of 2023, the UCP won’t repeat the Prentice political mistake.

The current provincial tax rate is 10 per cent up to earnings of $131,220; 12 per cent from $131,220.01 to $157,464; 13 per cent from $157,464.01 to $209,952; and 14 per cent from $209,952.01 up to $314,928.

Above $314,928, the provincial tax maxes out at 15 per cent.

The marginal rate for combined provincial and federal tax is 36 per cent. It’s clear who’s hauling off the most cash.

But a couple of points shaved off income tax would not be scorned by the middle-income earners who pay most of it.

Kenney surely knows that. He’d love to manoeuvre the NDP into opposing a tax cut. Politics as usual tends to work around here.

Don Braid’s column appears regularly in the Calgary Herald.

Twitter: @DonBraid

Facebook: Don Braid Politics

Canada’s top chess player has many accomplishments, but also some regrets

CECIL ROSNER
SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE AND MAILPUBLISHED DECEMBER 17, 2021

If you’re a chess enthusiast in Canada, it’s hard not to admire the career of Evgeny Bareev.

The Soviet-born Grandmaster who now lives in Toronto was once ranked Number 4 in the world, and he has notched victories over many top players. He continues to hold the title of Canadian champion and is far and away the highest rated player in the country.

Anatoly Karpov v. Evgeny Bareev, Linares 1992 (See diagram)

How does Black finish off the former world champ?

THE GLOBE AND MAIL

But at 54, Bareev is now philosophical about his chess career and his life choices.

“I think maybe I didn’t get enough different skills,” he says. “That makes me very sad.”

Bareev was sent to a boarding school in Moscow at the age of nine, and at 15 he was the world’s Under-16 champion. He steadily improved and was soon in the top echelons of international competition, even vying to be a candidate for world champion.

But age catches up with every player, and by 40 he was exiting professional chess. He says he wishes he had taken a more diversified approach to his education.

Bareev moved to Canada in 2006 and runs his own chess school, offering students the opportunity to learn from someone who once coached Russia’s junior, women’s and men’s national teams.

Answer:
Black played 55. ... Rd2 which puts the squeeze on Karpov. After 56. Kh3 Qf1+ 57. Qg2 Rxf2 White resigned.

 

Starbucks waged ‘shock and awe’ campaign on workers, union claims

The union won a landmark vote at a Starbucks in Buffalo, New York in the United States last week. Now, it’s urging the National Labor Relations Board to reject results of another location’s failed union vote.

The union group, Workers United, claims Starbucks's 'psychological harm on the employees cannot be overstated' [File: Bloomberg]

By Josh Eidelson and Ian KullgrenBloomberg

Published On 17 Dec 202117 Dec 2021

The union that won a landmark vote at a Starbucks Corp. location in Buffalo, N.Y, last week is trying to overturn an unsuccessful vote at another area store.

The labor group, Workers United, urged the National Labor Relations Board in a filing late Thursday to reject the results of the failed union vote, saying that Starbucks waged a “shock and awe” campaign to intimidate workers. It filed an identical complaint for a store where the election results are still in question.

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“The psychological harm on the employees cannot be overstated, since they had to contend with dozens of managers in a frenzy of anti-union propaganda,” the union wrote in the complaints.

When reached for comment, a Starbucks spokesman referred to a Dec. 9 statement in which the company said the results were preliminary “with no immediate changes to our partner relationship as the NLRB process continues.”

The complaints came the same day the labor board certified a victory for the union at a third Buffalo-area store, requiring Starbucks to begin bargaining with the workers.

Mail-in ballots from the Buffalo-area store where the union lost had gone 12-8 against unionization, but the union’s attorney said last week that some votes had gone uncounted. Results at the other store where the union filed a complaint are pending the outcome of voter-eligibility challenges, but the votes counted there trended in favor of the union.

Workers United, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union, is trying to expand its foothold among the thousands of corporate-run Starbucks restaurants in the U.S. after last week’s win. The union petitioned in August for store-by-store union votes at three restaurants in the Buffalo region.

The labor board has the authority to invalidate election results in response to conduct that could have changed the outcome and prevented workers from making a free choice about whether to unionize. Challenges to election results are considered by regional labor board officials, whose rulings can then be appealed to board members in Washington.

If the labor board certifies the union as the winner in one or more of the elections, Starbucks will be legally required to collectively bargain with workers at any store where the union prevailed. However, employers in that situation have sometimes refused to negotiate until they first have the chance to challenge the agency in federal court.

SOURCE: BLOOMBERG

Starbucks accused of using 'overwhelming psychological force' against workers at a Buffalo store who considered trying to unionize

Shalini Nagarajan

Mary Meisenzahl/Insider


A labor group accused Starbucks of using a "shock and awe" campaign to intimidate workers against unionizing.

Employees were subjected to "overwhelming psychological force" hurting their morale, the union said.

Starbucks employees voted to form a union in one Buffalo store last week in a first for the coffee chain.

Dozens of managers at a Starbucks location in Buffalo used intimidation tactics and created an atmosphere of fear that led to employees failing to unionize, labor group Workers United said.

Employees at the Camp Road location in Buffalo "were subjected to a massive campaign of overwhelming psychological force from the moment they publicly expressed the desire to form a union," the group wrote in a statement Thursday to the National Labor Relations Board.

"Every medium of attack was used, including one-on-one conversations, group meetings, constant surveillance, and a propaganda extravaganza about the dire consequences a union would bring to Starbucks," it added.

Starbucks did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider about Workers United's statement.

Last week, Starbucks employees at another store in the same area voted "yes" to form a union in a first for the coffee giant's company-owned stores across the US.

The unionization vote failed to pass at a second location, where the union filed Thursday's complaints, by a vote of 12 to eight, but the union's lawyer said some votes had gone uncounted. Employees at the store were subjected to a "shock and awe" campaign, affecting their morale and likelihood of voting, the union said.

At the third location, the NLRB is awaiting the outcome of voter eligibility challenges. But yes votes at this location were leading 15 to nine. The union has filed an identical complaint for this store.

Starbucks maintains that its workers don't need a union.

"While Starbucks respects the free choice of our partners, we firmly believe that our work environment, coupled with our outstanding compensation and benefits, makes unions unnecessary at Starbucks," a spokesperson previously told Insider. "We respect our partners' right to organize but believe that they would not find it necessary given our pro-partner environment."

Workers United is trying to reverse the unsuccessful vote to expand its presence across Starbucks stores in the US after last week's win at the first store. Workers at the stores first announced their intentions to unionize in August, for reasons including understaffing at work and long waits making customers unhappy during the pandemic.

The NLRB has the right to make the election results void in response to the manner of how it was conducted, which may have influenced workers in making their choice about unionizing.

If the union wins in one or more elections, Starbucks will be legally mandated to collectively bargain with workers for changes.

Labour board certifies first union at a US Starbucks store

Starbucks store goes union

The Canadian Press - Dec 17, 2021 / 9:37 pm | Story: 354962

Photo: The Canadian Press

Starbucks employees alter a campaign sign during a press conference after their union-election viewing party Thursday, Dec. 9, 2021, in Buffalo, N.Y. Starbucks workers at a store in Buffalo, voted to unionize on Thursday, a first for the 50-year-old coffee retailer in the U.S. and the latest sign that the labor movement is stirring after decades of decline. 

The National Labor Relations Board confirmed a vote Friday to form a union at a Starbucks store in Buffalo, meaning the coffee retailer, for the first time, will have to bargain with organized labor at a company-owned U.S. store.

“We don't want to fight Starbucks — we're asking them to turn over a new leaf,” said Jaz Brisack, an organizer at the store, one of three New York Starbucks locations that petitioned the labor board for a union election in October.

Voting wrapped up last week and the board certified the results of the Buffalo employees' 19-8 vote Friday.

Workers United, the union representing the employees, filed formal objections in the other two elections late Thursday, delaying certification. The objections claim Starbucks waged a “shock and awe” campaign meant to dissuade workers from voting to unionize.

The 50-year-old company has actively fought unionization for decades, saying its more than 8,000 company-owned U.S. stores function best when it works directly with employees.

Workers at a store in the Buffalo suburb of Hamburg voted 12-8 against a union. The outcome of a Cheektowaga store's vote could not be determined because both sides challenged seven separate votes. Union organizers said six of the votes were cast by ineligible employees.

If the outcome of the ballot challenges favors unionization, organizers will drop the objection to the Cheektowaga results, attorney Ian Hayes said.

The objections say Starbucks employees “were subjected to a massive campaign of overwhelming psychological force from the moment they publicly expressed the desire to form a union.”

Dozens of managers were sent in to speak against the efforts in individual and group meetings with employees, according to the filings. Workers were told they could lose benefits under a union, and pro-union employees were spied on and saw their schedules changed and hours reduced.

The actions disrupted the “laboratory conditions” considered necessary for a fair election, the union said.

“These claims are grossly inaccurate. We did not and do not engage in intimidation tactics,” Starbucks responded in a statement. “We are partners and we show up for one another. That’s what we do and what we continue to do.”

If the NLRB determines that the claims could be grounds for setting aside an election, it would order a hearing to determine whether a new election should be held.

Workers at all three stores began voting by mail last month on whether they wanted to be represented by Workers United, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union.

After the Buffalo vote, Starbucks workers at two locations in Boston petitioned the NLRB for union elections. Three other Buffalo-area stores and a store in Mesa, Arizona, also have filed petitions with the labor board for their own union elections. Those cases are pending.

Volkswagen committed to diesel despite global electrification plans

Published On Dec 18, 2021

 By Saptarshi Mondal

Despite VW’s Dieselgate scandal in 2015, and most carmakers choosing otherwise, Volkswagen AG has made a bold statement with its commitment to diesel-powered vehicles.

Although diesel-engined cars and SUVs are a dying trend the world over, Volkswagen has demonstrated its commitment to diesel power by developing engines that can use adapted diesel fuels, claimed to reduce CO2 emissions by up to 95 percent over conventional diesels.

In fact, all VW models with the four-cylinder TDI powertrains delivered in Europe since June this year can be used with paraffinic diesel, a newly developed fuel containing bio-components.

• VW to continue developing electric and combustion powertrains 
• VW diesel engines can run on paraffinic fuel to reduce emissions by up to 95 percent
• Paraffinic diesel is produced from biological residual and waste material

Volkswagen's global diesel strategy

While Volkswagen has focused its efforts on ramping up its electric vehicle line-up, the firm’s commitment to diesel shows that it is receptive towards other ways of reducing its carbon footprint, in its bid to decrease carbon emissions by 40 percent by 2030 and become carbon-neutral by 2050.

It is a different approach compared to its competitors – who have made bold statements about going fully electric in the next 10 years. By comparison, Volkswagen has said it plans to increase the share of all-electric cars sold in Europe to over 70 percent by 2030.

Meanwhile, diesel cars' share, in particular, has seen steep decline – a trend that started with VW's Dieselgate scandal in 2015. In India, the share of diesel cars fell from 40 percent in FY2017 to just 19 percent by the first half of FY2021. In markets such as the UK, where diesel once accounted for roughly half of new car sales, it now makes up only 5 percent. 

“Alongside [the] accelerated ramp-up efforts in the area of electric mobility, Volkswagen is further developing the existing range with combustion engines," a  VW spokesman told our sister publication, Autocar UK. “In this way, the company is responding to different customer needs, while at the same time, taking into account the internationally varying drive system preferences and the respective general conditions.”

Scope of paraffinic diesel and other e-fuels

The firm added that paraffinic diesel fuel could be attractive to fleet customers, who run a mix of electric and conventionally powered vehicles. It anticipates that the fuel's market share in the road transport sector could increase to 20-30 percent in Europe, within 10 years.

Paraffinic fuels are produced from biological residual and waste materials such as hydro-treated vegetable oil (HVO). These are then converted into hydrocarbons and can be added to diesel in any quantity. V-Power Diesel and HVO are currently available in the UK.

Volkswagen added that other e-fuels such as Power-to-Liquid (PtL) will be offered in future, which are produced from regenerative sources using CO2 and electricity. In this process, excess green energy could be used in their production.

Volkswagen's petrol and diesel fuel boss Thomas Garbe said: “Through the use of environmentally friendly fuels in the approved Volkswagen models, we are making it possible for customers throughout Europe to significantly reduce their CO2 emissions as soon as the fuel is locally available.”

Volkswagen’s diesel strategy in India

Diesels used to be a big part of the Volkswagen Group’s model line-up here as well. Starting with the Polo's 1.2-litre TDI engine and going all the way to the higher-end 4.2-litre TDI in Audi models like the Q7 and A8.

Volkswagen, however, decided to pull the plug on diesel engines in India as we transitioned into the stringent BS6 emission norms last April. The cost of after-treatment systems on diesels to clear the BS6 norms would have invariably driven up the prices, making little sense in small cars. And while Volkswagen had previously hinted on the return of diesel engines for larger models in the India 2.0 strategy, there’s currently no news of diesel being brought back. Thus, unlike the firm’s global portfolio, the VW Group models here will continue to be petrol-only for now.

Volkswagen diesel engines now approved for use with paraffinic fuels; up to 95% savings in CO2 emissions

In Hybrids, EVs and Alternative Fuel, International News, Volkswagen / By Mick Chan / 17 December 2021 

2021 Volkswagen Tiguan R-Line 2.0 TDI

Volkswagen hasn’t completely foregone diesel, it has shown, with its announcement that its latest generation of four-cylinder diesel engines which it has approved for use with paraffinic fuels. These are newly developed diesel fuels which contain bio components that enable significant savings in CO2 emissions, between 70% and 95% compared with conventional diesel, it said.

All Volkswagen models with four-cylinder diesel engines delivered from the end of June this year received approval for operation with paraffinic diesel fuels in compliance with the European standard EN 15940, said the automaker.

“Through the use of environmentally friendly fuels in the approved Volkswagen models, we are making it possible for customers throughout Europe to significantly reduce their CO2 emissions as soon as the fuel is locally available,” said Volkswagen head of petrol and diesel fuels Thomas Garbe. The use of these paraffinic diesel fuels is a sensible option, particularly for companies with a mixed fleet also comprised of electrified vehicles, Garbe added.

Volkswagen Golf 2.0 TDI engine

There are several types of paraffinic diesel fuels; one such type is produced from biological residual and waste materials such as HVO (hydrotreated vegetable oil), which is converted into hydrocarbons through reacting with hydrogen, and can be added to diesel in any quantity, or used entirely on their own as a fuel, said Volkswagen.

Vegetable oils such as rapeseed oil can also be used in the production of HVO, though its maximum environmental benefit can only be obtained through the use of biofuel residual and waste materials such as used cooking oil, sawdust and others. Biofuels using HVO are already on the market, says Volkswagen, and their share in the energy market could increase to 20 to 30% for road transport in Europe within the next 10 years, it said.

In the future, there will also be e-fuels, otherwise known as power-to-liquid (PtL), and will be produced from regenerative sources with the use of CO2 and electricity. Also known by X-to-liquid (XtL), GtL and PtL acronyms, these begin with the initial production of a synthesis gas from different raw materials, which is then converted to standard-compliant diesel through the Fischer-Tropsch process. Excess green energy can be used in this production process, says Volkswagen.

The latest diesel engine development is Volkswagen’s additional effort towards reducing CO2 emissions for becoming climate-neutral by 2050, in addition to the industry-wide push for electrification. The German manufacturer’s goal for 2030 is to reduce per-vehicle emissions in Europe by 40% compared to its figure in 2018.

VW touts cleverer diesel engines, better
tech

Paraffinic fuel compatibility announced alongside

much-needed infotainment upgrade

By John Howell / Friday, December 17, 2021 


Volkswagen has delivered not one but two good news stories this week. The first aims to alleviate climate change, by introducing diesel engines that can run on green fuels; the second will help Golf drivers change their own climate more easily, with a major update to the infotainment system.

Volkswagen has been rolling out its fleet of new battery-electric vehicles in a bid to reduce its carbon footprint by 40 per cent in Europe by 2030. But to minimise the carbon legacy of the diesel cars it will deliver between now and then, it has made all its four-cylinder TDI engines able to run on paraffinic fuels. This modification applies to vehicles delivered from the end of June this year.

Prof. Thomas Garbe, Volkswagen's Head of Petrol and Diesel Fuels said: "Through the use of environmentally friendly fuels in the approved Volkswagen models, we are making it possible for customers throughout Europe to significantly reduce their CO2 emissions as soon as the fuel is locally available. For example, the use of paraffinic fuels is a sensible additional option particularly for companies with a mixed fleet made up of models with electric and conventional drives."

Paraffinic fuels that meet European standard EN 15940 aren't blended with any regular diesel. They are made with the Fischer Tropsch process from natural gas (GTL), biomass (BTL) or through the hydrotreatment process of vegetable oils or animal fats (HVO). They have next to no sulphur and aromatics, and can lower CO2 emissions by up to 95 per cent compared with conventional diesel.




True enough, EN 15940-compliant fuels aren't actually widely available at the moment, but they are out there and include C.A.R.E diesel, NEXTBTL and HVO. It's more common to see a mix of paraffinic and regular diesel, such as Diesel R33, V-Power Diesel, OMV MaxMotion and Aral Ultimate Diesel. Volkswagen has said these mixed fuels can be used in all its diesel engines, even the older ones.

The second piece of good news is that help is finally coming for those experiencing problems with the latest Volkswagen infotainment system. You almost certainly will be, because the MIB3 system is, relatively speaking, a shocker. Company insiders we've talked to have said many of its problems relate to the poor integration between its outside software developers and the inhouse team at Volkswagen. The issues have been manifest and delayed the launch of the ID.3; even now the software is unresponsiveness and full of bugs.

The latest Golf is the first to come with the infotainment upgrade, which is both hardware and software. There is a more powerful System on Chip (SoC) central processor that trebles the graphics performance and adds 25 per cent more computing capacity. The software improvements are said to make the infotainment more stable and useable when using the touchscreen, although the gesture control and natural voice control have been enhanced, too. You can use the former from farther away now, and the voice control has a new digital microphone, which it's claimed can distinguish between the driver and passenger - so when asked to alter the interior temperature, it knows which side to adjust. Volkswagen also says its comprehension rate is up to 95 per cent.

Although the changes are currently for the Golf, it seems logical that they will be extended to the ID.3 and ID.4. And Volkswagen has said it plans to roll out the new software to existing Golf models in the coming months.

The deep sea discoveries and sightings of 2021 are amazing
What else is out there?
By Mark Kaufman on December 18, 2021

A glass octopus spotted by a Schmidt Ocean Institute expedition in 2021. 

Credit: Schmidt Ocean Institute

The deep sea glows.

Giant, phantasmagorical creatures dwell in the dark water.

And when marine researchers lower robots into these depths, they're almost always spotting something rare or previously unknown to science.

"There's so much left to explore and find in the ocean," said George Matsumoto, a deep sea scientist who works as a senior education and research specialist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. "The ocean provides 98 percent of living space on Earth. We don't know what else lives there."

Ocean expeditions in 2021 added to a growing catalog of wild deep sea sightings and newly discovered species. Biologists emphasize humanity must better understand and protect this unique life, particularly as the prospects for mining rare metals in the deeps with tractor-like industrial equipment loom increasingly large. "What are all the things in the ocean that see us coming and stay away?"

When you see the recent sightings below, it's important to remember that what we glimpse in the deep sea is still inherently limited. With big, bulky exploration machines, scientists often capture footage of creatures that are too slow to get away, are too big to care, or are too small or translucent to spot on camera.

"What are all the things in the ocean that see us coming and stay away?" mused Matsumoto.

Rare footage of the giant phantom jelly

While exploring the deep sea in California's Monterey Bay in 2021, marine scientists at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute captured rare footage of a giant phantom jelly (Stygiomedusa gigantea) roaming the deep waters.

Their video, taken by a sturdy deep sea robot, shows the jelly's massive bell and long, drape-like arms undulating in the water. Over thousands of dives, Monterey Bay researchers have only spotted this enigmatic species nine times, though scientists first documented the phantom jelly in 1899.

"Even now, scientists still know very little about this animal," the research institute wrote.

Often living at depths of some 3,300 to 13,100 feet beneath the surface, these creatures likely feast on small fish and plankton.

 

READ ON The deep sea discoveries and sightings of 2021 are amazing (mashable.com)

ELISABETH KOSTERS: Nova Scotia mining lobby propaganda undermines broader environmental debate

Contributed | Posted: a day ago 

Bruce MacKinnon's cartoon for Sept. 3, 2021.

ELISABETH KOSTERS • Guest Opinion

Recently, I attended the virtual “Nova Scotia Precious and Critical Mineral Show” put on by the Mining Association of Nova Scotia (MANS).

I’m a retired geologist. I’m fully aware that the energy transition requires a massive shift in material needs at a scale that almost nobody can imagine. This challenge is an opportunity, but also a risk.

Society has left resource extraction exclusively to the private sector, with the result that our planet is in a terrifying climate and biodiversity crisis. Resource extraction typically makes a few people extraordinarily rich, but its societal impact costs all of us dearly in environmental cleanup for decades or centuries after the extractive industry has upped and left.

There’s hardly a good news story to tell. In recent years, (inter)national agencies have formulated which minerals will play an essential role in our future. These are called critical minerals.

So I was interested in this symposium. Here’s what struck me:

1. There wasn’t a single representative from any of the First Nations and not one speaker had the good manners to articulate a land acknowledgement.

2. The 12 technical presenters were all white men, a lot of them older than 60.

3. Four presentations pertained to mineral claims located in southern Nova Scotia, in the highly fragmented habitat of the critically endangered mainland moose which has been much in the news because of clearcutting and protests against it. That area also happens to be a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. None of the presenters mentioned this.

4. Five presentations pertained to gold prospects. Gold isn’t a critical mineral. Almost all of it is mined for jewelry and since it’s completely inert, the bit that we do need for medical and technical applications can easily be obtained from recycling. But MANS and its members push gold relentlessly despite these blatant facts. One of the presenters, frustrated by the stalling of the exploration of a gold claim in Cape Breton as a result of opposition by First Nations, admitted that gold isn’t a critical mineral but that “we need to mine gold to pay for developing other minerals.”

Excuse me? What if we as a society create a model for producing the materials that society needs rather than just the stuff it wants?

5. One presenter who reported on yet another future gold mine in eastern Nova Scotia shrugged off a question about environmental impact with “there’s just some stunted trees and bogs there.” Reminder: this is exactly what the developer of Owls Head thought he was buying. Maybe the mining sector should begin to read about the importance of all wetlands as critically important carbon sinks.

6. Only one presentation impressed me. It was by Don Bubar, the president and CEO of Toronto-based Avalon Advanced Materials. He talked about the possibilities for extracting tin and indium (both critical minerals) from mine waste at the historic East Kemptville mine in southern Nova Scotia. Mr. Bubar talked about the need for a circular economy and about the innovations that we need to extract critical minerals from mine waste. This talk made my day.

MANS is useless. It actively undermines a balanced discussion about our role as humans on a planet ever more under threat. Its only objective is to reduce government interference in its ambition to disembowel our province as much as possible.

MANS officials pay lip service to the environment, but they mostly waffle about how reclamation makes old quarry pits and open-cast mines “beautiful,” thus completely ignoring the fact that wilderness is incomparable with reclaimed land.

They refer to “critical minerals” only as a justification towards their goal of private profit without providing any deeper insight into the future, nor do they make any contribution to a balanced debate that we so badly need. Anyone who raises the slightest objection to their bullish talking points is called an obstructing environmentalist and is blocked from their social media platforms.

The earth resources sector in Nova Scotia has the government in its pocket, just like the forestry sector does. Unless citizens force deep and profound changes in the manner in which we treat the natural wealth that we’re responsible for, catastrophic climate change and biodiversity collapse will continue unabated.

We still have a chance, in Nova Scotia, but as long as organizations such as MANS continue with their opportunistic and bullish propaganda, brainwashing those who haven’t had the opportunity to delve deeper into the subject, I’m not optimistic.


Elisabeth Kosters lives in Wolfville