Will an EV-Filled World Pass The Sulfuric Acid Test?

An unexpected resource crunch over H2SO4 troubles experts

RAHUL RAO

Mounds of pelletized sulfur at the California Sulphur Company

 in Wilmington, California.
BING GUAN/BLOOMBERG/GETTY IMAGES

Look at the periodic table, and think of the elements needed for a prosperous planet powered by renewable energy. Sulfur likely won’t be the first to come to mind.

It probably doesn’t help the yellow element’s noxious reputation to learn that most of the world’s sulfur comes as a byproduct of refining fossil fuels. In a net-zero future, a future where petroleum and natural gas production enter terminal decline and never return to their past carbon-spewing heights, sulfur production will fall away, too.

Therein lies the problem. Sulfur—easily turned into sulfuric acid—is a necessary tool for creating fertilizer and extracting heavy metals from their ores before they can go into batteries, wind turbines, and electric vehicle components. Even as sulfur production is set to fall, sulfuric acid demand is set to rise.

That’s a recipe for an impending crisis, researchers warn in a paper published 21 August in The Geographical Journal.

Today, the world uses 246 million tonnes of sulfuric acid in a year. The researchers project that number might increase to 400 million tonnes by 2040.

Sulfuric acid is necessary for extracting heavy metals such as nickel, cobalt, and rare earths for batteries, magnets, and other renewable energy technologies. The world’s needs are going up—from 246 million tonnes today to 400 million tonnes by 2040—but the supply could be drying out. Sulfur is most cheaply obtained as a byproduct of petroleum refineries.

That’s because, when it comes to renewable energy, sulfuric acid has a very critical use. Extracting heavy metals, such as nickel, cobalt, and rare earths, relies on chemical processes that use sulfuric acid to separate the metals from their ores. Those heavy metals are key elements in lithium-ion batteries, electric motors, and other technologies crucial for the renewable transition.

(Sulfur has other roles, too. Perhaps even more importantly than renewables, sulfuric acid is a key element in manufacturing fertilizers. Sulfuric acid goes into biofuels, and sulfur is used to vulcanize and harden rubber.)

Where does that sulfur come from, then? Decades ago, most of it came from mining. In 1894, a German chemist named Herman Frasch plotted a process of tapping a sulfur-containing mineral deposit by pumping it with superheated water. The sulfur will melt and bubble up to the surface. Sulfur miners have used the same process ever since.

The Frasch process can be tremendously damaging to the surrounding environment and mineworkers’ health. The minerals that contain sulfur often also tend to contain toxic metals like mercury, arsenic, and thallium. The process also spews out wastewater that contains hydrogen sulfide, which has similar toxic properties to carbon monoxide.

By the 1950s, the world had exhausted the most easily available sulfur deposits. Mining costs skyrocketed, rapidly inflating the element’s market price. Analysts warned of an impending “sulphur famine.”

“A lot of people, they take sulfur for granted.”

—Jean-Michel Lavoie, University of Sherbrooke

In swept the fossil fuel industry’s waste to save the day. By coincidence, sulfur’s presence in petroleum makes it harder to refine into diesel, jet fuel, and other assorted products. To sort it out, refineries have to filter out the sulfur—thereby making it available to the rest of the world. Today, more than 80 percent of the world’s sulfur comes from these acts of waste management. As dirty as it sounds, it’s actually cleaner than mining.

However, naturally, if carbon-emitting fossil fuels go, refineries like this will likely go too. It’s hard to know how quickly that will happen, but in a scenario where the world reaches net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050, the researchers estimate that sulfur production would drop by one-half or even more.

“It’s an eye-opener,” Jean-Michel Lavoie, a chemist at the University of Sherbrooke and Laboratoire des Technologies de la Biomasse in Québec, who was not an author of the paper. “We never really focus on trying to solve these problems, but I think we’re going to start looking into solutions.”

The world could swing back to sourcing sulfur directly from mines. That may happen if the economics favor it. But it’s costlier than getting it from petroleum, and the Frasch process carries an unacceptable ecological burden (not to mention unpleasant social impacts that disproportionately affect people in developing countries).

“Research is urgently needed to develop low-cost, low environmental impact methods of extracting large quantities of elemental sulfur,” said Mark Maslin, a geographer at Unviersity College London and one of the paper authors, in a press release.

Maslin and his colleagues believe, however, that there won’t be a single solution to a sulfur shortage. In some fields, like biofuel production, recycling sulfuric acid is quite common. A few scientists have begun tinkering with sulfuric acid substitutes—nitric acid, for example—though that’s still quite speculative.

Reducing the future need for sulfuric acid certainly wouldn’t hurt. Already, there are batteries (such as lithium iron phosphate batteries) that have lower energy-capacity-to-weight ratios, but take in less nickel, cobalt, and heavy metals, and thus need less sulfuric acid. Future research could shape batteries that deliver the best of both worlds.

What is clear is that weaning off fossil fuels may have quite a number of intended side effects—bad or good—and a sulfur shortage is just one of them.

“A lot of people, they take sulfur for granted,” says Lavoie.

Nova Scotia

NOTHING TO SEE HERE, JUST MOVE ALONG

Federal agency terminates environmental assessment of proposed N.S. gold mine

Atlantic Mining Inc. did not provide required studies for Cochrane Hill project by deadline

Frances Willick · CBC News · Posted: Aug 31, 2022 

A drone image of the open pit at Atlantic Gold's Touquoy gold mine in Moose River, N.S.

 (Steve Lawrence/CBC)

The federal environmental assessment agency has terminated its evaluation of the proposed Cochrane Hill gold mine on Nova Scotia's Eastern Shore, but the company behind the project says it still plans to pursue it.

The Impact Assessment Agency of Canada informed Atlantic Mining NS Inc. of the termination on Monday, stating the company failed to submit the required information and studies by its Aug. 28 deadline.

The company, a subsidiary of Australia-based St Barbara, wants to develop an open-pit gold mine near Melrose, N.S., about 13 kilometres north of Sherbrooke.

St Barbara already operates one existing gold mine in Nova Scotia, the Touquoy mine in Moose River, and has two other mine proposals — Beaver Dam and Fifteen Mile Stream — in various stages of the environmental assessment process.

In a statement late Tuesday, St Barbara said it remains committed to successfully permitting a project at Cochrane Hill.

Trucks are lined up on a road at the Touquoy mine, which is operated

 by Atlantic Mining NS Inc., better known as Atlantic Gold. 

(Steve Lawrence/CBC)

The company was up against the Aug. 28 deadline to submit studies for all three projects, but had an option to request an extension. It did so for Beaver Dam and Fifteen Mile Stream, but intentionally left out Cochrane Hill.

In its statement, the company said it decided not to request the extension for Cochrane Hill because its focus is on the Touquoy operation and the assessments for Beaver Dam and Fifteen Mile Stream.

"We have an opportunity to consider important changes to the Cochrane Hill Gold Project related to resource confirmation, mine planning, and feedback already received from First Nations, the public, and other stakeholders," the statement said.

"The environmental assessment process is a planning tool, and we will take this opportunity for further and ongoing engagement with First Nations, the public, and other stakeholders."

St Barbara did not directly answer a question about its anticipated timeline for the Cochrane Hill proposal, but said it will be studying the impact of the decision on permitting timelines.

The company was granted a three-year extension for Beaver Dam and Fifteen Mile Stream, and now has until Aug. 28, 2025, to submit the required information.
Project met with opposition

The Cochrane Hill proposal has met with significant opposition from residents and organizations concerned about the impact on the environment.

Those concerns include the potential effect on the nearby St. Marys River, where a long-term salmon restoration project has seen success, and Archibald Lake, which is smack-dab in the middle of the proposed mine. The company had planned to draw water from the lake or river for use in mining operations.

The province is currently considering wilderness protection for Archibald Lake, but progress on that decision has been slow.

An aerial view of Archibald Lake. 

(Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society)

Raymond Plourde, the senior wilderness co-ordinator of the Ecology Action Centre, says the termination of the environmental assessment is good news — for now.

"Hopefully this project is just dead and won't come back, but I think that's perhaps too optimistic to hope for."

Plourde says with the termination of the assessment, "effectively, legally, there is no project in the works."

"So there is therefore no reason for the provincial government to hesitate any longer on protecting Archibald Lake, and it should proceed immediately with doing so."

A spokesperson for Nova Scotia Environment said in a statement Wednesday the department had just become aware of the termination, and is considering any implications. The statement said the province heard many viewpoints during its consultation on Archibald Lake and is "taking the time to consider them carefully" and does not have a timeline for the decision.
New assessment rules

All three of St Barbara's proposed mines were filed for assessment under the 2012 Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. That act was repealed in 2019, when the Impact Assessment Act replaced it.

If the Cochrane Hill project is resubmitted, it would be subjected to the 2019 regulations, which Plourde says are more stringent.

Unlike the 2012 rules, the 2019 rules require early planning and public engagement, federal and independent reviews of science and consideration of Indigenous knowledge and impacts. The new act also broadens the scope of assessments to include both positive and negative impacts of projects rather than focusing solely on minimizing adverse environmental effects.

The company has previously said the Cochrane Hill mine would create 190 full-time jobs, with as many as 300 during the year of construction.

US is seriously underestimating the consequences of CO2: Study

Reuters - Friday

The U.S. government is drastically underestimating the social cost of carbon dioxide emissions, which is 3.6 times higher than the estimate currently used to inform many of Washington's key climate policies, a study suggested on Thursday.



Carbon dioxide is the greenhouse gas chiefly responsible for global warming and therefore negatively affects human wellbeing. U.S. economists call this the "social cost" and they calculate it in dollars, considering repercussions such as changes in agricultural productivity, damages from sea level rise and worsening human health.

The U.S. currently puts that cost at around $51 per metric tonne — a figure which dates back to the Obama administration, adjusted for inflation. But in research published Thursday in the journal Nature, a team of American scientists say the reality of such damages is likely far greater, at $185 per tonne.

That's important because "higher estimates of the social cost motivate more ambitious mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions," said co-author Brian Prest, an economist at the non-profit Resources for the Future.

The U.S. federal government relies on the social cost figure to inform standards for vehicle and power plant emissions and the energy efficiency of appliances. It is also used as a basis for federal tax credits on carbon capture and storage, zero emission credit payments for nuclear generators and in proposed federal carbon tax legislation.

But a 2017 report by the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine called out the federal government for using outdated research to calculate the consequences of greenhouse gas emissions.

The government's social cost estimate relied on old climate models that generated global temperature changes inconsistent with those predicted by more sophisticated Earth systems models, the Nature study said. The estimate also did not incorporate a growing body of research on how climate change is expected to affect human wellbeing, it added.

FUTURE GENERATIONS

The Trump administration then slashed the social cost estimate to below $10 per metric tonne. This allowed federal agencies to roll back fuel economy standards.

Last year, U.S. President Joe Biden reinstated the Obama-era $51 social cost as a temporary measure and re-established the Interagency Working Group on the Social Costs of Greenhouse Gases.

Members of the working group did not respond to a request for comment. They are expected to release an updated social cost estimate later this year.

Prest and his colleagues hope the government will consider their research, which relies on improved socioeconomic projections, climate models, climate impact assessments and economic discounting, or the value that researchers today put on costs incurred by future generations.

"The higher the social cost of carbon, the better off future generations will be," said Jim Krane, an energy policy expert at Rice University in Texas.

Though other countries, including Germany, Canada and Mexico, also use a social cost of CO2 in policy decisions, "the U.S. is the biggest user of the social cost of CO2," said Prest.

Canada currently prices CO2 emissions at $50 CAD per metric tonne - below the United States. However, Canada's government acknowledges that is an underestimate and says it is "committed to revising the social cost of carbon".

"We're certainly pushing and asking other countries to consider pollution-pricing systems," Oliver Anderson, a spokesman for Canadian Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault, said.

Germany's Environmental Agency lists the social cost of CO2 at 180 euros ($178.92) per metric tonne of emissions.

As temps soar, so does climate change economic cost

by: David Lazarus
Posted: Sep 2, 2022 

As Californians sweat through another day of crazy heat, a new study finds that climate change is going to take a much greater toll on the economy than previously estimated.

A paper in the journal Nature finds that brutal heat waves, crop-killing droughts and rising seas will cost society more than three times what the U.S. government has forecast.

That’s what’s known as a wake-up call.

But, as with most prior climate-change predictions and warnings, it too will probably go unheeded until disaster is already knocking at our door.

The new study looks at what’s known as the “social cost of carbon.” It finds that each additional ton of carbon dioxide spewed into the atmosphere will cost society $185, or more than triple the current estimate.

“The bottom line is that our results show that when you fully update the social cost of carbon methodology to the state of the science, it suggests that the existing estimates that are in use by the federal government are vastly underestimating the harm,” the Washington Post quoted one of the report’s authors as saying.

This impacts all of us because, in the end, we’ll all pay for living in a world that wasn’t designed to be this hot.

And, as activists have been warning for years, the longer we wait to mitigate the problems, the more it will cost to address these issues (if we can).

This is tough stuff — particularly in light of resistance from some political quarters to do take any long-term steps that would impact the short-term prospects of businesses.

It’s easy to be cynical that this latest alarm from scientists will similarly be shrugged off. That would be a mistake.


We have only one planet. And we’re drastically changing its environmental conditions.

That this will have economic repercussions is obvious.

That it will cost far more than previously thought to fix makes the need for prompt action all the more urgent.

Or our children and grandchildren can pay exponentially higher costs down the road.

US internet service company blocks controversial online forum citing 'imminent threats to human life'

Donie O'Sullivan - Yesterday 


Cloudflare, a major American internet services company, pulled its support for Kiwi Farms, a controversial online message board, Saturday evening citing “imminent threats to human life.” The move temporarily forced Kiwi Farms offline.

Cloudflare’s decision came as Kiwi Farms was linked to a campaign of harassment and violent threats targeting Clara Sorrenti, a Canadian trans woman who is a streamer on Twitch, a platform popular among video gamers.

Sorrenti, better known by her online name “Keffals,” launched a campaign calling on Cloudflare to stop providing services to the site.

Fearing for her safety after her personal details were posted online, Sorrenti said she left her home in Canada in recent weeks and traveled to Belfast, Northern Ireland, to stay with a friend. However, she says, the online harassers were able to track her down there.

Police in Northern Ireland are investigating threats made against her there, The Sunday Times reported.

Cloudflare’s decision comes amid an ongoing debate about what major internet companies and platforms should do about online hate and harassment campaigns that are organized with the support of their services.

Matthew Prince, the CEO of Cloudflare, has long expressed discomfort about his company’s potential role of deciding what can and cannot be online. It is a position echoed by others in Silicon Valley who argue it shouldn’t be up to them to police speech online.

“This is an extraordinary decision for us to make and, given Cloudflare’s role as an Internet infrastructure provider, a dangerous one that we are not comfortable with,” Prince wrote in a blog post Saturday after blocking Kiwi Farms.

But, he said the rhetoric on Kiwi Farms “and specific, targeted threats have escalated over the last 48 hours to the point that we believe there is an unprecedented emergency and immediate threat to human life unlike we have previously seen from Kiwifarms or any other customer before.”

“Cloudflare provides security services to Kiwifarms, protecting them from DDoS and other cyberattacks. We have never been their hosting provider,” Prince added.

In 2019, Cloudflare pulled its support for the hate-filled forum 8chan after that site was linked to a shooting in El Paso, Texas, that killed 23 people.

Last Wednesday amid increasing public pressure to stop providing support to Kiwi Farms, Cloudflare released a blog post attempting to clarify its position.

The post did not reference Kiwi Farms directly, but Cloudflare said its decisions to stop providing support to 8chan in 2019, and to the neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer in 2017, had unintended consequences.

“In a deeply troubling response, after both terminations we saw a dramatic increase in authoritarian regimes attempting to have us terminate security services for human rights organizations,” the blog post read.

By Sunday morning, Kiwi Farms was mostly back up online, finding another service provider to keep it on the web.

Sorrenti told CNN Sunday she is going to continue to campaign to have all internet service providers refuse Kiwi Farms business.

For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com

Shamima Begum: Canada would back Islamic State ‘trafficking’ inquiry


Pressure mounts for independent investigation into alleged smuggling of British schoolgirl into Syria by Canadian agent in 2015

Shamima Begum was 15 when she entered Syria. Photograph: PA


Mark Townsend Home Affairs Editor
@townsendmark
Sun 4 Sep 2022 06.00 BST

Senior Canadian intelligence officials would support an inquiry into their organisation’s deeply contentious role in the smuggling of British schoolgirl Shamima Begum into Syria, the Observer has been told.

Sources have told Tasnime Akunjee, the lawyer representing Begum’s family, that there is significant concern within its ranks that a people smuggler working for Canadian intelligence helped Begum and two friends from Bethnal Green, east London, to join Islamic State in Syria. Until now, sources within the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) have kept their counsel over the scandal since it was revealed last week that the Metropolitan police in London allegedly knew that a people smuggler linked to western security services trafficked the then 15-year-old.

Akunjee said: “I have spoken to individuals within the CSIS who are extremely concerned and shocked about its role in the trafficking of Shamima Begum and would strongly support an inquiry into its involvement.” He also suggested that at the time of the alleged trafficking of Begum in 2015, Canadian intelligence officials appeared to have broken the service’s operating guidance.

“It is also worth noting that, at the time of her trafficking into Syria, CSIS did not have the legal authority to recruit and provide resources to someone engaged in supporting terrorism,” said Akunjee.

Of Begum’s two friends smuggled into Syria by Mohammed al-Rashed – a double agent working for both IS and Canadian intelligence – Kadiza Sultana, then 16, is believed to have been killed in an air raid while Amira Abase, then 15, is missing. Pressure is also mounting in the UK for an independent inquiry into precisely what the Met and UK security services knew of the trafficking network that took the three London schoolgirls into Syria.

Canada privately admitted its involvement when it feared being exposed and successfully asked Britain to cover up its role, according to a new book, The Secret History of the Five Eyes by Richard Kerbaj. Five Eyes is the network that shares intelligence between Britain, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. It reports that two officials from the CSIS met then Met head of counter-terrorism, Richard Walton, in March 2015, shortly after Begum’s disappearance.

The revelations prompted Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, to argue for the need for intelligence services to be “flexible and creative”, but, he added, also to abide by strict rules. Akunjee also said that questions needed to be answered about the trafficking of children into IS as potential intelligence assets.

Last week’s revelations have also led to renewed calls for the British government to look into the myriad safeguarding and public safety failures in the case.

Begum, now 23, is trapped in a camp in Syria and has claimed that she was trafficked into Isis. She is appealing against the removal of her British citizenship in 2019.

Protons inside some types of hydrogen and helium are behaving weirdly

By Karmela Padavic-Callaghan

Artist's impression of a helium-3 atom

Inside the nucleus of some atoms, protons appear to be doing very unexpected things. They are pairing up far more often than usual when they get extremely close to each other, and physicists don’t fully understand why. Getting to the bottom of this phenomenon could help us better understand the strong nuclear force, which governs interactions on extremely small scales.

John Arrington at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California and his colleagues directed a beam of very energetic electrons onto a target made of a lighter version of helium called helium-3 and tritium, the radioactive version of hydrogen, to get an insight into previously unexplored interactions between protons and neutrons in their nuclei.

When protons and neutrons inside a nucleus get as close to each other as a quadrillionth of a metre they briefly pair up, then fly away with lots of momentum. Arrington says that by measuring the speed or energy of electron’s in the beam ricocheting off the pairs, the researchers could count the number of particle duos that were either proton-proton or proton-neutron pairs.

The ultimate tally was unexpected, says Arrington. Similar experiments that used atoms such as carbon or lead in the past had found that only about 5 per cent of pairings in each nucleus were between two protons, but for helium-3 and tritium the researchers found that number to be closer to 20 per cent.

What gives humans the advantage over our incoming robot masters? Junaid Mubeen at New Scientist Live this October

Arrington says that helium-3 and tritium nuclei are less tightly packed with particles than previously investigated nuclei, which may mean that particles approach each other closely less often, but with more preference for pairing up protons. Such an imbalance could be a property of how exactly nuclear forces work at very small distances, which is not yet fully understood, he says.

Lawrence Weinstein at Old Dominion University in Virginia says that the large number of proton pairs may hint at some new wrinkle in the strong nuclear force, but that more refined and detailed theoretical models of the experiment must be developed before the finding is considered definitive.

Mark Strikman at Pennsylvania State University says that if future studies confirm these findings, they may influence how physicists think about neutron stars. In these stars particles are packed so closely together that the stars are the densest objects in the universe. How massive a neutron star can be then partly depends on how neutrons and protons interact when they are so close to each other, Strikman says.

Journal reference: Nature, DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-05007-2

Trader Joe’s broke labor laws in effort to stop stores unionizing, workers say

Situation is notable as the company has cultivated a liberal brand ethos and anti-union moves are likely to dent that public image

Aspen McKinzie, a Trader Joe’s worker, explained the union organizing campaign started over complaints about pay increases and benefits that were enacted during the pandemic being taken away. 

Photograph: Carol Lollis/AP


Michael SainatoSun 4 Sep 2022 10.00 BST


Workers at Trader Joe’s successfully won union elections this year at stores in Hadley, Massachusetts, and Minneapolis, Minnesota, but workers now have numerous filed unfair labor practice charges against the specialty US supermarket chain, alleging the company has violated labor laws in trying to prevent further stores from unionizing.

The move comes as a wave of unionizing efforts sweeps through sections of the US economy, including at household names like Starbucks and Amazon. The situation at Trader Joe’s is especially notable as the firm has cultivated a liberal brand ethos and anti-union moves are likely to dent that public image.

In Boulder, Colorado, workers at a Trader Joe’s had filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board to hold a union election in July to join United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7.

The same month, Trader Joe’s announced company-wide increases to compensation and benefits, including an increase to discounts for employees from 10 to 20%, a $10 an hour premium pay for Sundays, an increase to paid time off and market rate pay adjustments over complaints about pay disparities between longer term employees and new hires.

“We believe that was in response to union activity not only in this store, but the other stores around the country,” said Jim Hammons, organizing director at UFCW Local 7. “That in itself is illegal, they can’t do that.”

The union pulled the election petition recently and filed unfair labor practice charges over the announcement of new pay and benefits during their unionization campaign and have alleged several other instances of retaliation. They include the use of company property used by some workers at the store to create anti-union buttons and retaliating against a union supporting worker by removing them from their regular Sunday shift and replacing them with an anti-union worker.

Trader Joe’s also retained Littler Mendelson, a union avoidance law firm that Starbucks has also retained as dozens of stores around the US have unionized over the past year.

Aspen McKinzie, a Trader Joe’s worker at the Boulder store, explained the union organizing campaign started earlier this year over complaints from workers about pay increases and benefits that were enacted at the company during the pandemic being taken away without any input from workers.

“It’s very much a shallow attempt to discourage people from unionizing by trying to make them feel like their employer is actually taking care of them. But none of this is secured and they can take it away whenever they want,” said McKinzie. “If they really care that much about us, they’d be paying us a lot more rather than paying a bunch of union busting lawyers to feed lines to our management.”

In the beginning of the Covid pandemic, Trader Joe’s chief executive Dan Bane issued a company-wide memo calling union organizing efforts a “distraction” amid calls for hazard pay and safety protections.

That memo was cited by workers who launched the first union campaign at Trader Joe’s in Massachusetts earlier this year, claiming that retirement benefits for workers were unilaterally cut in half by the company and pay bumps provided during the pandemic were rescinded despite high inflation concerns.

Keenan Dailey, who has worked at Trader Joe’s for 14 years in Boulder, also cited those cuts as inspiring the union organizing campaign, as workers were disgruntled over those sudden cuts.

“They were worried that without that extra money they weren’t sure how they were going to pay their bills. Some of them had re-signed up on leases with their apartment, expecting to have that extra $2 an hour,” said Dailey. “And then to add insult to injury, we found out that the new hires were making $2 more per hour.”

He noted that the pay and benefits announcement in July severely disrupted the union campaign, but emphasized that those benefits can be taken away at the whim of the employer without a contract.

“When you’re union busting, you can do it through the carrot or the stick, so to speak, and Trader Joe’s was trying to use the carrot,” said Dailey. “We need a contract to keep this. And we might be able to get more stuff too, but if we don’t have a contract, we’re probably losing this in the next year or two, at least some of it.”

In New York City, the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) have filed charges alleging that Trader Joe’s abruptly closed a wine shop in New York City just days before workers had planned to file for a union election. UFCW has launched a petition to demand Trader Joe’s reopen the store and signaled intent to pursue legal action.

Trader Joe’s denied the store closure was linked to the unionization efforts, and said the store was closed due to underperformance. But employees were given no prior notice to the store closure and the location had several years left on its lease.

Trader Joe’s did not reply to multiple requests for comment on this story in response to the allegations made by workers in Boulder. In previous comments on unionization efforts, a spokesperson for Trader Joe’s said: “Trader Joe’s respects our crew’s right to support a union – or not.”

Pressure is on to start mining the deep sea. Is it worth it?

A BIG FAT NO

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Vancouver-based The Metals Company wants to be 1st to 

mine sea floor for critical minerals

Lisa Johnson · CBC News · Posted: Sep 04, 2022 

A sea cucumber is seen on the deep ocean floor in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, an area of the Pacific Ocean where mining companies want to exploit polymetallic nodules rich in cobalt, nickel, copper and manganese. (Diva Amon and Craig Smith/Abyssal Baseline Project)

A battle is brewing over the future of the ocean floor that pits the fate of this little-known ecosystem against humanity's demand for critical minerals — and a Vancouver company is leading the charge.

The Metals Company (TMC), formerly known as DeepGreen Metals, wants to mine potato-sized rocks known as polymetallic nodules, which contain metals in demand for electric vehicles, solar panels and more. 

These nodules lay on the sea floor, some four to six kilometres below the surface and outside the jurisdiction of any country, where the regulatory body, the International Seabed Authority (ISA), has issued exploration permits but never allowed commercial mining.

Despite more than a decade of discussion, the ISA hasn't yet created regulations to let deep-sea mining happen.

But last year, the tiny Pacific Island nation of Nauru, in partnership with TMC, triggered a U.N. treaty provision called the two-year rule that will force the ISA to establish regulations or "provisionally" allow mining anyway in less than a year from now — by July 9, 2023.

While TMC and other firms eager to mine argue deep-sea metals are urgently needed for the clean-energy transition, those opposed — including environmental groups and a trio of Pacific nations — say moving too quickly is likely to risk a sea floor ecosystem that's been millenia in the making.

Polymetallic nodules are displayed at the booth of DeepGreen Metals, now called The Metals Company, at the annual prospectors convention in Toronto in 2019. (Chris Helgren/Reuters)

A new 'age of metals'

The pitch behind deep-sea mining is to meet the demand of what the World Economic Forum calls a new era, where "the Age of Oil draws to a close, and a new 'age of metals' is set to dawn."

Indeed, the International Energy Agency says there will be a "huge increase" in the need for minerals like cobalt, copper, manganese and nickel. They're all found in polymetallic nodules.

By 2024, TMC wants to mine in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ), an abyssal plain between Hawaii and Mexico with the highest known concentration of nodules.

According to company documents, a remote-operated vehicle would suck a slurry of nodules and sediment off the sea floor, separate the nodules out for transport to the surface, and release fine clay sediment into the water column. 

TMC calls the nodules a "battery in a rock."

"When you start adding up the metal intensity of moving away from fossil fuels … we have to make land-based mining more efficient, but we also have to explore new frontiers," said CEO Gerard Barron in a recent interview with CBC.

"We don't have the luxury of saying 'No' to the ocean."

Gerard Barron, now CEO of The Metals Company, is seen speaking to Nauru President Baron Waqa, to his immediate right, in 2018. TMC and Nauru have a permit to explore for polymetallic nodules in the CCZ, and want to begin commercial mining in 2024. (Sandy Huffaker/The Associated Press)

However, there's disagreement on whether deep-sea mining is necessary.

An analysis by the Institute for Sustainable Futures in Sydney, Australia, looked at various decarbonization scenarios and found demand could be met with known land-based sources and increased recycling. 

"The result is always the same: we actually don't need deep-sea mining," said Sven Teske, associate professor at the University of Technology Sydney and research director at the institute.

• Tech giants sued over 'appalling' deaths of children who mine their cobalt

He thinks efforts and money would be better spent improving the environmental and human rights record of operations on land than turning to the sea.

"We [would] destroy the last untouched environment on our planet with no good reason."

What's down there?

That environment — cold, dark and extremely high pressure — looks quite alien. There isn't a lot of biomass down there, leading some, including Barron, to compare it to a barren desert. 

But those who have studied it, such as Craig Smith, a deep-sea ecologist and professor emeritus at the University of Hawaii, say the CCZ is among the most biodiverse places in the abyssal ocean. 

• A tiny fraction of the high seas are protected. Why a UN treaty is needed now more than ever

"Most of the species, 90 per cent of them, are new to science. Every time we put a sample down, we bring up species that scientists have never seen before," said Smith. 

A new species of a new order of cnidaria, a type of invertebrate, was found 4,100 metres down in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, where it lives on sponge stalks attached to polymetallic nodules. (Craig Smith and Diva Amon/Abyssal Baseline Project)

Removing the nodules, which take a million years to grow only a few millimetres, would destroy the habitat for any creature that depends on that patch of sea floor. Sediment plumes clouding the water and noise pollution are also concerns.

A recent paper in Science by Smith and colleagues estimates one mining operation would produce noise at levels known to disturb whales about five kilometres away, and exceed ambient noise levels up to 500 km away.

While Barron says it's a "fairy tale" to expect mining with no impacts, he maintains deep-sea operations could be more sustainable than ones on land.

A polymetallic nodule is on display at a prospecting convention in Toronto in 2019. Each one has formed over millions of years, with layers of metals slowly accumulating around something that sank to the sea floor, like a shark's tooth. (Chris Helgren/Reuters)

The ISA has established protected no-mining areas in the CCZ, which Smith says will help maintain biodiversity in the region. However, he's concerned what would happen if all 17 companies with permits to explore in the zone were allowed to mine at once — with noise travelling long distances and reaching fish and migratory whales.

Calls for moratorium

Citing these concerns, environmental groups including MiningWatch Canada have petitioned the Canadian government to support a moratorium on deep-sea mining. 

"We definitely need to stop climate change and the heating of the planet. But we have to think about doing it in such a way that doesn't get us from the frying pan into the fire," said Catherine Coumans, Asia-Pacific program co-ordinator for Mining Watch Canada. 

In a statement, Global Affairs Canada said the government is working with the ISA on the negotiation of "sound regulations on seabed mining, which will provide effective protection of the marine environment and ongoing monitoring of environmental impacts."

If mining is allowed, Smith would rather see just one operation at first, and for scientists to "study the heck out of it" to understand the impact to the CCZ of chronic disturbances over years.

A sea cucumber nicknamed the 'gummy squirrel' found in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone. While there isn't a lot of biomass in the abyssal ocean, the zone contains many species scientists have never seen before. (DeepCCZ Project)

"I think it's important for humans to preserve the biodiversity in these remarkable habitats," even though few ever experience them, said Smith. 

"Most people will never see a whale in their lifetime, but they like the idea of these remarkable organisms existing in the ocean."

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lisa Johnson

@lisasj

Lisa Johnson is an editor and senior writer at CBC News, and a producer of CBC Radio's What On Earth. She enjoys making sense of complicated things and has also reported for CBC TV and radio in B.C. with a specialty in science, nature, and the environment. Get in touch at Lisa.Johnson@cbc.ca or through Twitter at @lisasj.

New report suggests proposed old-growth deferral areas in B.C. are being logged

By Elizabeth McSheffrey 

 Global News
Posted August 30, 2022 

View image in full screen

A dog walker is seen next to a Grand Fir tree (left) at Francis/King Regional Park in Saanich, B.C. on May 26, 2016. British Columbia's forests minister says the province has worked with First Nations to defer almost 1.7 million additional hectares of at-risk old-growth forests. 

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chad Hipolito

An environmental group’s new research report suggests forestry companies are logging old-growth trees in some of the B.C. government’s proposed deferral areas.


Stand.earth’s research team analyzed satellite imagery to determine more than 55,000 hectares of such land is at “imminent risk” of being logged, is currently being logged, or has already been cut.

“Satellite imagery doesn’t lie,” report author Angeline Robertson said in a Tuesday news release.

“If the intent of the province was to pause logging so that a meaningful review of old-growth management can proceed, then this analysis shows that they have failed in the most important aspect — getting the industry to stop logging the most at-risk old growth.”

READ MORE: Save Old Growth on the defence after B.C. judge likens tactics to ‘using people as cannon fodder’

In a statement, B.C. Forests Minister Katrine Conroy said Stand.earth’s report “misses the forest for the trees,” because it’s misleading the public with claims that a “significant amount” of old-growth has been logged.

“The Ministry of Forests has been monitoring the situation on-the-ground and — in fact — only around 0.3 per cent of the proposed deferral areas have been harvested since November 2021 when engagements with First Nations started,” she wrote.

“After decades of neglect, we are taking better care of our oldest and rarest forests for future generations.”

B.C. increases forest revenue-sharing with First Nations – Apr 27, 2022

According to the provincial government, one-third of B.C.’s 11.1 million hectares of old-growth forest is protected, with old-growth harvesting having decreased by 40 per cent in the past five years.

Logging has been deferred — temporarily suspended — on nearly 1.7 million hectares in partnership with First Nations to protect the “most ancient and rarest forests,” while work on a new, sustainable forestry strategy is underway, according to Conroy.

In November last year, the province released findings from an independent Old Growth Technical Advisory Panel, which identified 2.6 million hectares of unprotected, at-risk old-growth that should be prioritized for deferrals in B.C.

In December, it further disclosed that some 50,000 hectares overlap priority deferral areas with previously approved cutting permits.

READ MORE: Both sides of B.C. old-growth logging debate ‘can’t see the forest for the trees’: minister

Stand.earth’s report suggests 1,600 hectares of forest in those proposed deferral areas in four sample areas were logged between March of 2021 and 2022. Forty-three per cent, it added, were harvested after the province’s November announcement, and 94 per cent of the land logged was classified as “prioritized big-treed old growth forest.”

The research group studied satellite imagery of forests in the Omineca, Cariboo, West Coast and Kootenay-Boundary natural resource regions, which have a “high degree of overlap” between candidate deferral areas and approved cut blocks, compared to other regions.

Canfor, West Fraser, Sinclar Group, Interfor, Weyerhaeuser, and Western Forest Products represent the “majority of the threat,” the report claims, with all but Weyerhaeuser having logged in an old-growth area at risk.

Global News reached out to all six companies for comment.

B.C. First Nations reach deal to defer old-growth logging – Jan 20, 2022

In a statement, Joyce Wagenaar of West Fraser said the company only harvests in “permitted areas” after consultation is complete with local First Nations.

“All harvest activity West Fraser undertakes is subject to government permitting approvals, consultations with Indigenous Nations, and is fully compliant with provincial laws, regulations and protection orders,” she wrote.

Babita Khunkun of Western Forest Products noted that final decisions on proposed, temporary deferral areas have not yet been made by provincial and First Nations governments.

“We look forward to continuing to actively work with First Nations to advance sustainable forest management through respectful collaborative approaches, using local information and modern advanced forest inventories considering all ecological and cultural values, including ensuring there are old forests in perpetuity,” Khunkhun wrote in an email.

READ MORE: B.C. Supreme Court to hear lawsuit over First Nation’s land rights

Michelle Ward of Canfor said the company follows “rigorous environmental standards and all provincial and federal laws.”

“As a company, we also greatly respect the rights and title of Indigenous Nations on whose traditional territories we operate and their valued roles in stewarding the forests,” Ward wrote.

“We are focused on working closely with the applicable Indigenous Nations to review the proposed old growth deferrals and seek their input into our proposed harvesting. We also continue to work closely with government as the process moves forward.”

Video New regional park proposed for Bowen Island, B.C – Aug 10, 2022

In June, the Union of BC Indian Chiefs (UBCIC) called on the B.C. government to immediately defer logging in all proposed old-growth areas, in addition to areas identified by First Nations.

It renewed that call on Tuesday, in keeping with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which enshrines free, prior and informed consent.

“The province has continued to let logging of old growth happen, while publishing glossy images of old growth trees to spread the message that they are taking action,” Kúkpi7 Judy Wilson and UBCIC secretary-treasurer said in a news release.

“It is simply not enough — we are looking to the B.C. NDP to take immediate action, particularly under a new leader.”

READ MORE: Old growth protesters spray-paint B.C. landmarks

Conroy said Tuesday that a number of First Nations have indicated they do not support the deferrals proposed by the provincial government.

“Government has always been clear that we will respect their decisions and will not be imposing deferrals unilaterally. Logging will proceed on their territories,” she said.

According to the province, logging is not occurring on land where First Nations have agreed to deferrals, including in cases where cutting permits were already approved. The only exception, it said, is in areas that did not meet the technical advisory panel’s criteria for old-growth.

British Columbia announces 2.6 million hectares of old-growth forest will be preserved – Nov 2, 2021

Robertson, the report author, claims all of the areas currently protected by deferrals in B.C. were either in areas controlled by the provincial government, or areas that weren’t at risk of logging.

“I hope that they realize they cannot keep tricking the constituency into thinking that progress is being made when it’s not, and getting part of the way on the low-hanging fruit of this process is not going to be satisfactory,” she told Global News.

The report also accuses the B.C. government of failing to consider old-growth losses that stem from oil and gas development, rather than solely logging companies, “suggesting that the government lacks a comprehensive approach and cumulative impact assessment for old growth forest management.”