Lithium ion batteries going cobalt-free; nickel next on the chopping block


The energy startup Sparkz is preparing to mass produce the first high-performance, low-carbon lithium ion battery made in the United States. Photo by Sparkz

BANGOR, Maine, April 13 (UPI) -- In an effort to bring down costs, General Motors, Tesla, Nissan and other automakers have pledged to start building cars with cobalt-free lithium ion batteries.

Meanwhile, a pair of energy startups, Sparkz and Texpower, are preparing to scale up production of their high-performance, cobalt-free batteries.

But with the price of nickel rapidly rising, the need for additional battery chemistry breakthroughs remains.

Old problem, new urgency

Since they first moved from research labs to market in the 1980s, lithium ion batteries have relied on cobalt cathodes. Cobalt offers tremendous energy density, but the metal is expensive.

In recent years, cobalt has accounted for roughly a quarter of the cost to make a lithium ion battery, more than the cost of all the other metals in a battery combined.

As part of a broader push to shrink the carbon footprint of the U.S. economy, the Biden Administration wants electric cars to account for 50% of the auto market by 2030.

Many of the biggest automakers are planning accordingly, but to get more Americans into electric cars, most industry leaders and policy makers agree that prices for EVs -- and the batteries that power them -- will need to come down.

In recent months, federal officials in the White House and at the Department of Energy have announced a variety of programs aimed at shoring up domestic supply chains for the kinds of materials needed to build more lithium ion batteries and electric cars.

Problems beyond cost

Most of the world's cobalt mines and processing facilities are operated by Chinese companies and located in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where mine operators have faced accusations of child labor violations and other human rights abuses.

"Eliminating cobalt makes batteries more affordable and reduces China's stranglehold on a critical mineral, while addressing significant national security and supply chain issues," Sanjiv Malhotra, founder and CEO of Sparkz, told UPI in an email.

Environmental groups have also raised concerns about the impacts of Congo's cobalt mines on soil, air and water quality.

"The motivation for battery makers and automakers is primarily driven by cost and long-term transparency," Venkat Srinivasan, director of the Argonne Collaborative Center for Energy Storage Science at Argonne National Laboratory, told UPI.

"But not far behind that is the environmental aspects and human rights, especially today when there is more focus on those issues," Srinivasan said.

From the beginning, scientists and lithium ion battery makers have known that cobalt was a problem, but it has become more pressing in recent years as the trade war between China and the United States intensified and supply chains faltered.

Last month, the price of cobalt reached $79,295 per ton, its highest price since June 2018.

Replacing cobalt

Over the last decade, scientists have developed a variety of technological tweaks to make up for the performance drop-off when a lithium ion battery's cathode is robbed of its cobalt.

Mostly, researchers have replaced cobalt with nickel.

"The higher nickel you go, the better the energy density," Arumugam Manthiram, an expert in energy storage and professor at the University of Texas at Austin, told UPI.

But altering the chemical composition of a battery is never easy, and even small changes can lead to changes in performance and reliability.

"Too much nickel and the cycle life will suffer," Manthiram said. "It can lead to other concerns, too, like thermo stability."

Sparkz, which expects to break ground on a new lithium ion battery production facility, or gigafactory, and deliver batteries to its first customers by the end of 2022, is the proud owner of six patents transferred from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

One of those patents is the recipe for a cobalt-free cathode material featuring a special mix of nickel, iron and aluminum.

The patented material can double the energy density achieved by lithium iron phosphate batteries, the only cobalt-free battery currently on the market.

"Lithium iron phosphate is commercialized and relatively cheap, but its issue is limited driving range," Manthiram said. "So if people worried about cost, they can use lithium iron phosphate."

Lithium iron phosphate has reached its performance peak, however, according to Manthiram, who helped first develop the technology a few decades ago.

"With high nickel, there is room to squeeze out a little bit more," he said.

International politics complicate nickel use

Nickel is geologically and geographically more widely distributed than cobalt, with healthy deposits in Canada, Greenland and even the United States. However, a small but significant amount of nickel is sourced from Siberia, and Russia has an outsized influence on the nickel market.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has sent nickel prices soaring. Last month, the London Metal Exchange halted the metal's trading after its price doubled in a day.

Though most expect nickel's price to moderate in the coming weeks and months, its volatility remains a concern.

While efforts are underway, it will take time to bring more nickel mines and processing facilities online to meet the growing demand for high-nickel electric car batteries.

"If you're in the battery community, you worry about nickel," Srinivasan said.

The challenge for battery researchers is that science can never move as fast as shifts in markets, prices and consumer preferences. Nevertheless, researchers are already working on the new iterations of the lithium ion battery.

Even with demand for cobalt-free batteries at a fever pitch, Sparkz won't be selling to automakers for some time.

"The process for approval with the automakers can be three to five years," Malhotra said. "As we continue talks with automotive manufacturers, we will begin making batteries for three key markets: agricultural and off-road vehicles, material handling and stationary energy storage."

Often, battery makers must find bridge markets for their products as they work to meet the needs of car makers.

Looking for more breakthroughs

"At DOE, for the longest time, we've supported manganese-rich technologies, Srinivasan said. "For us, the thing has always been, let's diversify, let's not put too many eggs in one basket."

Sparkz CEO Malhotra said his company will continue to focus on re-engineering and scaling a domestic battery supply chain, while federal scientists find the next breakthrough.

"We should allow our extensive network of experts at our national laboratories to focus on research and development and let companies like Sparkz manufacture and scale," he said in an email.

Despite the new challenge presented by the rising nickel prices, Manthiram said going cobalt-free is the right move.

"Cobalt is a problem today, nickel will be a problem tomorrow, and lithium silicon will be a problem the day after tomorrow," Manthiram said. "But right now, cobalt needs to be removed, and that is done by nickel. And that is, in my opinion, the best way to do it."

GM signs cobalt deal with Glencore as rush 

for battery metals intensifies

Abhijith Ganapavaram
Tue, April 12, 2022



(Reuters) -General Motors Co said on Tuesday it would buy cobalt from miner Glencore PLC to use in its electric vehicles (EVs), as automakers around the world scramble to stock up on the critical raw material amid supply chain disruptions.

Global automakers, ranging from EV leader Tesla Inc to Volkswagen, are splurging billions of dollars on developing vehicles for a market that could be worth $5 trillion over the next decade.

However, metals to make batteries that last longer hard to come by due to supply chain disruptions, which has led to automakers rushing to secure supplies of lithium, nickel and cobalt.

The prices of these rare metals have soared to multi-year highs.

Cobalt, a metal that makes up 0.001% of the earth's crust, ensures cathodes do not easily overheat or catch fire and helps extend the life of batteries, which automakers usually guarantee for eight to 10 years.

The cobalt, secured from Glencore's Murrin Murrin operation in Australia, will be used in GM's Ultium battery cathodes, which powers the Chevrolet Silverado EV, GMC Hummer EV and Cadillac Lyriq vehicles, the companies said in a joint statement https://bit.ly/37doJ0r.

They did not disclose the size of the deal.

GM, which has laid out plans to ramp up capacity to build one million EVs in North America by the end of 2025, also has an agreement with General Electric Co to develop a supply chain of rare earth and other materials.

It had also announced it would invest in a U.S. lithium project last year, which could become the country's largest by 2024.

Rival Ford Motor Co said on Monday it had signed a preliminary deal to buy lithium from a Lake Resources NL facility in Argentina.

(Reporting by Abhijith Ganapavaram in Bengaluru; Editing by Amy Caren Daniel)

WH environmental justice advisors press for Justice40 action

BY DREW COSTLEY

In this Jan. 20, 2021, file photo, President Joe Biden signs his first executive order in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington. Biden laid out an ambitious agenda for his first 100 days in office, promising swift action on everything from climate change to immigration reform to the coronavirus pandemic. Key members of the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council say one year into the Biden Administration's commitment that 40% of all benefits from climate investment go to disenfranchised communities, not enough has been done. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)


Key members of the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council said Tuesday that the Biden administration hadn’t done enough to make good on its promise that 40% of all benefits from climate investment go to disenfranchised communities.

Speaking at a press briefing ahead of the HBCU Climate Change Conference in New Orleans, the council members said they’ve secured $14 million from the Bezos Earth Fund for a program called Engage, Enlighten and Empower to hold the Biden administration accountable for carrying out its Justice40 initiative.

President Biden made the commitment in a sweeping executive order on his first day in office. The initiative has been held up as an unprecedented push to bring environmental justice to communities long plagued by pollution and climate inaction.

The three members of the federal environmental justice council leading the $14 million-dollar effort, Beverly Wright, Peggy Shepard and Robert Bullard, have been working closely with the administration on Justice40.

But Wright told members of the press that more needs to be done to “turn a novel idea into a project that works.”

The trio are combining philanthropic grants from the Bezos Earth Fund, $6 million from Shepard’s WE ACT for Environmental Justice, $4 million from Wright’s Deep South Center for Environmental Justice and $4 million from the Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice, to ensure federal funding from Justice40 “goes where it’s intended,” Shepard said.

The effort should “ensure equitable implementation of the Justice40 initiative at the state and local level and empower local communities to participate in the policy-making” that comes as a result of the initiative, a press release said.

The funds will go to educate grassroots organizations on the resources available to them through Justice40, inform state and local governments on how the money should be used, and develop a screening tool to determine where Justice40 funds are needed most, one that includes racial demographic data. Controversially a federal screening tool used by the administration does not take into account the racial makeup of communities.

There has been little change on the ground yet from the Justice40 pledge because the federal government is still trying to figure out which communities are most in need of the investment. In recommendations to the Biden administration, many reputable environmental justice advocates pushed for a methodical, intentional process for identifying disadvantaged communities and disbursing funds.

At the briefing, Wright and Bullard said they’ve seen past federal social and infrastructure projects fail to deliver on promises to disadvantaged communities and don’t want to see it happen again.

“There’s been a lot of really novel approaches at changing the lives of Americans in general that have worked out” benefitting just white Americans, Wright said.

Bullard pointed to discrimination in how flood relief was distributed in Texas, where the Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice is located, as an example.

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Follow Drew Costley on Twitter: @drewcostley.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Battle over carbon capture as tool to fight climate change

BY DREW COSTLEY

1 of 18

The Marathon Petroleum Refinery is seen in Reserve, La., Thursday, Dec. 2, 2021. Last year, Congress pledged $3.5 billion to carbon capture and sequestration projects around the United States, which has been called the largest federal investment ever by advocates for the technology. But environmental justice advocates and residents of legacy pollution communities are wary of the technology, with many calling it a "false solution." (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)


Polly Glover realized her son had asthma when he was nine months old. Now 26, he carries an inhaler in his pocket whenever he’s out and about in Prairieville, Louisiana, part of Ascension Parish.

“He probably needs to leave Ascension quite frankly,” Glover says, but he hasn’t because “this is his home and this is our family and this is our community.”

The parish is part of the 85-mile (137-kilometer) span between New Orleans and Baton Rouge officially called the Mississippi River Chemical Corridor, more commonly known as Cancer Alley. The region’s air quality is some of the worst in the United States, and in several places along the corridor, cancer risks are much higher than levels considered acceptable by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Glover says the air is “terrible” where she lives, but there’s also great biodiversity — osprey, eagles, migratory birds, deer, rabbits, fish and alligators — among the region’s lakes, rivers and wetlands. The environmental advocate has been working for 30 years to preserve the place she’s loved since childhood.

That’s why she is wary of anything that might make air quality worse or threaten wildlife — and her biggest fear now is that a $4.5 billion plant designed to capture climate-changing carbon and make clean-burning hydrogen fuel will actually do more harm to the Lake Maurepas basin.

The blue hydrogen energy plant (BLUE MEANS IT USES NATURAL GAS TO CREATE H2) is slated to be built and operated by Air Products and Chemicals, a multinational petrochemical company. The company says the plant will capture airborne carbon emissions created during production and put them safely underground — a process called carbon capture and storage.

“Sometimes I think people think you’re kind of bubbling this in at the bottom of the lake,” said Simon Moore, vice president of investor relations, corporate relations and sustainability at Air Products. “You know, this is a mile below the Earth’s surface, where the geological formation of the rock has this porous space, which simply absorbs the CO2.”

Still, Glover is worried. “I’m not a scientist. I’m a mom who cares,” she said. “We have got to be better stewards of the environment and while reducing carbon emissions is necessary, injecting them into the basin is not the answer.”

There are several other carbon capture and storage projects proposed or in the works throughout the U.S., including in Louisiana, Texas, Minnesota, Michigan, Iowa and California. Companies behind them maintain they can successfully remove carbon from the air to reduce pollution, then safely transport and store the carbon underground — or do both.

In some cases, oil and gas companies are banking on this new technology to either help build new profit centers, such as plants that make hydrogen, or extend the lifespan of their fossil fuel facilities.

Carbon capture and storage projects are gaining traction since Congress approved $3.5 billion for them last year. The Global CCS Institute, a think tank seeking to advance these projects globally, called it the “single largest appropriation of money for CCS in the history of the technology.”

In the latest report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world’s top scientists said carbon capture and storage technology has to be part of the range of solutions to decarbonize and mitigate climate change. But they said solar and wind energy and electricity storage are improving faster than carbon capture and storage.

Opponents of carbon capture and storage maintain the technology is unproven and has been less effective than alternatives such as solar and wind at decarbonizing the energy sector.

“Carbon capture is neither workable nor feasible,” said Basav Sen, climate justice policy director for the Institute for Policy Studies, a progressive think tank based in Washington, D.C. “It’s merely an excuse for the fossil fuel industry to keep operating the way it does.”

A study in late 2020 by researchers from the University of California, San Diego, found over 80% of 39 projects that have sought to commercialize carbon capture and storage ended in failure. The study cited lack of technological readiness as a top factor

But even if the technology was deployed successfully, several critics say the projects would pose threats to the public health of communities long plagued by air and water pollution.

First, they said any project that prolongs the lifespan of an existing industrial facility presents additional environmental harm by extending the amount of time it pollutes a community, which the IPCC report confirms.

Second, they noted that since carbon capture would require more energy to power the equipment, it would result in more air pollution because the technology can only catch a portion of the carbon emitted by a facility.

Howard Herzog, a senior research engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and pioneer of carbon capture and storage technology, disputed this in an interview with the Associated Press. But he acknowledged there is a risk in transporting and storing carbon.

In 2020, a pipeline carrying compressed carbon dioxide ruptured in the town of Satartia, Mississippi, which caused over 40 people to get hospital treatment and more than 300 to evacuate. The incident is cited by experts, advocates and residents who live near proposed carbon capture and storage projects to illustrate potential dangers of transporting carbon long distances.

Injecting carbon underground for storage could end up contaminating aquifers, according to Nikki Reisch, director of the climate and energy program for the Center for International Environmental Law.

Over 500 environmental organizations, including the law center, signed an open letter published in the Washington Post in July 2021, calling carbon capture and storage a “false solution.”

In response, the Carbon Capture Coalition, which advocates the technology, released its own letter in August with over 100 signatories. They pressed Congress to include investment in carbon capture and storage in any upcoming legislation.

Matt Fry, a state and regional policy manager with the Great Plains Institute, a Minneapolis-based climate and energy think tank, told AP the technology is essential to meeting mid-century climate goals.

“The potential for a completely decarbonized, electrified world is a reality,” Fry said. “But we’re going to need to transition to get there. And it’s going to require carbon capture to address those emissions.”

At the point of capture, Herzog said, the technology poses a “very low” threat to public health. “There’s always a chance of some mishaps,” he added, “but on the overall scale of chemical plants, (the technology) is fairly benign.”

Still, residents near proposed projects worry.

In California’s Central Valley agricultural region, Chevron, Microsoft and Schlumberger New Energy are collaborating to build a facility in the town of Mendota that will create energy by converting agricultural waste into carbon monoxide and hydrogen gas, then mixing it with oxygen to generate electricity with the promise of capturing 99% of the carbon from the process.

Chevron said it plans to inject the carbon “underground into nearby deep geologic formations.”

That’s concerning for Nayamin Martinez, who lives in the valley and is director of the Central California Environmental Justice Network. “That worries us a lot,” she said. “What does that mean in terms of risk for contamination of drinking water?”

Creighton Welch, a spokesperson for Chevron, said the process they plan to use is safe. “CO2 capture, injection, and storage are not new technologies and have been conducted safely for decades,” Welch said.

Back in Louisiana, Glover and other residents also fear carbon capture technology will affect the water. The carbon dioxide captured at the Air Products and Chemicals facility will be stored in sites such as under Lake Maurepas, an important wetland.

Kim Coates, who lives on the lake’s northeast side, said it’s a buffer between the Gulf of Mexico and residents. But she said she’s witnessed generations of destruction to that ecosystem through industrial development and, more recently, hurricanes and tropical storms.

Now Coates fears more of the same if carbon is stored under the lake. “We’ve seen the destruction over time with no one looking forward to what was going to happen in the future,” she said.

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Follow Drew Costley on Twitter: @drewcostley.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

THE REALITY IS THAT CCS IS NOT GREEN NOR CLEAN IT IS GOING TO BE USED TO FRACK OLD DRY WELLS SUCH AS IN THE BAKAN SHIELD IN SASKATCHEWAN
https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-myth-of-carbon-capture-and-storage.html

ALSO SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=CCS

There’s still a way to reach global goal on climate change

BY SETH BORENSTEIN

AP

1 of 6

FILE - Wind turbines are silhouetted against the rising sun Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2021, near Spearville, Kan. A new study released on Wednesday, April 13, 2022, finds that if the nations of the world live up to their promises, future climate climate change can be limited to the weaker of two international goals. According to a study, the world is potentially on track to keep global warming at or a shade below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) hotter than pre-industrial times, a goal that once seemed out of reach (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File)


If nations do all that they’ve promised to fight climate change, the world can still meet one of two internationally agreed upon goals for limiting warming. But the planet is blowing past the other threshold that scientists say will protect Earth more, a new study finds.

The world is potentially on track to keep global warming at, or a shade below, 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) hotter than pre-industrial times, a goal that once seemed out of reach, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

That will only happen if countries not only fulfill their specific pledged national targets for curbing carbon emissions by 2030, but also come through on more distant promises of reaching net zero carbon emissions by mid-century, the study says.

This 2 degree warmer world still represents what scientists characterize as a profoundly disrupted climate with fiercer storms, higher seas, animal and plant extinctions, disappearing coral, melting ice and more people dying from heat, smog and infectious disease. It’s not the goal that world leaders say they really want: 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times. The world will blast past that more prominent and promoted goal unless dramatic new emission cuts are promised and achieved this decade and probably within the next three years, study authors said.

Both goals of 1.5-degrees and 2-degrees are part of the 2015 Paris climate pact and the 2021 Glasgow follow-up agreement. The 2-degree goal goes back years earlier.

“For the first time we can possibly keep warming below the symbolic 2-degree mark with the promises on the table. That assumes of course that the countries follow through on the promises,” said study lead author Malte Meinshausen, a University of Melbourne climate scientist.

That’s a big if, outside climate scientists and the authors, say. It means political leaders actually doing what they promise

The study “examines only this optimistic scenario. It does not check whether governments are making efforts to implement their long-term targets and whether they are credible,” said Niklas Hohne of Germany, a New Climate Institute scientist who analyzes pledges for Climate Action Tracker and wasn’t part of this study. “We know that governments are far from implementing their long-term targets.”

Hohne’s team and others who track pledges have similarly found that limiting warming to 2 degrees is still possible, as Meinshausen’s team has. The difference is that Meinshausen’s study is the first to be peer-reviewed and published in a scientific journal.

THE OTHER METHANE PRODUCER 

Sure, the 2-degree world requires countries to do what they promise. But cheaper wind and solar have shown carbon emissions cuts can come faster than thought and some countries will exceed their promised cuts, Meinshausen said. He also said the way climate action works is starting with promises and then policies, so it’s not unreasonable to take countries at their word.

Mostly, he said, limiting warming to 2 degrees is still a big improvement compared to just five or ten years ago, when “everybody laughed like ‘ha we’ll never see targets on the table that bring us closer to 2 degrees’,” Meinshausen said. “Targets and implemented policies actually can turn the needle on future temperatures. I think that optimism is important for countries to see. Yes, there is hope.”

About 20% to 30% of that hope is due to the Paris climate agreement, but the rest is due to earlier investments by countries that made green energy technologies cheaper than dirty fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas, Meinshausen said.

Yet, even if that’s good news, it’s not all good, he said.

“Neither do we have a margin of error (on barely limiting to 2 degrees) nor do the pledges put us on a path close to 1.5 degrees,” Meinshausen said.

In 2018 the United Nations’ scientific expert team studied the differences between the 1.5- and 2-degree thresholds and found considerably worse and more extensive damages to Earth at 2 degrees of warming. So the world has recently tried to make the 1.5 degrees goal possible.

Earth has already warmed at least 1.1 degrees Celsius (2 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times, often considered the late 1800s, so 2 degrees of warming really means another 0.9 degrees Celsius (1.6 degrees Fahrenheit) hotter than now.

Meinshausen’s analysis “looks good and solid, but there are always assumptions that could be important,” said Glen Peters, a climate scientist who tracks emissions with Global Carbon Project.

The biggest assumption is that nations somehow get to promised net zero carbon emissions, most of them by 2050 but a decade or two later for China and India, said Peters, research director of the Cicero Center for International Climate Research in Oslo, Norway.

“Making pledges for 2050 is cheap, backing them up with necessary short-term action is hard,” he said, noting that for most countries, there will be five or six elections between now and 2050.

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Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Thawing permafrost is roiling the Arctic landscape, driven by a hidden world of changes beneath the surface as the climate warms


Mark J. Lara, Assistant Professor in Plant Biology & Geography

 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

THE CONVERSATION
Tue, April 12, 2022

Permafrost and ice wedges have built up over millennia in the Arctic. 

When they thaw, they destabilize the surrounding landscape. 

Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Across the Arctic, strange things are happening to the landscape.

Massive lakes, several square miles in size, have disappeared in the span of a few days. Hillsides slump. Ice-rich ground collapses, leaving the landscape wavy where it once was flat, and in some locations creating vast fields of large, sunken polygons.

It’s evidence that permafrost, the long-frozen soil below the surface, is thawing. That’s bad news for the communities built above it – and for the global climate.

As an ecologist, I study these dynamic landscape interactions and have been documenting the various ways permafrost-driven landscape change has accelerated over time. The hidden changes underway there hold warning for the future.

What is permafrost?

Permafrost is perennially frozen soil that covers about a quarter of the land in the Northern Hemisphere, particularly in Canada, Russia and Alaska. Much of it is rich with the organic matter of long-dead plants and animals frozen in time.

These frozen soils maintain the structural integrity of many northern landscapes, providing stability to vegetated and unvegetated surfaces, similar to load-bearing support beams in buildings.

As temperatures rise and patterns of precipitation change, permafrost and other forms of ground ice become vulnerable to thaw and collapse. As these frozen soils warm, the ground destabilizes, unraveling the interwoven fabric that has delicately shaped these dynamic ecosystems over millennia. Wildfires, which have been increasing across the Arctic, have been increasing the risk.

Thawing permafrost can cause the ground to sink and crack in places, destabilizing roads and buildings. Orjan F. Ellingvag/Corbis via Getty Images

Under the surface, something else is active – and it is amplifying global warming. When the ground thaws, microbes begin feasting on organic matter in soils that have been frozen for millennia.

These microbes release carbon dioxide and methane, potent greenhouse gases. As those gases escape into the atmosphere, they further warm the climate, creating a feedback loop: Warmer temperatures thaw more soil, releasing more organic material for microbes to feast on and produce more greenhouse gases.

The evidence: disappearing lakes

Evidence of human-caused climate change is mounting across the permafrost extent.

The disappearance of large lakes, multiple square miles in size, is one of the most striking examples of recent patterns of northern landscape transitions.

The lakes are draining laterally as wider and deeper drainage channels develop, or vertically through taliks, where unfrozen soil under the lake gradually deepens until the permafrost is penetrated and the water drains away.

There is now overwhelming evidence indicating that surface water across permafrost regions is declining. Satellite observations and analysis indicate lake drainage may be linked with permafrost degradation. Colleagues and I have found it increases with warmer and longer summer seasons.

This insight came after some of the highest rates of catastrophic lake drainage – drainage that occurs over a few days due to permafrost degradation – on record were observed over the past five years in northwestern Alaska.

The disappearance of lakes across the permafrost extent is likely to affect the livelihoods of Indigenous communities as water quality and water availability important for waterfowl, fish and other wildlife shift.

Slumping hills and polygon fields

The thaw and collapse of buried glacial ice is also causing hillsides to slump at increasing rates across the Russian and North American Arctic, sending soil, plants and debris sliding downslope.

One new study in northern Siberia found that the disturbed land surfaces increased over 300% over the past two decades. Similar studies in northern and northwestern Canada found slumping there also accelerated with warmer and wetter summers.

An ice wedge dated to the late Pleistocene era in Noatak National Preserve in Alaska. David Swanson/National Park Service

In flat terrain, ice wedges are able to develop, creating unusual geometric patterns and changes across the land.

Over decades to centuries, melting snow seeps into cracks in the soil, building up wedges of ice. These wedges cause troughs in the ground above them, creating the edges of polygons. Polygonal features naturally form as a result of the freezing and thawing process in a way similar to that seen at the bottom of drying mud flats. As ice wedges melt, the ground above collapses.

Even in extremely cold high Arctic environments, the impacts of only a few uncommonly warm summers can dramatically change the surface of the landscape, transitioning previously flat terrain into undulating as the surface begins to sink into depressions with the melting of ice in the soil below. Overall rates of ice wedge thawing have increased in response to climate warming.

Across many Arctic regions, this thawing has also been hastened by wildfire. In a recent study, colleagues and I found that wildfires in Arctic permafrost regions increased the rate of thaw and vertical collapse of the frozen terrain for up to eight decades after fire. Because both climate warming and wildfire disturbance are projected to increase in the future, they may increase the rate of change in northern landscapes.

The impact of recent climate and environmental change have also been felt at lower latitudes in the lowland boreal forest. There, ice-rich permafrost plateaus – elevated permafrost islands heaved above adjacent wetlands – have rapidly degraded across Alaska, Canada and Scandinavia. They can look like cargo ships filled with sedges, shrubs, and trees sinking into wetlands.

Why does it matter?

Frigid temperatures and short growing seasons have long limited the decomposition of dead plants and organic matter in northern ecosystems. Because of this, nearly 50% of global soil organic carbon is stored in these frozen soils.

The abrupt transitions we’re seeing today – lakes becoming drained basins, shrub tundra turning into ponds, lowland boreal forests becoming wetlands – will not only hasten the decomposition of buried permafrost carbon, but also the decomposition of above-ground vegetation as it collapses into water-saturated environments.

Russia has a large part of the world’s permafrost. When Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022, some Western institutions paused funding for scientific studies there after years of international cooperation. Joshua Stevens/NAS

Climate models suggest the impacts of such transitions could be dire. For example, a recent modeling study published in Nature Communications suggested permafrost degradation and associated landscape collapse could result in a 12-fold increase in carbon losses in a scenario of strong warming by the end of the century.

This is particularly important because permafrost is estimated to hold twice as much carbon as the atmosphere today. Permafrost depths vary widely, exceeding 3,000 feet in parts of Siberia and 2,000 feet in northern Alaska, and rapidly decrease moving south. Fairbanks, Alaska, averages around 300 feet (90 meters). Studies have suggested that much of the shallow permafrost, 10 feet (3 meters) deep or less, would likely thaw if the world remains on its current warming trajectory.

To add insult to injury, in water-logged environments lacking oxygen, microbes produce methane, a potent greenhouse gas 30 times more effective at warming the planet than carbon dioxide, though it doesn’t stay in the atmosphere as long.

How big of a problem thawing permafrost is likely to become for the climate is an open question. We know it is releasing greenhouse gases now. But the causes and consequences of permafrost thaw and associated landscape transitions are active research frontiers.

One thing is certain: The thawing of previously frozen landscapes will continue to change the face of high-latitude ecosystems for years to come. For people living in these areas, slumping land and destabilizing soil will mean living with the risks and costs, including buckling roads and sinking buildings.



This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Mark J. Lara, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Read more:

2021 Arctic Report Card reveals a (human) story of cascading disruptions, extreme events and global connections


100 degrees in Siberia? 5 ways the extreme Arctic heat wave followed a disturbing pattern

Mark J. Lara receives funding from the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy.

WAGE THEFT
‘I’m really angry’: 2 Kansas City area coffee shops close, giving workers scant notice


Joyce Smith
Tue, April 12, 2022, 

The Northland’s two Headrush Roasters Coffee & Tea shops are currently closed.

“We never used the words permanently closed,” said Eric Schneider, who, with his wife, Nancy Schneider, owns the two locations — at 7108 N. Oak Trafficway, Gladstone, and in The Village at Briarcliff, 4115 N. Mulberry Drive. “We pulled back and suspended operations. But they are closed and they are not reopening any time soon.”

On Monday, they announced the closures on Facebook (in mostly capitalized letters): “It pains us to do so, but it is the right thing for us to do at this time. … Life sometimes throws you a curve ball.”

They said Eric’s 90-year-old mother had a serious fall and fractured her ankle, and recovery has not been what they hoped. That, along with the rigors of running a small business on top of a two-year pandemic, has “really taken a toll.”

The five-year lease is up this month at Briarcliff, and the Schneiders hope the center will hold the building for them for two to three months — based on their history as a tenant and current personal hurdles. But he said the shopping center is already fielding queries on the space.

The Schneiders own the building on North Oak Trafficway. They hope to reopen it this summer.

“My wife and I haven’t had time to talk about it seriously, but we know we love coffee,” he said.

They are still taking online orders for roasted coffee and packaged teas.

Eric and Nancy Schneider opened Headrush Roasters Coffee & Tea in 2012.

But some of its workers are upset at the news and the way they were told.

Dannon Coe, who has worked at the cafes for more than a year, said the staff at both locations had an hour’s notice of a Zoom call Sunday night informing them of the closing — and the loss of their jobs.

Some employees were not able to participate in the Zoom session.

“It was a huge surprise. None of us expected to lose our jobs in that call,” she said. “And my other co-worker was getting married, so some employees couldn’t be on the call because they were at the wedding. We had to break the notice that they no longer had jobs.”

She said they were told they would get two weeks’ severance pay.

“But our hours had been cut drastically over the last few weeks and it won’t include tips, which is about 50% of our pay,” she said. She said the owners have not responded to text messages.

Genesis Hall was lead barista and would have celebrated her first anniversary at Headrush in May. She was not feeling well on Sunday and took a nap, only to find out later that night from co-workers that she no longer had a job.

“Honestly, I’m really angry,” she said. ‘When I started they wanted to know how long I would commit, and I said I could work there for a couple of years and was thinking of going into management. But they can’t give the same respect to the co-workers.”

Fans of the shops posted messages on its Facebook page:

▪ “Devastating news, but we understand. Thank you for being open through the pandemic — it helped a lot of us that couldn’t work remotely, through some very surreal days.”

▪ “Sorry to hear about your mom! We will miss your coffee and customer service dearly! Thank you all for staying open through Covid. … Looking forward to ordering online as your coffee can’t be beat!”

But others who posted were advocating for the employees:

▪ “What about the families of your employees? What about the mental and physical well being of your employees that you gave no notice that you had made this decision to close. .... Do you have regret about terminating an employee during their wedding?”

Headrush Roasters Coffee & Tea at 7108 N. Oak Trafficway in Gladstone has closed.

As of Sunday, Schneider thought his lease was expiring Friday and had to act quickly, he said. But he found out later he has until the end of the month

“I know what we are going through and I know what they are going through. No one is going to be 100% positive,” Eric Schneider said. “There’s a lot of good kids that work for us. We did provide them — and we didn’t have to because we are a small company — two weeks’ severance based on an average of their last three months, because we know hours fluctuate.”

Amazon accused of ramping up anti-union efforts ahead of another warehouse election


BRIESELANG, GERMANY - NOVEMBER 18: A worker packs items while fulfilling orders at an Amazon warehouse on November 18, 2021 in Brieselang, Germany. Many shoppers who fear gifts will be lacking due to the global supply chain disruption are buying their Christmas gifts early this year, both online and at brick and mortar retailers. 

(Photo by Maja Hitij/Getty Images)

Kris Holt
·Contributing Reporter
Wed, April 13, 2022

Amazon is said to have intensified its anti-union efforts ahead of a union election at a warehouse later this month. The Amazon Labor Union told Motherboard the company is mandating daily anti-union meetings at LDJ5, a facility in Staten Island, New York. It's also said to have distributed anti-union literature and disciplined a leader of the drive for organizing on the warehouse floor. What's more, ALU says Amazon has hired anti-union consultants to pose as employees.

Workers at the warehouse, which reportedly has around 1,500 employees, are scheduled to begin a union election on April 25th. Amazon's anti-union efforts ramped up in recent days, according to the report. The ALU recently won an election at a nearby facility, JFK8, which became the first Amazon warehouse in the US to formally unionize. Amazon plans to appeal the union's victory.

Amazon and the National Labor Relations Board in December reached a deal in December, under which the company agreed to inform past and current warehouse workers in the US of their right to organize. The terms of the agreement afforded workers more leeway to organize in break rooms, which is said to have been a key factor in ALU's success at JFK8.

However, Amazon reportedly isn't sticking to those terms at LDJ5. The ALU said the company removed pro-union literature from the break room and took down a pro-union banner after the JFK8 election result became clear. A lawyer representing ALU workers has filed unfair labor practice charges against Amazon for removing the banner and allegedly retaliating against a worker to stifle unionization efforts.

Engadget has contacted Amazon for comment.

Amazon has long been accused of cracking down on workers' attempts to organize. Last year alone, it spent $4.3 million on anti-union consultants. The company's also said to be working on a chat app for workers, in which terms like "union" and "pay raise" are on a blocklist.

The NLRB said the company illegally interfered in a union election in Bessemer, Alabama last year and called for a rerun. However, the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union claimed Amazon interfered in the second election as well. The result of that vote hinges on a court hearing over challenged ballot

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Billion-Dollar Ponzi DC Solar’s CFO Gets Six-Year Prison Term

Robert Burnson
Tue, April 12, 2022, 


(Bloomberg) -- A defunct California-based solar company’s chief financial officer was ordered to prison for six years for his part in a $1 billion Ponzi scheme that attracted big-name investors, including Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc.

Robert A. Karmann started as DC Solar’s accountant and went on to become its controller and CFO before the company went bust in the wake of an FBI raid in 2018.

At his sentencing Tuesday in Sacramento federal court, U.S. District Judge John Mendez ordered Karmann to pay $624 million in restitution, according to court records.

Read More: Billion-Dollar Solar Power Ponzi Schemer Gets 30 Years’ Prison

DC Solar hooked investors on the idea that there was a fortune to be made in the market for its trailer-mounted solar generators. But in fact, demand for the generators was “virtually non-existent” and DC Solar was using money from new investors to pay off the old ones, according to U.S. Justice Department.

Karmann, 55, of Clayton, California, oversaw circular funds transfers and provided false financial information to investors, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office in Sacramento.

DC Solar owner Jeff Carpoff was sentenced in November to 30 years in prison and ordered to pay $790.6 million in restitution.

WAGE THEFT
Newport News-based Jose Tequilas ordered to pay overtime to 97 workers

Andrea Castillo/Daily Press/TNS

Dave Ress, Daily Press
Tue, April 12, 2022

The Newport News-based Jose Tequilas Mexican Grill and Bar chain must pay back overtime pay to 97 workers at its seven locations, most of which are in Hampton Roads, the U.S. Department of Labor ordered.

They are to receive a total of $176,276.71 in back pay.

The Richmond district office of the department’s Wage and Hour Division found the company had not paid those workers the time-and-one-half hourly rate when they worked more than 40 hours a week. It also found the company did not maintain required records, in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

One of the company’s owners said the problem involved equipment that was improperly counting hours worked

“It’s all been resolved,” and the company has paid the overtime, he said. He declined to give his name.

The seven restaurants involved are the Jose Tequilas Mexican Grill & Bar at 615 Thimble Shoals, Newport News; 2052 Lynnhaven Parkway, Virginia Beach; 2101 McComas Way, Virginia Beach; 205 Bypass Road, Williamsburg; 1108 Little Creek Road, Norfolk, and a location in Owings Mills, Maryland. Senor Fox Mexican Restaurant at 1080 Nimmo Parkway, Virginia Beach, was also involved.

“Food service employees are entitled to the essential protections provided by the Fair Labor Standards Act,” said Roberto Melendez, Richmond district director of Wage and Hour division.

“As restaurants struggle to find and keep the workers they need to remain competitive, they must remember that retaining and recruiting workers is harder for employers who fail to respect workers’ rights and violate labor laws,” he said.

More than 900,000 people have left jobs in restaurants and hotel businesses every month since August 2021, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports. Its reports do not say how many moved on to other restaurant jobs or found work in other industries.

WAGE THEFT

Tampa pharma maker owed Florida and Puerto Rico workers $1.9 million in pay, feds say


DAVID J. NEAL/dneal@MiamiHerald.com

David J. Neal
Mon, April 11, 2022, 

A Tampa-based international pharmaceutical company “missed several payrolls” in 2021, and eventually paid $1,943,241 in back pay after a U.S. Department of Labor investigation, the agency announced last week.

That money should have been paid to 139 workers of Romark Laboratories, an average of $13,980.15 per employee. Labor said the Wage and Hour Division investigation concerned Romark’s Bayport Drive location in Tampa and its Manati, Puerto Rico, facility.

According to Labor’s announcement, Romark “missed several payrolls from July 25 to Nov. 15, 2021.” This is a basic violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

“Wages are due to employees on their regularly scheduled pay day. Employers who fail to meet this obligation make it very hard for workers to provide for themselves and their families, and meet their obligations,” said Wage and Hour Division District Director Nicolas Ratmiroff. “In today’s environment, employers who continue to make it harder for employees to earn a living can quickly find themselves struggling to retain and recruit workers.”

State records say Romark registered with the state in 1994 and is headed by president/CEO Marc Ayers and secretary Jean-Francois Rossignol. Romark has not responded to an emailed request for comment from the Miami Herald.

The Wage and Hour complaint section of Labor’s website contains information on how to file a complaint if you believe your employer has violated FLSA. Miami’s Wage and Hour Division office can be reached at 305-598-6607. The national helpline is 866-4US-WAGE (487-9243).

No matter a worker’s immigration or citizenship status, he or she can speak with the department, which says it can handle calls in more than 200 languages.