CFL Players’ Association tabulates ‘overwhelming’ 95 percent strike vote while CBA deadline nears

May 2, 2022

 

By Justin Dunk

Photo courtesy: CFLPA

The Canadian Football League Players’ Association has tallied the strike vote poll as the deadline for a new collective bargaining agreement nears.

In a memo to all CFLPA members distributed on Monday night and procured by 3DownNation, the union revealed its findings.

Your Player Representatives and Bargaining Committee thank you for the overwhelming 95% strike vote received this past weekend while also reaching highs in overall ballots cast. Your support gives us the mandate to press for a new collective agreement recognizing the player’s role and contribution to our sport.

Your bargaining committee has given a clear direction to the CFL that our membership will not attend Training Camps without a Memorandum of Agreement with the League or the certainty that players will not be stranded in their respective cities in the event of a work stoppage. We have asked the League to provide us with a commitment that the teams would cover player costs for those attending Training Camp in the event of a work stoppage, or the CFLPA will be obligated to provide direction not to attend.

In the spirit of these negotiations, the CFL has committed to responding urgently. When a response is received, we will direct the membership on whether or not to travel to Training Camp to start the season. We anticipate our bargaining committee will give that direction to the membership on Wednesday (4th) or Thursday (5th) of this week. 

This decision comes after a full briefing of the current state of negotiations with the CFL, provided to the board of player representatives last evening. The bargaining committee received unanimous support from the board for this direction today. We ask that you remain in communication with your team player representative for the most up-to-date reports.

Your Bargaining Committee has told the League that we are committed to working around the clock over the next 12 days to achieve a fair and reasonable agreement that recognizes the role and contribution of the players to the Canadian Football League. We believe a true partnership is achievable, and we are prepared to play an active role in growing and promoting our sport in every way.

As players, you are the reason fans watch the game, and you deserve a better outcome for your contribution than you are presently receiving. We want to change the financial outcomes to reflect that reality. With your unwavering support and solidarity, we will achieve our goal and hopefully start this season on time.

The existing collective agreement between the CFL and players’ association was ratified in 2019 and amended prior to the 2021 season to help facilitate a safe return under pandemic restrictions — it is set to expire on May 14.

Why a Southern Alberta First Nation turned off the tap to hundreds of area farmers

By Heather Yourex-West  Global News

Posted April 30, 2022

Southern Alberta Cattle Producer Troy Bischler stands behind a nearly dry water dugout on April 26, 2022. Global News

LONG READ

Troy Bischler started to panic. The Granum, Alta., area farmer was in the middle of calving season with 180 cow-calf pairs and he was running out of water.

“We maybe have a week left in the dugout. After that there is really no Plan B,” Bischler told Global News on April 27. “Either that water comes down the canal and starts filling the dugout, or I don’t know. We cannot move these cattle halfway through calving season to another water source. It will not work.”

Bischler farms in a part of Southern Alberta that doesn’t get a lot of rain. Agriculture operations supporting more than 200,000 acres of land and 750,000 head of cattle rely on irrigation supplied by the Lethbridge Northern Irrigation District. The water is diverted from the Old Man River through a canal gate on the Piikani Nation Reserve.

On April 12, the Piikani Nation leadership ordered that gate be closed.

READ MORE:  Details on water blockage for Lethbridge farmers revealed, 2 weeks later

“The river is very important to the Piikani Nation,” Piikani Nation Councilor, Riel Houle said. “We understand the downstream impacts of farmers and other people who need access to the water but (we also) get very protective of our river. It’s sacred to us.”

2:50River water level concerns across Alberta due to high temperatures, low moisture

Houle says the act of defiance was carefully considered. Twenty years after a water rights agreement was signed between the Piikani and the federal and provincial governments, Houle says a lot has changed. For one, the diversion weir on Piikani land is aging and planning for new infrastructure is underway.

“The province wants to come and build a new (weir) and the Piikani Nation wants to be a part of that because it’s a major project that his happening on our land.”

READ MORE:  Willams Lake First Nation launches historic land claim settlement referendum

After five years of writing to the province with environmental and economic concerns, turning off the tap was a last-ditch attempt to get the government’s attention. And it worked.  Two weeks after the gate was closed, water levels on farms dropped dangerously low. The province signed an agreement with the Piikani promising to work together on the water issue moving forward.

“The Piikani need to have a seat at the table to make sure that any work that we do on the weir or any infrastructure system is protecting the environment long term,” Alberta Environment and Parks Minister Jason Nixon told Global News the day after the agreement was signed.

2:18Should we amend Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms, 40 years later?

The canal gate was reopened Tuesday night.

“We’re finally moving in a good direction but to be honest, it took till the (eleventh) hour for them to come and talk to the Piikani Nation and that’s what we were not happy with,” Houle said.

University of Saskatchewan Public Policy professor, Ken Coates studies Indigenous land claims disputes.

“From an Indigenous point of view, this is a source of a lot of their frustration; when we’re put out, when it’s a problem for our communities nothing happens but when it’s a problem for the non-Indigenous community it becomes a matter of crisis or urgency,” he said.  So this is a really good example of the long-term and even contemporary effects of failing to resolve these historical disputes.”

READ MORE:  Ottawa unveils $40B deal on Indigenous child welfare compensation 

Still, for the hundreds of disputes between First Nations and groups and governments across Canada, Coates says infrastructure disrupting protests are exceedingly rare. In most cases, he says, Indigenous groups take these battles to court, where they often win.

“Then the question becomes ‘why are we not resolving them more quickly?’ The answer is simply that there has been a lot of appetite for $100-million settlements, $150-million settlements with First Nations people until recently. If you watch carefully across Canada there have been a whole series of settlements in the last six to eight months.”

2:09Historic Williams Lake First Nations settlement agreement vote

Historic Williams Lake First Nations settlement agreement vote – Apr 25, 2022

Coates credits this change to procedural changes made by former Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould — the first Indigenous woman to hold the cabinet position.

“She worked really hard to speed the settlement process up to get through the rigmarole of going through multiple levels of courts and find negotiated mediated settlements. The Government of Canada has now said, ‘Yes, let’s get these things off the table.'”

READ MORE: Indigenous delegates hope to inspire as world watches Canada’s reconciliation story unfold

Jason Nixon says reconciliation is a priority for the Alberta Government as well.

“We’re going to continue to work very hard with the Piikani on a partnership that is long-term on many of the issues that they’ve raised. It fits with the overall vision of our government which is to work in partnership with the First Nation communities and to make sure we can share long-term prosperity together.”

Elderly Shanghai patient mistaken for dead, discovered alive by morgue workers

The incident comes at a time of high tension in Shanghai, where 26 million people grow increasingly angry with harsh COVID lockdowns

Author of the article:

National Post Staff

Publishing date:

May 02, 2022  •  

Morgue workers discover and elderly Chinese man in body bag is still alive. Source: Chinese social media

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A care centre for elderly Chinese patients in Shanghai has apologized after a man in its care was mistaken for dead and was being transported to the morgue in a yellow body bag.

Media reports say the patient was discovered to still be alive by morgue workers, who alerted staff at the Shanghai Xinchangzheng welfare hospital.

A video widely circulating on Chinese social media showed the moment two morgue workers realized the patient was still alive and alerting staff at the hospital. An account in South China Morning Post says the men, in protective clothing, can be seen unzipping the bag in front of an employee from the facility and inisisting the person is still alive.

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The staff member then checks for signs of life and reseals the bag, against the protests of bystanders fearing the patient will suffocate, the SCMP reports. The staff member then deliberates with two people in white hazmat suits before the patient is wheeled back into the hospital.

According to Chinese broadcaster CCTV, an investigation is underway with severe punishments in order for those responsible.

The incident comes at a time of high tension in China’s commercial capital of Shanghai, where 26 million people grow increasingly angry with harsh COVID lockdowns imposed on March 28. Some residents are sealed inside fenced-off residential compounds and many are struggling for daily necessities.

On Monday, China authorities reported 58 new COVID-19 cases outside areas under strict lockdown, while Beijing pressed on with testing millions of people on a May Day holiday few were celebrating.

What Scientists Know About the Unusual Hepatitis Cases in Children

Officials are exploring the possibility that a common adenovirus might be responsible for the unexplained cases, which remain rare.

A transmission electron micrograph of adenovirus, which was present in at least 74 of the 169 hepatitis cases described in a recent W.H.O. report. But experts cautioned that adenovirus might not be the cause.

Credit...Biophoto Associates/Science Source


By Emily Anthes
May 3, 2022

At least 16 countries and 10 U.S. states have either identified or are investigating reports of unusual hepatitis cases in otherwise healthy children.

The cases remain extremely rare, with about 200 children affected worldwide, according to a report issued last week by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.

But even these small clusters are unusual. In Britain, where most of the cases have been reported, two pediatric liver units have already had at least as many admissions for acute, unexplained hepatitis in 2022 as they typically have in an entire year, according to a briefing from the U.K. Health Security Agency.

Most children should recover fully, experts said, but some cases have been severe. In nearly 10 percent of reported cases, children have required liver transplants, according to the World Health Organization. There has been at least one death, the W.H.O. said.

The cause remains unknown, but scientists are exploring the possibility that an adenovirus may be responsible. Adenoviruses are common, but they are not usually associated with hepatitis in healthy children. And with many nations only now beginning to look for cases in earnest, the scope of the problem remains unknown.

“It’s still early days,” said Dr. Richard Malley, an infectious disease specialist at Boston Children’s Hospital. “It’s hard to predict whether this will become more common or if, in fact, it will just be a blip in our 2022 infectious-disease story.”

Here’s what scientists know so far.

What is hepatitis?

Hepatitis is an inflammation of the liver and can have a wide range of causes. Viral infections can cause the condition; the viruses known as hepatitis A, B, C, D and E are all known triggers.

Understanding Hepatitis

An inflammation of the liver generally caused by a virus, hepatitis carries a host of complicating factors, side effects and stigma. Personal Accounts: What is it like to live with the disease? Six individuals shared their experience.

Symptoms in Children: Hepatitis symptoms in children overlap with many common illnesses. Here are the warning signs parents should watch out for.

Preventing Transmission: With infections on the rise, most adults should be getting screened for hepatitis.

Pandemic’s Effect: A wave of diagnostics ushered in by Covid could help revive flagging efforts to eliminate hepatitis C, one of the most common forms of the disease.

Heavy drinking, as well as certain medications and toxic substances, can also cause hepatitis. In autoimmune hepatitis, the body’s own immune system attacks the liver.

Sudden and severe hepatitis in previously healthy children is uncommon, which is why the new clusters of cases have prompted concern.

Where have the new cases been reported?

In early April, Britain became the first country to notify the W.H.O. of a cluster of unexplained hepatitis cases in children. The cases were unusual because they occurred over a short period of time in otherwise healthy children, and because clinicians quickly ruled out any of the common hepatitis viruses as the cause. They did not identify any patterns in travel, diet, chemical exposures or other risk factors that might explain the outbreak, according to the U.K. Health Security Agency’s briefing.

Since then, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Spain and the United States have reported similar cases, the E.C.D.C. said.

In the United States, Alabama recorded nine cases between October and February. Three of the children developed liver failure, and two required liver transplants, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention noted in a recent report. All of the children either recovered or are recovering, the agency noted.

“The two that received the transplant are actually doing quite well,” said Dr. Henry Shiau, a pediatric transplant hepatologist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and the Children’s of Alabama hospital.

The cases prompted the C.D.C. to issue a nationwide alert, asking health care providers to keep an eye out for similar cases.

Illinois and Wisconsin have since announced potential cases. North Carolina, Delaware, Minnesota, California, New York, Georgia and Louisiana have also identified, or are investigating, possible cases, state officials told The New York Times.
What are the symptoms?

In many of the cases, children developed gastrointestinal symptoms, including vomiting, diarrhea and abdominal pain, followed by a yellowing of the skin or eyes, known as jaundice. They also had abnormally high levels of liver enzymes, a sign of liver inflammation or damage.

Gastrointestinal symptoms are common in children and should not, in isolation, be cause for alarm, Dr. Shiau said. But a yellowing of the skin or eyes are more telltale signs of liver problems, he said.

“The likelihood of your child developing hepatitis is extremely low,” Dr. Meera Chand, the director of clinical and emerging infections at the U.K. Health Security Agency, said in a statement. “However, we continue to remind parents to be alert to the signs of hepatitis — particularly jaundice, which is easiest to spot as a yellow tinge in the whites of the eyes — and contact your doctor if you are concerned.”
What’s causing it?

“That’s the million-dollar question,” Dr. Shiau said. “I want to be up front about this: We don’t know.”

But one leading hypothesis is that an adenovirus — one of a group of common viruses that often cause cold-like symptoms — is responsible. Of the 169 cases included in a recent W.H.O. report, at least 74 had an adenovirus infection, the organization said. Eighteen of those children were infected with what is known as adenovirus type 41, which typically causes gastrointestinal and respiratory symptoms.

Adenovirus infections have been on the rise in Britain, where most of the hepatitis cases have been reported, the W.H.O. said.

But the explanation is not a perfect fit. Not all of the children have tested positive for an adenovirus, and while the viruses can cause liver inflammation, that symptom is most common in people who are immunocompromised. “It is not a common cause of liver failure in kids,” said Dr. Aaron Milstone, a pediatric infectious diseases specialist at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center.

It is possible that a new adenovirus strain has emerged or that adenovirus infections are occurring in conjunction with some other risk factor — such as a toxic exposure or an infection with another pathogen — causing these unusually severe outcomes, the U.K. Health Security Agency said.

Or the adenovirus infections could be a red herring. Because the viruses are so common among children, it is difficult to determine whether they are the cause of these hepatitis cases or whether many of the children have been infected incidentally. “Somebody could be infected with adenovirus and then develop hepatitis based on something else,” Dr. Malley said. “For proof of causality you really need a lot of data, which we just don’t have.”

Is this connected to Covid-19?

Probably not directly, experts said. Of the 169 patients identified by the W.H.O., 20 tested positive for the coronavirus. That is not surprising, given how widely the virus has been spreading in recent months, scientists said.

And there is no evidence that the hepatitis is linked to the Covid-19 vaccines; the “vast majority” of the children in question had not been vaccinated, the W.H.O. said.

Still, a coronavirus connection cannot be entirely ruled out, experts cautioned, and the hepatitis cases may be linked to the pandemic in less direct ways. For example, the public health measures implemented over the past two years may have left fewer children exposed to common adenoviruses. That, in turn, might have made them more susceptible now, according to one of the U.K. Health Security Agency’s working hypotheses.

But that, too, is speculative.

“At this point,” Dr. Shiau said, “we still don’t know what’s going on.”


Emily Anthes is a reporter for The New York Times, where she focuses on science and health and covers topics like the coronavirus pandemic, vaccinations, virus testing and Covid in children.

DIRTY GREENERY? —

“Elephant in the room”: Clean energy’s need for unsustainable minerals

Our need for minerals may strain supply and lead to environmental issues.

SHEL EVERGREEN - 5/2/2022,


LONG READ

Earth Day was April 22, and its usual message—take care of our planet—has been given added urgency by the challenges highlighted in the latest IPCC report. This year, Ars is taking a look at the technologies we normally cover, from cars to chipmaking, and finding out how we can boost their sustainability and minimize their climate impact.

In South America’s Atacama Desert, salt flats are dotted with shallow, turquoise-colored lithium brine pools. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, children chip at the ground for cobalt. In China, toxic chemicals leach neodymium from the earth.

This is the energy mineral rush. People around the world are scrambling, drilling, drying, and sifting to get at a range of metals needed for our energy transition. Renewable energy technologies are central to the fight against climate change, but they’re heavily reliant on minerals—naturally occurring, solid materials made from one or more elements. But extracting and refining them presents humanitarian, environmental, and logistical challenges.

Different technologies require partly overlapping materials. Lithium, nickel, and cobalt are critical to energy storage used in electric vehicles and grid systems, and rare earth elements like neodymium are needed for the permanent magnets used in wind turbines and electric vehicle motors. Meanwhile, copper is a “cornerstone” for electricity-based tech, according to a report last year by the International Energy Agency (IEA).

The report found that to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, overall mineral requirements would need to increase six-fold. In that scenario, the demand for lithium would rise by 90 percent. But those minerals have to come from somewhere, and that often involves harmful sourcing, increased greenhouse gas emissions, and limits on the mineral supply.

This doesn't mean the clean energy transition isn’t clean or possible. It is, and these challenges do not justify the ongoing, unchecked use of fossil fuels. It does mean, however, that obstacles now and on the horizon need to be addressed to get the most out of the transition.

Finite supply

Renewable energy comes from finite resources, at least in terms of what’s available on Earth, though resource extraction from space is an increasingly common discussion. Assuming we won’t be playing out The Expanse any time soon, something has to be done about the mineral bottlenecks expected for renewable energy development.

Supply of lithium and cobalt will be in surplus in the near term, but others, like neodymium and battery-grade nickel, could see shortages as demand rises. In a sustainable, climate-change-limiting scenario, unchecked risks in mineral supply could slow energy transitions, the IEA report said.

In the Atacama Desert, for example, lithium mining has tripled in the last decade, said Javiera Barandiarán, an associate professor of Global Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “We need to continuously tell people this is a non-renewable resource, and it will run out,” she said. “The more quickly we extract it, the more quickly it will run out by a factor that we don’t know.”

“There’s a big elephant in the room in terms of the associated demand for minerals and metals specifically,” said Marco Raugei, senior lecturer and research fellow at Oxford Brookes University in the UK. Rare earth elements like neodymium aren’t actually that rare, as they exist in high concentrations in Earth’s crust, he said. But many high-grade ore deposits are already being exploited, and extracting them from lower-grade ore deposits is extremely costly, more energy intensive, and environmentally harmful.

One strategy to deal with this problem is to move to a more circular economy, he said. This might be a system in which elements only need to be extracted once and then get recycled at the end of their life, Raugei said. The circular economy basically means wasting as little as possible and still making a profit. Lithium-ion batteries, for example, contain multiple valuable minerals like lithium, cobalt, and nickel. “This obviously reduces the pressure on the extractive industry because you can keep using the same assets,” he said.

Still, the circular economy has its own issues and must go beyond supply and demand. “You will never recycle 100 percent of the material,” said Andrzej Kraslawski, an author of the study and professor of systems engineering at Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology in Finland. He also noted that the growing demand for these metals and their long-lasting nature means attaining these metals will always involve mining. “[Recycling] can delay some critical moments, but it does not mean that we would be able to avoid problems—very serious problems—in 20 years or 30 years from now.”

Barandiarán pointed out that it’s essential to ensure that batteries are recycled locally and not shipped overseas or even to other regions within the US. For example, lead-acid battery recycling has been successful on paper, she said, but it either gets outsourced to Mexico or is poorly regulated, as seen in a site in Los Angeles that polluted a primarily Latino neighborhood. “We have many parts of the country that bear the environmental burdens of the rest of us,” she said. “Those areas tend to be areas where Black, brown, Hispanic, people of color live, so we have a major problem with environmental racism, which is beginning to be addressed.”

Assuming that a recycling-focused economy addresses these concerns, the benefits still have some potential to increase supply while reducing associated emissions from mineral development.

Upstream emissions

The major selling point of renewable energy is decarbonization, but building solar and wind hardware has an emissions cost of its own. Currently, the emissions impact seems to be relatively low, but as the push for renewable energy ramps up, so might the associated emissions, most of which occur upstream in the supply chain during extraction, refining, and manufacturing.

“The mining industry is intrinsically, and perhaps inescapably, dirty,” Raugei said. His research focuses on these emissions and other impacts throughout the life of renewable energy technologies. “Unfortunately, reality has this habit of being more complex than we like it to be,” he said.

The lifetime emissions associated with a mid-size electric vehicle, for example, are equivalent to about 20 metric tons of carbon dioxide. That’s about half that of conventional vehicles, the IEA report says. Still, more needs to be done to further reduce this impact, said Raugei, an external reviewer for the report. “We are attempting to avoid what is often referred to as ‘inadvertent impact shifting,’ where you select a technology or a different supply chain with the intent of reducing the impact on the environment,” he said.

“We can cause a lot of harm in terms of depletion of resources, in terms of pollution, in terms of creating huge social problems.”
As we move to more sustainable technology in all phases of the supply chain, it’s possible that the associated emissions could shrink. The desert lithium operations in Chile, for example, are in a prime location for solar power, but it’s tough to know when or the extent to which fossil fuels will be replaced by renewable energy without more comprehensive data. Morocco has many of these sought-after minerals—and the world’s largest solar farms—but it is still heavily reliant on coal and oil.

“We definitely do need to move away from fossil fuels, but we need to remain clear-eyed,” Raugei said. “There are other types of impacts that also need to be carefully evaluated and taken into account.”

For example, producing these minerals is generally a more energy-intensive process than with other commodities. Production emissions for 1 metric ton of lithium carbonate, for example, are three times higher than that of steel, the IEA report says. Compounding this issue is that ore quality has been in steady decline for some minerals, which means more energy is needed to produce technology-grade materials. From 2001 to 2017, as the grade of copper ore declined, the electricity needed for refining increased by 32 percent, and fuel usage increased by 130 percent.

While the majority of mineral emissions are related to the rise of battery technology, wind power may also struggle to reduce its upstream impact. A recent study published in the journal Science of the Total Environment found that when green energy production grows by 1 percent, it leads to a 0.90 percent growth in greenhouse gas emissions. According to the study, from 2010-2020, the use of permanent magnets in renewable tech resulted in emissions amounting to 32 billion metric tons of carbon-equivalent emissions.

“We have to look at the problem of energy or green energy and solving of environmental problems from the perspective of systems engineering,” Kraslawski said. “Quite often, we can cause a lot of harm in terms of depletion of the resources, in terms of pollution, in terms of creating huge social problems,” he said.

Still, Raugei said the emissions problem is transient, as greenhouse gas emissions happen during the initial widespread deployment of these technologies, which is then followed by decades of carbon-free electricity generation.

Harmful sourcing


Enlarge / Brine pools at a lithium mine.
Cristobal Olivares/Bloomberg/Getty

Sustainability is about more than energy efficiency and decarbonizing. It also means reaching these goals without exploiting people and natural places.

“Undoubtedly, we need to transition to renewable energy sources,” said Teresa Kramarz, co-director for the Environmental Governance Lab at the University of Toronto. “That is a big part of response to mitigating climate change and achieving a 1.5 degrees scenario.” However, she said, as a political scientist and “citizen in the sustainability transition,” it’s key to carefully consider who pays and who benefits.

Most raw materials for renewable energy are extracted from a few countries outside the US and Europe. Lithium, for example, is mostly extracted from South America, while 70 percent of cobalt came from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and China in 2019. New mining sites, Kramarz said, often create a “land grab” that can remove people from their livelihoods while degrading human and ecological health. They also result in higher levels of poverty—a well-established correlation for commodity-rich areas known as the “resource curse.”

There are many clear examples of harmful sourcing of raw materials for use in renewable energy, Barandiarán said. Humanitarian issues range from dangerous working conditions to a lack of protective equipment, child labor, and modern-day slavery.

In other cases, the environmental impact is opaque at best, as in the Atacama Desert, where most lithium is extracted through brine mining. Drilling accesses underground brine, which is then pumped to the surface to evaporate, leaving valuable minerals leftover.

Even seemingly barren deserts have life, though, and in the last decade, the Atacama was found to host microbes that have adaptations that might have been shared with some of the earliest forms of life on Earth in tacky clay layers below the surface. These “salt-loving” microbes are extremophiles that resemble life that sprung up in Earth’s primordial soup almost 4 billion years ago.

But recent studies show that as lithium extraction expands in these same salt flats, drought conditions worsen, which could threaten the ecosystem's existence. “This all needs to be done with a constant reminder that we face an existential crisis,” Barandiarán said. Dealing with the climate may be critical, but “if we destroy these ecosystems, we are destroying a fundamental part of what it means to be alive and what it means to be part of nature," she said.

In terms of solutions to the range of harms caused by extraction, it’s partly a matter of inclusion. When a company from the US decides to extract cobalt from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, who do they ask for permission? Kramarz said that answering the question of responsible sourcing has to involve procedural justice—the chance for resource-rich communities to weigh in on decisions before extraction starts. “That will change the lives of people and places,” she said.
More data, better regulation, less consumption

Minerals travel a long way from the time they’re plucked from the Earth to their ultimate destination of a renewable energy technology. Remote mining operations and weak regulation mean the harms along the way are often left unaddressed. For clean energy to overcome its dirty demons, it will likely need widespread government regulation to ensure transparency and incentivize the adoption of green solutions.Advertisement

Insufficient data is a major obstacle, Kraslawski said. “We are jumping into the pool without checking if there is any water,” he said, in terms of rushing toward renewables. “We need much more transparency from industry but also from the governments.”

“There have to be sanctions with teeth.”

Even the Joint Institute for Strategic Energy Analysis—a research alliance comprised of experts from an impressive list of federal agencies and research universities—is missing information. They covered renewable energy technologies in a report last January but didn’t include raw materials in their life cycle analyses due to a “lack of data.”

Life-cycle researchers like Kraslawski and Raugei rely on information from industry, usually in the form of large databases. “These data sets are often incomplete, not very precise, and are not very accurate in some cases,” Raugei said, noting that there has been little economic incentive for companies to use their time and money to collect detailed information.

While some companies do, even well-intentioned voluntary standards for responsibly sourcing these crucial minerals tend to fall flat, Kramarz said. “I would say that where initiatives are strongest is when the shadow of the state is present,” she said. “There have to be sanctions with teeth.” Government regulation, she said, adds an element of fairness from an economic standpoint because corporations are worried about competitiveness and need to know that standards are being applied to their competitors.

It’s also important to look for solutions beyond these extraction-based challenges: The best way to fight climate change is to massively reduce consumption that causes greenhouse gas emissions. Historically, Barandiarán said, we have tended to use more of everything, regardless of new technology.

“When we transitioned from lumber to coal, we still used more lumber than we used before,” she said. “When we transitioned from coal to oil, we still used more coal than we did before.” Thinking of climate change as a problem to be solved through more markets, she said, means locking us into a high-consumption lifestyle. “That fundamentally has to change," she said.

Shel Evergreen is a science writer and multimedia pro working to make research accessible to everyone. She calls Colorado home but is currently based in Boston for MIT's science writing graduate program. You can find her at @shelevergreen.

Fertilizer buyers are eyeing Canada to fill global potash deficit

Jen Skerritt

Canada’s ample potash deposits are drawing “high levels” of interest around the world since sanctions upended global fertilizer markets.

Saskatchewan is capturing “renewed interest” in its potash resources due to disrupted supplies of the key fertilizer from Belarus and Russia, according to Bronwyn Eyre, energy and resources minister for the western Canadian province. Saskatchewan has the world’s largest potash deposits and Eyre said the provincial government is working with companies to encourage more production of the mineral and expects to see “a growing demand for new projects” in the coming years.

“We are a critical-minerals powerhouse and we can be a bigger one,” Eyre said in a phone interview.

Fertilizer markets have been in disarray since the U.S. imposed sanctions on Belarus, and from economic measures taken against Russia following its invasion of Ukraine in February. Russia and Belarus account for about 40 per cent of global potash production and exports, according to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan-based Nutrien Ltd., while Canada is the other major source for the commonly used fertilizer that contains potassium.

Saskatchewan has roughly 1.1 billion metric tons of potassium oxide, enough to supply the world for several hundred years, according to the province’s energy ministry. Only a small fraction of that is in production, with 10 mines in the province operated by K+S Potash Canada, Nutrien and Mosaic Co. Saskatchewan produced a record 14.2 million tons of potash last year. BHP Group has a US$5.7 billion project to build what will be the world’s largest potash mine in the province.

Saskatchewan expects an uptick in exploration and mining projects, though it takes awhile for new mines to get up and running, Eyre said.

“It’s a case of supply meeting demand right now,” Eyre said. “That does take some time.”

Nutrien Boosts Outlook for Potash Sales as Fertilizer Surges


Jen Skerritt
Mon, May 2, 2022,


(Bloomberg) -- Nutrien Ltd., the world’s largest fertilizer company, boosted its outlook for profit growth and cash flow, saying it plans to sell more potash as crop-nutrient prices soar.

The company is projecting earnings-per-share of $16.20 to $18.70 on an adjusted basis; the previous target was $10.20 to $11.80. Nutrien and other fertilizer companies have benefited from record prices as major exporter Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and sanctions on Belarus threaten a massive portion of global fertilizer supply.

Mosaic Co., the world’s largest phosphate producer, reported first-quarter earnings that missed analyst estimates. Total potash production is expected to exceed recent historical levels for the remainder of 2022, the company said Monday in a statement.

Nutrien has said it will increase potash production to fill a worldwide deficit. Russia and Belarus account for about 40% of global potash output and exports, and sanctions and other restrictions imposed on the countries have “significantly constrained supply,” the company said Monday in a statement.

Nutrien has raised 2022 potash sales volume guidance to between 14.5 to 15.1 million tons, with the majority of the extra capacity to be produced in the second half of the year.

“We are estimating a wider than normal range of global potash shipments given the level of uncertainty of supply from Russia and Belarus,” according to the statement.

Nutrien has yet to name a permanent successor to former Chief Executive Officer Mayo Schmidt, who was fired just eight months after his April 2021 hiring to succeed Chuck Magro, who is now CEO of agribusiness giant Corteva Inc.

Nutrien paid Schmidt $9.4 million and another $4.8 million in severance, according to the company’s proxy circular. Magro received $18.5 million, in addition to $8.1 million in severance, according to company documents.

Corteva paid Nutrien a lump sump of $18.7 million for allowing Magro to breach restrictive covenants and work for a rival.

“While we have gone through two CEO changes this past year, the decisions made were both necessary and in the best long-term interests of the company and its shareholders,” the company said in a proxy circular to shareholders in April. The board intends to announce a permanent CEO during the second half of 2022.

ArcelorMittal successfully tests use of green hydrogen at Canadian plant

 2 May 2022  

ArcelorMittal has successfully tested the use of green hydrogen to reduce iron ore at one of its industrial sites in Canada, in what the world’s second-largest steelmaker claims is a milestone for the industry.

Engineers at the company’s operations at Contrecoeur in Quebec replaced about 7 per cent of the natural gas typically used to reduce iron ore with hydrogen made from renewable electricity during the 24-hour test earlier this month. Arcelor partnered with a local hydrogen producer that uses electricity from the Quebec grid, which is powered by renewable hydroelectricity, to source the gas.

“For us this is a milestone . . . The first industrial test done in an industrial setting,” said Francois Perras, chief executive of Arcelor Canada’s long products business.

The initiative marks another step in the global effort to improve the green credentials of an industry that accounts for 7 to 9 per cent of all direct fossil fuel emissions. Some of the world’s biggest steelmakers, including ArcelorMittal, Thyssenkrupp and China’s Baowu, have launched various initiatives to reduce their carbon footprint.

Steelmaking is highly carbon intensive. Traditional blast furnaces use coking coal to melt iron ore and remove oxygen. A byproduct of this chemical reaction is carbon dioxide, while large amounts of energy are also required to heat the furnaces above 1,000C.

An alternative route is direct-reduced iron, whereby natural gas is used to remove oxygen from iron ore pellets. The solid intermediate, called sponge iron, is then melted in an electric arc furnace. The process currently requires natural gas but industry experts believe that once the use of hydrogen made from renewable sources is scaled up, it could mark a revolution in steelmaking. Sweden’s SSAB is at the forefront of such efforts, producing fossil-free steel using hydrogen gas last year.

Arcelor’s Canadian test, said Perras, was focused on proving that hydrogen injection is a “good part of the solution” for direct-reduction plants. “Having this technology proven and eventually scaling it up to higher levels could be a big part of the puzzle to decarbonising our industry.”

The Luxembourg-based company has so far invested $5.6bn in four such projects, in Spain, Belgium, Canada and France. In Europe, Arcelor has committed to reducing its CO2 emissions by 35 per cent by 2030.

Perras said the company would need to follow up with further tests but cautioned that numerous challenges still existed, not least the large volumes of hydrogen that would be needed. Arcelor used 92,000 cubic metres of green hydrogen over the test period.