Another ‘Dr. Copper’

Copper alloy surfaces are naturally antimicrobial with self-sanitizing properties, and research showed these surfaces eliminate up to 99.9% of harmful bacteria and viruses

Amanda Stutt | September 6, 2022 |

Dr. Amanda Clifford. Image credit: Surath Gomis.

It was a winter day in Toronto, at the height of the pandemic in February 2021, and Dr. Amanda Clifford was walking from the subway station to her apartment when she had the idea about how to formulate a copper coating that could kill covid faster.


Two months later, Clifford arrived at the University of British Columbia to speed up the efficacy of the process Teck Resources had been testing on public transit since 2020.

Clifford has a background in materials engineering, worked for Teck as an undergrad student on a co-op doing corrosion studies on base metals, and became an expert on functional coatings for biomaterials.

Copper alloy surfaces are naturally antimicrobial with self-sanitizing properties, and research showed these surfaces eliminate up to 99.9% of harmful bacteria and viruses — but there was a lag time in killing gram positive bacteria — and that was the challenge to overcome.

“My idea was for copper – it has one limitation that it kills gram positive more slowly, if we could change the surface chemistry, the topography or roughness, we can kill bacteria more quickly,” Clifford told MINING.com.

“One way we can do this, is copper is antimicrobial because it’s actually corroding very slowly, so it’s not copper in a zero state oxidation that’s antimicrobial, it’s positively charged copper ions that kill bacteria.”

The Coptek covid killing copper coating that has been deployed at most of the Applied Science buildings on the UBC campus and at the British Columbia Institute of Technology was funded by Teck’s Copper & Health program. The formula came from the surface engineering Dr. Clifford and her research team — Dr. Edouard Asselin, Dr. Elizabeth Bryce, and Dr. Marthe Charles developed — a collaboration between the Department of Materials Engineering and the Faculty of Medicine at the University of British Columbia.

The study was published in July in Advanced Materials Interfaces.

What the team did to mitigate the lag time in killing bacteria with pure copper while its corrodes or oxidizes, was couple two dissimilar metals, in this case zinc, which due to the different reduction potential corrodes first.

“That gets things going – its spontaneous, the zinc will just start corroding and then the copper will corrode. It got everything going and we got a lot better results. Another thing we did was add nano-scale roughness,” Clifford said.

That idea came from knowing that certain insects and reptiles skins have nanoscale roughness, which are naturally anti-bacterial.

“For our coating we took copper and zinc and added this nanoscale roughness, and now all of a sudden its overcoming the issue of killing gram positive bacteria slowly — and now its killing 99.7% within an hour, so half the time,” Clifford said.

The coating could significantly reduce the incidence of contracting bacterial infections from high-touch surfaces in healthcare facilities and other public spaces.

The next phase is to do a trial in hospitals — where the germ killing copper could have the most impact. Clifford said the strategy is to combat antibiotic resistance which can lead to ‘superbugs’ afflicting patients who are already sick.

“Part of that is decreasing the overall amount of pathogens and antibiotic resistant bugs that are already in public spaces, so this coating has that.”

The team is still studying how the coating works on other viruses in the hopes of making a bigger impact.

“Almost all the principles that were used to make this medical innovation were just pure metallurgical engineering applied to a medical application,” Clifford pointed out. “People who think that metallurgical mining engineering has a very niche application — the tools that you learn you can also apply to other applications such as medicine.”

Clifford didn’t realize the idea she had walking home from the subway that winter day would be developed to the point where it would be deployed on university campuses — and next in hospitals.

“As an academic you can make educated guesses,” she said.

“I thought it would work, and it did.”

Metal plants feeding Europe’s factories face an existential crisis

Bloomberg News | September 4, 2022

(Image by Norsk Hydro ASA).

In the aluminum industry, closing a smelter is an agonizing decision. Once power is cut and the production “pots” settle back to room temperature, it can take many months and tens of millions of dollars to bring them back online.


Yet Norsk Hydro ASA is preparing this month to do exactly that at a huge plant in Slovakia. And it’s not the only one — European production has dropped to the lowest levels since the 1970s and industry insiders say the escalating energy crisis is now threatening to create an extinction event across large swathes of the region’s aluminum production.


The explanation lies in aluminum’s nickname: “congealed electricity.” The metal — used in a huge range of products, from car frames and soda cans to ballistic missiles — is produced by heating raw materials until they dissolve, and then running an electric current through the pot, making it massively power intensive. One ton of aluminum requires about 15 megawatt-hours of electricity, enough to power five homes in Germany for a year.

Some smelters are protected by government subsidies, long-term electricity deals or access to their own renewable power, but the rest face an uncertain future.

“History has proven, once aluminum smelters go away, they don’t come back,” said Mark Hansen, chief executive of metals trading house Concord Resources Ltd. “There is an argument which extends beyond employment: this is an important base metal commodity, it goes into aircraft, weapons, transport and machinery.”

As production drops, the hundreds of European manufacturers that turn metal into parts for German cars or French airplanes are left increasingly reliant on imports that could get costlier. Some buyers are also trying to avoid metal from Russia, which is usually a big supplier to Europe.


The industry says it urgently needs government support to survive. However, any measures like fixed price caps to keep power-hungry plants running may be difficult to justify while consumers face soaring power bills and the threat of rationing and blackouts looms.

The woes of the aluminum sector offer a striking example of what’s playing out in Europe’s energy-intensive industries: across the continent, fertilizer makers, cement plants, steel mills and zinc smelters are also shutting down rather than pay eye-watering prices for gas and electricity.

Most worryingly for the region’s manufacturing sector: it may not simply be a case of shutting for the winter. Power prices for 2024 and 2025 have also soared, threatening the long-term viability of many industries.

At recent market prices, the annual power bill for the Slovalco smelter would be around two billion euros, according to Chief Executive Officer Milan Vesely. Slovalco decided to mothball the plant due to a combination of surging energy prices and a lack of emissions compensation that is available to smelters elsewhere in the bloc.

Restarting the plant — which could take up to a year — will only be possible through some combination of cheaper power, a sharp rise in aluminum prices, and additional government support, Vesely said in an interview this week at the site.

“This is a genuine existential crisis,” said Paul Voss, director-general of European Aluminium, which represents the region’s biggest producers and processors. “We really need to sort something quite quickly, otherwise there will be nothing left to fix.”

Combined with import tariffs that Europe’s struggling producers have fought hard to put in place, the rising cost of energy could leave manufacturers facing an increasingly large premium over prevailing international prices in order to secure supply, in a further blow to Europe’s competitive standing in the global industrial economy.

“There will be nothing left to fix”

Producers of other metals like zinc and copper are hurting badly too, but the vast amounts of power needed to make aluminum have made the sector particularly unprofitable.

In Germany, the power needed to produce a ton of aluminum would have cost roughly $4,200 in the spot market on Friday after topping more than $10,000 last month, according to Bloomberg calculations. The London Metal Exchange futures price was around $2,300 a ton on Friday. That means curtailments look set to accelerate over the winter.

“Whenever we get downturns in economic growth and smelter margins come under pressure, we see European smelters shutting a decent portion of capacity,” said Uday Patel, senior research manager at Wood Mackenzie. “When things improve, there are some smelters that never come back online.”

Wood Mackenzie estimates that Europe has already lost about 1 million tons of its annual aluminum production capacity, and Patel said he expects that about 25% of that may be curtailed permanently. Another 500,000 tons is “highly vulnerable” to closure, Wood Mackenzie estimates.

The curtailments have had little impact on aluminum prices, which have fallen by more than 40% since a peak in March as traders brace for a global slump in demand that could be even more severe.

But while Europe’s production losses account for about 1.5% of global supply, they will leave consumers in Europe increasingly reliant on imports that will be costlier and carry a heavier carbon footprint.

Already, European manufacturers are paying hefty delivery fees to get aluminum shipped to local ports, and further increases could leave them in an increasingly uncompetitive position relative to peers across Asia and the US.

The energy crisis is also rippling quickly down the supply chain to companies that buy aluminum from smelters and transform it into specialist products used in everything from cars to food packaging.

They use significant amounts of gas in the process, and many are looking to pass on their surging energy costs via contractual surcharges that could bake in additional costs for manufacturers for years to come.

“The smelter curtailments are only the tip of the iceberg, because you also have downstream players who are buying prime metal and transforming it into products for use in sectors like beverage cans and automotives,” said Michel Van Hoey, a senior partner at McKinsey & Co. These companies have typically seen a ten-fold increase in their energy bills and “will not be able to fully pass on those costs without some degree of demand destruction or import substitution.”

At Slovalco, Vesely — who has worked at the company since 1989 — is hopeful it will be able to reopen the plant once energy prices fall, but acknowledges the risk that it could remain offline for years.

“Something must be done if we don’t want to destroy European aluminum production,” he said. “If Europe considers aluminum as a strategic metal, then aluminum plants should have guaranteed prices of electricity.”

(By Mark Burton, Daniel Hornak and Jack Farchy, with assistance from Eddie Spence)

Asia coal price hits record as global hunt for fuel escalates

Bloomberg News | September 6, 2022 | 

Anglo American Thermal Coal Greenside Collieries. 

Image from Anglo American via Flickr.

Thermal coal in Asia advanced to a record as a threat of supply disruptions adds new risks to a global energy sector already engulfed in crisis.


Spot physical coal loaded at Australia’s Newcastle port was priced at $436.71 a ton on Friday, an all-time high, according to a biweekly index compiled by OPIS seen by Bloomberg News. That’s nearly triple the price this time last year.

Newcastle futures for October jumped 5% to $463.75 a ton Monday, according to ICE Futures Europe, to the highest price in data stretching back to January 2016. Europe’s benchmark coal price is also trading at a record.

Uncertainty over gas flows to Europe and forecast stronger coal demand from the continent is continuing to propel prices of the fuel. There’s also a prospect of weather disruptions at mines in Australia, a key global supplier, with a third straight La Nina forecast for late 2022 likely to deliver heavier rainfall.

“Any severe disruptions to Australian coal shipments could push the high-calorific value price even to fresh highs,” Morgan Stanley analysts including Marius van Straaten said in a note.

Some previous La Nina periods have seen coal mines and railroads in Australia’s New South Wales and Queensland states disrupted by heavy rainfall, and output fell by an estimated 20% to 30% in a particularly severe weather event that spanned several months in 2010 and 2011.

Coal has seen a demand resurgence as a result of a squeeze on global gas supply as some buyers shun fuel imports from Russia, and with slow investments in other sources including renewables in many nations. Several European countries have resumed coal plants, while other key consumers including India have boosted imports.

(By Stephen Stapczynski and David Stringer)

Compounds that promote vegetation diversity key to ecological restoration in open-pit coal mine dumps

Staff Writer | September 6, 2022 

Open-pit coal mine. 

(Reference image by Richard Webb, Wikimedia Commons).

A new study published in the journal Soil Ecology Letters demonstrates that soil urease and β-glucosidase are key supporters of the diversity of vegetation configuration which, in turn, is an important factor when it comes to the ecological restoration in open-pit coal mine dumps.


In detail, the two compounds promote the increase of vegetation diversity and biomass by boosting the accumulation of soil organic matter and nitrate nitrogen.

Lead researcher Fu Chen, from the China University of Mining and Technology, has conducted a series of studies on the restoration of damaged mine ecosystems in order to prove his hypothesis.

In one of the studies, Chen was able to demonstrate that the successional direction of the Pinus tabulaeformis plantations significantly shifted due to the invasion of surrounding plants, which resulted in an obvious increase in species number and vegetation coverage.

His team also found the original vegetation configuration, soil nutrient conditions and soil microbial communities were altered due to secondary succession.

“We chose to study the Antaibao open-pit coal mine located in the eastern Loess Plateau, where some artificial restoration projects began in 1992,” Chen said in a media statement.

“Plantations with the same vegetation configuration and artificial management measures had different restoration effects after 30 years of recovery time. Therefore, the Antaibao open-pit coal mine provides a proper and high-quality platform for the mechanism study of monoculture plantations on the secondary succession of mine ecosystem.”

Graphical abstract by Zhang et al. (From Soil Ecology Letters).

Following their analyses, Chen and his group noticed that the original vegetation configuration and soil nutrient conditions were altered due to secondary succession. With the advancement of the secondary succession process, the coverage of plants increased from 34.8% to 95.5%, soil organic matter increased from 9.30 g·kg-1 to 21.13 g·kg-1, and total nitrogen increased from 0.38 g·kg-1 to 1.01 g·kg-1. The activities of soil urease and β-glucosidase were increased by 1.7-fold and 53.26%, respectively.

Additionally, the secondary succession also changed the soil microbial community structure and function. The relative abundance of the Nitrospira genus which dominates the nitrification increased 5.2-fold. This result suggests that the invasion and diffusion of native plants and surrounding plants had a positive effect on ecological restoration, which is helpful to explore more reasonable selection and configuration of vegetation in the practice of mine ecological restoration.

“We also used the method of structural equation models and functional prediction to explore the role of microbes-mediated enzymes in the process of secondary succession and the interactions between plants, soil and microbes,” Chen said.

According to the scientist, the activities of several soil enzymes had a significantly positive impact on soil carbon, N, and P. And microbes played a positive role in facilitating plant and soil substance cycling on either scale. This result suggests the possibility of using industrial enzyme preparations such as urease and catalase to promote litter degradation, by improving soil fertility to accelerate the process of ecosystem cycle and succession.

“The study is an extension of our understanding of the ecological restoration in open-pit coal mine dump from plant configuration to microbial function, increasing our understanding of plant invasion and microbes-mediated enzymes in secondary succession of mine dumps on Loess Plateau,” Chen pointed out.

Michigan plans Line 5 appeal after Canada invokes treaty to move case out of court

By James McCarten  The Canadian Press

Posted September 6, 2022

“Immediate interlocutory appeal is appropriate to advance the ultimate termination of the litigation.”

Those, according to Nessel’s argument, are the primary conditions necessary for the court to certify an appeal order while the underlying case is still ongoing — a little-used procedure known as an interlocutory appeal.

At issue for Nessel is last month’s decision by Michigan District Court Janet Neff to reject her request to send the current legal action back to the circuit court level, where it originated in 2019.

It was the second time that Neff rejected Michigan’s argument, the first coming late last year in a separate but nearly identical case that Nessel promptly abandoned before repeating the process with the dormant 2019 file.

In her Aug. 18 decision, Neff made clear her disdain for Nessel’s procedural tactics, describing the strategy as “the improper use of judicial machinery.”

READ MORE: Judge sides with Enbridge in Michigan’s latest effort to halt Line 5 pipeline

But the motion and brief filed last week suggest Nessel’s not taking that lying down.

“This order involves three controlling questions of law as to which there are substantial grounds for difference of opinion,” Nessel argues in the brief.

Those revolve around whether a 30-day deadline for removing a case to federal court should be considered mandatory, as well as the relevance — if any — of the facts and the findings of the original case, as well as Nessel’s abandoning it.

“There are substantial grounds for difference of opinion regarding the court’s suggestion that the decision denying remand in Whitmer v. Enbridge was unaffected by the voluntary dismissal of that case,” she argues.

“The voluntary dismissal of a case prior to the filing of an answer or a motion for summary judgment terminates the action and vacates the court’s interlocutory orders.”

A pre-emptive appeal now, she continues, would also expedite the resolution of the dispute by ensuring that both parties don’t end up relitigating the entire case in the event a state court disagrees with Neff’s conclusions.

Line 5 ferries upwards of 540,000 barrels per day of crude oil and natural gas liquids across the Canada-U. S. border, crossing the Great Lakes by way of a twin line that runs along the bottom of the Straits of Mackinac.

Whitmer and environmentalists want it shut down, fearing that an anchor strike or technical failure would trigger a catastrophe in the ecologically delicate straits, which connect Lake Michigan to Lake Huron and separate Michigan’s upper and lower peninsulas.

Proponents of Line 5 call it a vital source of energy, especially propane, for several Midwestern states, as well as a key source of feedstock for refineries north of the border that produce jet fuel for Canada’s busiest airports.

Enbridge has argued that shutting down Line 5 would “defy an international treaty with Canada that has been in place since 1977.”

Line 5 talks between the two countries under that treaty, which deals specifically with the question of cross-border pipelines, have been ongoing since late last year, though little has been said publicly about the status of those talks.

Just nine days after Neff’s Aug. 18 decision in Michigan, Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly formally invoked the treaty again, this time in relation to a similar Line 5 court battle in Wisconsin.

READ MORE: Enbridge Line 5: Canada invokes 1977 treaty again over dispute

There, the pipeline runs directly through the Bad River Reservation, more than 500 square kilometres of pristine wetlands, streams and wilderness that’s home to the Bad River Band of the Lake Superior Chippewa.

The band has been in court with Enbridge for more than three years, alleging the Calgary-based company has violated the terms of the easements that allowed the pipeline to traverse the reservation beginning in 1953.

Enbridge, which argues that a 1992 agreement with the Bad River Band allows the pipeline to keep operating until 2043, is in the process of trying to reroute the pipeline around the reservation.

© 2022 The Canadian Press

Britain borrows big again to ease energy shock

* Truss sets out plan on third day in office

* Household bills to be capped at 2,500 pounds

* To provide liquidity to energy market with BoE

* Moratorium on fracking dropped 

By Elizabeth Piper, Kate Holton and William James

Wed, September 7, 2022 

LONDON, Sept 8 (Reuters) - Britain's new leader Liz Truss capped soaring consumer energy bills for two years on Thursday in a package to limit the economic shock of war in Ukraine that could cost the country more than 100 billion pounds ($115 billion).

With Britain facing a lengthy recession sparked by a near quadrupling of household energy bills, Truss set out what she described as bold and immediate action to protect consumers and businesses just three days after she took office.

"This is the moment to be bold, we are facing a global energy crisis, and there are no cost-free options," she told parliament.

"We are supporting this country through this winter and next, and tackling the root causes of high prices so we are never in the same position again."

She said new methods of supply would also be introduced, with a moratorium on fracking being dropped and new oil and gas exploration licences issued for the North Sea.

"Energy policy over the past decade has not focused enough on securing supply," Truss said.

She said average household energy bills would be held at around 2,500 pounds a year for two years, staving off the expected 80% leap that was due in October and that threatened the finances of millions of households and businesses.

With wholesale gas prices remaining highly volatile, the government did not put a price on the package but the support is expected to run into the tens of billions of pounds and will be funded by government borrowing.

Deutsche Bank has estimated that the energy price offset plus tax cuts that Truss has also promised could together cost 179 billion pounds, or about half the sum Britain spent on the COVID-19 pandemic.

Separately the Treasury and Bank of England will also address the extraordinary liquidity requirements faced by energy firms that Truss said would be worth 40 billion pounds.

Businesses will also be given support but with details to come at a later date.

The full cost will be given in a fiscal update by new finance minister Kwasi Kwarteng later this month.

SOARING PRICES

The scale of the plan, by a leader who had ruled out "handouts" during her campaign to succeed Boris Johnson, has rattled financial markets. The pound fell against the dollar on Wednesday to levels last hit in 1985.

Sterling rose by around half a cent against both the dollar and euro as Truss spoke, while Britain's government bond market - which had fallen heavily in the weeks leading up to Thursday's announcement - was steady.

European energy prices started to rise as the world emerged from COVID-19 lockdowns and then surged in February following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Average prices for British households, which are set under a cap, jumped by 54% in April to 1,971 pounds and were due to leap 80% to 3,549 pounds a year in October.

The government expects the package to curb inflation by up to 5 percentage points. Consumer price inflation in Britain jumped to 10.1% in July, the highest since February 1982, and is forecast to rise to 13% in October.

While the new cap will soften the blow for millions of households it still poses a threat to those on limited incomes. An Office for National Statistics survey published in September showed more than four in 10 adults already found it very or somewhat difficult to afford energy bills.

Charities and consumer groups welcomed the move as providing immediate support while businesses said they needed more details.

The opposition Labour Party questioned why the package wasn't partly funded by a windfall tax on the sector, and why more wasn't being done to improve insulation.

Britain was a net exporter of energy from the late 1980s to 2004 following the development of North Sea oil and gas fields, but production steadily declined from a peak in 1999. The country is now a net importer of all main fuel types, government data shows, with 38% of the energy it used in 2021 imported.

To address supply over the longer term, the government will issue more than 100 oil and gas exploration licences in the North Sea and scrap a ban on fracking, allowing projects to go ahead if local communities agree.

($1 = 0.8702 pounds) ($1 = 0.8661 pounds) (Writing by Kate Holton; Additional reporting by Paul Sandle and Kylie MacLellan; editing by Rosalba O'Brien, John Stonestreet and Michael Holden)

UK

New PM expected to reverse fracking ban as campaigners call for review’s release

BEIS has been sitting on report delivered in early July into possible effect of fracking in UK

Truss has been warned that fracking will not bring down energy bills. 

Photograph: Paul Ellis/AFP/Getty Images


Fiona Harvey Environment correspondent

THE GUARDIAN

Wed 7 Sep 2022 

Liz Truss must publish a recently completed review on fracking in the UK, green campaigners have urged, amid expectations the new prime minister will lift the moratorium on shale gas drilling immediately.

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has been sitting on a report delivered in early July by the British Geological Survey into the possible effects of fracking in the UK, including the danger of Earth tremors.

Truss spoke in favour of fracking during her campaign for the Tory leadership, and has also advocated expanding oil and gas production in the North Sea. It is thought she will announce an immediate end to the ban on fracking that was imposed in 2019 as part of her energy strategy on Thursday.

She has previously said that fracking should only take place where there was the support of the local community. The Telegraph reported that firms could offer a reduction in energy bills in order to secure community support.

Green campaigners told the Guardian the BGS report – commissioned by Kwasi Kwarteng, now chancellor of the exchequer, while he was business secretary – must be published, if the government was considering a return to fracking in the teeth of opposition from local groups around the country.

Dr Doug Parr, policy director at Greenpeace UK, said: “This survey should be published so we can all see the evidence on which the government chooses to make its decisions. However, the report is about the risk of fracking causing earthquakes – that’s not the only thing that informs any decision.”

Danny Gross, campaigner at Friends of the Earth, also called for publication of the report, and said the government must not lift the fracking ban.

He said: “It would be astonishing for the government to lift the fracking ban without also publishing the results of the British Geological Survey review, commissioned by the newly appointed chancellor.”

He added: “But even without the report we know it’s unnecessary, unpopular, incapable of easing the cost of living crisis and will only add more planet-warming emissions to our atmosphere. On the flipside, renewables are cheap, clean, quick to develop and liked by the public. Of the two, it’s clear which one is the pragmatic choice.”

Truss has already been warned this week by the government’s independent advisers on the climate, and on infrastructure, that increasing gas production from fracking will not bring down energy bills.

On Wednesday, the former Conservative environment secretary John Gummer and Sir John Armitt, who chair the Committee on Climate Change and the National Infrastructure Commission respectively, took the unprecedented step of jointly writing to Truss warning that ramping up gas production would not solve the problem.

They wrote: “The UK cannot address this crisis solely by increasing its production of natural gas. Greater domestic production of fossil fuels may improve energy security, particularly this winter.

“But our gas reserves – offshore or from shale – are too small to impact meaningfully the prices faced by UK consumers.”

The BGS said its report had been delivered to the government two months ago. A spokesperson said: “BEIS commissioned BGS to produce a report based on a desk-based study to address six questions related to recent scientific research on the hazard and risk from induced seismicity during hydraulic fracturing of shale rocks. The report was submitted to BEIS on the 5 July.”

A spokesperson for BEIS said the report would be published “in due course”.

Fracking was first attempted in the UK more than a decade ago, but was plagued by a series of problems, including Earth tremors at its site in Lancashire. No gas has ever been commercially produced from fracking in the UK despite numerous attempts.

In 2019 the government stepped in with an effective moratorium on fracking, ruling that only if fracking could be proven not to cause Earth tremors could it go ahead.

Parr said there were additional concerns from fracking, including the possibility of serious health impacts, found in the US where fracking has been pursued at a vast scale. The impacts of fracking on the climate crisis must also be considered, he said.

“This survey will not address how useless fracking is in this energy crisis, because it won’t lower our bills or impact global prices. Nor will this survey address the blight of fracking on British countryside and communities,” Parr said.

“So the government should go ahead and publish this survey but they should be transparent and justify, on a proper evidence base, on all aspects of their decision-making, including that we’re in a climate emergency and so weighing up fracking against cheap, clean energy solutions that would lower our bills and carbon emissions. If they did that, we’re confident it would be rejected.”

 

Fracking won’t cut energy prices, Liz Truss told

The Prime Minister remains committed to the UK’s target of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050

By Eir Nolsøe

7 September 2022 •

THE TELEGRAM

Truss wants to issue new licensing for North Sea oil and gas exploration

 CREDIT: Andrew Parsons/No 10 Downing Street

Liz Truss is set for a clash with the Government’s official climate advisers after they sought to shoot down her plans to revive fracking.

The climate change committee, which advises on emissions targets, said ambitions to lift the ban on fracking and expand gas extraction in the North Sea will not make a meaningful difference to consumer prices.

In a letter to the new Prime Minister, the committee said the gas reserves are also too small to bring down prices. Instead, they urged her to focus on improving energy efficiency of buildings and improving the market for renewable energy.

“Ninety per cent of the recent increase in the energy price cap is driven by changes in the price of gas. Addressing our dependency on fossil energy offers us the best way out of these crises,” Lord Deben and Sir John Armitt said in the letter.

Ms Truss has said she wants to shore up Britain’s long-term energy supply by issuing a new licensing round for North Sea oil and gas exploration and reversing a ban on shale-gas extraction.

She has said she remains committed to the UK’s target of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050 but must improve energy security at the same time.

Gas prices have surged since Russia invaded Ukraine and the Office for Budget Responsibility expects prices to remain at three to four the pre-invasion average until 2027.

The climate change committee set out five recommendations for Ms Truss on how to “reduce the UK’s exposure to volatile fossil fuel prices”.

They include developing “credible” policies to make buildings more energy efficient, removing barriers to a delivering decarbonised power system and delivering a “working” market-based mechanism for low-carbon heat.

Members said addressing a “comprehensive energy advice service” to help the public understand how they can cope with the crisis was vital. Draught-proofing and lowering boiler temperatures alone could reduce gas consumption by 6-8pc.

Ms Truss is expected to unveil an £170bn energy package to help struggling households and businesses within days.

Climate change tsar is hauled over the coals after warning Liz Truss against lifting fracking ban amid energy crisis

• Lord Deben said approving fracking would have no impact on energy prices – 
• The Prime Minister is set to end the ban on the gas extraction method today 
• He urged her to focus on renewables instead of expanding domestic production

By KUMAIL JAFFER POLITICAL REPORTER FOR THE DAILY MAIL

PUBLISHED: 19:35 EDT, 7 September 2022 | 

The Government’s climate change tsar was told he needs to ‘live in the real world’ after he warned Liz Truss against lifting the fracking moratorium despite the energy crisis.

Lord Deben said approving fracking would have no impact on energy prices – and urged her to focus on renewables instead.

The Prime Minister is set to end the ban on the gas extraction method today, after pledging to take action during the leadership campaign

But Lord Deben, who is chairman of the Committee on Climate Change, warned the PM yesterday the best way to solve the energy crisis was to double down on renewable sources rather than expanding domestic production.

Lord Deben said approving fracking would have no impact on energy prices 

– and urged her to focus on renewables instead

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘There is no sliver of a cigarette paper between the fact that if you want to deal with climate change and you want to deal with the cost of living crisis and oil and gas prices you have to do the same things – renewable energy and energy efficiency –they are the answers.

‘If you want energy bills down, you produce your energy in the cheapest possible way. That happens to be by renewables.’

But last night Craig Mackinlay, part of the Net Zero Scrutiny Group of Tory MPs, who question the cost of meeting the Government’s climate targets, said: ‘Lord Deben and his Climate Change Committee need to come out of their ivory towers and live in the real world. We are facing an energy cost and supply emergency. It is time we unleashed the full potential of all sources of domestically derived power. Fracking could play a huge role in this. The best time for a UK energy policy would have been ten years ago. The second best time is now.’

On Tuesday, Lord Deben and Sir John Armitt, who is chairman of the National Infrastructure Commission, urged Miss Truss to retain the UK’s commitment to deliver a green, decarbonised power system by 2035.

The Prime Minister is set to end the ban on the gas extraction method today, 

after pledging to take action during the leadership campaign

Both figures suggested the size of the nation’s gas reserves – whether offshore or from shale – ‘are too small to impact meaningfully the prices faced by UK consumers’.

During the Tory leadership campaign, Miss Truss suggested fracking could bolster the UK’s energy security and wean the country off Russian fuels.

She said: ‘It’s also very important we use the resources in the North Sea. I support exploring fracking in parts of the United Kingdom. We will end the effective ban on extracting our huge reserves of shale gas by fracking but be led by science, setting out a plan to ensure communities benefit.’

Today Miss Truss will set out her energy support strategy, with help on bills and the expansion of domestic supply expected to be announced.

 

Lord faced scrutiny over work with green companies 

By Lewis Pennock for the Daily Mail 

Lord Deben, who is chairman of the independent Committee on Climate Change, has previously faced scrutiny for his private work with ‘green’ firms.

The peer – formerly Tory environment secretary John Gummer – is also chair of environmental consultancy firm Sancroft International.

He was cleared after a conflict of interest probe in 2019 over £600,000 paid by clients of Sancroft which allegedly stood to profit from his advice to ministers.

The Mail on Sunday revealed at least nine businesses and campaign groups made payments to Sancroft International Ltd – some running into hundreds of thousands of pounds.

The peer had always declared the fact he owns and is chairman of Sancroft to the House of Lords register and the Committee on Climate Change (CCC), but he never identified its clients. He has always denied any conflict of interest.

In February, The Daily Telegraph reported that Sancroft was contracted to work for the Qatari government. Qatar accounts for nearly half of Britain’s gas imports.

The CCC wrote to then-business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng suggesting ministers support a ‘tighter limit on production’ of oil and gas and favour imports.

Lord Deben, 82, told the Telegraph: ‘There can be no conflict of interest in advising people everywhere that sustainability demands that they move away from fossil fuels.’

In 1990, while he was minister of agriculture, he famously fed his daughter a beefburger to reassure the public during the mad cow disease crisis.

Oil Capitulates On Global Recession Fears

By Charles Kennedy - Sep 07, 2022, 

• Crude prices fell nearly 5% on Wednesday morning as recession fears continue to dominate the narrative.
• 
  
• Oanda senior market analyst Ed Moya: Energy traders appear to be skeptical of any rallies as they digest a plethora of global economic challenges.
• 
  
• On Tuesday, more lockdown orders were handed down in Guiyang, and a lockdown in the tech hub of Chengdu was extended.

Breaking through new technical levels, Brent crude has plummeted nearly 4.6%, below $90, and WTI has plunged to $82, shedding over 5%, as fears of global recession appear to be driving the oil markets into a longer-term spiral downwards. 

As of 12:40 p.m. EST, Brent crude is trading down 4.57% at $88.59 per barrel for a $4.24 change on the day. WTI was trading down 5.01% at $82.53, for a change on the day of $4.35. 

There are no breaking developments driving prices downward, and no new data releases that would normally weigh on oil prices. Any rally in oil prices now is treated with skepticism by traders, rendering upswings brief. 

“Energy traders appear to be skeptical of any rallies as they digest a plethora of global economic challenges, a wrath of uncertainty to supplies, and looming crude demand destruction fears,” Oanda senior market analyst Ed Moya told Bloomberg.

Chinese demand concerns continue to put downward pressure on markets. 

Demand outlook remains a bearish weight on oil prices with China, the largest crude importer in the world, maintaining its zero-COVID lockdown policy that now has some 65 million people under a restricted movement regime.

On Tuesday, more lockdown orders were handed down in Guiyang, and a lockdown in the tech hub of Chengdu was extended. 

Additionally, China’s crude oil imports in August were 1.1 million bpd lower than the year-ago period and its exports were lower than expected, according to energy analytics provider OilX.

Likewise, OPEC+’s symbolic 100,000 bpd production cut for October led to a very temporary rally in oil prices earlier this week. As soon as the market digested the symbolism and returned to fundamentals, oil prices resumed bearish activity. 

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com

 Repsol SA agrees to sell 38,000 net hectares of Alberta land to Teine Energy

Hilary Punchard, BNN Bloomberg

Repsol SA has agreed to sell around 38,000 net hectares of land in Alberta to Canadian Pension Plan Investments Board-backed Teine Energy.

The Spanish energy company confirmed to BNN Bloomberg that it will sell the land in Chauvin, Alta., where the company produces heavy crude oil. Reuters first reported the agreement on Tuesday.

According to its website, Repsol’s Chauvin “is considered one of the company’s foundational heavy oil assets.”

“Repsol is well positioned to optimize the value of its upstream business in Canada, where it remains committed to delivering reliable and flexible unconventional natural gas production at a time when this fuel is particularly relevant, given the international context,” a Repsol spokesperson said to BNN Bloomberg over email.

After the sale to Teine Energy, Repsol will still have oil operations in Chauvin, Alta., Duvernay, Alta. and Edson, Alta.

The deal is still awaiting regulatory approval.

Average non-mortgage debt tops $21,000: Equifax Canada

The Canadian Press

The amount of non-mortgage debt owed by Canadians is rising, boosted by new lending and higher spending linked to inflation, according to a new report by Equifax Canada.

The report out Tuesday by the credit rating agency said the average non-mortgage debt per consumer was $21,128 in the second quarter, up 2.4 per cent compared with a year earlier.

Rebecca Oakes, vice-president of advanced analytics at Equifax Canada, said financial stress is becoming a very real thing for many more Canadians.

"Its impact on consumer credit is not just visible in day-to-day credit card spending, but also in other non-mortgage debt like auto loans and lines of credit, where balances are on the rise," Oakes said in a statement.

Equifax said credit card balances rose to the highest level since the fourth quarter of 2019 and the average credit limit on new cards is over $5,800, the highest it has been in the last seven years.

Oakes said credit card spending is reaching historically high levels.

"High consumer demand for credit cards means a competitive marketplace for lenders. As a result, the credit limits being offered on new cards are much higher than we've seen in previous periods," Oakes added.

Overall, Equifax said total non-mortgage debt rose to $591.4 billion, up 5.2 per cent from a year ago, while total consumer debt rose to $2.32 trillion in the second quarter, up 8.2 per cent compared with the same quarter last year.

The report noted new mortgage volume fell by 16.4 per cent in the second quarter, compared with the same period last year, amid a slightly cooler housing market in recent months.

However, despite a cool-down in the housing market, the average loan amount for first-time homebuyers only dropped 0.5 per cent in the second quarter compared with the first quarter, with the average monthly payments increasing by 10 per cent.

"The cooling housing market in Canada should not be mistaken for increasing affordability," Oakes said.

"Affordability depends not just on home prices, but also on monthly payment obligations for a mortgage. Higher interest rates coupled with high inflation can really stretch a consumer’s monthly expenditure, while many could find it difficult to qualify for a mortgage."

The report said the average loan amount for new mortgages in Canada was over $367,000, with average loans for first-time homebuyers at over $430,000.

Equifax also said consumer insolvency rose to the highest levels since the start of the pandemic, mostly driven by an increase in consumer proposals.

The report comes as economists anticipate a supersized interest rate hike from the Bank of Canada on Wednesday, as the central bank works to combat inflation