Robotics essential to the oil and gas industry, as technological advancements increase the tasks they can undertake, according to GlobalData

in Oil & Companies News 13/12/2021

Robot renting — also known as the robot as a service (RaaS) — is expected to revolutionize the way oil & gas (O&G) companies approach robotics, according to GlobalData. The leading data and analytics company notes that industry leaders such as BP, Equinor, ExxonMobil, and Shell are increasingly testing autonomous robots in their facilities, with these systems often supported by other technology such as AI. However, the costs can be off putting. Technology companies such as Fugro that offer RaaS allow O&G players to avoid the cost of inventory and obtain robotic services when required.

Ravindra Puranik, Oil & Gas Analyst at GlobalData, comments: “A number of technology vendors are trying to adopt RaaS in addition to selling robotics equipment. This market has considerable potential for growth within O&G as it can save players the considerable costs associated with purchasing robotics systems.”

The O&G industry is actively collaborating with robotics hardware and software technology vendors to implement RaaS.

Filipe Oliveira, Thematic Analyst at GlobalData, comments: “RaaS is possible because of developments within cloud computing in the last decade. Cloud technology has changed the way we work, how we access entertainment, and is now changing robotics. Cloud-connected robots are smarter — learning from each other’s experience, instead of just their own — and can be monitored, managed and maintained remotely. Within the O&G industry, tech specialists such as Fugro, currently have an incumbency edge due to their industry know-how.”

GlobalData’s latest report, ‘Robotics in Oil and Gas (2021) – Thematic Research’ reveals that robots have been an essential part of a dynamic oil and gas industry for several decades and continue to undertake an evolving and diverse role in the industry. With a growing list of functionalities tailored to O&G robots operate as terrestrial crawlers, quadrupeds, aerial drones, autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), and remotely operated vehicles (ROVs). Other digital technologies such as AI, cloud computing, and the Internet of Things (IoT) are also continuously improving the performance of robots for O&G applications.

Puranik continues: “Robotics will have applications throughout all workstreams within O&G. For upstream operations, uses include automated drilling or conducting seismic surveys; for midstream, they can be used for inspection and maintenance, as well as for design, construction and remote monitoring; while downstream applications include automated refuelling and material handling. Robotics offer high reliability and efficiency, while also improving overall operational safety. Various terrestrial, airborne and submerged robots are already playing critical roles in several high-stake O&G projects across the value chain.”

Companies are increasingly moving towards autonomous robots that are supported by AI technology. AI-backed robotics provide diverse functionality for a wide range of oil and gas use cases.

Puranik adds: “AI is expected to develop further, enhanced with computer vision — the ability of computers to derive meaningful data from images — and context-aware computing capabilities.”
Source: GlobalData

Robots Are Taking Over Oil Rigs
Editor OilPrice.com
Mon, December 20, 2021

After years in the making, a new fully automated drilling rig recently made its debut in Permian Basin. While this has long been a pipedream, restrictions faced by many oil and gas companies during the pandemic forced several to stop operations and call rig workers home. This spurred a plethora of tech companies to establish partnerships with oil giants to help automate systems and digitalize operations so that projects could run with or without human workers, through innovations like robot rigs.

In October, Houston company Nabors Industries achieved drilling to a depth of almost 20,000 feet with its automated rig, with no help from a crew on the floor to run operations manually. The company is expected two dig three wells in the area as part of its test phase. The Nabors Pace-R801 is the world’s first fully automated land rig, taking five years of engineering to achieve. It supports ExxonMobil operations in the region, providing unmanned vessels to drill wells that would previously have required whole teams on board.

The rig uses digital technologies and Canrig robotics to man the platform, providing vital components such as a robotic arm that runs the drill. The company also says that its SmartDRILL and SmartSLIDE automation software helps to reduce drilling times by up to four days, thereby reducing carbon emissions in projects.

Travis Purvis, Senior Vice President of global drilling for Nabors, stated “This is the direction that the industry is heading and should head,” Further, “This robotic technology really is game-changing. Over the next five to 10 years, it’s going to be really exciting to see the innovation that happens around that.”

The transition to human-free rigs emerged last year in the ‘ghost rig’ concept when systems were run remotely by rig workers that were prohibited from physically accessing the platforms during Covid. Although discussions around automated rigs have been going on for years. Norway’s Equinor switched to a ghost rig approach in 2020, with crews operating the platform remotely, followed shortly after by BP and other oil majors.

Other robotic mechanisms have been used across the oil and gas industry for years, including robotic dogs that support the monitoring of oil platforms, as well as onshore drones that check for pipeline leaks.

However, this latest innovation worries workers in the oil and gas industry that were already hit hard during the pandemic. Around 400,000 jobs were cut from the sector during Covid, half of which were in the U.S. The main worry for oil and gas workers at present is the impending transition away from fossil fuels to renewable alternatives. But the digitalization of systems and the addition of robotics could spell earlier job losses than previously anticipated.

Yet, others praise the innovation, noting that oil rigs are traditionally extremely dangerous places for workers to operate, no matter the level of safety standards implemented. Accidents take place regularly due to the complex nature of the work, digging holes deep into the earth’s surface to extract crude. This could be an important move towards improving the social aspect of ESG, as Big Oil faces increasing pressure to better operations. Although, a reduction in drilling time also spells a decrease in the emissions being released, which will also support the environmental part.

Many highlight the long history of oil rig disasters such as the Piper Alpha pipeline ruptures, which caused the rig to set alight at the cost of 167 human lives. Just this year, we saw a fire outbreak at a Mexican oil rig cause the death of five workers. And while the world focuses on putting an end to oil extraction for environmental reasons, it is important to note the social implications, as oil operations are set to continue so long as the availability of renewable alternatives is limited.

Jason Gahr, ExxonMobil operations manager on the project explained, “ExxonMobil’s collaboration with Nabors in deploying this automated rig in Midland demonstrates the ability to optimize drilling using the combined power of robotics, automation, computing, and data”. In addition, “This is a great example of enhancing the safety, efficiency, and environmental performance of our operations through innovative technologies.”

And Nabors is insistent that automation doesn’t necessarily mean job losses, as workers will be kept on to supervise operations and carry out essential tasks. It will simply prevent workers from having to be present in the most dangerous ‘red zone’ of the rig. However, as the new technology is adopted by other firms around the globe, we will see what it means in practice for oil workers, many of whom are still working remotely due to new restrictions.

The innovation of robot rigs is clearly ground-breaking, taking years of careful planning, investment, and engineering. However, only time will tell what this means for the oil industry and its workers, as digitalization and the automation of operations picks up pace across the board.

By Felicity Bradstock for Oilprice.com

Oil driller sees the industry's future in electric rigs, carbon offsets


A rig hand works on an electric drilling rig for oil producer Civitas Resources, at the Denver suburbs, in Broomfield

Sun, December 19, 2021
By Liz Hampton

BROOMFIELD, Colorado (Reuters) - In a Denver suburb, an oil drilling rig plumbs the earth near a wealthy enclave framed by snow-capped mountains. The site is quieter, cleaner and less visible than similar oil and gas operations. It might just be the future of drilling in the United States.

Oil firm Civitas Resources designed the operation to run largely on the city's electric grid, eliminating daily runs by more than a dozen diesel fuel trucks. The electric rig has none of the soot or sulfur smell of diesel exhaust and is muffled enough that rig hands can converse without yelling.

As investors and lawmakers push the oil industry to lower its carbon emissions, this drill site and others run by Civitas offer one model for drillers looking to migrate to low- or no-carbon emissions operations.

An extra incentive for Civitas is that it must be mindful of neighbors of its drilling sites in relatively affluent suburban areas, where it also has easier access to the power grid. It is unclear whether drillers in more remote areas will be able to adopt the same technology as easily.

Civitas, Colorado's largest oil and gas producer, says it is the state's first "carbon neutral" producer. To get there, it has eliminated some diesel-powered pumps, makes modifications to drilling and hydraulic fracturing equipment and its production sites. It also buys carbon credits to offset remaining emissions.

'NO DUST, NO TRAFFIC'

A few miles away, another Civitas pad with 18 wells is hidden behind an earthen berm, largely invisible to the surrounding community. It has dozens of air-monitoring sensors to detect greenhouse gas emissions. Its pneumatic controls have been adapted to avoid methane leaks. It is Civitas' first facility to do away with oil and waste water storage tanks.

"Everything is piped directly off location. There is no dust, no truck traffic necessary to produce the hydrocarbons,” said Matt Owens, Civitas' chief operating officer.

Colorado, among the top oil producers among U.S. states, also has some of the toughest state emissions regulations. It has told energy firms they must cut methane emissions from drilling by 2030 to less than half of 2005 levels. More drillers also face stricter mandates as President Joe Biden's administration enacts tougher federal methane rules.

"Electrifying drilling, upgrading pneumatics and going tankless are certainly steps in the right direction," said Deborah Gordon, a senior principal in the Rocky Mountain Institute's climate intelligence group.

Colorado's tougher regulatory environment has partially evolved from the industry's proximity to homes and businesses. For Civitas, that suburban life means strong local electric power supplies.

"All the power lines that have been built out for urban expansion, we're able to tap into those," said Brian Cain, Civitas' chief sustainability officer during a tour of a drilling site. He estimates switching from diesel to line power reduces emissions by 20% to 25%. "The landscape is a lot different than west Texas," where operators do not have easy access to the adequate electric power, he said.

Some environmentalists have said lowering greenhouse gas emissions from oil drilling is not enough, and instead advocate for moving society away from fossil fuel usage https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/radical-change-needed-reach-net-zero-emissions-iea-2021-05-18 altogether. This year, the International Energy Agency said investors should halt funding to new oil, gas and coal supply projects if the world wants to achieve net zero emissions by mid-century.

POWER GRID WORRIES

While electrification offers a quick way to cut emissions from production, there are other hurdles. Civitas shifts work schedules to avoid overtaxing the grid during peak heating or cooling times, said Cain.

In Texas, however, top oilfields "tend not to be urban environments" with ample electricity, said Don Whaley, president of Texas retail power provider OhmConnect Energy.

The second-largest Texas producer, Pioneer Natural Resources, aims to electrify drilling, hydraulic fracturing and compression at pump stations within eight to 10 years, its chief executive vowed last week. The company has already begun switching out compression at pumping stations to move oil and gas for electric, said Chief Executive Scott Sheffield.

Pioneer is working with Texas transmission operator Oncor to boost capacity near the oilfield. It and other shale oil firms will likely cover some of the cost of upgrading power lines and substations to more quickly reduce diesel fuel use, Sheffield said.

Hydraulic fracturing, the pumping of water, sand and chemicals into well bores to release trapped oil and gas, is undergoing its own conversion. So-called electric fracks, powered by fossil fuels coming from nearby wells, are just emerging.

Top U.S. fracking provider Halliburton Co this year said it successfully deployed a grid-powered fracturing operation, which sharply reduced its carbon footprint, according to a company report.

"When you move to electric fracks, that's the white whale for us," said Cain, which he estimates could reduce emissions from completions by 20% to 30%. "That is a huge benefit for us in terms of total greenhouse gas."

(Reporting by Liz Hampton in Broomfield, Colorado; Editing by David Gregorio)

Amazon reportedly paused plans to reinstate a ban on warehouse workers having phones after 6 died in a tornado
Shona Ghosh
Sun, December 19, 2021

An employee handles packages at the Amazon's Bretigny-sur-Orge warehouse in France.

THOMAS SAMSON/AFP via Getty Images

Amazon won't reinstate a ban on workers having phones in its warehouses, Bloomberg reported.

The company had permitted phones during the pandemic, but planned to reinstate the ban next month.

It's pausing that after at least six Amazon warehouse workers died in a tornado this month.

Amazon is reportedly rethinking plans to reinstate a ban on its warehouse workers having smartphones at work, after at least six of its workers died in a tornado this month.

Some warehouse workers received messages that the ban wouldn't come in "until further notice," Bloomberg reported Saturday and confirmed with a spokesperson. Insider has contacted Amazon for comment.

Amazon's warehouse workers have previously recounted to Insider that they must put phones, wallets, and other personal items in lockers before going to work.

Insider's Isobel Asher Hamilton reported in March 2020 that Amazon started allowing workers to access their phones on the warehouse floor during the pandemic, in case of emergencies.

But, according to Bloomberg, plans to renew the ban in January changed after the death of six Amazon workers at a facility in Edwardsville, Illinois whose roof and wall collapsed in a tornado on December 11.

Construction crews work at the site of a roof collapse at an Amazon distribution center in Edwardsville, Illinois, US December 11, 2021.Reuters/Lawrence Bryant

Federal regulators are investigating the incident, and Insider obtained a 911 call transcript that uncovered chaos at the scene, with workers told to shelter in bathrooms rather than the warehouse's designated tornado shelter.

Amazon has been criticized for its handling of the incident, with reports stating workers were denied permission to leave as the tornado approached.

The company has defended itself. Its retail boss Dave Clark wrote in an internal memo, seen by Insider, that "fast action saved lives."

And in a previous statement, a spokesperson said the firm followed federal tornado safety guidelines by acting as quickly as it could to get employees to shelter inside the building.

Oust Trump coup planners, enablers and provocateurs from public office. They betrayed us.

Jill Lawrence, USA TODAY
Mon, December 20, 2021

The price of admission in a democracy is accepting that your side has lost. That’s especially true when you are an elected official. And that’s why elected leaders at every level – from county election boards and state legislatures to state officials, Congress, former President Donald Trump and all who enabled him – must be held accountable for threatening U.S. democracy and leaving it on a knife edge. They need to be expelled and forced out and prosecuted for putting America at risk.

These Trump acolytes fueled corrosive Stop the Steal lies about non-existent vote fraud and organized, supported and attended Stop the Steal rallies. Some plotted in legislatures, courts and Congress to nullify the 2020 presidential election by ignoring, contesting or simply throwing out legitimate votes. Some were on the Capitol grounds during the bloody Jan. 6 attack that left five people dead. At least one was part of the mob.

We don’t know all the details yet of who did what and when they did it, but we will.

March to the Capitol, 'fight like hell'

The House Jan. 6 committee knows it was Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan who forwarded a text to Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows on Jan. 5, the day before Vice President Mike Pence presided over the ceremonial electoral vote count in Congress, saying that Pence should “call out all electoral votes that he believes are unconstitutional as no electoral votes at all.”

The committee will know, if it doesn't already, who told Meadows that Trump’s allies “tried everything we could in our objection to the six states” on Jan. 6. “I am sorry nothing worked” – and which lawmakers helped plan the Jan. 6 "Stop the Steal" rally where Trump lied that he'd been robbed, told his followers to march to the Capitol, advised them to be peaceful and patriotic, then exhorted them to "fight like hell" because "if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore." And the committee will determine if anyone in Congress aided or abetted the mob that then stormed the Capitol.

President Donald Trump urges supporters to march to the Capitol at a rally on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington, D.C.

The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC) identified 21 Republican state legislators who took part in the events of Jan. 6 and several hundred who called to "stop the steal" or overthrow the 2020 election. One Virginia legislator was censured after expressing support for the Capitol mob and three others were booted off a committee apiece after urging Pence to block Joe Biden's victory in Virginia.

But according to the DLCC, the only legislator forced out so far was Delegate Derrick Evans of West Virginia, who was arrested after livestreaming himself breaking into the Capitol yelling "Move, move!" and "We're in!" He resigned before his colleagues could vote on expelling him. And at least three election-denying legislators who were on the Capitol grounds Jan. 6 are running for higher office or exploring a race.
Confederate loyalties sank 14 senators

For the U.S. House and Senate, congressional history suggests a path if Democrats have the evidence, the will and the stomach to act. Expulsion is the most severe penalty available, and its main trigger has been betraying the United States.

Fifteen senators have been expelled, one in 1797 for plotting to give U.S. territories to Great Britain and, more than 60 years later, 14 because of “support for Confederate rebellion.” The House has only expelled five members – two for corruption and three for “disloyalty to the Union; fighting for the Confederacy.”

Paul Hodgkins of Tampa is pictured on the floor of the U.S. Senate on Jan. 6, 2021, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.

Support for a rebellion and disloyalty to the nation were hallmarks of the Jan. 6 insurrection. As U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss put it in July when he sentenced defendant Paul Hodgkins, a Tampa, Florida crane operator who carried a Trump flag into the building: “He was staking a claim on the floor of the United States Senate, not with the American flag, but with a flag declaring his loyalty to a single individual over a nation.”

Hodgkins pleaded guilty to corruptly obstructing an official proceeding, a felony that carries a maximum 20-year sentence. The government has filed the same charge against hundreds of Jan. 6 rioters, and a Trump-appointed judge recently ruled it is an appropriate charge in those cases.

It is also a potential charge against elected officials, including Trump. Rep. Liz Cheney, vice-chair of the House Jan. 6 committee, used the statutory language this month in describing a fundamental question in the panel's investigation: whether Trump, “through action or inaction, corruptly sought to obstruct or impede Congress's official proceeding to count electoral votes.”

Rep. Liz Cheney, vice chair of the committee investigating Jan. 6, at a meeting Dec. 13, 2021, in Washington, D.C.

That’s one of several avenues suggested by law professors Laurence Tribe, Barbara McQuade and Joyce White Vance in a Justice Department roadmap to investigating Trump and Jan. 6. Some of the potential charges are specific to Trump, the executive branch or his tight inner circle. But others could be used to charge anyone, from rioters to government officials at any level.

In addition to the statute Cheney cited, there is conspiracy to defraud the United States by impairing or obstructing a government function like an election. That's looking increasingly plausible because “it sounds like members of Congress may have been part of this type of conspiracy,” McQuade told me. A third possibility is the federal voter fraud law that makes it a crime to deprive or defraud voters of a fair election. That could involve “anybody trying to get states to throw out elections,” said McQuade, a former prosecutor, including Trump telling the Georgia secretary of state to “find” him enough votes to win.
Ousting voter choices is a big deal

Elected officials bear the most responsibility when democracy goes off the rails like this, but they also have the strongest shields against paying a price. They were elected fair and square, and it’s no small thing to countermand the voters’ will by throwing them out of office. You could even argue that by doing so, congressional and/or legal authorities would be reversing a legitimate election result, just like Trump was trying to do.

But, as Tribe, McQuade and Vance put it, “attempted coups cannot be ignored.” We are in a different world after the first non-peaceful transfer of power in U.S. history. “January 6th was without precedent,” Cheney said this month. “Our Constitution, the structure of our institutions and the rule of law, which are at the heart of what makes America great, are at stake.”

Republicans across the country are passing "election sabotage" laws that will help them tailor results to their liking if new restrictions on voting don’t get the job done. This absolutism about winning is dangerous on every level. It’s already proven to be life-and-death dangerous, and not just on Jan. 6.

Just last week Mark Aguirre, a former Houston police captain, was indicted for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon after holding the driver of an A/C repair truck at gunpoint in October 2020. A conservative group had paid Aguirre more than $266,000 to investigate vote fraud and he was sure the truck held 750,000 fake ballots signed by Hispanic children. He was wrong and "we are lucky no one was killed,” Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said.

Angst is rising among those of us impatient to see investigations and punishment that match this moment, when U.S. democracy is teetering on the edge of failure. State authorities as well as President Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and – most essentially – Attorney General Merrick Garland must make examples of public officials who created chaos and brought America to the brink, all so Trump could stay president for life, or until he got bored. They aren't fit to lead or serve in any capacity.

Jill Lawrence is a columnist for USA TODAY and author of "The Art of the Political Deal: How Congress Beat the Odds and Broke Through Gridlock." Follow her on Twitter: @JillDLawrence

You can read diverse opinions from our Board of Contributors and other writers on the Opinion front page, on Twitter @usatodayopinion and in our daily Opinion newsletter. To respond to a column, submit a comment to letters@usatoday.com.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Punish Trump and those in Congress who betrayed voters and America

Op-Ed: What it means to live in a society where the fringe becomes the center


John L. Jackson Jr.
Mon, December 20, 2021

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) wears a "Trump Won" face mask as she arrives on the floor of the House to take her oath of office on Jan. 3. She has expressed support for the conspiracy theories, such as QAnon. (Associated Press)

We live in an increasingly fringeless world. Though we are used to imagining social life as easily cordoned off into centers and margins, cores and peripheries, it might be helpful for us to let go of this timeworn and erroneous assumption. Instead, our new reality on the verge of 2022 requires knowing and accepting that we live in an age without fringes, without margins, without a clear-cut partitioning of our world into center stages and rafters — for better or worse.

This notion of fringelessness captures many of our contemporary cultural experiences and the ways in which we make sense of cultural differences. I remember when we used to label things "subcultures," but the term feels quaint and even offensive these days. When was the last time you heard anyone describe some practice as subcultural? That's because we no longer have subcultures.

In fact, we have grown to reject the very idea that certain people's cultural actions and beliefs should be deemed "sub" in any way. In part, that is an arguably healthy outgrowth of our attempts at humbling hubristic tendencies toward ethnocentrism. We like to think that if the folks we love and care about do or believe something, it must be good, right, superior — and certainly better than some other group's strange behaviors or ideas.

Fringelessness isn't the total lack of recognizable standards and trusted expectations. It is a kind of organized counter-logic to classic claims about what is "normal" or "natural." We are living during a time of concerted pushback against forces that would seek to determine what counts as normative. Just because most people do or believe something, the argument goes, shouldn't mean that they can simply impose their notions on others, no matter how small the number of "others" there might be on a given issue.

Much of the current version of our "culture wars" is predicated on the fact that not only do people believe different things, but we have less and less power to determine how much the erstwhile fringes can affect the most established and hallowed sectors of society.

Of course, technology and social media drive a good deal of this. No matter how obscure the belief, we are only ever a few computer keystrokes away from accessing like-minded believers all over the planet, giving us not only the ability to mobilize around even cockamamie ideas but also the impression that maybe those ideas aren't so marginal or cockamamie after all.

With enough commitment, you can even force the most mainstream of institutions, from government to big business, including media outlets, to contend with your claims, no matter how disconnected from evidence or detrimental to our collective good. This is the version of fringlessness that manifests with, say, an obstinate faith in the claim that we have an illegitimate president residing in the White House because of a rigged election. That same fringelessness is what helps weaponize populism, transforming it from a march in Washington to a would-be government siege.

But it is also the engine driving so-called cancel culture and the ways in which a few thousand people on Twitter can either effectively topple a public figure or completely hamstring them and their agents into total damage-control mode.

This fringeless sensibility emerges from a quintessentially ego-centric perspective. When the entire world rotates around you, then the center is wherever you are located.

In and of itself, fringelessness doesn't necessarily benefit the political right or the political left. If anything, many commentators will tell us that the "fringe" of both political parties continues to have an outsized impact on our overall political environment. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, a well-known QAnon proponent, has proudly declared: “We are not the fringe; we are the base of the party." This raises the question of whether movements such as QAnon are simply receiving inappropriate amounts of media attention or are forming a new social standard. Either way, this is one example of why it is becoming more and more misleading to call such positions fringe at all.

We live in a moment when the fringe is as big a factor in our political calculations as anything else. It drives debates about abortion as well as how we talk about racism in public school classrooms.

There may be little we can really do about this state of affairs other than monitor the extent to which we are each susceptible to an inaccurate sense of how our ideas stack up against external evidence. If nothing else, we need to recognize that the fringes are determining the central contours of social possibility for all of us.

John L. Jackson Jr., is dean of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania and co-director of the award-winning documentary "Making Sweet Tea," about the lives of Black gay men in the South.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Cyber Pirates Could Hold The Renewable Revolution For Ransom


Editor OilPrice.com
Sun, December 19, 2021

A few years ago, researchers proved that wind turbines could be hacked and manipulated. Solar farms can also be taken hostage by hackers: one Dutch scientist found a way to hack the inverters of solar installations. With more wind parks and solar farms getting built amid the energy transition, these are turning into critical infrastructure that needs to be defended. But can it?

For starters, it needs noting that the cybersecurity management of wind and solar installations is a pretty complex task. Benny Czarny, founder and CEO of OPSWAT, a cybersecurity company with a special focus on critical infrastructure, explains that wind and solar installations are run by industrial control systems and operational security systems, with the latter often isolated from the former. In theory, he says, this is supposed to make the infrastructure more secure. In practice, it adds a layer of complexity to the management of the infrastructure and this, in turn, makes it more vulnerable to attacks.

“Cyber risks to renewable energy assets are extremely acute,” Fieldsfisher partner and cybersecurity specialist James Walsh told Oilprice. “Many of these generation facilities will be directly connected to a regional or national grid and most now rely on smart systems, allowing their owners and operators to manage them digitally – all of which creates cyber risk interfaces.”

The cybersecurity risk to critical energy infrastructure came to the fore earlier this year when hackers took over the Colonial Pipeline and forced it shut down, causing fuel shortages along the East Coast. This certainly drew attention to the protection of energy systems but not enough.

Wind and solar have historically accounted for a small portion of U.S. power generation capacity, so they have not been placed in the same priority for protection as conventional power plants, says David White, founder and president of Axio, a cyber risk management software development firm. Yet there are now states that generate almost a third of their power from renewable installations, he adds, so the time to act on better protecting them has come.

Somewhat unfortunately, part of the reason for the increased cyber vulnerability of wind and solar installations is good intentions. As the CTO of Awen Collective, Jules Farrow, explains, connectivity is not always a good thing.

“The efforts to gather and analyse operational data to improve the efficiency and resilience of OT systems is a worthy cause, but one which often results in undermining the only protection traditional OT [operational technology] systems had - a lack of connectivity to other systems and networks,” he told Oilprice.

Awareness of the problem is the beginning of this protection. Then comes the security of devices used in proximity to critical infrastructure systems and continual risk assessment in order to be able to detect vulnerabilities early on.

“The greater connectivity associated with renewable energy assets, versus oil and gas, which are disconnected energy commodities, increases system risks and could potentially pose threats to entire grid networks,” says Fieldfisher’s Walsh.

Possible specific measures include “adequate access controls, strong segmentation from the business network and the internet, strong protection of any third-party connectivity (like some modern fossil-fuel generation, many of these assets have persistent connectivity to third parties for control and monitoring), and monitoring,” according to Axio’s White.

Training a company’s employees to protect themselves against cyberattacks is also crucial in the risk mitigation of energy systems, according to Keatron Evans, principal security researcher at Infosec Institute. Yet risk mitigation is not always possible and companies need to focus on post-attack recovery, too.

Phil Bezanson, energy and cybersecurity expert and partner at law firm Bracewell, agrees. According to him, minimum standards in cybersecurity management should include “comprehensive data mapping, updating software security patches, training employees about user-error contribution to cyber incidents, and having a tested incident response plan.”

The thing to remember is that as wind and solar installations become more complex and more advanced, so do the techniques hackers use to infiltrate any system. This means that operators of wind and solar systems—as of any other critical energy infrastructure—need to advance their management practices as well.

“Newer wind and solar operations must be designed and built with cybersecurity in mind,” says Matt Donahue, compliance and risk analyst at Sentient Digital. “Updating and reinforcing security measures on older systems should be made a priority, since these will be most vulnerable to attack. This includes not only updating their systems, but the physical security of the grids and retraining of personnel.”

All cybersecurity experts agree on the need to focus on connectivity. Per Axio’s White, “Owners and operators of wind and solar farms need to understand the cyber risk exposure of those assets and implement appropriate measures to respond to those risks. In particular, we should take measures to protect any persistent connectivity to third parties to minimize the systemic exposures that could arise from the compromise of one of those third parties.”

The threat of cyberattacks is increasing and will continue to increase in the future. At the same time, wind and solar generation capacity will also increase. “We are at constant risk of a significant cyber attack on the U.S. energy sector,” says Lisa Sotto, head of global privacy and cybersecurity practice at Hunton Andrews Kurth.

The thing to keep in mind is that no energy system is immune to cyberattacks—in fact, energy systems being critical infrastructure are a magnet for hackers—and prepare accordingly before it is too late.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

COLD WAR 2.0
Putin and Xi's evolving disinformation playbooks pose new threats

Jessica Brandt
Sun, December 19, 2021

The TechCrunch Global Affairs Project examines the increasingly intertwined relationship between the tech sector and global politics.

As the information domain becomes an increasingly active and consequential realm of state competition, two countries have gone all in. Both China and Russia have developed sophisticated information strategies to advance their geopolitical interests, and their playbooks are evolving. No longer primarily relying on proxy troll farms to generate large quantities of polarizing content, the Kremlin has turned to military intelligence assets to carry out more targeted information operations designed to circumvent platform-detection mechanisms. And motivated by concern that it might be blamed for a pandemic that has claimed the lives of more than five million people worldwide, Beijing has become considerably less risk-averse in its use of “wolf warrior” diplomats to push conspiracy theories online. To sustain its vision of a free and open internet, Washington must develop a strategy to push back.

Moscow’s information manipulation playbook is evolving

Russia, a declining power by many measures, seeks to compensate for its relative weakness through asymmetric means, by disrupting the institutions, alliances and domestic politics of its neighbors and geopolitical competitors in the near term. With little to lose and much to gain from public awareness of its activities, the Kremlin is not particularly sensitive to attribution or concerned about repercussions. And so, in order to keep the transatlantic community distracted, divided and unable to carry out a confident, coordinated foreign policy that could be detrimental to its interests, the Kremlin uses disinformation to stoke chaos and promote disorder.

To accomplish this, Moscow uses at least two techniques that represent a maturation of its playbook since its “sweeping and systematic” campaign to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. First, it regularly co-opts domestic voices and institutions within target societies in order to cast information operations as authentic advocacy, often by hiding trolls within a target population, renting the social media accounts of local citizens or recruiting real activists to stoke protests. It does so partly to evade increasingly sophisticated platform-detection mechanisms and partly to exacerbate the politicization of content moderation debates within the United States.

Second, the Kremlin‘s disinformers recognize that they do not need to perpetuate an operation at scale in order to create the impression that they or others have, and that the impression alone is enough to sow doubt about the legitimacy of election results and exacerbate partisan discord. Moscow can thus leverage widespread concern about the potential for manipulation, particularly in an election context, to achieve its goals by claiming that manipulation has happened — even in the absence of a successful operation.

Beijing is taking a page from Moscow’s playbook — and writing some of its own plays

China, meanwhile, is a rising power with little to gain and much to lose from public awareness of its interference activities. Unlike Russia, it prefers a stable international order, but one that is more conducive to its interests than the current U.S.-led framework. As a result, its activities in the information domain are primarily geared toward promoting China’s image as a responsible global superpower and stifling criticism that would tarnish its prestige, while denting the appeal of democracy by casting the United States and its partners as ineffective and hypocritical.

For Beijing, pursuing these interests has entailed a three-pronged strategy of piggybacking on the propaganda networks of other strongmen, manufacturing the appearance of popular support and co-opting conversations on its rights record. Lacking an influencer network of its own, China regularly relies on the constellation of alternative thinkers, many of them Western, that are a fixture of Russian propaganda. Highlighting the difficulty of generating support for pro-China positions on a platform Beijing has banned at home, China’s wolf warrior diplomats regularly engage with false personas on Twitter. And in order to push back on criticisms of its rights record, it attempts to co-opt discussions on the treatment of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang using hashtag campaigns and slick videos.

AND USING NORTH KOREAN CYBER HACKERS AS CUTOUTS

Autocrats align — but only sometimes

Despite important differences in their long-term goals, Moscow and Beijing share multiple immediate objectives: denting the global prestige of democracy, weakening multilateral institutions and undermining democratic alliances. As a result, the two countries deploy several of the same tactics.

Both use “whataboutism” to paint the United States as hypocritical, particularly on issues of race. Both use clickbait content to generate large followings on Twitter, recognizing that an audience is a strategic asset. Both regularly traffic in multiple, often conflicting, conspiracy theories to cast doubt on official accounts of political events, evade blame for their activities and create the impression that there is no such thing as objective reality. Both operate extensive propaganda apparatuses that spread their preferred narratives.

They also deploy many of the same narratives. Both countries have worked to diminish confidence in the safety record of certain Western COVID-19 vaccines and portray the United States and its allies as ineffective. That said, Russia is primarily focused on pushing divisive content that deepens polarization and diminishes trust in institutions and elites, all while pushing back on what it characterizes as anti-Russian bias in established media. China, for its part, is primarily interested in highlighting the benefits of its governance model, while painting critiques of its rights abuses as hypocritical. Kremlin state media almost never cover Russian domestic politics. Moscow’s goal is to drive audiences away from the political West, not pull them toward Russia. For China, the opposite is true.

Much has been made about the state of cooperation between Russia and China in various domains of their respective competitions with the United States. Evidence suggests there is very little formal coordination of their information activities beyond largely symbolic agreements to distribute one another’s content. That is not entirely a surprise. Beijing doesn't need to formally cooperate with Moscow in order to amplify Kremlin-promoted narratives or to emulate other successful elements of the Kremlin’s information strategy.

What’s to come

Both Russian and Chinese information strategies are evolving. Russia’s disinformation activities are becoming more targeted and harder to detect, while China is taking a more assertive, less subtle approach than before. For Russia, these changes appear to be driven by growing awareness of its activities since 2016, which simultaneously prompted the implementation of new platform policies and detection mechanisms and ushered in an era of partisan debates over election legitimacy that reverberate today. For China, changes to its information strategy seem to be primarily motivated by the COVID-19 pandemic, a global crisis of unique salience to its geopolitical standing that will continue to create opportunities for Beijing to test new approaches.

Recognizing these consequential changes to the way Russia and China approach the information domain, the United States needs a playbook of its own. A robust strategy would include harnessing truthful information to highlight the failures of repressive rule, deploying American cyber capabilities to prevent or impose costs on those who would conduct destabilizing disinformation campaigns and implementing legislation that would make platform transparency, particularly with trusted researchers, the norm. Finally, because it is good for democratic societies and creates challenges for their authoritarian competitors, the United States should more forcefully defend freedom of information worldwide.

In the consequential contest between democratic and authoritarian societies, autocrats have seized the initiative. This collection of measures represents a starting point for bold and responsible action to ensure that the United States regains it. To succeed, the U.S. and its democratic partners must act quickly.

'I'm back' says Lula, vowing a broad alliance ahead of Brazil election


Former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva poses for a picture during an interview with Reuters in Sao Paulo

Mon, December 20, 2021
By Lisandra Paraguassu and Stephen Eisenhammer

SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Brazil's former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who is currently leading in the polls ahead of next year's election, said if reelected he would seek to build a broad range of alliances in a bid to unite a deeply polarized country.

In an interview on Friday, the 76-year-old former union leader promised to more fairly distribute wealth under a Workers Party government, and stressed the need to get rich Brazilians to pay more tax.


He also vowed to regain Brazil's international credibility, damaged by President Jair Bolsonaro. A South American trade deal with the European Union would be a priority, he said, as would strengthening ties with the United States and China.

"I don't want to fight: I want to join forces so we can build," he said at the Workers Party offices in downtown Sao Paulo.

It marks quite the reversal.

Just over two years ago he was in prison convicted of corruption, and until eight months ago he was banned from running for Brazil's top job.

With those convictions annulled by the Supreme Court, the former leftist leader is back in the running. While there is a long way to go until the October presidential elections - and Lula has yet to officially declare his candidacy - current polls show. Bolsonaro, widely criticized for his handling of the pandemic, is a distant second with 21%.

"A resurrection," Lula called it.

Lula governed Brazil from 2003 until 2010 and oversaw a period of dramatic economic growth - driven by a commodity boom - that helped lift millions out of poverty.

Under his government, deforestation in the Amazon rainforest fell and Brazil emerged as a global force. He left office with approval ratings of around 80%.

Polls suggest the memory of those years is selling well.

But today's reality, despite some parallels, is markedly different. Brazil's political spectrum is far more polarized, the pandemic has killed over 600,000 people and thrown many more into poverty.

As the world reopens, inflationary pressures have become a global problem, not just a Brazilian one - and harder to fix as a result. Environmentally, South America's largest country has become a pariah.

Lula said he would reestablish Brazil as a regional and global player.

"Together with the European Union, we (South America) could form an economic bloc, a bloc with similar political positions, with similar environmental views, to face up to the two giants... the United States and China," he said.

On the economy, he called for a council of 100 people, taken from all sections of society, to help form economic and social policy.

He said he would like to see the inheritance tax, which is around 4% in Brazil, brought closer to European levels of about 50%.

But, for Lula, more money in the hands of the poor helps to grow the consumer base, creating a bigger market for companies to sell their goods. He dismissed investor concerns of a future Lula government. "I will offer you a market," he said.

Although many Brazilians remember Lula's presidency fondly, the years that followed soured the Workers Party legacy.

Under his successor, Dilma Rousseff, the economy first slowed, then fell off a cliff. As the party's political star fell, Rousseff lost support in Congress and was impeached. Prosecutors uncovered a massive corruption scheme.

"If there was (graft in my government), we created the whole apparatus that investigated corruption," he said, referencing investment in police intelligence, the passing of transparency laws and the autonomy of public prosecutors.

Analysts had expected a resurgent Lula to stoke support for Bolsonaro. But that has not yet materialized.

Instead the pandemic, rising poverty and inflation have dented the president's popularity.

Lula has been careful not to help his rival too, presenting himself as peacemaker with little of the fiery rhetoric for which he became known as a union boss.

"The polarization is not between Lula and Bolsonaro: the polarization is between Bolsonaro and everyone else," he said.

As part of that strategy, sources close to Lula say he is considering ex-rival Geraldo Alckmin as a centrist running mate.

A four-term former governor of business powerhouse Sao Paulo, Alckmin is an unlikely partner but one brimming with market credibility.

Lula said no decision had been taken but was full of praise for the man who ran against him for the presidency in 2006. "Alckmin is a very important political figure," he said.

About his own future, Lula was more forthright. "I'm back in the game. I want to play, and I want to win."

(Reporting by Lisandra Paraguassu and Stephen Eisenhammer; editing by Diane Craft)

Dozens released after protest at India plant of Apple supplier Foxconn


Sun, December 19, 2021
By Sudarshan Varadhan

CHENNAI (Reuters) -Police in India have released dozens of those detained for blocking a key highway in a protest against food poisoning at a Foxconn unit, the country's second instance of unrest at an Apple Inc supplier factory in a year.

India is among the countries, such as Mexico and Vietnam, that are becoming increasingly important to contract manufacturers supplying American brands as they try to minimise the impact of the trade war between China and the United States.

The highway was blocked for hours in the southern city of Chennai in Tamil Nadu state, home to a plant where the Taiwan contract manufacturer, formally known as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd, began assembling the iPhone 12 this year.

It was not immediately clear if production was disrupted by the protests sparked by last week's food poisoning incident that led to 150 employees being admitted to hospital.

Foxconn declined to comment. Apple did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

A police official said plant workers and their relatives were among those who blocked the highway linking Chennai to India's technology hub of Bengaluru.

While the nearly 70 women detained over Saturday's protest were released the following day, some of the 22 men held were arrested, added the official, who sought anonymity as he was not authorised to speak to media on the issue.

Most of Foxconn's workers in India are women.

In December last year, thousands of contract workers at a factory owned by Apple supplier Wistron Corp destroyed equipment and vehicles over the alleged non-payment of wages, causing damages estimated at $60 million.

(Reporting by Sudarshan Varadhan and Sayantani Ghosh; Editing by Michael Perry and Clarence Fernandez)

MUNCHKIN HOMES

One of California's most expensive areas has a new plan to fight homelessness

Cyrus Farivar
Mon, December 20, 2021

SAN JOSE, Calif. — On a recent fall day, stepping out of her house, Alexandria Urrea pushed a stroller holding her baby girl.

“Before here, we were living in our car,” Urrea said. “So that wasn’t going to work out at all. So if they didn’t call us, then we wouldn’t have anywhere [to go].”

She was referring to Santa Clara County, home to Silicon Valley, where an estimated 10,000 people are homeless, including Urrea and her daughter. They are among 62 people, including 40 children, living in prefabricated tiny homes on county-owned land.

A total of 25 homes are positioned on a site that once served as San Jose City Hall but had stood vacant for over 15 years. Amigos de Guadalupe, a local charitable organization that administers the program, invites families to stay up to 120 days or until they find permanent housing.

Casitas de Esperanza is part of a larger effort Santa Clara County announced in 2020 to “end homelessness” within five years. The county wants to expand Casitas and other homeless services and start a program similar to the state’s motel-conversion model.

Image: Pallet temporary home (Cyrus Farivar / NBC News)

County Supervisor Otto Lee said officials are willing to consider privately owned properties, such as those held by nonprofit groups and religious institutions, for Casitas de Esperanza's expansion.

“If they’re willing to put up the land, the rest of the items the county should be able to supplement and pay for,” he said.

Homelessness and its twin social ill, lack of affordable housing, are particularly acute in urban and suburban areas of the state, where about 161,000 people are unsheltered. In July, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a $12 billion bill to address homelessness, with much of the money likely to be spent buying older hotels and motels and converting them into residential units.

Many major tech firms, including Apple and Google, own large amounts of commercial property in Silicon Valley and across the region. In September, just a few miles away from Casitas, Apple cleared a longstanding homeless encampment on undeveloped property it owns near the San Jose International Airport. The company is paying millions to temporarily house the displaced people in motels.

Image: Pallet temporary homes (Cyrus Farivar / NBC News)

Supervisor Cindy Chavez said during a news conference in November that many homeless people in the region grew up in the area and work full time but cannot afford a modest house or apartment.

“Even with the minimum wage, if you’re working a full-time job, and you’re making $15 an hour, but the house you’re living in is $2,400,” she said. “There is no way to bridge that gap. So one of the things that we’ve seen with homelessness in our community is that we have a lot of people who are working who are homeless.”

Santa Clara County is one of the most expensive areas in California, with the median home price doubling in less than a decade to $1.5 million, according to real estate website Zillow.

Four individuals or families from Casitas de Esperanza have transitioned to affordable housing since the site opened in February, according to Amigos de Guadalupe, and two more residents are in the process.

As for Urrea, she said her next goal is to work with her case manager to find a permanent place to live.

“We’re hoping to get housed,” she said.