Tuesday, August 16, 2022

New climate deal spurs hopes of more carbon storage projects

Carbon Storage New Prospects

Geologist Fred McLaughlin points to lab equipment Aug. 10, 2022, at the University of Wyoming School of Energy Resources in Laramie, Wyo. Researchers use the equipment to study samples from deep rock formations that have potential for storing carbon dioxide underground. New federal tax credits and billions of dollars in new funding are likely to boost such efforts to counter climate change. (AP Photo/Mead Gruver)

MEAD GRUVER
Mon, August 15, 2022

GILLETTE, Wyo. (AP) — The rolling prairie lands of northeastern Wyoming have been a paradise of lush, knee-deep grass for sheep, cattle and pronghorn antelope this summer.

But it’s a different green — greener energy — that geologist Fred McLaughlin seeks as he drills nearly two miles (3.2 kilometers) into the ground, far deeper than the thick coal seams that make this the top coal-mining region in the United States. McLaughlin and his University of Wyoming colleagues are studying whether tiny spaces in rock deep underground can permanently store vast volumes of greenhouse gas emitted by a coal-fired power plant.

This is the concept known as carbon storage, long touted as an answer to global warming that preserves the energy industry's burning of fossil fuels to generate electricity.

So far, removing carbon dioxide from power plant smokestacks and pumping it underground hasn't been feasible without higher electricity bills to cover the technique's huge costs. But with a $2.5 billion infusion from Congress last year and now bigger tax incentives through the Inflation Reduction Act passed by Congress on Friday, researchers and industry continue to try.

One goal of McLaughlin’s project is to preserve the lifespan of a relatively new coal-fired power plant, Dry Fork Station, run by Basin Electric Power Cooperative. State officials hope it will do the same for the whole beleaguered coal industry that still underpins Wyoming’s economy. The state produces about 40% of the nation’s coal but declining production and a series of layoffs and bankruptcies have beset the Gillette area’s vast, open-pit coal mines over the past decade.

While the economics of carbon storage remain uncertain at best, McLaughlin and others are confident in the technology.

“The geology exists,” McLaughlin said. “It is a resource we’re looking for — and the resource is pore space.”

HOW IT WORKS

By pore space, McLaughlin doesn’t mean skin care but microscopic spaces between grains of sandstone deep underground. Countless such spaces add up: Enough, he hopes, to hold 55 million tons (50 million metric tons) of carbon dioxide over 30 years.

McLaughlin and his team used the same drill rigs as the oil industry to bore their two wells almost 10,000 feet (3,000 meters), taking core samples from nine geological formations in the process. The researchers will study how injection at one well, using saltwater as a stand-in for liquid carbon dioxide, could affect fluid behavior at the other.

"It's basically like a call and response, if you want to think of it that way," McLaughlin said. “We can ground truth our simulations.”

McLaughlin's team also does a lot of lab work on carbon sequestration back at the University of Wyoming School of Energy Resources in Laramie, studying on a microscopic scale how much carbon dioxide different sandstone layers can hold. They model on computers how much carbon dioxide, well by well, could be pumped underground north of Gillette.

Eventually they want to advance to carbon dioxide captured from the smoke plume at nearby Dry Fork Station, using a technique developed by California-based Membrane Technology and Research, Inc.

WYOMING'S CARBON DREAMS

With an eye toward carbon storage, Wyoming in 2020 became one of just two states, along with North Dakota, to take over from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency primary authority to issue the kind of permit McLaughlin and his team will need to pump large volumes of carbon dioxide, pressurized into a high density “supercritical” state, underground.

Besides the permit, the geologists will also need more funding. The U.S. Department of Energy Carbon Storage Assurance Facility Enterprise (CarbonSAFE) program is funding 24 carbon capture and storage projects nationwide, and this is one of the furthest along.

Such projects were likely already eligible for some of the roughly $2.5 billion in last year's infrastructure bill. Now the new Inflation Reduction Act will boost the “45Q” tax credit for electricity producers who sequester their carbon from $50 to $85 per ton.

Pumping carbon dioxide underground is nothing new. For decades, the oil and gas industry has used carbon dioxide, after it's separated from the methane sold for fueling stoves and furnaces, to recharge aging oil fields.

UNTIL NOW, FAILED EXPERIMENTS

Critics, however, point out the process is expensive to use at power plants and provides a lifeline of sorts to the coal, oil and natural gas industries when the world, in their view, should stop using fossil fuels altogether.

To date, only one commercially-operational, large-scale project in the U.S. has pumped carbon dioxide from a power plant underground. But to defray costs, NRG Energy’s Petra Nova coal-fired power plant outside Houston sold its carbon dioxide to increase local oil production.

After three years in operation, Petra Nova closed in 2020, when low oil prices made using the gas to recharge a nearby oil field unprofitable.

In December, a U.S. Government Accountability Office review found that Petra Nova was the only one of eight carbon capture and storage projects at coal-fired plants to actually go into operation, after getting $684 million in Department of Energy funding since 2009.

Some communities that have dealt for years with industrial air pollution also worry that companies will use promises of carbon storage as a way to expand.

For Massachusetts Institute of Technology research engineer Howard Herzog, a carbon capture and storage pioneer, the question isn't whether the technique is technically feasible at scale. He's certain that it is. But whether it can be economically feasible is a different matter.

“People are starting to take it more seriously even though fundamentally changing our energy systems is not an easy task,” Herzog said. “It’s not something you do in the short term. You’ve got to really set the policy in place and we still haven’t really done that.”

It may be expensive, said Herzog. But doing nothing when it comes to climate, “may be much more expensive.”

___

Follow Mead Gruver at https://twitter.com/meadgruver

A German refinery partly owned by Moscow has started mixing US oil with Russian crude

Phil Rosen
Mon, August 15, 2022

German Economy Minister Robert Habeck.Andreas Gora/Getty Images

A German oil refinery in Schwedt has begun blending US crude with Russian Urals, Bloomberg reported Monday.

The refinery, which is partly owned by Rosneft, is typically reliant on Russian crude but has started to turn to alternative supplies.

Germany's Economy Minister has previously noted that Schwedt faces the biggest challenge amid refiners to wean off Russian crude.

Germany's refinery in Schwedt — which is partly owned by Moscow's Rosneft — is now mixing US crude with Russian Urals, sources told Bloomberg.

According to the report, about 20% of what the refinery is processing is US crude. The supplies are being imported via Germany's Baltic coast port of Rostock, which only recently saw its first delivery of American oil in several years.

The US crude supplies mark a pivot for Schwedt, which is based near the Polish border, as it has long relied on Russian crude that comes in from the Druzhba pipeline.

In April, German Economy Minister Robert Habeck said Schwedt will face challenges in weaning off Russian supplies, and that it would need additional support from Poland to secure deliveries from elsewhere.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine, Europe has been trying to reduce imports of Russian oil, and the EU plans to cut off seaborne imports by the end of this year.

But ahead its partial embargo, the EU saw an uptick in flows at the start of August, pointing to the difficulty of finding alternative supplies.

Through the first week of this month, shipments to European buyers notched a five-week high, and cargo ships continue to obscure the origins of crude to allow sanctioned goods to keep moving.

Toxic pollution in the Great Lakes remains a colossal problem

Daniel Macfarlane

Erie Times News
Sun, August 14, 2022

The Great Lakes cover nearly 95,000 square miles (250,000 square kilometers) and hold over 20% of Earth's surface fresh water. More than 30 million people in the U.S. and Canada rely on them for drinking water. The lakes support a multibillion-dollar maritime economy, and the lands around them provided many of the raw materials — timber, coal, iron — that fueled the Midwest's emergence as an industrial heartland.

Despite their enormous importance, the lakes were degraded for well over a century as industry and development expanded around them. By the 1960s, rivers like the Cuyahoga, Buffalo and Chicago were so polluted that they were catching fire. In 1965, Maclean's magazine called Lake Erie, the smallest and shallowest Great Lake, "an odorous, slime-covered graveyard" that "may have already passed the point of no return." Lake Ontario wasn't far behind.

In 1972, the U.S. and Canada signed the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, a landmark pact to clean up the Great Lakes. Now, 50 years later, they have made progress, but there are new challenges and much unfinished business.

I study the environment and have written four books on U.S.-Canadian management of their shared border waters. In my view, the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement was a watershed moment for environmental protection and an international model for regulating transboundary pollution. But I believe the people of the U.S. and Canada failed the Great Lakes by becoming complacent too soon after the pact's early success.

Starting with phosphates

A major step in Canada-U.S. joint management of the Great Lakes came in 1909 when they signed the Boundary Waters Treaty. The Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement built on this foundation by creating a framework to allow the two countries to cooperatively restore and protect these border waters.

However, as an executive agreement, rather than a formal government-to-government treaty, the pact has no legal mechanisms for enforcement. Instead, it relies on the U.S. and Canada to fulfill their commitments. The International Joint Commission, an agency created under the Boundary Waters Treaty, carries out the agreement and tracks progress toward its goals.

Steve Dartnell of Erie walks near Beach 6, Sept. 16, 2021 at Presque Isle State Park.

The agreement set common targets for controlling a variety of pollutants in Lake Erie, Lake Ontario and the upper St. Lawrence River, which were the most polluted section of the Great Lakes system. One key aim was to reduce nutrient pollution, especially phosphates from detergents and sewage. These chemicals fueled huge blooms of algae that then died and decomposed, depleting oxygen in the water.

Like national water pollution laws enacted at the time, these efforts focused on point sources — pollutants released from discreet, readily identifiable points, such as discharge pipes or wells.

In this file photo, Lee Sedgwick of Millcreek Township makes bubbles at sunset, April 28, 2020, on the shore of Lake Erie at Beach 1, Presque Isle State Park.

Early results were encouraging. Both governments invested in new sewage treatment facilities and convinced manufacturers to reduce phosphate loads in detergents and soaps. But as phosphorus levels in the lakes declined, scientists soon detected other problems.

Great Lakes toxic contaminants

In 1973, scientists reported a perplexing find in fish from Lake Ontario: mirex, a highly toxic organochloride pesticide used mainly to kill ants in the southeast U.S. An investigation revealed that the Hooker Chemical Company was discharging mirex from its plant in Niagara Falls, New York. The contamination was so severe that New York State banned eating popular types of fish such as coho salmon and lake trout from Lake Ontario from 1976 to 1978, shutting down commercial and sport fishing in the lake.

In response to this and other findings, the U.S. and Canada updated the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement in 1978 to cover all five lakes and focus on chemicals and toxic substances. This version formally adopted an ecosystem approach to pollution control that considered interactions between water, air and land — perhaps the first international agreement to do so.

In 1987, the two countries identified the most toxic hot spots around the lakes and adopted action plans to clean them up. However, as scholars of North American environmental regulations acknowledge, both nations too often allowed industries to police themselves.

Since the 1990s, studies have identified toxic pollutants including PCBs, DDT and chlordane in and around the Great Lakes, as well as lead, copper, arsenic and others. Some of these chemicals continued to show up because they were persistent and took a long time to break down. Others were banned but leached from contaminated sites and sediments. Still others came from a range of point and nonpoint sources, including many industrial sites concentrated on shorelines.

Many hazardous sites have been slowly cleaned up. However, toxic pollution in the Great Lakes remains a colossal problem that is largely unappreciated by the public, since these substances don't always make the water look or smell foul. Numerous fish advisories are still in effect across the region because of chemical contamination. Industries constantly bring new chemicals to market, and regulations lag far behind.

Nonpoint sources of Great Lakes pollution

Another major challenge is nonpoint source pollution — discharges that come from many diffuse sources, such as runoff from farm fields.

Nitrogen levels in the lakes have risen significantly because of agriculture. Like phosphorus, nitrogen is a nutrient that causes large blooms of algae in fresh water; it is one of the main ingredients in fertilizer, and is also found in human and animal waste. Sewage overflows from cities and waste and manure runoff from industrial agriculture carry heavy loads of nitrogen into the lakes.

As a result, algal blooms have returned to Lake Erie. In 2014, toxins in one of those blooms forced officials in Toledo, Ohio, to shut off the public water supply for half a million people.

One way to address nonpoint source pollution is to set an overall limit for releases of the problem pollutant into local water bodies and then work to bring discharges down to that level. These measures, known as Total Maximum Daily Loads, have been applied or are in development for parts of the Great Lakes basin, including western Lake Erie.

But this strategy relies on states, along with voluntary steps by farmers, to curb pollution releases. Some Midwesterners would prefer a regional approach like the strategy for Chesapeake Bay, where states asked the U.S. government to write a sweeping federal TMDL for key pollutants for the bay's entire watershed.

In 2019, Toledo voters adopted a Lake Erie Bill of Rights that would have permitted citizens to sue when Lake Erie was being polluted. Farmers challenged the measure in court, and it was declared unconstitutional.
Warming climate and flooding

Climate change is now complicating Great Lakes cleanup efforts. Warmer water can affect oxygen concentrations, nutrient cycling and food webs in the lakes, potentially intensifying problems and converting nuisances into major challenges.

Lake levels at Presque Isle:High-water mark

Flooding driven by climate change threatens to contaminate public water supplies around the lakes. Record-high water levels are eroding shorelines and wrecking infrastructure. And new problems are emerging, including microplastic pollution and "forever chemicals" such as PFAS and PFOA.

More:Report: 4 Erie County waterways among 53 in Pennsylvania containing microplastics

It will be challenging for the U.S. and Canada to make progress on this complex set of problems. Key steps include prioritizing and funding cleanup of toxic zones, finding ways to halt agricultural runoff and building new sewer and stormwater infrastructure. If the two countries can muster the will to aggressively tackle pollution problems, as they did with phosphates in the 1970s, the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement gives them a framework for action.

Daniel Macfarlane is an associate professor of environment and sustainability at Western Michigan University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Toxic pollution in the Great Lakes remains a colossal problem

Europe drought: German industry at risk as Rhine level falls

Ships sail past dry land in Dusseldorf, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. After weeks of drought, the water levels of the Rhine have reached historic lows.

(Federico Gambarini/dpa via AP)

Tue, August 16, 2022

BERLIN (AP) — Germany's main industry lobby group warned Tuesday that factories may have to throttle production or halt it completely because plunging water levels on the Rhine River are making it harder to transport cargo.

The Rhine's level at Emmerich, near the Dutch border, dropped by a further four centimeters (1.6 inches) in 24 hours, hitting zero on the depth gauge.

Authorities say the shipping lane itself still has a depth of almost 200 centimeters (six feet, six inches), but the record low measurement Tuesday morning highlights the extreme lack of water caused by months of drought affecting much of Europe.

“The ongoing drought and the low water levels threaten the supply security of industry,” said Holger Loesch, deputy head of the BDI business lobby group.

Loesch said shifting cargo from river to train or transport was difficult because of limited rail capacity and a lack of drivers.

“It's only a question of time before facilities in the chemical and steel industry have to be switched off, petroleum and construction materials won't reach their destination, and high-capacity and heavy-goods transports can't be carried out anymore,” he said, adding that this could lead to supply bottlenecks and short-time work might result.

Loesch warned that energy supplies could also be further strained as ships carrying coal and gasoline along the Rhine are affected.

Drivers in southern Germany already have to pay considerably more for fuel than those further north, according to Germany's biggest motor club. The ADAC said diesel was being sold for under 1.82 euros ($1.84) per liter in Hamburg, while in the southwestern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg it cost on average 1.97 euros.

The BDI said droughts such as that seen this year could become more frequent in the future, and urged the government to help closely monitor water levels and react early to potential transportation problems on Germany's waterways.

Experts say climate change is making extreme weather, including heatwaves and droughts, more likely.

Germany's weather service has forecast heavy rain toward the end of the week that could provide some relief to river shipping companies.

Judge rules names of landowners in path of carbon capture pipeline should be made public

Donnelle Eller,
The Des Moines Register
Tue, August 16, 2022

The developer of a proposed $4.5 billion carbon capture pipeline in Iowa must release the names of landowners who could be impacted along its roughly 680-mile route, a district judge ruled.

Summit Carbon Solutions, an Ames company that has proposed building a pipeline to transport liquefied carbon dioxide, failed to win a permanent injunction to keep secret the names of thousands of landowners it said could be in the pipeline's path.

Under state law, Summit was required to hold public meetings for landowners potentially impacted by the pipeline project, and the company compiled a list with more than 10,000 names along the route.

Steve and Karmin McShane paint a sign in opposition to a carbon capture and sequestration pipeline in Linn County.

After the Iowa Utilities Board asked Summit to submit the names, the company asked state regulators to keep the list confidential. Summit also filed a petition with the court to keep the names secret.

The Sierra Club of Iowa asked regulators to release the names under state's open records law, a move state Consumer Advocate Jennifer Easler also supported.

In November, the Iowa Utilities Board decided it would keep secret most of the names, saying property owners' right to privacy outweighed the public's interest. The three-person board did, however, order Summit to release the names of businesses, cities, counties and other government entities that own land along the path.

Board chairwoman Geri Huser dissented, saying she would have released the property owners' mailing addresses but not their names.

MORE: What we know about three carbon capture pipelines proposed in Iowa

On Friday, Polk County District Judge David Nelmark said Summit had failed to show landowner information should be excluded from state public records law. He ordered a temporary injunction allowing Summit to keep landowner names confidential to be lifted in 14 days.

Nelmark said the order's enforcement could be delayed if there is an appeal to the Iowa Supreme Court.

Summit officials said Monday the company was reviewing Nelmark's order and its legal options.

The Sierra Club has said Summit seeks to prevent the release of landowner information to shut down communication among Iowans who want to fight the pipeline.

MORE: Iowa politics, ag heavyweight Bruce Rastetter sets sights on $4.5 billion carbon capture pipeline

"Summit vigorously fought to keep the landowner list confidential so the landowners could not form a unified opposition,” Jess Mazour, the Sierra Club's conservation program coordinator, said in a statement Monday.

Summit said in its own statement Monday that it sought to "protect the privacy of our landowners and from harassment."

"We believe it is reasonable that landowners would get to choose whether or not their name, address and contact information are made public," the company said. "Having now signed agreements with more than 700 Iowa landowners, we believe our efforts were successful."

The company also said the information shouldn't be publicly released because to do so would help its competitors. Two other companies — Navigator CO2 Ventures and Archer Daniel Midlands Co., partnering with Wolf Carbon Solutions — plan similar projects.

The Sierra Club released a copy of the order Monday. It hadn't yet been filed in district court.

Summit Carbon Solutions, a company that agri-industry entrepreneur Bruce Rastetter started, proposes to capture carbon dioxide emissions from ethanol plants and other industrial agriculture operations in Iowa and four other states, then liquefy the gas under pressure and transport it to North Dakota, where it would be permanently sequestered deep underground.

Donnelle Eller covers agriculture, the environment and energy for the Register. Reach her at deller@registermedia.com

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Summit loses effort to keep secret names of those in pipeline's path

The Mad Plan to Save Earth by Flooding It With Phytoplankton

Thor Benson
Mon, August 15, 2022

Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/Getty

The main conversation around climate change primarily focuses on one thing: how much carbon is in the air—and by extension, how to reduce it. However, what is less talked about but may become incredibly important is how much carbon is in our oceans. There is 50 times more carbon in the ocean than the atmosphere. Some climate researchers believe if we could just slightly increase the amount of carbon the ocean can absorb from the atmosphere, we could avoid some of the worst effects of climate change.

That might seem unusual when you first hear it, but think about it a bit longer. The ocean covers roughly 70 percent of the Earth’s surface, and it absorbs carbon dioxide naturally—effectively dissolving it. Phytoplankton in the ocean use this carbon dioxide and sunlight to run photosynthesis just like land-based plants. Oxygen is produced by this process—phytoplankton are actually responsible for about 50 percent of the oxygen in our atmosphere.

Some climate researchers have proposed that if we could just increase the amount of phytoplankton in the ocean, we could pull more carbon out of the atmosphere. A well-known way to produce a phytoplankton bloom is to introduce iron, an important nutrient for the plankton community, to the water. Many parts of the ocean are low in iron, so even a relatively small addition of iron could theoretically produce a lot of phytoplankton and thereby remove a lot of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

How to Weaponize Our Dying Oceans Against Climate Change

“Give me half a tanker of iron, and I’ll give you an ice age,” John Martin, an oceanographer at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, wrote in 1988. Back then, most people were only just starting to become familiar with the idea of climate change as we now know it. But that’s also around the time people started to think about how iron fertilization could affect phytoplankton growth and, in turn, change atmospheric carbon levels.

Although climate scientists have spent quite a bit time discussing this strategy among themselves, there has not been a concerted effort to explore it further and take it seriously. Ken Buesseler, a marine radiochemist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, is a scientist who has done some research into iron fertilization in the ocean. He and his team looked at whether introducing iron could “alter the flux of carbon to the deep ocean” and found there was a significant carbon-sequestering effect.

Buesseler told The Daily Beast that his research was done nearly 20 years ago, and there hasn’t been a whole lot since.

“What happened 20 years ago is we started going around and we would spread out a chemical form of iron and look for that phytoplankton—the plant response—and indeed it really showed very clearly that if you enhance the iron then you could create more uptake of carbon dioxide,” Buesseler said. “The difference between now and 20 years ago is that I think the climate crisis is so much more apparent to the public.”

A phytoplankton bloom off the coast of Iceland, as observed from space.
NASA

Using the oceans to combat climate change has become a much-discussed topic among climate scientists in recent years, and Buesseler was part of a group of scientists that released a report through the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine late last year that looked at the available options, including increasing phytoplankton levels.

“We’ve got a big reservoir. It takes up a third of the greenhouse gasses already. The question that people are now asking more is what can we do to enhance that?” Buesseler said. “Let’s get out there. Let’s do experiments.”

The experiments themselves wouldn’t cause any harm to the ocean’s natural ecosystem, Buesseler said, but they could tell us a lot about how introducing more iron to the ocean on a much larger scale might affect that ecosystem in the long-term. He doesn’t believe doing this on a large scale would cause significant harm, but it’s important to get the research done so we can know that for sure. He said that a “very conservative” estimate would be that up to a gigaton of carbon dioxide could be sequestered every year if this process was done at scale.

“It will change the types of plants and animals that grow, but that is already happening with the changes in temperature and acidity,” Buesseler said.

David Siegel, a professor of marine science at the University of California, Santa Barbara, told The Daily Beast that iron fertilization would also be pretty easy to do. You could simply get a 120-foot fishing boat and start deploying the iron where it’ll be most effective for stimulating phytoplankton growth.

“It can be done relatively cheaply. Each atom of iron that you add in the right places can make tens of thousands of atoms of carbon get fixed,” meaning absorbed by the water. “It’s rather efficient,” Siegel said. “You can deploy vessels that release iron oxide into the water—even just iron ore into the water—and you can make blooms that you can see from space. We know that.”

Can a Future Fleet of Robotic Fish Clean Up the Ocean?

The effects would happen rather quickly. Scientists who have introduced iron to seawater in the past have seen that phytoplankton blooms can start becoming visible within the first 24 hours. The ideal place to introduce the iron would be where it’s least plentiful, which would be parts of the ocean—primarily in the southern hemisphere—that aren’t close to land. Iron that ends up in the ocean typically comes from dust that blows into the ocean from the land.

Both Buesseler and Siegel stressed that this should not be seen as an alternative to ending the use of fossil fuels. That is still critical when it comes to having a chance at beating climate change. But avoiding the worst effects of climate change will require also developing carbon removal strategies to reduce the load of greenhouse gasses in the air.

“Even if we decarbonize our economies, there are still 20 or so gigatons of carbon dioxide that needs to be removed from the atmosphere to keep us anywhere near the Paris Accord goals,” Siegel said.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Oil industry gears up to tap U.S. climate bill for carbon capture projects

Mon, August 15, 2022

By Liz Hampton

(Reuters) - Tax credits in the $430 billion U.S. climate and tax bill set to be signed into law this week will kickstart carbon sequestration projects, say oil and gas proponents, offsetting startup costs for some of the anti-pollution initiatives.

Carbon capture and storage hubs that take gases from chemical, power and gas producers and oil refineries have become the energy industry's preferred way to combat climate warming. But large-scale development has snagged over costs and lack of guaranteed revenue.

The Biden administration's Inflation Reduction Act, which was approved by lawmakers last week, provides a tax credit of up to $85 per ton for burying carbon dioxide produced by industrial activity, and up to $180 per ton for pulling carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air.

The bill also greenlit new leases of federal land for oil and gas development, without considerations of climate impacts. Importantly, it automatically approved high bids from a November 2021 offshore auction that included a drilling project intended for a carbon-burying scheme.

"It's a pretty big deal," said Tim Duncan, chief executive of Talos Energy Inc, an offshore oil and gas producer that is building a business around carbon sequestration. Talos has launched four projects and signed up big backers including Freeport LNG and Chevron Corp .

“This is going to unlock a significant amount of emissions that could become economic for capture,” added Chris Davis, a senior vice president at Milestone Carbon, which develop carbon projects for mid-sized companies.

CONTINUED STRUGGLES

Over the last two decades, companies have tentatively tried and largely struggled to make a business from using CO2 to boost oil production. More recently, big investors want firms to address global warming, and the oil industry aims to show it takes climate change seriously.

There are carbon sequestration hubs proposed around the world - in Alberta in Canada, Rotterdam in the Netherlands, and Huizhou, China. Another type of carbon capture, which directly catches the greenhouse gas from the atmosphere rather than industrial production, also are being considered.

A massive expansion of carbon capture is vital to reaching net-zero emissions by 2050, according to energy consuming nations advocate, the International Energy Agency (IEA). The sector must go to storing 7.6 billion tonnes a year from around 40 million tonnes currently.

The new tax incentives mean "a number of small to mid-scale projects have a better chance of becoming economical," said Frederik Majkut, a senior vice president for energy services company Schlumberger's Carbon Solutions business.

There are some 5 billion tons of carbon released in the United States annually that could be captured by these sequestration schemes. Previously, very little of that could be captured economically, said Milestone's Davis said.

"With $85 a ton, I think you can get another billion tons," he said. "It starts to look like an attractive investment."

BIGGER PROJECTS

Larger projects, such as that advanced by Exxon Mobil Corp, which floated a $100 billion plan for a massive carbon hub serving refineries and chemical plants, will need carbon taxes and other initiatives, said analysts.

Widespread deployment of these industrial hubs will require additional policy support from the Biden administration, an Exxon spokesperson said of the bill's climate provisions.

Smaller projects are more likely to advance but still face hurdles including underground pore rights and permits, said Tracy Evans, chief executive of CapturePoint, which struck a partnership with pipeline operator Energy Transfer for a Louisiana hub.

Currently, permitting for carbon injection wells can take years to secure. And while offshore auctions cover large blocks, aggregating smaller tracts of private land owners onshore can slow the process, he said.

"It will drive more investment in the space for sure," Evans said.

(Reporting by Liz Hampton in Denver, additional reporting by Sabrina Valle in Houston; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

Puerto Rico cruise ship docks face $425M public-private deal

DÁNICA COTO

Tue, August 16, 2022

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Puerto Rico’s governor on Tuesday announced a public-private partnership to overhaul the island’s cruise ship docks as part of a $425 million project to boost the U.S. territory’s tourism sector.

Gov. Pedro Pierluisi said the project aims to transform Puerto Rico into the Caribbean’s main cruise ship destination by modernizing, repairing and expanding nine docks located in the capital of San Juan to receive larger vessels and more passengers.

“It’s an extremely important day for tourism in Puerto Rico,” said Carlos Mercado, executive director for the island’s Tourism Company.

San Juan Cruise Port — a subsidiary of London-based Global Ports Holding, the world’s largest cruise port operator — will be responsible for operating and overseeing the project as part of a 30-year deal with Puerto Rico’s Ports Authority that was five years in the making. The contract states the island’s government will receive annual payments representing at least 5% of the operator’s gross income.

As part of the deal, the number of docks currently capable of serving as base port for four cruise ships at a time will double to eight. Crews also will modernize docks battered by hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017 and that have been worn down throughout the decades, with the first one being built in the 1970.

“We haven’t been able to compete on a large scale with other jurisdictions,” Pierluisi said.

Joel Pizá, executive director of Puerto Rico’s Ports Authority, said the docks are currently not designed to receive larger ships or 5,000 passengers or more at a time. He also noted that the agency is $350 million in debt, which makes it hard to issue bonds to repair and improve docks despite federal officials identifying serious structural deficiencies that would require more than $200 million to fix.

“This is the reality,” he said. “Capital investment is more than needed at this moment.”

The maximum docking fee and passenger fee are not expected to change as part of the deal, officials said.

The announcement is the latest public-private partnership that the U.S. territory has launched as the central government and certain public agencies emerge from a deep bankruptcy amid an ongoing economic crisis. Previous partnerships have led private companies to take over management and operation of the island’s main international airport, certain highways and the transmission and distribution of power, among others.

Some have criticized the newest partnership, demanding that federal officials scrutinize the privatization of some $5 billion of infrastructure for an upfront initial investment of $75 million. Puerto Rico Rep. Ángel Matos García, spokesman for the majority of the island’s House of Representatives, said he and other politicians will be meeting with federal officials in Washington, D.C. to talk about the deal.

Tourism represents less than 7% of Puerto Rico’s economy, but officials hope to change that with the newest partnership, with work slated to start next year.

Puerto Rico saw a record number of cruise ship passengers prior to the pandemic, only for the docks to shut down for 16 months. But business has since rebounded. The government reported more than 420,000 passengers in fiscal year 2021-2022, a 23% recovery compared with the 2018-2019 fiscal year

This fiscal year, officials expect more than 1 million passengers — roughly 80% of pre-pandemic traffic — with eight new cruise ships scheduled to visit the San Juan port for the first time.

Twisted Florida Ruling Says Pregnant Teen Isn’t ‘Mature’ Enough for Abortion

Justin Rohrlich

Tue, August 16, 2022

A Florida appeals court will force a parentless 16-year-old girl to give birth because the teen is not “sufficiently mature” to decide for herself whether or not to terminate the pregnancy.

A circuit court judge previously denied the girl’s request to waive a state law requiring minors get parental consent for an abortion. On Monday, a three-judge panel upheld the decision.

The unnamed teen, according to the appellate ruling, is getting a GED through a program for young people who have experienced traumatic events in their lives. In her petition, the girl—who lives with a relative and has an appointed guardian—argued that she is “still in school” and “is not ready to have a baby,” noting that her guardian was “fine with what [she] wants to do.”

She met with Escambia County Circuit Court Judge Jennifer J. Frydrychowicz, along with a case worker and a child advocate, but “inexplicably” did not request a lawyer who would have represented her for free, the ruling states.

“The trial judge displayed concern for the minor’s predicament throughout the hearing; she asked difficult questions of the minor on sensitive personal matters in a compassionate manner,” it continues. “The trial judge’s tone and method of questioning were commendable and her ability to produce a thoughtful written order in a rapid fashion is admirable (she prepared her written order immediately after the hearing, handing a copy thereafter to the minor).”

Frydrychowicz saw the case “as a very close call,” the ruling says, describing the judge’s impression of the teen as “credible” and “open,” and that she “showed, at times, that she is stable and mature enough to make this decision.”

It says the girl was 10 weeks pregnant at the time, but does not provide a specific timeline that would indicate how far along she would be now. She was “knowledgeable” about what was involved with terminating a pregnancy, and had done Google searches and read a pamphlet given to her at a medical clinic, the ruling notes. It also says the teen “acknowledges she is not ready for the emotional, physical, or financial responsibility of raising a child,” and “has valid concerns about her ability to raise a child.”

Still, Frydrychowicz chose to deny the petition—although she did not rule out reconsidering if the teen were “able, at a later date, to adequately articulate her request,” according to a partial dissent by Judge Scott Makar.

“Reading between the lines, it appears that the trial court wanted to give the minor, who was under extra stress due to a friend’s death, additional time to express a keener understanding of the consequences of terminating a pregnancy,” Makar wrote. “This makes some sense given that the minor, at least at one point, says she was open to having a child, but later changed her view after considering her inability to care for a child in her current station in life.”

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However, Judges Harvey Jay and Rachel Nordby wrote in the main decision that the trial court found the teen “had not established by clear and convincing evidence that she was sufficiently mature to decide whether to terminate her pregnancy.”

Florida statute “allows for a remand to the trial court with instructions for a further ruling, but no such remand is warranted here,” they declared. “The trial court’s order and findings are neither unclear nor lacking such that a remand would be necessary for us to perform our review under the statute.”

The case hinged upon 2020’s Parental Notice of and Consent for Abortion Act, which makes it a third-degree felony for a doctor to terminate a pregnancy of “an unemancipated minor without the required consent.”

According to Human Rights Watch, the majority of young people “voluntarily involve a parent or another trusted adult in their abortion decision, even if the law doesn’t require it. But for those who don’t—often because they fear abuse, deterioration of family relationships, being kicked out of the home, or being forced to continue a pregnancy—laws like Florida’s pose a barrier to their care.”

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Tuesday, August 16, 2022

Justin Rohrlich

Tue, August 16, 2022

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