Plans to capture CO2 from coal plants wasted federal dollars, watchdog says

The DOE funded projects that never came to fruition

By Justine Calma@justcalma Dec 30, 2021, 

Water vapor rises from the NRG Energy Inc. WA Parish generating station in Thompsons, Texas, U.S., on Thursday, Feb. 16, 2017. The plant was home to the Petra Nova Carbon Capture Project, until it shut down in 2021 because of high costs. 

 Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The Biden administration wants to shove more money into projects that are supposed to capture CO2 emissions from power plants and industrial facilities before they can escape and heat up the planet. But carbon capture technologies that the Department of Energy has already supported in the name of tackling climate change have mostly fallen flat, according to a recent report by the watchdog Government Accountability Office.

About $1.1 billion has flowed from the Department of Energy to carbon capture and storage (CCS) demonstration projects since 2009. Had they panned out, nine coal plants and industrial facilities would have been outfitted with devices that scrub most of the CO2 out of their emissions. Once captured, the CO2 can be sent via pipelines to underground storage in geologic formations.

That’s not what happened. The DOE doled out $684 million to coal six coal plants, but only one of them actually got built and started operating before shuttering in 2020. Of the three separate industrial facilities that received $438 million, just two got off the ground. Without more accountability, “DOE may risk expending significant taxpayer funds on CCS demonstrations that have little likelihood of success,” the GAO says.

THERE OUGHT TO BE MORE CONGRESSIONAL OVERSIGHT

To stop that from happening, the GAO says there ought to be more congressional oversight of DOE-funded demonstration projects. The GAO report also recommends that the DOE do a better job of choosing which projects to fund and that the DOE should establish more consistent “scopes, schedules, and budgets” for projects.

It’s a critical time to figure all these things out, because CCS projects in the US are about to get a big boost. In November, Congress passed a bipartisan infrastructure bill that included $2.5 billion for CCS demonstration projects. It also includes another $6 billion for large-scale CCS projects and pipelines to transport CO2 to storage sites. Altogether, the new infrastructure law marks the largest investment in carbon capture and storage in the history of the technology, according to the think tank Global CCS Institute.

More money could be on the way if Democrats successfully push through their budget reconciliation bill, a $1.75 trillion environmental and social spending package. The bill could increase tax incentives for carbon capture technology, giving power plants outfitted with it a maximum of $85 per ton of CO2 captured compared to the current $50 maximum under the current 45Q tax credit. Power plants would need to capture at least 75 percent of their emissions in order to qualify for the tax credit, under the new parameters in the bill. It’s a requirement that some CCS advocates want to eliminate, because they think the high standard could chill investment in the technology.

Investors’ cold feet doomed CCS demo projects at coal plants that the GAO studied, says the Clean Air Task Force. The nonprofit, which supports CCS technology, is one of the groups pushing to get rid of the 75 percent requirement.

“Coal power projects were not great candidates for demo dollars not primarily because of technical issues with the plants but because they couldn’t secure outside investor support,” Lee Beck, international director of carbon capture at the Clean Air Task Force, said in an email to The Verge.

Falling natural gas prices and uncertainty around markets for carbon credits “negatively affected the economic viability” of coal plants with carbon capture technologies, the report says. Adding CCS to power plants also increases the cost of electricity production.

Compared to power plants, capturing carbon from industrial facilities — for example, those that make ammonia used in fertilizer — can be more cost effective because they often produce more concentrated streams of CO2. Because the CO2 in coal plant emissions is relatively diffuse, carbon capture devices hooked up to coal plants require more energy to run. Beck called the DOE’s spending at industrial sites a “big success” since two of the three projects got up and running.

In comments sent back to the GAO, the DOE said that developing CCS technologies for new coal plants is important because “current trends indicate that globally many new coal power plants will continue to be built in coming decades.” The GAO also says that the US “will need to rely on CCS as an essential mitigation option” for climate change.

“THEY ARE SIMPLY FOSSIL FUEL SUBSIDIES BY ANOTHER NAME.”

Other environmental advocates are much more skeptical of the technology and say the GAO report only shows that CCS projects are a bad investment. “We should stop deploying hundreds of millions of dollars to prop up the industries responsible for the climate crisis through fantasy technologies like CCS,” Adrien Salazar, policy director at the nonprofit Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, wrote to The Verge in an email. “Federal investments for CCS are greenwashing – they are simply fossil fuel subsidies by another name.”

CCS paired with a polluting power plant has yet to be rolled out at a commercial scale, according to the GAO report. For the most part, Salazar points out, the technology has been used by the fossil fuel industry for a process called enhanced oil recovery. Fossil fuel companies shoot captured carbon dioxide deep into the ground to push out hard-to-reach oil reserves. So critics of CCS say the technology is just a tactic to keep the oil and gas industry afloat even as the world increasingly turns to renewable energy to stave off the climate crisis. Even if the captured CO2 isn’t used for enhanced oil recovery, they worry, the technology might extend the life span of gas and coal power plants.

Development in any new oil, coal, and gas infrastructure needs to completely stop in order to avoid catastrophic climate change, the International Energy Agency warned in a landmark report this year. That’s coming from an agency that formed in the 1970s to safeguard the world’s oil supply but has more recently heeded urgent calls from the scientific community to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions within a few decades.

U.S. Government Accountability Organisation Weighs In On Carbon Capture While Exxon Soldiers On

Dec. 30, 2021 

Summary

• Exxon Mobil makes CCS a major plank for new business; the Government Accountability Office questions CCS programs funded by DOE.
• DOE funding of $1.1 billion (matched by industry) produced 3 operational CCS facilities (out of 11) and one of these ceased operations soon after being established.
• The IEA is bullish about CCS but the story is more hope than reality.
• CURE (Coalition United for a Responsible Exxon) makes 7 strong recommendations, including an independent Chair, new CEO, net zero target, cease lobbying against climate action.
• Strong cash flow, high dividends work today for XOM, but what about the future? Is Exxon a stock for future investment outperformance?

IGphotography/iStock via Getty Images

Seeking Alpha authors continue to be amazed at the lacklustre performance of Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM) share price and urge investors to acquire XOM shares at a time when there are a number of major issues swirling around the company. In a recent article mostly about Chevron (NYSE:CVX), but with commentary that applies to Exxon Mobil too, Michael Fitzsimmons accurately places the future for oil & gas majors as “…a Race Against Time (EVs)”. Here I address a new report on CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage) by the Government Accountability Office, which throws doubt on the status of CCS technology which is a major plank of XOM’s decarbonization business prospects. Secondly I summarize new information from dissatisfied shareholders concerning Governance and performance issues. When these issues are considered, one can understand why long term investment in XOM is not without risk.

CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage)

I’ve laid out my scepticism concerning CCS in earlier articles. The facts are self-evident that most money invested in CCS projects comes from Governments after lobbying from the fossil fuel industry. Exxon management has continued to ignore lack of evidence that CCS is a technology that can contribute to emissions reductions, and continues to insist that CCS is going to become a significant part of XOM earnings in the future.

Earlier this month a report was released from the US Government Accountability Office “Carbon Capture and Storage: Actions Needed to Improve DOE Management of Demonstration Projects”. The title of the report itself makes clear where the CCS technology sits. We are not at full commercialisation yet.

Although the Department of Energy (DOE) invested $1.1 billion in 11 CCS projects conducted between fiscal years 2010 and 2017; all were demonstration projects. The performance audit was conducted from April 2021 through December 2021. Note the projects were designed to be co-funded with industry, with the coal projects being matching dollar for dollar funding , while the industrial projects involved 20% contribution by the industry group. This means that the funding for the coal projects was actually double what the DOE funding provided. This is important in considering the construction cost of these CCS projects.

Government Accountability Organisation report

The 33 page December 2021 report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) makes confronting reading for a XOM investor who thinks that CCS is going to be a path to future success for XOM. Simply put the CCS report makes clear that most of the DOE funding for CCS projects produced no outcomes and that the administration of CCS funding was a shambles. A significant problem beyond the overall cost structure of the projects was that getting permits to sequester the CO2 was a non-trivial problem. It seems that a number of normal project planning checkpoints were either absent or truncated because the DOE wanted to get the funds committed.

Considering coal CCS projects, the DOE selected 8 projects for funding. Two of these projects were withdrawn before any funding was received because the companies involved couldn’t make the budgets work (despite the fact that one project had a ~$700 million budget). Three projects reached the definition phase, receiving $16.9, $117.9 and $153.4 million before they were withdrawn/terminated. Two projects (receiving $116.7 and $83.9 million) reached project design before being terminated. The final project (Petra Nova) became operational (after $195.1 million matching? DOE funding) but its operation was terminated because it was not cost competitive due to low oil prices making enhanced oil recovery not economic. So the Petra Nova project cost $390.2 million if the matching funds were actually provided by industry.

In summary the DOE spent $683.8 million on 8 coal CCS projects, none of which became viable.

Three further DOE funded projects involving industrial CCS received $438.2 million. One of the projects was withdrawn at the design stage having received $12.8 million, while the remaining two projects became operational after receiving $284.0 and 141.4 million funding. The “successful” Air Products (NYSE:APD) Blue Hydrogen project in Port Arthur Texas cost $284 million of DOE funding and it captures 1 million tons of CO2 annually in producing hydrogen from methane. No details are given for the operational cost of this facility, but the CCS involves separation of CO2, purification and delivery by a 12 mile pipeline to an existing interstate CO2 pipeline for use in enhanced oil recovery (a process in which the CO2 is not specifically stored, but there is some release of the captured CO2) elsewhere in Texas (distance not specified). It does not seem like this process is cheap.

The GAO report outlines a litany of mismanagement and poor oversight of huge amounts ($1.1 billion) of funding. For example the report states that “DOE bypassed cost controls and spent almost $300 million more than planned on four unsuccessful coal CCS projects”. The planned DOE funding for these 4 coal CCS projects was $175.8 million, but actual DOE funding amounted to $471.8 million. None of these projects were successful! There was effectively no cost control on these projects or indeed oversight of project progress.

The programs studied in the GAO report are a forerunner to a further $2.5 billion to be spent in the US on CCS in the period between 2022 and 2025.

The IEA is bullish about CCS

A recent update from the IEA “Carbon capture in 2021: off and running or another false start?” announces 100 new planned CCS facilities. The IEA’s position is that the only way to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 is for there to be a huge CCS industry established. This view is predicated on the view that fossil fuel exploitation and the resultant emissions must continue as there are no substitutes for a significant amount of fossil fuel products. Others argue that the evidence is clear that fossil fuels are not an essential part of a future society and that emissions can be eliminated without a CCS industry.

For all of the hype and exaggeration the GAO report described above documents reality, which is essentially no genuine capacity to store carbon despite $billions being invested in trying to make it work.

In the November report the IEA claims that this time it is different for three reasons

i) new business models based on hubs : It is claimed that by aggregating CCS activities economies of scale and reduced commercial risk is possible. The economics of CCS is so unrealistic that I’m yet to see a full financial proposal (including capture, shipment, and storage) for CCS. Most costings focus just on capture and don’t address the need to store and transport huge amounts of CO2 and to take it often 100’s of kilometers for storage. The Exxon proposal for a Houston hub is going to cost more than $100 billion to store a tiny amount of CO2 in comparison with current emissions.

ii) The investment environment has improved : Hope that Governments will fund impossibly expensive facilities is the basis for a better investment environment. I see no evidence yet that XOM or any of the other parties putting their name to the Houston hub actually committing significant cash. All of the 11 companies signed up are keen to build the facility if Government comes to the party.

iii) Net Zero plans make CCS a necessity and not an option : The IEA seems unable to understand that Net Zero plans do not need to involve continued fossil fuel exploitation. Indeed the massive cost structure for CCS (making fossil fuel exploitation more expensive) is a major positive for plans that involve renewable energy, storage, interconnectivity and demand management. Note that already solar PV and wind produce cheaper electricity than coal and gas, even before there is any investment in CCS to capture the emissions.

Lack of understanding about CCS

Apart from companies like XOM, the chief proponents of CCS are Governments, and the Australian Government is a major CCS promoter and funder. The Australian Government website is an example of hype over substance, with CCS talked about as if it is established, when it clearly is not. Two technologies are showcased, CCS by injection into subterranean cavities of CO2 produced in the formation of hydrogen from coal or gas, and carbon capture by mineral carbonation. These technologies are not commercially established on either a technical or cost basis.

Anyone who wishes to get an understanding as to where the Technical and Regulatory situation for CCS in the US lies might consider reading the 2020 report, “Injection and Geologic Sequestration of Carbon Dioxide: Federal Role and Issues for Congress” from the Congressional Research Service. This report makes clear that in just about every area of CCS research the data is inadequate and real issues remain for consideration. For example, regarding Geologic CO2 sequestration 8 risks are identified, including drinking water impacts, accidental CO2 release, effects on subsurface minerals and potential for earthquakes from injections. As far as I can make out, none of these potential health and environmental considerations have been explored in any detail. It is noted that the full train from initial CO2 capture, to storage, transport and injection is poorly developed and costly. The point is made that there is a likelihood that the additional costs incurred as a result of CCS are likely to outweigh the cost of alternative energy sources (eg solar PV and wind).

The area of CCS most developed is that involved with cleaning up the CO2 from “gassy” wells. LNG needs CO2 to be removed before the gas is liquefied, because CO2 freezes at LNG temperatures. Some gas fields have natural gas that has a high proportion (above 10%) of CO2 . This has to be removed. The Australian Gorgon project (managed by Chevron, with XOM and Shell (NYSE:RDS.A) (NYSE:RDS.B) as major partners) is the world’s largest CCS project of this type. The story of the project documents how the project has failed to successfully capture the CO2 as contracted. The West Australian Government has issued a notice of non-compliance after Chevron captured less than 20% of its contracted CO2 from the project since 2016.

Note that this CO2 removal in no way mitigates the CO2 released on burning the gas. This “cleanup” CCS is about making the gas viable for conversion into LNG. Oil and gas majors rarely make clear this distinction.

South Korea’s largest private gas provider SK E&S Co is being challenged by an activist group “Solutions for our Climate” over claims by SK E&S that the gas from the Barossa project of NE Australia is “CO2-free”. SK E&S is referring to the CO2 captured from cleaning up the natural gas after harvesting. This overlooks the emissions from burning the LNG product (which many assume is where emissions reductions are needed).

What is Exxon Mobil doing about CCS?

Exxon continues to represent that CCS technology is a proven technology that is being implemented worldwide. The evidence they provide to support these assertions is questionable. There is lots of “potential for capture” and an absence of cost estimates or who will pay for the additional cost burden on CO2 emissions-related industries.

CURE (Coalition United for a Responsible Exxon)

Perhaps it is just a straw in the wind but recently there have been calls for Chairman & CEO Darren Woods to be removed and a new CEO and independent Chairman to be appointed. The XOM shareholders making this call, Coalition United for a Responsible Exxon (CURE), represent stakeholders with $2.5 trillion in assets under management. They have become dissatisfied with the lack of progress in transition to clean energy and overhaul of spending. CURE’s “Mid-Term Report Card for the Exxon Mobil Board” was released in December,

The report includes scores on four different criteria for grading XOM’s performance. One was based on CURE’s objectives for the company, another was based on Engine No 1’s expectations released before the 2021 AGM, while two others are climate-based indicators. CURE’s report concludes that notwithstanding 5 new board members and an expanded board size from 9 to 12 members, little progress has been made to address shareholder concerns. The company philosophy and strategy seems little altered and indeed CURE noted that Chairman and CEO Darren Woods made clear in July that huge shifts in strategy are not planned by XOM. The company’s goals fall far short of science-based emissions reductions needed to align with a 1.5C temperature increase by 2050. It was noted that XOM continues to refuse to include Scope 3 emissions in its targets.

CURE notes that XOM’s $15 billion budget ($3 million/yr for 5 years) for lower-emissions investment is 1.7% of XOM’s annual revenues. A shareholder resolution in May 2021 for XOM to develop a climate lobbying position aligned with the Paris Agreement shows no sign of being implemented.

CURE proposes 7 immediate actions:

1) Appoint an independent Board Chair

2) Replace current CEO

3) Set net-zero 2050 target with annual milestones & reporting

4) Provide new CEO & key executives with incentives for achieving emissions reductions

5) Align climate objectives with key climate benchmarks to remedy business risk

6) Halt lobbying & dark money being invested in climate denial and anti-clean energy legislation

7) Appoint 2 new directors in a transparent fashion before Feb 2022.

The above demands come from a powerful group of investors. Engine No 1 is not impressed by XOM’s focus on CCS for the reasons given in the report mentioned above. Basically there is no demonstration that CCS works at scale, nor is there evidence that the additional cost of CCS will find users of fossil fuels who are prepared to pay the extra cost, when renewables are already cheaper than fossil fuels without CCS.

Conclusion

In this article I’ve included two key issues confronting the XOM board and senior management. The first questions whether CCS has any reality to it and reviews a very recent report that makes clear CCS is not a technology capable of contributing to emission reduction needs in a cost effective fashion. This brings into question a major claim by XOM management that it is addressing climate-related issues and providing tangible new business opportunities for the company, based on its claimed position as leading CCS technology. For CCS to have a significant impact on XOM’s business, there needs to be some reality to the claims that this is going to become a major income earner. Secondly I point out that the issues that led to board changes earlier this year have not been adequately addressed. Given the significance of shareholder concern about ESG matters, I don’t think this unrest is going away. Together the issues considered here provide some explanation as to why XOM, notwithstanding apparent tailwinds currently, has a share price that is marooned.

MOTLEY FOOL

Canadian Meatpacking Workers Just Won a Historic Union Contract

The meatpacking company Cargill didn’t lift a finger when a massive COVID outbreak left half its workers in High River, Alberta, ill. 

The business’s unwillingness to take employees’ health seriously motivated workers to fight for — and win — a new contract.

Workers wearing protective masks stand outside the Cargill beef plant in High River, Alberta, Canada, on Monday, May 4, 2020.

 (Alex Ramadan / Bloomberg via Getty Images)

BYJEREMY APPEL

JACOBIN
12.30.2021

At the beginning of December, workers at the Cargill meatpacking plant in High River, Alberta, reached a last-minute deal with the Minnesota-based company. The deal narrowly averted a planned strike and retaliatory lockout. The plant is infamous for being the site of one of North America’s largest workplace COVID-19 outbreaks.

Almost half of the two-thousand-strong workforce at the High River plant, which processes 40 percent of Canada’s beef, tested positive for COVID in April 2020. The outbreak led to the deaths of workers Benito Quesada and Hiep Bui. The casualties extended beyond the walls of Cargill’s meatpacking plant. Armando Sallegue, who had flown in from the Philippines to visit his son who worked at the plant, also died from the infection.

Quesada’s death is under criminal investigation for alleged negligence. Cargill kept the plant running, in spite of pleas from the union and the local Filipino community, from which Cargill disproportionately draws its ranks, ignoring their calls to close the plant for two weeks to avoid a massive outbreak. The inquiry is the first instance of a criminal probe related to a COVID outbreak in Canada.

“They’re big and they’re bad, but we are not afraid,” says Tom Hesse, president of United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 401, Alberta’s largest private sector union, which represents the Cargill workers. Cargill workers voted 97 percent in favor of strike action on November 10.

On November 25, the company retaliated by issuing a lockout notice. The move was part of a strategy to preempt the strike — the lockout would go into effect if a deal wasn’t reached by December 6, the very same day the workers would have been in a legal strike position. Cargill, which recorded a record $4.93 billion in profit in 2021, sought to prepare for the lockout by hiring scabs. The company put advertisements up on public transit around Calgary, the closest major city to High River, boasting a starting wage of CAD$19.55 an hour plus a signing bonus.

UFCW Local 401, working with their union, were able to successfully demand proper compensation and respect from the company, but it took organization and determination. Preparations for the strike were a 24-7 affair. The union erected tents in front of the plant, requiring propane heaters, and cleared nearby fields to accommodate parking for hundreds of potential strikers. A picketing payroll system was in the works, and the union booked flights to High River for its representatives from across Canada.
What’s in the Deal?

The new contract includes a 21 percent wage increase over its six-year duration, thousands of dollars in bonuses, and increased health benefits, including counseling and massage therapy. The contract also stipulates “provisions to facilitate a new culture of health, safety, dignity, and respect in the workplace.”

The plant and the union approved the contract on December 4, two days before the lockout deadline, with 71 percent support. The company’s previous offer was rejected by 98 percent of UFCW 401 workers who voted — one percentage point more than the vote to go on strike.

Jamie Welsh-Rollo, a cryovac operator at the plant, told Rankandfile.ca that the offer the union ended up accepting was a massive improvement on the previous one. A major point of contention with the company’s initial offer was the lack of sufficient bonus pay to compensate workers for the adversity they went through in the early days of the pandemic. Smoothing over this sticking point was difficult, but the bargaining committee ultimately opted for a larger wage increase. Welsh-Rollo went on to say that meatpackers deserve “better wages overall, because the reality is that this is a very hard workplace to work in, so we should get paid for the dangers that we face every day.”

Welsh-Rollo, who has worked at Cargill since June 2018 and was among the half of the workforce that didn’t get COVID, was friends with Quesada and learned of his death from the media. Quesada wasn’t initially named in news reports, so she had to ask a colleague if it was him. “I just started bawling. It was really hard not to know for sure, but to have that gut feeling that that was your friend.”

It didn’t help that the Alberta government and Cargill lied to the workers after the first cases were identified at the plant. At an April 18 town hall, employers told workers that returning to the plant was safe. Bosses excluded the union from this meeting.

Documents obtained by the Alberta Federation of Labour revealed that the province’s chief medical officer of health, Deena Hinshaw, had privately warned the government that, even with the company’s safety measures, cases at the plant were out of control. This was the same government official who publicly reassured the workers at the town hall. On April 20, Hiep became the first fatality of the plant’s outbreak and the company agreed to close the workplace for two weeks.

Her death, as well as those of Quesada and Sallegue, could have been avoided, but the company chose to put production ahead of safety and ignored the effects of the pandemic. According to Sean Tucker, a professor of human resources at the University of Regina and an expert on workplace health and safety issues, if the company had “listened to the union, they would have saved lives and it would have been better for the bottom line, but [Cargill] assumed they knew best.”

This desire to keep profits churning would ultimately prove to be a liability for the company. It played its part in motivating workers vote to go on strike, thus threatening a work stoppage that would have been far more detrimental to the company’s bottom line than taking the effects of the pandemic seriously.
Tense Negotiations

UFCW 401 president Hesse described a tense round of bargaining, the tone of which was shaped, in large part, by workers’ trauma from the past twenty months. “At the time of the outbreak, we were not in a legal strike position, so there’s this ball of sentiment, anxiety, anger, emotion, frustration, stress and trauma that’s all built up,” he says. “They’ve been waiting to express themselves. They’ve been waiting for their moment to arrive. It’s all been bottled up.”

The impact of the outbreak “undergirded every word that’s been articulated at the negotiating table,” Hesse adds, explaining that while union negotiations tend to be oriented around financial considerations, this time was different. “In terms of money, how much is enough? How much will compensate people for what they went through? What is that figure?” Professor Tucker confirms this view, noting that health and safety considerations were front and center in the bargaining process. “This was more than monetary.”

Bob Barnetson, a professor of labor studies at Athabasca University, says the new contract is undoubtedly an improvement for workers, but that the jury is still out on its long-term effects:

Whether Cargill is going to make their jobs less difficult or horrendous is an open question. They’re processing a couple thousand of animals a day. It’s a high-pace line, you’re standing cheek-to-jowl in lumps of gore [and] working with sharp knives in the cold. Even though they got more money and maybe more input into health and safety, that doesn’t necessarily alter the fundamental job design that the employer’s created.

Professor Tucker figures that it will require effort on the company’s part to actually implement its promises to establish a “new culture” regarding health and safety. Tucker believes that an independent consultant must be brought in to establish benchmarks with which to compare existing conditions.

Furthermore, if Cargill truly wants to demonstrate that it’s serious about reform, Tucker thinks that it should consider giving the boot to some of the people in upper management who were around and did nothing during the deadly outbreak. “If you’re going to have your culture changed, you can’t help but address the senior leadership in the plant, and also at the supervisor level,” he says.

Regardless of how the new protocols and work culture are implemented, Tucker predicts the deal itself will have reverberations throughout the meatpacking industry. The industry is infamous for not being “too keen [on receiving] a lot of public attention.” It prefers that its treatment of both its workforce and the animals it slaughters be kept out of the public eye. It’s not like the problems at High River were particular to the plant; the only reason the company is now airing its dirty laundry is because “there’s just more public attention,” says Tucker.

The results of the High River collective agreement will have repercussions beyond the Cargill work floor. The industry will soon witness the extent of the Cargill workers’ contract win when 2,500 workers at the JBS meatpacking plant in Brooks, Alberta, negotiate their new contract. The Brooks plant was also the site of a major COVID outbreak in April 2020, in which 650 workers tested positive, and its workers are also members of UFCW 401. “I would think [JBS] workers are looking at least at this as a starting point for a deal,” Barnetson says.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jeremy Appel is a Calgary-based independent journalist and author of the Orchard newsletter on Substack. He cohosts the Forgotten Corner and Big Shiny Takes podcasts.

 

Workers flock to central Alberta town as 3 energy construction projects underway in area

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Hotels packed, no rental vacancy as 2,000 workers on projects near Edson, Alta.

Stephen David Cook · CBC News · Posted: Dec 31, 2021 

Mayor Kevin Zahara says Edson was hit hard after the oil market crash of 2015. (Kory Lynn Siegers/CBC)

A central Albertan town is experiencing a major economic boost from three major energy projects underway nearby.

Edson, Alta., 200 kilometres west of Edmonton, sits along the Yellowhead Highway and has long been a resource-driven town. 

Currently under construction nearby are part of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, another pipeline project from TC Energy and the $1.5-billion Cascade Energy Project power plant.

Mayor Kevin Zahara said the flurry of economic activity comes after several slow years following the oil market crash of 2015.

Edson has a population of around 8,400 people. The projects have brought 2,000 additional workers into the area, Zahara said.

"We're really in the peak with most of the workers here in our community," he said.

• Here are some of the ways rural Alberta is tackling homelessness

Zahara said before the pandemic, companies would create work camps. Now, workers are flooding into the town and the surrounding Yellowhead County.

"Our hotels are packed — we have zero per cent rental vacancy available," he said.

Zahara said there are downsides to the temporary population explosion — its impact on traffic, crime, and the unavailability of housing that most affects people experiencing homelessness. 

"But overall, it is a hugely beneficial thing for our community."

Local businesses

Karen Spencer-Miller, president of the Edson and District Chamber of Commerce, said local businesses are also benefiting from more workers in town.

"If you walk into any local business or local restaurant in town, it's always full."

She said the business is especially welcome for the service industry, which has borne the brunt of pandemic closures and slowdowns.

Workers have also been contributing to the community through donations to the local food bank and other charity programs, Spencer-Miller said.

The town of Edson, Alta., is seeing a flurry of economic activity as workers from nearby energy projects connect with the community. (Kory Lynn Siegers/CBC)

Companies have provided Christmas bonuses to employees in the form of "Edson bucks" that can be spent at local chamber businesses.

If there's a downside, Spencer-Miller said, it would be some of the difficulties with supply exacerbated by recent floods in B.C. and other pandemic disruptions.

"The happy negative would be a lot of our shelves and that are empty a lot quicker," she said.

Real estate

Spencer-Miller owns Century 21 Twin Realty. She said low interest rates during the pandemic have spurred the real estate market but there has also been an uptake with investment for rentals and workers buying lower-priced properties.

"This month has been extremely busy for people that are needing housing and needing housing quickly."

Henry Boxma, the owner of Re/Max Boxshaw Four Realty, has been in the business for decades. He said housing sales are steady but rentals are unlike anything he's ever seen.

Boxma manages around 150 rental properties. All but one are currently occupied and he still receives about 10 calls a day asking about vacancies.

Local families are also taking advantage by renting out rooms, he said.

"And that's extra income for that family. That's positive because they needed it."

Zahara said construction on the two pipelines is expected to wrap up in about a year but follow-on work like landscaping will provide local jobs.

Building the Cascade plant is projected to continue until 2023. When operational, the plant is expected to employ 25 full-time workers.

"Twenty-five jobs may not seem like a lot, but those people are bringing families to our communities," Zahara said.

With files from Julia Wong

Ducks: Two Years In The Oil Sands by Kate Beaton Gets A Cover Reveal

Posted on December 31, 2021 

by Rich Johnston

Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands is the new collection of Kate Beaton's cartoons from Drawn & Quarterly, to be published on the 22nd of September, telling the story of Canada. And Bleeding Cool has a first look at the cover. To be fair, we just looked at it on Amazon, but no one else seems to have done that. So it's an exclusive and we're taking it for ourselves. Here we go//.

Celebrated cartoonist Kate Beaton vividly presents the untold story of Canada Before there was Kate Beaton, New York Times bestselling cartoonist of Hark A Vagrant fame, there was Katie Beaton of the Cape Breton Beatons, specifically Mabou, a tight-knit seaside community where the lobster is as abundant as beaches, fiddles and gaelic folk songs. After university, Katie heads out west to take advantage of Alberta's oil rush, part of the long tradition of East Coasters who seek gainful employment elsewhere when they can't find it in the homeland they love so much. With the singular goal of paying off her student loans, what the journey will actually cost Katie will be far more than she anticipates. Arriving in Fort McMurray, Katie finds work in the lucrative camps owned and operated by the world's largest oil companies. Being one of the few women among thousands of men, the culture shock is palpable. It does not hit home until she moves to a spartan, isolated worksite for higher pay. Katie encounters the harsh reality of life in the oil sands where trauma is an everyday occurrence yet never discussed. For young Katie, her wounds may never heal. Beaton's natural cartooning prowess is on full display as she draws colossal machinery and mammoth vehicles set against a sublime Albertan backdrop of wildlife, Northern Lights, and Rocky Mountains. Her first full length graphic narrative, Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands is an untold story of Canada: a country that prides itself on its egalitarian ethos and natural beauty while simultaneously exploiting both the riches of its land and the humanity of its people

About Rich Johnston

Founder of Bleeding Cool. The longest-serving digital news reporter in the world, since 1992. Author of The Flying Friar, Holed Up, The Avengefuls, Doctor Who: Room With A Deja Vu, The Many Murders Of Miss Cranbourne, Chase Variant. Lives in South-West London, works from Blacks on Dean Street, shops at Piranha Comics. Father of two. Political cartoonist.

Stunning Observation of a Dark Nebula

By NASA DECEMBER 27, 2021

Credit: NASA, ESA, and R. Sahai (Jet Propulsion Laboratory); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)

This stunning image captures a small region on the edge of the inky Coalsack Nebula, or Caldwell 99. Caldwell 99 is a dark nebula — a dense cloud of interstellar dust that completely blocks out visible wavelengths of light from objects behind it. The object at the center of the image is a (much smaller) protoplanetary nebula. The protoplanetary nebula phase is a late stage in the life of a star in which it has ejected a shell of hydrogen gas and is quickly heating up. This stage only lasts for a few thousand years before the protoplanetary nebula’s central star reaches roughly 30,000 Kelvin. At this point, the central star is producing enough energy to make its surrounding shell of gas glow, becoming what’s known as a planetary nebula.

Caldwell 99 is a very prominent object in the southern night sky. On a clear night, it can be spotted easily with the naked eye as a dark patch, void of stars, next to the Southern Cross in the constellation Crux. It is easiest to spot in the Southern Hemisphere during the autumn. (Northern Hemisphere observers will want to be positioned near the equator and look for it in the springtime.)

Caldwell 99 is located 600 light-years from Earth and is about 100 light-years across.

Eagle, Omega Nebula, Trifid, and Lagoon: Four Famous Nebulae With Breathtaking Beauty

By NASA DECEMBER 29, 2021

Shown here are the Eagle, Omega, Triffid, and Lagoon Nebulae, imaged by NASA’s infrared Spitzer Space Telescope. These nebulae are part of a structure within the Milky Way’s Sagittarius Arm that is poking out from the arm at a dramatic angle. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Nebula [ neb-yuh-luh ]: star-forming cloud of gas and dust. Noun, plural neb·u·lae [neb-yuh-lee, -lahy]

These four nebulae are known for their breathtaking beauty: the Eagle Nebula (which contains the Pillars of Creation), the Omega Nebula, the Trifid Nebula, and the Lagoon Nebula. In the 1950s, a team of astronomers made rough distance measurements to some of the stars in these nebulae and were able to infer the existence of the Sagittarius Arm. Their work provided some of the first evidence of our galaxy’s spiral structure. In a new study, astronomers have shown that these nebulae are part of a substructure within the arm that is angled differently from the rest of the arm.

A key property of spiral arms is how tightly they wind around a galaxy. This characteristic is measured by the arm’s pitch angle. A circle has a pitch angle of 0 degrees, and as the spiral becomes more open, the pitch angle increases. Most models of the Milky Way suggest that the Sagittarius Arm forms a spiral that has a pitch angle of about 12 degrees, but the protruding structure has a pitch angle of nearly 60 degrees.

Similar structures – sometimes called spurs or feathers – are commonly found jutting out of the arms of other spiral galaxies. For decades scientists have wondered whether our Milky Way’s spiral arms are also dotted with these structures or if they are relatively smooth.

Horizon scan: the opportunities and threats facing Earth’s biodiversity

From floating solar farms and volcanic cement to deep-sea mining and asexual reproduction, 15 things to watch

A residential development encroaches on a mangrove swamp near Tin Shui Wai in Hong Kong. Photograph: Jérôme Favre/EPA

Mary Hoff for Ensia
Fri 31 Dec 2021

It is no secret that the diversity of life around us is plummeting. Scientists declared more than 100 species to be extinct in 2020 alone. That’s bad news not only for the creatures themselves but for those of us (that would be all of us) who rely on them for food, to produce oxygen, to hold soil in place, to cleanse water, to beautify our world and so much more. According to the World Economic Forum, nature plays a key role in generating more than half of global GDP.

So what can we do to reduce future harm? One big thing is to identify emerging threats and opportunities to protect biodiversity and proactively shape policies and actions to prevent harm early on. To this end, a group of scientists and conservation practitioners led by William Sutherland, a professor of conservation biology at the University of Cambridge, create and publish a “horizon scan” of global trends with impacts for biodiversity each year. Read on for this year’s top picks.


Floating solar

One of the big challenges for solar power is finding a place to put large arrays of photovoltaic panels. The notion of siting them on water rather than land has taken off dramatically in recent years, with more than 300 installations in place around the world. The approach offers a number of benefits to biodiversity. It saves land resources that might otherwise be covered with solar panels, and it can reduce algal blooms on waterways. It can reduce the demand for other habitat-harming energy sources such as hydropower, and the evaporative cooling water makes the panels more efficient. All that said, the potential implications – positive and negative – for aquatic and marine ecosystems are still to be determined.

Energy through the air

Power lines and the poles and towers that carry them are staples of civilisation. Imagine being able to replace them with devices that transmit electricity through the air instead. That vision is closer to becoming reality thanks to innovations in materials and technologies that create and direct beams of energy. Think wireless smartphone charging writ large. Deployment of long-distance wireless energy infrastructure could reduce the harms that conventional hardware pose to wildlife, such as collision risks for birds and bats. On the downside, it could also stimulate energy use and make it easier to live in remote locations, hastening the destruction or disruption of our planet’s few remaining untrammelled areas.

Electricity pylons near Chester, England. Photograph: Phil Noble/Reuters

Soaring satellites

Think human impacts on biodiversity are limited to the biosphere? Think again. More than 2,000 communications satellites orbit our planet, and under current plans the total could reach 100,000 in the next 10 years. The process of deploying and decommissioning these extra-planetary objects can disrupt the stratospheric ozone layer; deposit aluminium in, and otherwise modify the chemical composition of, the upper atmosphere; and alter Earth’s albedo – its ability to reflect sunlight. These alterations in turn affect the amount and type of radiation that hits the surface of our planet. As satellite deployment soars, implications potentially loom large for the climate, exposure to ultraviolet light and other conditions that affect the wellbeing of living things.

Nitrogen boom?

The pursuit of alternative transport fuels has taken many twists and turns, all with ancillary costs as well as benefits. Recent attention has turned to ammonia as a fuel for shipping. It can power fuel cells or engines. It has almost double the energy density of hydrogen, and poses fewer issues in terms of storing and transporting fuel to where it’s needed. The problem? Ammonia takes lots of energy to produce and can cause environmental harm if not burned completely. As interest in ammonia fuel grows, the authors caution against false claims of it being a “zero carbon” fuel and point out potential downsides, such as increased air pollution, that might accrue from its use.

Airborne DNA detection

Increasingly sophisticated tools for detecting and identifying DNA are able to pinpoint the presence – or even past presence – of all kinds of organisms from bits of their genetic material floating through the air. This capability opens the door to a wide range of conservation-assisting endeavours, from characterising the members of a particular ecological community and locating rare or endangered species, to tracking the expansion of the range of invasive organisms and nailing perpetrators of the illegal wildlife trade. So-called “eDNA” bio-monitoring is already in use for detecting the presence of micro-organisms, plants and fungi, and it appears to be feasible for tracking some animals as well. As the technology expands, so will its applications to efforts to understand and protect biodiversity.

Refrigerant redux

Widespread efforts have taken place in recent decades to reduce the use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) in air conditioners, refrigerators and other cooling systems because of their capacity to contribute to global warming. Unfortunately, one of the top replacement chemicals, hydrofluoroolefins (HFOs), appear to have plenty of environmental issues of their own. They form chemicals that pollute water and air as they decompose, and some produce potent greenhouse gases. Environmental contamination with this long-lasting HFC substitute appears to on the rise. Unless regulation of the deployment and decommissioning of refrigerants improves quickly and dramatically, we risk further contributing to climate change with a shift in practice intended to help reduce its risks.

A scrapyard for old fridges. Photograph: Peter Stone/Alamy

Volcanoes, meet cement

Production of clinker, a key ingredient of cement, is bad for the climate and bad for biodiversity. It requires mining limestone, harming habitats. The process of turning limestone into clinker also releases huge amounts of planet-warming carbon dioxide, from the energy required to heat it up and the gas limestone releases in the process. Cement production is already responsible for about 8% of global carbon dioxide emissions, and demand is expected to grow. Using volcanic material in place of limestone could reduce greenhouse gas impact and would have the possible additional benefit making cement less prone to cracking. The researchers write, however, that we need to weigh the environmental costs of mining and transporting volcanic material against the benefits of reducing limestone use.

Insecticide whack-a-mole

Neonicotinoids are a class of chemicals that kill insects by disabling their nervous systems. Used to control pests in agriculture, they have come under fire in recent years for threatening populations of bees and other desirable insects. As they have been banned in the EU and elsewhere, other similar-acting insecticides have emerged. These substitutes, including sulfoxaflor and flupyradifurone, appear also to harm bees and some other desirable insect species, potentially posing new threats to insect biodiversity.

Spreading without sex

Some insects and other invertebrates have evolved a novel solution to the “can’t get a date” problem. They can reproduce without sex. The process, known as parthenogenesis, allows them to make more of their species when mates are scarce or absent. It also dramatically enhances their ability to gain a foothold in new territory if accidentally introduced there. At least one invertebrate, the marbled crayfish, evolved the ability to reproduce asexually in captivity and is now spreading rapidly across Europe, Africa and Asia, carrying with it disease that harms native species. As we cultivate other invertebrates for food or hobbies, we raise the risk that something similar might happen with other species.

A marbled crayfish. Photograph: Fredrik von Erichsen/dpa/Alamy

Plant-forward food

Animal agriculture is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, and “plant-forward” diets are gaining increased attention as a waynot only to be healthier ourselves but also to help our planet be healthier as well. China, for one, is taking it a step further. Rather than simply touting meals heavy on fruits and veg, it has committed to cut its citizens’ meat consumption in half by 2030. Media campaigns and bans in some settings have already contributed to a decline in meat consumption, and the initiative has boosted synthetic meat innovation. The country’s plant-based meat industry is expected to grow by 20 to 25% a year in the foreseeable future.

All together now

Volunteer groups, non-profit organisations, small-town governments and other local entities can be a valuable source of support for people living in rural areas. It turns out they can be a valuable source of support for other living things too. The number of social institutions globally has grown from 500,000 in 2000 to 8.5m in 2020, providing support for the sustainable management of about 300m hectares (700m acres) of forests, farmland and waterways. If the trend continues, it bodes well for biodiversity conservation as more landis managed in ways that keep it, and the plants and animals that inhabitit, thriving.

Wetland attitude adjustment

The East Asian–Australasian flyway, which extends along the eastern coast of Asia and Australia through New Zealand, is one of the world’s top hotspots for diversity and sheer numbers of waterfowl and other water-loving birds, including critically endangered species. With huge development under way in China, one of the countries with the most wetlands in the world, it’s also among the most threatened. Many areas have been transformed into farmland and cities in the past decade. Recently, however, several changes are starting to shine an optimistic light. The UN has provided a new level of protection to highly significant wetlands in Korea and China by adding them to its roster of world heritage sites, and China has begun to invest in protecting key wetlands. If this trend continues and other countries follow suit, it could spell welcome relief for waterbirds throughout much of eastern Asia and the western Pacific.

Purple swamphens at the Moe Yun Gyi wetland sanctuary in Myanmar.

 Photograph: Nyen Chan Nang/EPA

Mangrove revival

The mangrove forests that coat coastlines in the tropics and subtropics harbour abundant plant and animal species that thrive at the intersection of land and sea. Development has decimated many in recent decades, destroying the biodiversity-nurturing and carbon-sequestering services they provide. In recent years, however, the tide has turned. Conservationists’ efforts to restore and preserve these rich habitats have helped reduce loss, and they have also the accidental beneficiaries of other ecosystem changes. As inland forests are cut, erosion moves soil toward the coast where it can nurture new mangroves, and climate change is creating more of the warm habitat they need. Together, these changes have reduced mangrove loss to near zero, though local areas of depletion continue.

Tidal zone tribulations

Intertidal zones, the areas of coast across which water advances and recedes with the tides, experience daily fluctuations in temperature, water level, salinity, physical disruption and predation. Now they have another variable to cope with: heatwaves. Record temperatures in the US Pacific north-west in June 2021 left mussels, clams, oysters, barnacles, sea stars, rockweed and more dead along thousands of miles of coastline. And that’s not all. Climate change threatens to change the salinity of these complex and fragile ecosystems as precipitation patterns change and polar ice melts. If this keeps up we’ll have more than a stinky mess. The complex ecosystems and the services they provide – stabilising coasts, providing food, providing habitat, protecting water quality – will be fried, too.

Treasure – and trouble? – beneath the seas

The seabed beneath Earth’s oceans harbours abundant bounties of precious metals and other mineable materials. New technologies have made it possible to extract such materials, and one country, Nauru, recently announced plans to permit deep-sea mining. This announcement means that the International Seabed Authority must either set up specific ocean mining regulations or commit to reviewing applications under established, more general UN conventions. Ocean mining may reduce pressure to disrupt land habitat, but it also opens the door to new assaults on unique deep-sea ecosystems and the living things they harbour.

This piece was originally published by Ensia