Latest round of Closing the Gap data shows 'disappointing' progress for Indigenous Australians with four of 17 targets on track

By political reporter Dana Morse

Many Closing the Gap targets are not being met, according to the latest data.(ABC News: Michael Black)

New data from the productivity commission has shown only four of the 17 targets under the national Closing the Gap agreement are on track to be met.

Key points:Four of the 17 targets are on track to be met in the next decade
The gaps in rates of adult imprisonment and out of home care, child development and deaths by suicide are worsening

Linda Burney says the plan only works if there is a coordinated effort nationwide

The national agreement is a plan to improve the life expectancy gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians over the next decade.

Modest improvements have been recorded for life outcomes for children, healthy birth weights, school attendance and lowering youth detention, and there has been some improvement on sea country rights, but the target is still not on track to be met.

The data shows the gap is worsening across adult imprisonment rates, deaths by suicide, out of home care rates, and children being developmentally ready once they reach school age.

'Incredibly disturbing'

Minister for Indigenous Australians Linda Burney says the results are 'disappointing'.

"It's incredibly disturbing to see that a number of Closing the Gap targets are not on track," she said.

"There are some disappointing results in the latest figures – it's clear that more work needs to be done.

Linda Burney says the results are disappointing. (ABC News: Mark Moore)

"The Closing the Gap architecture can only work when all parties are invested and there is a coordinated effort from all jurisdictions in partnership with First Nations peoples.

"I am keen to understand more about how the Priority Reforms are being implemented across the country." she said.

The priority reform areas cover partnerships between government and Indigenous communities, building capacity for community-controlled organisations across health, law and justice, transforming government organisations to be culturally safe and responsive, and increase data collection and sharing.

The government is committed to working alongside state ministers and the Coalition of the Peaks to improve outcomes for Indigenous Australians.

A meeting of the joint council on Closing the Gap will be held in Adelaide at the end of August.
Funding boost to conserve culture

The government has announced a multimillion-dollar funding boost to help safeguard Indigenous culture and languages.

Indigenous languages and cultures being strong and supported is one of the targets under the Closing the Gap agreement, with data showing around 123 Indigenous languages were being spoken in 2018-19.

Over the next three years the government will invest $57 million across more than 80 community activity and language programs, with a view to increase the number of languages being spoken and preserve culture across the country.

Indigenous life expectancy rises in the NT

The life expectancy of Indigenous people is growing more than for their non-Indigenous counterparts in the Northern Territory, new data shows.

Minister Burney says language is a key part of Indigenous identity.

"Speaking languages and embracing artistic expression empowers Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to connect to Country and community which is crucial for our being,"

"You look at a whole heap of Indigenous artists now who are using language through the arts to empower, to keep and hold onto culture and preserve culture." Minister Burney said.

$41 million will be distributed to Indigenous language centres across the country, including First Languages Australia, for cultural programs, language teaching and learning, and community workshops."

The remainder of the funding will be divided across cultural preservation, targeted language teaching and learning and developing digital language databases and community workshops.

NT federal politicians Jacinta Price, Marion Scrymgour highlight Indigenous policy failures in maiden speeches

By Steve Vivian

Jacinta Price and Marion Scrymgour address Aboriginal disadvantage, domestic violence and alcohol laws in their maiden speeches.

The Northern Territory's two incoming federal politicians have delivered powerful maiden speeches, highlighting a "broken" system and conditions faced by Aboriginal people that would not be accepted elsewhere in Australia.

Key points:

Both politicians highlighted alcohol policy in the NT as an area of concern


Jacinta Price said there is far too little national concern over problems facing the NT


Marion Scrymgour said she would focus on challenges facing Aboriginal Territorians


Senator Jacinta Price, a Warlpiri-Celtic woman, said she wanted to work towards positive change in addressing the situation facing Aboriginal populations in the Northern Territory.

"I don't know where else in Australia, a member of federal parliament can provide a tour of the numerous places their direct family members have been violently murdered, or died of alcohol abuse, suicide or alcohol-related accidents," she said.

"It is not good enough that [Aboriginal] children have witnessed or been subjected to normalised alcohol abuse, domestic family and sexual violence throughout their young lives.


"Such neglect in great numbers would not be accepted in the prosperous suburbs of our capital cities."

Jacinta Price's Walpiri grandmother presents her with a nulla nulla in the Senate courtyard. (Supplied: Sky News)

Senator Price outlined one of her goals in federal politics as to "halt the pointless virtue signalling and focus on the solutions that bring real change, that changes the lives of Australia's most vulnerable citizens".

"Solutions that give them real lives," she said.

"Not the enduring nightmare of violence and terror they currently live."

Ms Price had served as the Alice Springs deputy mayor before running for the senate.

Member for Lingiari Marion Scrymgour, an Aboriginal woman whose mother was from the Tiwi Islands and father a member of the Stolen Generations from Central Australia, said commencing her role in federal parliament was "tinged with sadness".

"I am essentially becoming part of the same government which designated both my parents as wards of the State — the 'State' being the Commonwealth of Australia," she said.

Ms Scrymgour's seat of Lingiari has the highest percentage Indigenous population of any electorate in Australia.(ABC News: Xavier Martin)

Ms Scrymgour became the first Indigenous woman ever to be elected to Northern Territory Parliament in 2001 and went on to take the role of deputy chief minister.

Both Senator Price and Ms Scrymgour addressed recent concern over liquor policy in the Northern Territory, following the lapse of alcohol restrictions in many remote communities earlier this month.

The alcohol bans were first introduced during the Northern Territory intervention in 2007.

Ms Scrymgour said the removal of alcohol restrictions, which have seen alcohol flow into some communities for the first time in 15 years, required an urgent rethink.

"When a government puts a protective regime of that kind in place, and leaves it in place for that long, you can't just suddenly pull the pin on it without any protection, sanctuary or plan for the vulnerable women and children whom the original measure was supposed to protect," she said.

"To do that is more than negligent — at the level of impact on actual lives it is tantamount to causing injury by omission.

"I'm not saying that the town camp alcohol measures should have continued, but I am saying that before they were allowed to lapse, harm minimisation should have been properly addressed."

Marion Scrymgour was the Northern Territory's deputy chief minister and Attorney-General.(Mark Graham, file photo: AAP)

Senator Price said the removal of alcohol laws "allowed the scourge of alcoholism and the violence that accompanies that free reign, despite warnings from elders of those communities".

Ms Scyrmgour said she, as the federal member for the electorate with the highest percentage of Indigenous residents in the country, pledged to provide strong leadership for Aboriginal people.

“Whilst anyone elected as the member for Lingiari must of course champion the interests and aspirations of all constituents, the challenges and issues facing Aboriginal people and communities in Lingiari will be front of mind for me at all times,” she said

AUSTRALIA

Climate change, rising insurance costs, food security singled out in CSIRO megatrends report

ABC Science /
By environment reporter Nick Kilvert
Posted Yesterday 

Managed retreat will become necessary for some parts of Australia facing the worst impacts of climate change.(AAP: James Gourley)

Insurance is set to get much less affordable in Australia, with the cost of natural disasters forecast to triple over the next 30 years.

Key points:

COVID and Russia's invasion of Ukraine have heralded a seismic shift in our near-future direction

Climate change is set to triple the cost of natural disasters in Australia without urgent government spending on resilience, according to the report

Food security will be a key challenge, with alternative protein sources necessary to meet growing demand

The CSIRO's decadal megatrends report, published today, warns that extreme weather caused by climate change will cost the country more than $39 billion annually by 2050.

The report is intended to identify the key global forces that will shape our lives in the coming decades, with "the view to guide long-term investment, strategic and policy directions," according to the CSIRO.

Australia's north is already hardest hit by rising insurance premiums, with home and contents insurance costing about 1.8 times more than in the south, as of 2020.

And on average, almost double the number of households above the Tropic of Capricorn — about 20 per cent — are already foregoing insurance, compared to those in southern Australia, the report states, citing data from the ACCC.

The megatrends report also echoes recent warnings from the Insurance Council that at least $30 billion will need to be spent to protect coastal communities from sea level rise, and on relocating some vulnerable communities.

Globally, as many as 150 million people living in coastal areas could be vulnerable to the impacts of sea level rise by 2050, but that figure could be far more if Antarctica becomes less stable, the report says.

What happens to Antarctica will have a big bearing on sea levels.

(Gary Bembridge / Flickr CC BY 2.0)

The report, last released a decade ago, is a synthesis of the CSIRO's own data and independent data, according to Stefan Hajkowicz, principle scientist in CSIRO's strategy and foresight team.

"With climate change, some of the things we were talking about as predictions in 2012 have become a reality for many Australians," Dr Hajkowicz said.

"The floods have been very tough, but the other ones are heatwaves and droughts.

"Heatwaves are actually more deadly [than floods]. We can see what's happening in Europe now, it's pretty shocking."
$2 billion investment needed over 5 years

Insurance Council of Australia chief executive Andrew Hall, who wasn't involved with the CSIRO report, said insurance prices would continue to rise unless there was significant investment to build resilience and adapt our infrastructure to the threat of climate change.

"Insurance [puts a price on] risk and we've been consistently highlighting over the last decade that there have been more and more extreme weather events," Mr Hall said.

"Those events drive larger losses when they happen."

There are both short and longer-term strategies to adapting our housing and infrastructure to climate change, and both need to be undertaken simultaneously, Mr Hall said.

The big picture is we need to change development planning to factor in more extreme weather events, he said.

"That needs to happen urgently. Even if land planning is reformed in the near future and quickly, we've still got more than a century of poor land planning decisions to go back and fix up."

But there are also some quick changes that can be made to existing housing and infrastructure that can significantly lower the risk of damage.

"I think people get very focused on the big ticket items like land buybacks," Mr Hall said.

"But at the household levels and street by street, there are things that can be done to improve resilience now."

There are things that can be done to make houses more cyclone-resilient.

(AAP: Dave Hunt)

These changes could include stronger roofing for houses in cyclone-affected areas, and lifting houses on stumps in low-lying areas, he said.

"We are making homes more resilient for people living in bushfire-prone areas, and we now need to do the same when it comes to cyclone and flood."

The Insurance Council has called for an investment of $2 billion, split between federal and state governments, over the next five years to help future-proof vulnerable towns and cities.

That investment would "reduce financial, health and social costs to the Australian government and Australian households by at least $19 billion by 2050", according to the council's Building a More Resilient Australia plan.
COVID brought seismic shifts

As well as adapting to climate change, the CSIRO has identified six other megatrends that will define our coming decades.

Broadly they are:health;
artificial intelligence and autonomous systems;
geopolitical shifts;
digital and data economies;
resource pressure and biodiversity; and
diversity, equity and transparencyGlobal megatrends shifted rapidly during COVID lockdowns, including a switch to more reliance on digital technology.(Supplied: CSIRO)

Dr Hajkowicz said it would help to understand megatrends as similar to ocean rips: they could carry us along or sweep us away, depending on how we handled them.

"We use the analogy of an ocean rip for a megatrend. The better you're able to comprehend it and understand where it's taking you, the better you're able to respond and survive and thrive," he said.

"Even the climate change megatrend has an upside and a downside, depending on how you respond."

The COVID-19 pandemic, as well as Russia's invasion of Ukraine and climate-driven extreme weather, mean there has been a seismic shift in global influences compared to a decade ago, which makes the timing of this report especially pertinent, according to Dr Hajkowicz.

COVID has hastened an unprecedented switch to digital technology and remote working, which has brought unexpected climate benefits.

On the other hand, mental health has declined during the same period, according to today's report

Russia's invasion of Ukraine also threatens to destabilise global supply chains, and there are "big question marks" over how self-sufficient Australia can be if international supply chains break down, Dr Hajkowicz said.

"The big thing we need to look at with food at the moment is the tragic situation with the Ukraine crisis — high food prices are associated with global conflict and destabilisation.

"The key story in there for Australia is sovereign capability and supply breakdown.

"Can we get all the stuff we need? There are some pretty big question marks above that."
Alternative proteins to meet growing food challenge

Feeding a growing global population under increasingly variable farming conditions is also identified as a challenge and an opportunity, according to the report.

Grazing of livestock is the leading driver of deforestation globally, and limiting red meat consumption has been identified by the IPCC and others as a way to reduce emissions.

Potential emissions savings from different diets, ranging in meat intake.

(Supplied: IPCC)

Although there has been a recent shift toward plant-based and alternative proteins in some developed countries, others are seeing the opposite.

"We're seeing in countries like Australia an increased consumption of plant-based protein," Dr Hajkowicz said.

"[But] through Asia-Pacific we're seeing an increased demand for livestock protein."

As much as 22 per cent of the world's protein needs could be met by alternative sources including plant-based meats and insects by 2035, according to the CSIRO report.

In Australia, where alternative proteins are growing in popularity, it's estimated that plant-based meats could be worth around $3 billion by 2030.

Australia's food supply is expected to be hit from multiple angles, however, with longer droughts a likely scenario in parts of the country, and some seafood stocks are also forecast to take a hit.

"Australian oceans are also warming more rapidly than the rest of the world and over 100 marine species are migrating south to cooler waters," the report states.

"Climate changes are expected to significantly impact Australian fisheries stock over the next two decades."

Dr Hajkowicz said today's report was an invitation to try to understand what challenges are coming.

He said in doing so, we might even be able to thrive in changing circumstances.

"This report is a message to build resilience, to stretch the scenarios beyond where we previously thought we have to.

"We have to get out of our comfort zones and ask: how does our infrastructure and our economy continue to work in this challenging scenario?"

Elizabeth Warren warns that the US will suffer a devastating recession if the Fed doesn't ease rate hikes

Carla Mozée

Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.

 Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call Inc. via Getty Images


The Fed's aggressive rate-hike cycle risks pushing the US economy into a recession, Senator Elizabeth Warren said Wednesday.

 
Before the Fed's latest increase, she told CNBC the fast pace of tightening won't control some of the factors contributing to elevated inflation.

 
The Federal Open Market Committee on Wednesday raised rates by another 75 basis points, as expected.

This year's pace of fast and big interest rate increases by the Federal Reserve puts the US economy at risk of a recession and won't tame hot inflation, US Senator Elizabeth Warren told CNBC on Wednesday.

The Democrat representing Massachusetts was interviewed before the Federal Open Market Committee delivered its fourth rate hike of 2022. The increase of 75 basis points was widely expected and puts the fed funds rate at a range of 2.25% to 2.5%.

The Fed has embarked on an aggressive rate-hiking cycle as it races to pull down high consumer price inflation. US CPI soared to 9.1% in June, the highest rate since November 1981.

Supply chain problems, COVID outbreaks worldwide, Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine in February, and "near-monopolies that are engaging in price gouging" are some of the causes of high inflation, the lawmaker said.

"And increases in the interest rate won't fix any of this," said Warren, adding that Fed Chairman Jerome Powell has "admitted" to that in testimony before Congress.

"And yet he continues to drive forward with what so far have been historically fast, aggressive, high interest rate increases. So if it's not going to help bring down a lot of the prices in our economy, what it can do is actually pitch this economy into a recession," she said. "So I think that that's something the Fed should consider and I think they should moderate this aggressive attack."

During his press briefing Wednesday afternoon, Powell said a slower pace of increases will likely be appropriate as rates gets more restrictive.

Since the Fed began raising rates in March, they have gone up by 25, 50 and 75 basis points. The latest one matched June's hike of 75 basis points, which was the first since 1994 when Alan Greenspan was serving as the head of the US central bank.

Stocks this year have been pushed into a bear market on concerns that the series of rate hikes will pull the world's largest economy into a recession.

US GDP in the first quarter contracted by 1.6%, and a second straight quarter of declines would mark a so-called technical recession. An initial reading of second-quarter GDP is due on Thursday. An Econoday consensus estimate puts growth at 0.5%, with estimates ranging from a contraction of 1.1% to an expansion of 1.5%.

"Recent indicators of spending and production have softened. Nonetheless, job gains have been robust in recent months, and the unemployment rate has remained low," the FOMC said in a statement Wednesday. Members of the committee voted unanimously to kick up borrowing rates.

The Fed said inflation remains elevated, reflecting supply and demand imbalances related to the pandemic, higher food and energy prices, and broader price pressures.

The central bank in aiming to tackle inflation and depress demand "is trying to sharply raise rates so that businesses will contract so that they will either cut hours for employees or lay employees off. That means a lot of pain imposed on people," said Warren.

"[We] need to have responses that are calibrated to the problem. And we need to be very careful about saying the solution is to put more people out of work," she said.

Richard Wolff: Fed Rate Hikes Are "Body Blow" to Workers Reeling from Pandemic, Growing Inequality

Jul 27, 2022


Democracy Now!
We speak with Marxist economist Richard Wolff about how experts forecast another economic recession in the United States, with inflation at a historic high and a federal minimum wage that hasn't changed for 13 years. The Federal Reserve plan to combat rising inflation by raising interest rates delivers a "body blow to a working class" already suffering from decades of upward wealth redistribution and a pandemic, says Wolff, emeritus professor of economics at University of Massachusetts Amherst and visiting professor at The New School. His latest book is "The Sickness Is the System: When Capitalism Fails to Save Us from Pandemics or Itself." Democracy Now! is an independent global news hour that airs on over 1,500 TV and radio stations Monday through Friday. 

Watch our livestream at https://democracynow.org Mondays to Fridays 8-9 a.m. ET

WRITTEN TRANSCRIPTS AVAILABLE AT THIS SITE AS WELL AS VIDEO

Canadian Premium Sand Inc. Announces $8 Million Equity Financing to Advance Plans to Construct North America's Only Vertically Integrated Patterned Solar Glass Manufacturing Facility

CALGARY, Alberta, July 27, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Canadian Premium Sand Inc. (“CPS” or the “Company”) (TSXV: CPS) is pleased to announce it has entered into an agreement with Peters & Co. Limited and Fort Capital Partners (together, the “Agents“) in connection with a best efforts private placement financing of up to 27,000,000 units of the Company (each, a “Unit“) at a price of $0.30 per Unit (the “Issue Price”) for gross proceeds to the Company of up to $8,100,000 (the “Offering”).

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Each Unit will consist of one common share of the Company (a “Common Share“) and one common share purchase warrant (a “Warrant“). Each Warrant will entitle the holder thereof to purchase one Common Share at an exercise price of $0.40 for a period of twenty-four (24) months following closing at a price of $0.40 per Common Share.

In the event that the Common Shares trade at a closing price at or greater than $0.90 per Common Share for a period of thirty (30) consecutive trading days, the Company may accelerate the expiry date of the Warrants by giving notice to the holders thereof, and in such case, the Warrants will expire on the 30th day after the date on which such notice is given by the Company.

As part of the Offering, management and directors of CPS, as well as certain of the Company’s largest shareholders, including Paramount Resources Ltd. and David J. Wilson, have indicated they will subscribe for approximately 25% of the Offering, to maintain their current ownership position in the Company.

The net proceeds from the Offering will be used to advance the Company’s vertically integrated patterned solar glass manufacturing facility to a shovel-ready state, such that it is ready to commence construction by Q1 2023.

Detailed use of proceeds and key milestones to be achieved include:

• Completion of detailed engineering and designs to enhance the capital cost estimate of the project to a 95% confidence interval (up from 80% currently);
• Securing the land parcel identified in Selkirk, Manitoba and the building permits associated with the facility;
• Securing all environmental and regulatory permits needed to commence construction;
• Enhancing the sand resource estimate to provide improved certainty for construction financing and future growth phases;
• Generating sample pieces of solar glass using the Company’s low-iron silica sand feedstock for product testing and quality control; and
• General corporate purposes, including the advancement of commercial offtake agreements

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The Company continues to make significant progress with respect to commercial offtake agreements as demonstrated by the memorandum of understanding (“MOU”) that was announced on July 21, 2022 with Hanwha Solutions (“Hanwha”). Hanwha is a Korean-based manufacturing conglomerate that owns and controls Qcells Division, the largest solar panel manufacturer in North America.

The Offering will be conducted in all provinces of Canada pursuant to private placement exemptions and in such other jurisdictions as are agreed to by the Company and the Agents in accordance with applicable law.

The Offering is expected to close on or about August 31, 2022, subject to certain conditions, including, but not limited to, the receipt of all necessary approvals, including the conditional approval of the TSX Venture Exchange (the “TSX-V”). The Company will apply to list the Common Shares to be issued pursuant to the Offering on the TSX-V.

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The securities being offered under the Offering will be issued pursuant to applicable exemptions from the prospectus requirements under applicable securities laws and will be subject to a hold period that will expire four months and one day from the date of issue.

The securities described herein have not been, and will not be, registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the “U.S. Securities Act”) or any state securities laws and accordingly may not be offered or sold within the United States or to “U.S. persons”, as such term is defined in Regulation S promulgated under the U.S. Securities Act (“U.S. Persons”), except in compliance with the registration requirements of the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities requirements or pursuant to exemptions therefrom. This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any of the Company’s securities to, or for the account of benefit of, persons in the United States or U.S. Persons.

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About Canadian Premium Sand Inc.
The Company is developing manufacturing capacity for ultra high-clarity patterned solar glass through a Company-owned facility to be located in Selkirk, Manitoba that utilizes the high-purity, low-iron silica sand from its wholly owned Wanipigow quarry leases and renewable Manitoba hydroelectricity. The Company is a reporting issuer in Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia. Its shares trade on the TSXV under the symbol “CPS”.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.  

Qcells to secure solar glass from Canada for its US manufacturing operation

Canadian Premium Sand and Hanwha sign an agreement for patterned solar glass manufactured in Manitoba.

JULY 22, 2022 

ANNE FISCHER

A Qcells distributed rooftop solar installation.

From pv magazine USA

South Korea-based Hanwha Group, the parent corporation of Qcells, is establishing a low-carbon solar supply chain to support its solar energy growth strategy in North America, where it is constructing a manufacturing facility in Georgia to nearly double its total US production capacity to over 3 GW. In keeping with its intent to source low-carbon products domestically, the company has signed an agreement to source solar glass from Canadian Premium Sand (CPS).

“Following a tour of our planned facilities in Manitoba and meetings in Calgary with members of Hanwha’s management team in June of 2022, we are delighted to enter into an MOU with Hanwha regarding long-term supply of our low-carbon, patterned solar glass,” said Glenn Leroux, CPS president. “Hanwha’s North American solar glass demand requirements of over 3 gigawatts of module manufacturing represents over 80% of our planned Phase 1 production capacity.”

CPS will manufacture patterned solar glass in a new facility in Selkirk, Manitoba that uses the high-purity, low-iron silica sand from its wholly owned Wanipigow quarry leases. CPS intends to power the facility with renewable energy, which reduces the carbon footprint of the glass. The company also intends to use recycled water in the manufacturing process along with waste heat recovery. The initial facility (phase 1) will have an annual production of 20 million square meters or the equivalent of 4 GW of solar panel manufacturing demand. The location in Manitoba has room for 4 such facilities in total. CPS expects to be manufacturing at full capacity in the first facility by 2025.

As Qcells expands its manufacturing footprint in North America, the company sees “tremendous value in securing supply from a trusted partner that is proximal to our operations,” a company spokesperson said. “Additionally, the integrated nature of CPS’ operation with its wholly-owned sand resource and the use of renewable hydro-electricity in its manufacturing process offer excellent alignment with our low-carbon objectives.”

In May Qcells announced that its new solar panel manufacturing facility, expected to come online in 2023, will be located in Dalton, Georgia near where the company already operates a 1.7 GW module factory. In March, Hanwha Solutions, parent corporation of Qcells, announced that it was stepping up efforts to supply customers with “Made-in-America” products when it became the largest shareholder of REC Silicon, a major US manufacturer of polysilicon. Following its initial $160 million acquisition to acquire a 16.67% stake in REC Silicon in January 2022, Hanwha announced that it was acquiring an additional 4.67% stake from Aker Horizons in a deal valued at around $44 million.

Hanwha’s US initiative supports the Biden administration’s efforts to increase solar power generation by 40% and to decarbonize all electricity by 2035. Hanwha sees the enactment of the Solar Energy Manufacturing Act (SEMA) as critical to a US-based solar supply chain. While Hanwha had stated that it would “…implement a multi-phase, multi-billion-dollar expansion across the full solar energy supply chain” once SEMA was passed, the expansion has begun.

Solar’s Surging US Job Market Leaves Women and Black Workers Behind

Brian Eckhouse, Bloomberg News

An employee of SunPower Corp. trims the edges and checks solar panels at the SunPower Corp. module manufacturing plant at Flextronics in Milpitas, California, U.S., on Wednesday, Aug. 24, 2011. , Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- The US solar industry made inroads at boosting employment levels for women and Black workers in the past two years, though one of the nation’s fastest-growing job markets still falls short on diversity.

Women made up 29.6% of US solar employees last year, according to an Interstate Renewable Energy Council report. That’s up from 26% of the industry in 2019, though lags the 47% of women in the overall US workforce. Black workers accounted for 8.2% of solar workers, a 0.5% gain from two years ago, though it lags the 12% national average, according to the report published Tuesday.

“Having higher numbers of women is still good progress in areas that traditionally have hired men -- construction-type jobs,” Larry Sherwood, president of the nonprofit group, said in an interview. “Obviously, it’s a long-term process to increase percentage numbers.”

The struggles of solar -- an industry long championed by progressives -- underscore the challenge of improving the gender makeup of industries heavy in construction jobs. The report found that two-thirds of the 255,000 US solar jobs last year were in installation and project development. Solar installers are seen as the fifth fastest-growing occupation in the US, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The report also found that 31% of solar firms had strategies to boost the number of female hires, while 26% had initiatives to hire ethnic or racial minorities and only 8% of companies had programs to target LGBTQ+ hires.

Overall, solar jobs grew 9% last year as installations hit a US record. The industry has grappled with a series of challenges this year that have slowed projects, including trade and supply-chain constraints, which could hurt job growth.

©2022 Bloomberg L.P.

US solar jobs increased 9% in 2021 – here’s

how it breaks down by sector and state

Michelle Lewis
- Jul. 26th 2022 



Solar energy jobs were up in 47 states and increased 9% percent across the United States from 2020 to 2021, reaching a total of 255,037 solar workers, reports the independent nonprofit Interstate Renewable Energy Council (IREC).

According to IREC’s annual National Solar Jobs Census released today, this job growth took place in a year of record solar installations. Overall, the solar industry added 21,563 jobs in 2021, with more than two-thirds of these new jobs (14,350) at installation and project development firms.

Larry Sherwood, president and CEO at IREC, said:

America’s solar industry came back strong from the pandemic to expand the clean energy workforce across all regions of the country.

The future remains uncertain in light of the supply chain disruptions, trade issues, and stalled federal policy in the first part of 2022. There is potential for unprecedented job growth in the coming years if federal, state, and local leaders take action to expand clean energy use and address climate change.

Over the past decade, US solar employment has more than doubled from 105,145 jobs in 2011 to 255,037 jobs in 2021. The most significant growth has taken place in the installation and project development sector, where employment more than tripled since 2011 to reach 168,960 jobs in 2021.

When it comes to the total number of solar jobs at the state level, California continues to lead with 75,712 jobs as of 2021, followed by Florida (11,761 jobs), Massachusetts (10,548 jobs), New York (10,524 jobs), and Texas (10,346 jobs). Those states are followed by Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, and Ohio, each with 7,000 to 9,000 jobs.

California also led for the number of jobs added in 2021 (7,035 new jobs), followed by Massachusetts (+1,053 jobs), Nevada (+1,019 jobs), and Arizona (+932 jobs). Other strong growth states were Ohio, North Carolina, New Jersey, and Georgia, each with 800 to 900 new jobs.

The solar industry needs to up its game when it comes to diversity, equity, and inclusion. The report found that women made up just under 30% of the solar workforce in 2021, while Black employees made up 8% of the workforce, Latino or Hispanic workers made up 20%, and Asian workers made up 9%. Fewer than one-third of solar firms reported strategies to increase female, ethnic or racial minority, or LGBTQ+ hires.

And in a year with a tight labor market, 89% of firms reported difficulty finding qualified applicants, and 35% said it was “very difficult.” Only 31% of entry-level solar jobs require a bachelor’s degree, while 65% of firms provide on-the-job training.

According to the 2022 US Energy and Employment Report, clean energy jobs are growing in every sector, and jobs in net-zero emissions aligned areas made up approximately 40% of total energy jobs in 2021.

Take the nuclear option for low-cost, 24/7 clean-hydrogen production, says new global coalition

A view of the Grohnde nuclear power plant in Germany, which was decommissioned at the end of last year as part of the country's planned phase-out of atomic power.Photo: Getty

The Nuclear Hydrogen Initiative — a collaboration of more than 40 companies and organisations from around the world — is launched today to promote uranium-derived H2

Zero-carbon hydrogen produced from nuclear power is “a critical climate solution”, according to a new global coalition launched today that aims to advance the development of nuclear H2.

“Nuclear technologies have the potential to produce hydrogen in a clean, efficient manner, and at the potential scale required to drive decarbonisation in hard-to-abate energy sectors without the space constraints of other means of hydrogen production,” says the Nuclear Hydrogen Initiative (NHI).

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW | Would nuclear hydrogen cost the earth? Not if West learns lessons from Asia, says new global coalition

“This hydrogen generation pathway has several important benefits, including that it... [can provide] reliable clean energy at scale 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.”

Nuclear power’s ability to operate at full capacity for more than 90% of the year (ie, at a capacity factor of over 90%) gives it two advantages over variable renewables when it comes to clean hydrogen production.

The more hours per year that an electrolyser is running at full capacity, the lower the levelised cost of hydrogen. So an electrolyser operating around the clock — as opposed to only when the wind is blowing or the sun is shining — could potentially result in cheap H2 (presuming a low cost of electricity).

Also, due to the higher capacity factors, a 1GW nuclear plant could produce five times as much hydrogen as a 1GW solar plant over the same period of time.

For example, the International Energy Agency says that 520 million tonnes of clean hydrogen would be required annually by 2050 in a net-zero world. If this total were to be supplied by electrolysers, it would only require 3.3TW of nuclear power — compared to 16.5TW of solar, 13.5TW of onshore wind or 8.25TW of offshore wind, according to Recharge calculations (see panel below).

“Nuclear has several unique features, such as its high capacity factors and ability to produce not just electricity but also heat,” NHI spokesperson Elina Teplinsky tells Recharge. “Note that the biggest component of the cost of hydrogen is the cost of electricity. Nuclear electricity plus heat — which is currently unused — can be paired with high-temperature steam electrolysis; those [solid-oxide] electrolysers require less electricity and can produce hydrogen in a more efficient way, which would bring down costs.”


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Nuclear hydrogen — also known as pink H2 — could also indirectly help atomic power stations to balance the grid, she adds. Existing nuclear power plants are difficult to ramp up and down, but if their output could be diverted to electrolysers at times when there is a lot of wind and solar power on the grid, it could prevent wind and solar curtailment and wholesale prices from falling to zero or below — ensuring greater profits for renewables developers.

Similarly, nuclear power operating in this way would effectively back up the grid at times when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining by diverting its output away from electrolysers and back to the transmission network.

“That is one of the models that several nuclear operators are pursuing today,” says Teplinsky. “This is one of the many ways that nuclear is complementary to renewables and the two technologies can work together.”
Cost of nuclear power

But isn’t nuclear energy incredibly expensive? After all, the UK’s under-construction Hinkley Point C power plant will receive a guaranteed £92.50 per MWh (at 2012 prices, but rising with inflation) for 35 years — making it almost three times more expensive than the latest offshore wind prices.

“Hinkley Point C is an outlier in terms of LCOE costs, rather than the norm,” says Teplinksy, a US-based lawyer focusing on hydrogen and nuclear power at the global law firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman. “Actual data from organizations such as the IEA shows that nuclear energy — despite often not benefitting from recognition of its zero-carbon value when it comes to government incentives – has [an] LCOE [levelised cost of energy] that is on average not only competitive with renewables, but is often lower.”

“We at the Nuclear Hydrogen Initiative believe that… nuclear hydrogen, once produced at scale, can be competitive with fossil-produced hydrogen.”

According to French financial advisers Lazard, which publishes a well-respected annual LCOE analysis report, the cost of new nuclear power is currently in the range of $131-204/MWh, while existing fully depreciated nuclear facilities have a marginal running cost of about $29/MWh.

By contrast, new utility-scale solar power costs $28-41/MWh, with new onshore wind at $26-50/MWh, and an average of $83/MWh for offshore wind.


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Aims and partners

The NHI describes itself as a coalition of more than 40 global companies and organizations “working to advance nuclear hydrogen as a critical climate solution”.

“The initiative will engage policymakers, businesses, investors, and other key stakeholders to raise awareness of the important role nuclear hydrogen can play in delivering carbon-free, secure and affordable energy,” it said in its launch statement.

“NHI will facilitate the development of nuclear hydrogen demonstrations, engage the financial sector in nuclear hydrogen development, catalyze commercial partnerships and advocate for policies that support nuclear hydrogen deployment.”

The 47 companies and organisations that have so far signed up include electrolyser makers such as Cummins, Nel and Siemens, nuclear industry associations, the International Atomic Energy Agency, equipment suppliers, consultants, engineers, non-governmental organisations, and nuclear power operators including America's largest, Constellation Energy. (For the full list, click here.)

“We envision our nuclear plants becoming versatile clean energy centers that not only generate 24/7 carbon-free electricity for the grid, but also bring together clean hydrogen, renewables and other new and emerging technologies to power every corner of our economy,” said Colleen Wright, vice-president of corporate strategy at Constellation. “Climate experts agree we can’t fully solve the climate crisis without abundant sources of hydrogen, and nuclear energy remains the most efficient and economical way to produce it on the scale we need.”

HOW RECHARGE CALCULATED THE HYDROGEN/POWER CAPACITY FIGURES ABOVE

Based on an electrolyser requiring 50kWh to produce one kilogram of hydrogen, 520 million tonnes of H2 would need 26,000TWh — or 2.97TW of power operating at 100% capacity constantly throughout the year.

Of course, not even a nuclear plant can do that, operating at the equivalent of full capacity for about 90% of the time, on average — a capacity factor (CF) of about 90%. By comparison, solar has a CF of about 18%, with onshore wind at around 22% and offshore wind at 36%.

So if all the 520 million tonnes of clean hydrogen required in 2050 were to be met by nuclear power, operating with a 90% capacity factor, it would require 3.3TW. Solar power, with a five times lower capacity factor would require five times more power (16.5TW).

UK
A new nuclear power station needs a vast supply of water. But where will Sizewell C get it from?

Plans for the site have got the go-ahead. The knock-on effect for Suffolk’s rivers and seawater will soon be clear

‘A reactor of the kind EDF plans to build needs water in very great volumes.’ 

Photograph: EDF

William Atkins
Wed 27 Jul 2022 

Last week, the government gave the go-ahead for a new nuclear power station to be developed on the Suffolk coast. Providing low-carbon electricity for about 6m homes, Sizewell C will stand alongside two existing stations, Sizewell B and the decommissioned Sizewell A. I live close enough to see the 60-metre tall, white dome of Sizewell B almost every day. When I want to torture myself, I look at developer EDF’s “construction phase visualisations” of the 1,380-acre building site, with its towering spoil heaps and forest of cranes, and wonder if this is what it will take to save the planet.

What might not have been immediately obvious in the coverage of the government’s decision was that the Planning Inspectorate, tasked with assessing such projects, had recommended that permission be refused. The problem, the examiners explained, was fairly simple: EDF couldn’t say exactly where it would obtain one of the main substances needed to make a nuclear power station work, that substance being water.

As well as uranium, a reactor of the kind EDF plans to build needs water in very great volumes. Saltwater will do for part of the process, which is one reason why nuclear power stations are usually built beside the sea. But fresh or “potable” water will also be needed – first, to cool the two reactors, and then, just as importantly, to cool the irradiated fuel once it has been removed from the reactors. For this, absolutely pure water is essential. Sizewell B uses about 800,000 litres of potable water per day; Sizewell C, with its twin reactors, will need more than 2m litres per day, and as much as 3.5m litres per day during construction.

Last September, during the closing hearings of the six-month public planning examination, the question of just where the developer was going to get the water to run Sizewell C, let alone build it, was becoming urgent. Those who had raised concerns about precisely this issue more than 10 years earlier would have been forgiven for feeling frustrated. As one of the driest parts of the country, Suffolk is described by the Environment Agency as “seriously water stressed”. By 2043, eight years into Sizewell C’s 60-year operating life, the agency anticipates a water deficit in the county of more than 7m litres a day. Northumbrian Water, which operates locally as Essex and Suffolk Water, had made it clear to EDF that there was not enough local groundwater for either construction or operation. EDF’s plan, therefore, was to build a pipeline to bring water from the River Waveney, 18 miles away on the Norfolk border. During at least the first two years of construction, while the pipeline was being built, EDF planned to install a temporary desalination plant on the site to turn saltwater from the sea into fresh.

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Then, in August, the water company broke the news that its abstraction licenses dictating how much water it could extract from the Waveney, granted by the Environment Agency, were likely to be reduced by up to 60% to safeguard downstream levels. It subsequently confirmed that the Waveney did not, after all, have the capacity to supply water for for any of the 10-year construction phase.

Desalination, opponents of the project noted, was a solution EDF itself had discounted in January 2021 “due to concerns with power consumption, sustainability, cost and wastewater discharge”. And yet, desalination, with all the problems it had set out (including discharging millions of litres a day of saline concentrate and phosphorus into the North Sea), remains EDF’s “fallback” solution for running the station, as well as building it, if another source can’t be found. Northumbrian Water has since confirmed that: “Existing water resources (including the River Waveney) will not be sufficient to meet forecast mains water demand, including the operational demand of Sizewell C.”

For his part, the secretary of state, Kwasi Kwarteng, has a “reasonable level of certainty” that 2m litres of water a day will be found from elsewhere by the time the reactors are ready to be switched on. Perhaps, as Northumbrian Water has suggested, by piping it in from Essex (though Essex isn’t overburdened with water); or by reducing household wastage; or by reusing effluent. It will be for the Environment Agency, the Water Services Regulation Authority, Natural England and the Office for Nuclear Regulation to ensure that everything is done properly at such time as a water source – some kind of source – is settled upon.

The more I look at those mock-ups of the building site, the more they seem like a metaphor for another kind of despoilment. Given the government’s stated intention to build a fleet of new nuclear power stations across the country, it’s not just people who live in Suffolk who have reason to wonder what the secretary of state’s decision to wash his hands of Sizewell C’s water problem says about the resilience of the systems we entrust with safeguarding our environment. Still, the foundations will be laid, I suppose, and the cranes will rise, and after 10 years and £20bn (by EDF’s reckoning), Sizewell C will be built. And when the time comes for its reactors to go critical, there will be water, because if there isn’t, Suffolk will have a new tourist attraction to rival Framlingham Castle: the most expensive white elephant in human history.

What this fait accompli means for Suffolk’s rivers and seawater, let alone for the county’s householders and farmers, are not questions that will be answered before building begins. It’s enlightening, in this context, to consider that the past six months have been the driest in Suffolk for more than a quarter of a century, and the driest in England since 1976.

“The secretary of state disagrees with the examining authority’s conclusions on this matter,” Wednesday’s decision letter states, “and considers that the uncertainty over the permanent water supply strategy is not a barrier to granting consent to the proposed development.” During last year’s planning hearings, two stories kept coming back to me: the biblical account of Moses in the desert, making water gush from a rock by striking it with his staff; and the Brothers Grimm tale in which a giant clasps a stone in his fist, and crushes it until, finally, water is forced out.

William Atkins is the author of The Immeasurable World: Journeys in Desert Places and The Moor

Student says National University of Singapore censored his graduation death penalty protest

Luke Levy reportedly faces a police probe over the protest, whilst the National University of Singapore says graduations are “not a forum for advocacy.”

by TOM GRUNDY08:00, 

26 JULY 2022

The National University of Singapore (NUS) stands accused of editing a death penalty protest placard from a student’s graduation photo and livestream. The school told HKFP that the event was “not a forum for advocacy.”

Luke Levy’s protest at the NUS. Photo: AngMohSnowball, via Twitter.

During his graduation ceremony earlier this month, Luke Levy, held up a sign saying “Abolish the death penalty. No to state murder. End poverty, not life. Blood on your hands.”

“I held that sign as I walked on stage, took my on-stage photo, and left the stage, sign in hand… NUS took down the live recording of my commencement ceremony, only to reupload it later with an edit,” Levy said in a tweet.

“In the official stage photograph (that I paid for, for my own private display), the photo studio actually took time to try and edit the words on my sign out,” the 25-year-old activist added.

It comes as Singapore executed its fifth prisoner since March, following a Covid-related pause. In April, the authorities killed a mentally impaired man, as last-ditch appeals for clemency were rejected by the court. The spate of hangings has prompted a fresh wave of criticism and protests.

Levy added that the death penalty “unjustly kills the poor. It is not an effective deterrent of ‘crime’. And there’s no acquittal for those found innocent after execution.”

In response to HKFP’s enquiries, a university spokesperson told HKFP: “The NUS Commencement is an important ceremony celebrating the achievements of our 13,975 graduates and the completion of their NUS journey. All graduates and guests are expected to conduct themselves appropriately during the occasion. It is not a forum for advocacy.”Gardens by the Bay in Singapore. Photo: James Faulkner, via Flickr.

According to Today Online, police are looking into the protest. It cited lawyers as saying the activist may be liable under the Public Order Act, which restricts even single-person protests in public.

OPINION
Singapore wants to kill, but it doesn’t want anyone talking about it

“As a system, capital punishment makes us forget our humanity, but the growing mobilisation of the abolitionist movement in Singapore reminds us that there are many people who care and feel deeply about this issue…” writes anti-death penalty activist Kirsten Han.

by KIRSTEN HAN

 21 JULY 2022

2022 is shaping up to be a brutal year in Singapore as the authorities ramp up the speed of executions. Four men have already been hanged this year for drug offences — if not for last-ditch court applications that resulted in stays of execution or respite orders issued by the President, the state would have hanged another four more. Barring a miracle, Nazeri bin Lajim will be hanged in the early hours of Friday morning. Demands for the abolition of the death penalty are more urgent than ever, even as the state clamps down on such dissent.

 

Nazeri bin Lajim with his then-wife, who has continued to visit him in prison.

Singapore retains capital punishment for a range of offences, but uses it most commonly in the context of drug trafficking. Under the Misuse of Drugs Act, a person can be hanged if found guilty of trafficking above a certain threshold of controlled drugs — such as 15g of heroin or 500g of cannabis. The majority of the 495 people hanged in the city-state since 1991 were convicted of drug offences.

There are currently about 60 people on death row — a significant number for such a small country. Prisoners tell their families that death row is “too full”. They suspect that the prison will schedule as many executions as it can so as to make room for new condemned inmates. They see their lives treated as an administrative problem, and live in fear of the day execution notices will be delivered to their loved ones.

Changi Prison. Photo: Singapore Gov’t.

The situation is desperate. As abolitionist activists working with the family members of people sentenced to death, we see this desperation up close. Every execution notice is felt acutely by every family, even if it isn’t addressed to them. “Every one of them [prisoner on death row] is my brother,” Sonia, older sister of Kalwant Singh, told me in June. Her brother was hanged on 7 July. The prison issued an execution notice to Nazeri bin Lajim’s family just a week later. Sonia hadn’t even completed the last rites for Kalwant before she was texting me about how much it hurt to know that another sister would soon experience the pain she’d felt when she lost her brother. There isn’t enough time to process and grieve one execution before another comes, leaving families in a constant state of anxiety and trauma

.

Singapore. File photo: Tom Grundy/HKFP.

The Singapore government stubbornly defends its pro-death penalty position. It insists that capital punishment is necessary to deter the drug trade and protect people, even though there’s no clear evidence that proves that the death penalty deters drug offences. But while it claims confidence in this stance, it also takes steps to suppress alternative perspectives and resistance, so that it never has to engage with them.

Information about Singapore’s use of the death penalty is hard to come by. Before this year, the death row population was not publicly known; it took volunteers of the Transformative Justice Collective (of which I’m a member) tracking trials and court judgements to arrive at a number, which the law and home affairs minister recently confirmed in an interview with the BBC. The mainstream media reports on the death penalty when a government body or state organ issues a statement, otherwise it pretends the issue doesn’t exist. They often don’t even report when an execution has taken place.

Singapore’s Home Affairs and Law Minister K Shanmugam. Photo: Wikicommons.

In this climate, capital punishment is not an issue for which any political party is willing to stick their necks out on. Although the families of Singaporean death row prisoners have collected hundreds of signatures for a parliamentary petition calling for a moratorium on executions, they haven’t been able to find a Member of Parliament — whether from the ruling party or the opposition — to carry it into the House on their behalf.

Abolitionist lawyers have also felt the heat. Filing a late-stage application (i.e. after the standard trial and appeal process is over) carries the risk of being accused of abusing court process, and subject to hefty cost orders, paid for by the lawyers themselves. M Ravi, a human rights lawyer who has fought the death penalty in the courts for 20 years, has been ordered to pay tens of thousands of Singaporean dollars in cost orders to the Attorney-General’s Chambers. The climate is such that multiple death row prisoners seeking legal representation for late-stage applications have found it impossible to find a lawyer willing to take on the challenge.





The task then falls to activists to push the issue onto the national stage as best we can, but avenues are limited. There is only one park in the whole country where demonstrations can be held without prior permission. In April, two anti-death penalty protests drew crowds of about 400 people each — significant for a protest-averse country like Singapore — but more widespread action is needed, and that comes at a cost. A number of activists, including myself, are currently under police investigation for illegal assembly in relation to small-scale, non-violent actions related to the death penalty. A graduate from the National University of Singapore has been summoned for police questioning because he held up an anti-death penalty sign while accepting his degree onstage.

Fighting the death penalty in an authoritarian state has always been an uphill battle, and this year looks especially grim as the relentless pace of executions breaks us down and wears us out. Yet there are still reasons to be hopeful: there’s also been an unprecedented momentum for abolition over the past year, with Singaporeans from different walks of life calling for an end to the killing. Families of death row prisoners have also grown more united, coming together in solidarity to talk about their shared experiences and to campaign in support of one another. As a system, capital punishment makes us forget our humanity, but the growing mobilisation of the abolitionist movement in Singapore reminds us that there are many people who care and feel deeply about this issue, and want to be there for the families going through the hardest times. Such reminders are more necessary than ever — it is only by standing together that we can withstand the onslaught and work towards a Singapore without such state violence.

KIRSTEN HAN is a Singaporean freelance journalist and Editor-in-Chief of New Naratif, a platform for Southeast Asian journalism, research, art and community-building. Her bylines have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian and Asia Times, among others. She also curates We, The Citizens, a weekly newsletter on Singaporean current affairs.More by Kirsten Han

HKFP is an impartial platform & does not necessarily share the views of opinion writers or advertisers. HKFP presents a diversity of views & regularly invites figures across the political spectrum to write for us. Press freedom is guaranteed under the Basic Law, security law, Bill of Rights and Chinese constitution. Opinion pieces aim to point out errors or defects in the government, law or policies, or aim to suggest ideas or alterations via legal means without an intention of hatred, discontent or hostility against the authorities or other communities.