CUT NOSE TO SPITE FACE 

Youngkin Says Ford Has ‘Trojan Horse’ Relationship With Chinese Battery Maker


Keith Laing and Ed Ludlow
Fri, January 20, 2023

(Bloomberg) -- Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin is calling an electric-vehicle battery plant planned by Ford Motor Co.     and a Chinese partner a “Trojan horse” for China that would undermine policy efforts to strengthen the US auto industry.
   
The Republican governor, who  is considered to be a possible 2024 presidential candidate, defended his decision to remove his state from consideration for the proposed plant, a joint venture between Ford and Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd., also known as CATL.

“I look forward to bringing a great company there. It won’t be one that uses kind of a Trojan-horse relationship with the Chinese Communist Party in order to gain,” Youngkin said Friday in an interview with Bloomberg Television.

He also said that vying for the plant would have undermined the premise of recently passed legislation championed by President Joe Biden’s administration. That law, known as the Inflation Reduction Act, directs subsidies for EVs and batteries made in North America to wean the US off its dependence on China for battery materials.

“To have that site embroiled in what would have clearly been a deal that contravened the intent and purpose of the Inflation Reduction Act incentives — which is why it was being structured the way it was — could have taken that site offline for an extended period of time,” he said.

The proposed plant, which Michigan and other states have also vied for, is part of a wave of investment by automakers and battery manufacturers. They are spending billions of dollars — and receiving billions more in state and federal subsidies — as part of a transition from gasoline-powered vehicles to EVs.

CATL, the world’s largest battery maker, supplies cells to Tesla Inc. and will begin providing batteries for Honda Motor Co.’s electric vehicles in 2024. It recently opened a factory in Germany and is looking to establish manufacturing in North America.

Ford had no comment on Youngkin’s remarks. A spokesperson for CATL didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment sent outside of business hours in China.

Asked about a similar accusation from Youngkin on Jan. 18, Ford declined to directly respond and instead said in a statement: “Our talks with CATL continue – and we have nothing new to announce.”

Youngkin said he would be open to working with Ford on future opportunities, as long as they do not also involve CATL. He has expressed regrets about missing out on other major factory deals in recent months.

Read more: Youngkin Says Virginia Missed on Intel, Hyundai on Poor Planning

“This is not a zero-sum game and I would have loved to have Ford come to Virginia and build a battery plant, if they were not using it as a front for a company that’s controlled by the Chinese Communist Party,” he said.

Youngkin declined to comment on the status of the site and any specific candidates, citing confidentiality agreements.

--With assistance from Keith Naughton, Gabrielle Coppola, Jacqueline Lopez and Will Shaker.

(Updates with bckground on CATL from seventh paragraph.)

GM and LG call off partnership for a fourth battery plant; GM seeks new partner

Jamie L. LaReau, Detroit Free Press
Fri, January 20, 2023

General Motors and LG Energy Solution have tentatively called off plans to build a fourth battery cell plant in the U.S. together as part of their joint venture Ultium Cells LLC after the two sides failed to reach an agreement on details for that fourth plant, a person familiar with the plans confirmed to the Detroit Free Press on Friday night.

GM is expected to seek a new battery cells partner for the fourth plant, the person said. The person asked to not be named because negotiations are private.

GM spokesman Dan Flores told the Free Press on Friday evening, "We are absolutely committed to the fourth battery cell plant in the U.S., but we’re not going to comment on the speculation (about the faltering partnership with LG) that is out there now.”

The Ultium Cells LLC battery cell manufacturing facility in Lordstown, Ohio, will be about the size of 30 football fields and will have annual capacity of more than 30 gigawatt hours with flexibility for expansion. It is expected to open in August 2022.

Flores said GM also remains on track to have the manufacturing capacity to build 1 million electric vehicles in North America by the end of 2025.

GM faces a challenge though. There are few battery cell manufacturers the size of LG to help GM achieve its goal to bring 30 new EVs to market by the end of 2025 and be a zero emissions carmaker by 2035, the person said. GM would not go with a startup because battery cells are too important to risk. It likely won’t go after SK International because SK is partnered with Ford Motor. So that leaves longtime Tesla battery supplier Panasonic and Samsung SDI as possibilities, the person said.

GM and LG formed Ultium Cells in 2019. The first of its four U.S. plants was built in Warren, Ohio, and started running this year. Ultium is also spending $2.3 billion to build a plant near GM's Spring Hill Assembly plant, where GM assembles the Cadillac Lyriq EV. That battery cell plant will open in late 2023. Ultium Cells is also spending $2.6 billion to build a plant in Lansing Delta Township in Michigan to start production in 2024. Those plants remain on schedule, and that partnership with LG is intact.

Ultium Cells had been saying for months that it would build a fourth factory in North America, but it failed to announce a location. As the Free Press reported in August, the company was considering New Carlisle, Indiana, which is about 15 miles west of South Bend.

The person familiar with the talks said GM and LG did look at New Carlisle and had secured tax abatements and other government agreements, but ultimately the two sides ended “in a stalemate” on various terms for construction and location.

The Wall Street Journal first reported that talks had stalled between GM and LG, citing unnamed sources. The report said part of the reason was because LG executives in Korea were reluctant to commit money to the project because of the fast pace of its recent investments with other carmakers. They also had concerns about the economy. The WSJ said GM is in discussions with at least one other battery supplier to go forward with the fourth factory.

‘No Bears’ review: From Iran, a master class in house-arrest filmmaking from Jafar Panahi


Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune
Fri, January 20, 2023

The facts are stark.

In 2010, discouraged at one of its native artist’s insistence on pushing boundaries and making Iran look less than ideal on film, the Iranian government slapped writer-director Jafar Panahi with a 20-year ban on moviemaking. He was also confined to within Iran itself, with no travel beyond its borders.

Last July, after the completion of his fifth clandestine feature project in 12 years, Panahi was imprisoned just before Iran’s civil unrest and mass protests boiled over, for a time. The director is to serve up to six years. “No Bears,” that bracing fifth act of creative defiance, opens Friday at the Gene Siskel Film Center.

How does an artist with a camera keep going under those conditions? An ingenious, subtly anguished answer to that question, Panahi’s film is both an act of self-assessment, with the filmmaker assuming the role of himself, and a crafty drama of suspense, identity and the perils of what we do for love.

In the first scene, we’re in a Turkish city near the Iranian border. On a busy urban street full of vendors’ cries and stray cats and dogs, tea shop server Zara (Mina Kavani) and her partner Bakhtiar (Bakhtiyar Panjeei) are arranging a life-altering plan to slip across the border with phony passports.

Then: “Cut!” This, we learn, is a movie being made, not life being lived. Remotely, from the Iranian border village where he has come to spend time under state lockdown, director Panahi observes the production in progress (and, at other times, the daily footage on a hard drive) on his laptop, as he struggles with wonky Wi-Fi and a feeling of profound dislocation.

Panahi has come from Tehran to this village to make his movie, or at least supervise from a distance. The amiable village citizen (Vahid Mobasheri) from whom he has rented a room agrees to film a ceremonial foot-washing on Panahi’s behalf outside of town, part of an engagement celebration. Meantime, Panahi takes still photographs of his neighbors, and some of the townspeople, at one point — as we hear later — capturing the image of a young man and woman under a tree.

That woman, it turns out, is engaged to someone else. “No Bears” takes the notion of a dangerous witness with a lens to a fascinating and finally chilling conclusion. Panahi, never trusted by the locals, becomes their obvious scapegoat and prime adversary. The least he must do, the initially sympathetic town sheriff says, is take an oath in the hallowed traditional “Swear Room” that he did not photograph the couple — no evidence, no problem, at least for the man with the camera.

Yet nothing is simple or forgiving in this land. The movie shifts planes of reality with uncanny effectiveness; one minute, the film-within-a-film is developing legitimate narrative momentum, only to be shifted, radically, to the story of the actors playing those characters, who share their predicament.

Some of “No Bears,” which takes its title from the local fib that bears roam the area, is unaccountably beautiful. As Panahi drives at night in his conspicuously swank SUV along dusty border roads, more than dust hangs in the air, which is thick with tension. Is he about to make a run across? Is the temptation too great? Or is the fear greater?

The accepted folkloric lie about the bears exemplifies a nation’s fear, where it is all too easy, as the actor Bakhtiar says, to feel “trapped, with no future, no freedom and no job.” Another character puts it this way: “Our fear empowers others.” Those are sentiments, to be sure, that the Iranian censors and their overlords do not like. And while “No Bears” was completed before his current imprisonment, this is why Panahi is behind bars.

In “This is Not a Film,” Panahi stayed close and mostly inside his apartment, and the intimacy of his essayistic documentary was rare indeed. That film allegedly was smuggled out of Iran inside a cake, before premiering at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival. “No Bears” is a far more expansive work, shot in two countries (!) with a clear sense of where it’s going every minute — even when the fictional/factual iteration of Panahi, played by Panahi, arrives at one vexing, no-win crossroads after another.

“No Bears” — 4 stars (out of 4)

No MPAA rating (some violence)

Running time: 1:47

How to watch: Jan. 20-26 at the Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State St.; siskelfilmcenter.org

Michael Phillips is a Tribune critic.
mjphillips@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @phillipstribune

Chinook helicopters could cost Germany twice as much as planned -Business Insider

CANADA NEEDS THEM TOO COOPERATIVE PURCHASING 

Opening of the International Aerospace Exhibition ILA at Schoenefeld Airport, in Berlin

Thu, January 19, 2023 

BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany's planned purchase of 60 Chinook heavy-lift helicopters manufactured by Boeing to replace its ageing CH-53 fleet could cost twice as much as planned, Business Insider reported on Thursday, citing several government and industry sources.

Six billion euros ($6.47 billion) had been budgeted for the helicopters, but the U.S. Army has signalled to Germany that the desired equipment is cost-intensive as some components have not even been fully developed, the German news outlet said.

Expensive extra requests from Germany and inflation could raise the price to as much as 12 billion euros, the report said, adding that features such as aerial refuelling and special rotor blades were not yet available.

"We haven't yet received the letter of offer and acceptance from the U.S., so we cannot make any statement as to the price," a ministry spokesperson in Berlin said.

A Boeing spokesperson declined to comment on the prices, noting that this was a deal between governments and the company was a supplier to the U.S. Army.

Boeing is currently working on new rotor blades as part of the Chinook's Block II configuration but these developments had not been requested by Germany, the spokesperson said.

On aerial refuelling, the person added that this had been a feature of Chinook helicopters for 35 years.

A deal on the German purchase is expected to be signed this year and it would then take three years to deliver the aircraft, according to the company.

Germany's Chancellor Olaf Scholz shifted policy in February after Russia invaded Ukraine, sharply increasing defence spending and committing 100 billion euros for the Bundeswehr, Germany's armed forces.

More than 500 Chinooks are in use by the U.S. Army and forces in Europe.

($1 = 0.9270 euros)

(Reporting by Christina Amann, Sabine Siebold and Kirsti Knolle, writing by Rachel More; editing by Jason Neely)

Paul deLespinasse: A grand bargain between U.S. , China could save the world

Paul F. deLespinasse

Sturgis Journal
Fri, January 20, 2023

Americans are obsessed with the threat posed by China to our interests and even to our national survival. Skilled analysts at the State Department, Pentagon, think tanks and universities are engaged in identifying the dangers posed by China and possible strategies for coping with them.

Our intense focus on dangers risks overlooking the opportunities that exist for American-Chinese relations, which I would like to address here. Let's consider an extreme case of a Grand Bargain illustrating how monumental our opportunities may be. But of course there could be many lesser opportunities if we can't arrange a Grand Bargain.

The Grand Bargain would rest on the fact that cooperation in achieving our mutual interests could provide so many benefits all around that they would greatly outweigh the conflicting interests which now get all our attention.

Just consider the resources a grand Chinese-American bargain could release to fund additional investment in projects at home and around the world. Between them, the two countries currently spend about a trillion dollars every year on military forces. This is more than half of the money spent by the entire world on military forces.

Aside from Chiina, no other country poses a credible military threat to the U.S. and aside from the U.S. no country poses a credible threat to China. The two countries could not afford to disarm totally while the rest of the world remained armed. But the Grand Bargain could pick up an annual budget of half a trillion ($500 billion) by agreeing to cut Chinese and American military expenditures exactly in half.

Since the reduction would be mutual it would not threaten Chinese or American military security.

What could China and America do with half a trillion dollars every year? Are there any projects that are worth spending that much money on? Well, what about saving the planet, and all of its people, including Americans and Chinese, from a ruined climate?

To protect us all, we must phase out our prevailing ways of generating energy. We must massively shift to renewable energy. This will cost immense amounts of money, and an extra half trillion dollars annually could accelerate this needed shift very nicely.

This project would employ the best efforts of the world's skilled scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs, many of whom live in China and the United States. The experts who would lose their jobs at the Pentagon and its Chinese equivalent could easily find new employment in this more constructive work.

Although many details would remain to be worked out on the basis of experience, there are clearly two places where large amounts of extra money would be very beneficial. We could install tons of additional solar PV panels. We could also build large amounts of new grid to allow electricity generated by those PV panels to be conveyed where it is needed.

If anything, building additional grid, up to and including a grid connecting the entire planet into a single system, should have an even higher priority than speeding up the installation of PV panels. There is no use producing PV panels whose electrical output cannot be fully used because of an inadequate or non-existent grid.

Unless fusion power — the possibility of which is still far from certain — can be developed much sooner than even optimists now dream of, the world will move to run on solar energy sooner or later. But with the pace of climate degradation accelerating, later might not be soon enough.

There is already a great acceleration in PV and grid building. But a Grand Bargain between China and the United States could dramatically increase that acceleration and, ultimately, save the world.

This would be a result doing great honor to the people and leaders of both of our countries.

If the United States and China were to cooperate in this project, who could stop us?

— Paul F. deLespinasse is professor emeritus of political science and computer science at Adrian College. He can be reached at pdeles@proaxis.com.

This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Paul deLespinasse: A grand bargain between U.S. , China could save the world

Lunar New Year tourism hopes fizzle as Chinese stay home






















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Asia Lunar New Year TourismA Chinese tourist in traditional Thai costume poses for a photograph at Wat Arun or the "Temple of Dawn" in Bangkok, Thailand on Jan. 12, 2023. A hoped-for boom in Chinese tourism in Asia over next week’s Lunar New Year holidays looks set to be more of a blip as most travelers opt to stay inside China if they go anywhere. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)

TIAN MCLEOD JI, ELAINE KURTENBACH and KANIS LEUNG
Thu, January 19, 2023

BANGKOK (AP) — A hoped-for boom in Chinese tourism in Asia over next week’s Lunar New Year holidays looks set to be more of a blip as most travelers opt to stay inside China if they go anywhere.

From the beaches of Bali to Hokkaido’s powdery ski slopes, the hordes of Chinese often seen in pre-COVID days will still be missing, tour operators say.

It’s a bitter disappointment for many businesses that had been hoping lean pandemic times were over after Beijing relaxed restrictions on travel and stopped requiring weeks-long quarantines. Still, bookings for overseas travel have skyrocketed, suggesting it’s only a matter of time until the industry recovers.

“I think the tourists will return around the end of February or early March at the earliest," said Sisdivachr Cheewarattaporn, president of the Thai Travel Agents Association, noting that many Chinese lack passports, flights are limited and tour operators are still gearing up to handle group travel.

COVID-19 risks are another big factor as outbreaks persist following the policy about-face in China, he said in an interview. “People are possibly not ready, or just getting ready."

For now, the Chinese territories of Macao and Hong Kong appear to be the most favored destinations.

Just days before Sunday's start of the Lunar New Year, iconic tourist spots in the former Portuguese colony, like historic Senado Square and the Ruins of St. Paul’s, were packed. Gambling floors at two major casinos were largely full, with groups of Chinese visitors sitting around the craps tables.

“I’m so busy every day and don’t have time to rest,” said souvenir shop owner Lee Hong-soi. He said sales had recovered to about 70%-80% of the pre-pandemic days from nearly nothing just weeks ago.

Kathy Lin was visiting from Shanghai, partly because it was easy to get a visa but also because she was concerned about risks of catching COVID-19. “I don’t dare to travel overseas yet,” she said as she and a friend took photos near the ruins, originally the 17th century Church of Mater Dei.

That worry is keeping many would-be vacation goers at home even after China relaxed “zero COVID” restrictions that sought to isolate all cases with mass testing and onerous quarantines.

“The elderly in my family have not been infected, and I don’t want to take any risks. There’s also the possibility of being infected again by other variants,” said Zheng Xiaoli, 44, an elevator company employee in southern China's Guangzhou. Africa was on her bucket list before the pandemic, but despite yearning to travel overseas, she said, “There are still uncertainties, so I will exercise restraint.”

Cong Yitao, an auditor living in Beijing, wasn't worried about catching the virus since his whole family has already had COVID-19. But he was put off by testing restrictions and other limits imposed by some countries, including the U.S., Japan, South Korea and Australia, after China loosened its pandemic precautions.

“It looks like many countries don’t welcome us,” said Cong, who instead was planning to head for a subtropical destination in China, like Hainan island or Xishuangbanna, to enjoy some warm weather.

According to Trip.com, a major travel services company, overseas travel bookings for the Jan. 21-27 Lunar New Year holidays were up more than five-fold. But that was up from almost nothing the year before, when China's borders were closed to most travelers.

Reservations for travel to Southeast Asia were up 10-fold, with Thailand a top choice, followed by Singapore, Malaysia, Cambodia and Indonesia.

Travel to other favorite places, like the tropical resort island of Bali and Australia, has been constrained by a lack of flights. But that is changing, with new flights being added daily.

“You will see an increase, certainly, compared with last year, when China was still closed, but I don’t think you will see a huge surge of outbound travelers to different destinations within Asia-Pacific, let alone Europe or the Americas,” said Haiyan Song, a professor of international tourism at Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Tourism Australia forecasts that spending by international travelers will surpass pre-pandemic levels within a year's time. Before the disruptions of COVID-19, Chinese accounted for almost one-third of tourist spending, nearly $9 billion.

Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport has increased staffing to cope with more than 140,000 arrivals a day during the Lunar New Year rush, though only individual Chinese travelers will be coming for now — group tours from China have yet to resume.

As a brilliant orange sun set behind ancient Wat Arun, beside Bangkok's Chao Phraya river, a Shanghai man who would give only his surname, Zhang, posed with a companion in colorful traditional silken Thai costumes.

“It's very cold in China, and Thailand has summer weather," said Zhang, adding that he knew many people who had booked tickets to get away from his hometown's cold, damp weather.

Still, for many Chinese, the allure of world travel has been eclipsed, for now, by a desire to head to their hometowns and catch up with their families, nearly three years exactly since the first major coronavirus outbreak struck in the central city of Wuhan in one of the biggest catastrophes of modern times.

Isabelle Wang, a finance worker in Beijing, has traveled to Europe, the Middle East and parts of Asia. After three years of a slower-paced life during the pandemic, her priority is to be reunited with her family in Shangrao, a city in south-central China.

“There’s still a lot of time remaining in our lifetimes, and there will certainly be opportunities to go abroad later when we want to,” she said.

___

Leung reported from Hong Kong and Macao. News assistant Caroline Chen in Beijing and Associated Press journalists Rod McGuirk in Canberra, Tassanee Vejpongsa and Chalida Ekvitthayavechnukul in Bangkok, and Edna Tarigan in Jakarta, Indonesia, contributed to this report.

Unions press Biden administration to not change EV tax credit rules


U.S. President Biden welcomes Japanese Prime Minister Kishida at the White House in Washington

Fri, January 20, 2023 
By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Major unions and public interest and environmental groups are urging President Joe Biden to reject efforts by the European Union and other foreign governments to revise U.S. electric vehicle tax incentives.

The $430 billion U.S. Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) passed in August restricts $7,500 consumer tax credits to North American-made EVs, but the U.S Treasury in December said consumers leasing vehicles assembled outside North America could benefit from the $7,500 commercial green vehicle tax credit.

Foreign governments have been pressing the Biden administration to do more to expand credit eligibility.

"The IRA has the potential to be a gamechanger for the industrial towns hit hardest by decades of offshoring," said a made public on Friday from the United Auto Workers, International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, United Steelworkers, the Sierra Club and Public Citizen.

"We strongly urge you to ensure that the IRA is implemented as intended, without delays or technical changes that erode its promises to U.S. workers and climate goals," it said.

The White House did not comment on the letter on Friday but pointed to Biden's statements in September that said the IRA bill would create "good-paying union jobs" and "increase energy security."

EU Ambassador to the United States Stavros Lambrinidis said at the Washington auto show on Thursday that he was concerned by the "discriminatory" provision of the EV tax credit, arguing it means U.S. consumers "will have much less choice in what they can buy" that can receive the $7,500 credit.

"You can move to green without discriminating," Lambrinidis said.

The letter rejected the suggestion from foreign governments that the EV tax incentives violate World Trade Organization and free trade rules. "Out-dated trade rules should not be used to undermine our laws intended to support a growing clean energy economy," the letter said.

The EU in December praised the U.S. Treasury Department decision to allow EVs leased by consumers to qualify for up to $7,500 in commercial clean vehicle tax credits.

South Korea, Europe and some automakers in December had sought approval from Treasury to use the commercial electric vehicle tax credit to boost consumer EV access.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

El Salvador Exposure to Bitcoin is Minimal, Lender’s Chairman Says



Esteban Duarte and Michael McDonald
Fri, January 20, 2023 

(Bloomberg) -- El Salvador’s exposure to cryptocurrencies — including Bitcoin — is minimal, according to the chairman of the Central American Bank for Economic Integration, which provided most of the funds that the country is expected to use to repay a bond next week.

“We have seen that exposure, and we consider it very small — it is a not significant one,” said Dante Mossi, executive president of the multilateral lender, which provided $450 million of loans earlier this month. “We are interested that investors also know the real situation of El Salvador.”

Uncertainty about the real exposure of El Salvador to Bitcoin, which has plummeted in value in recent months, has been among the factors weighing on the nation’s access to capital markets. President Nayib Bukele’s administration had purchased 2,381 Bitcoin through June 2022, according to his announcements on Twitter. On November 16, he said the government would buy one Bitcoin every day.

The International Monetary Fund is expected to carry out its so-called Article 4 mission — in which it provides a macroeconomic assessment and recommendations — for El Salvador, Mossi said. CABEI is working with El Salvador’s government to compile information on debt sustainability, which is expected to include disclosures on cryptocurrencies, for the IMF review.

Press officers at El Salvador’s Ministry of Finance didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment via email. The country’s $347.9 million of 5.875% bonds due in 2025 touched the highest price since November 2021 on Friday at 72.89 cents, according to Bloomberg prices.

The CABEI chief added that the covenants of the recently-provided financing bar El Salvador from using it to buy such assets.

“The use of proceeds will be audited in six months,” Mossi said.

--With assistance from Sydney Maki.

Activists call for Chicago to rule out natural gas in new buildings, citing health risks, costs and climate change

Nara Schoenberg, Chicago Tribune
Thu, January 19, 2023 at 4:00 AM MST·5 min read

Environmentalists, activists and consumer advocates are calling on Chicago politicians to pass a clean buildings ordinance that would effectively rule out the use of natural gas in most new buildings.

Speaking at a news conference Wednesday morning at City Hall, the Sierra Club’s Illinois chapter director, Jack Darin, called such an ordinance “the next bold step for climate action.”

Speakers pointed to a growing number of scientific studies linking nitrogen dioxide emitted by gas stoves to childhood asthma. And Citizens Utility Board Executive Director David Kolata said that even before winter began, 20% of Peoples Gas customers were more than 30 days past due on their bills, and they owed an average of over $600.

“Natural gas has thrown Chicago residents into a deep hole and it’s only getting deeper,” said Pastor Scott Onque’, policy director at Faith in Place, an environmental justice nonprofit. “We need to start planning now for cheaper, cleaner ways to heat our homes. We need to start for the sake of our planet, our kids, our health, and our bottom lines.”

Advocates want Chicago to join New York, Los Angeles and Boston in effectively banning the use of natural gas in most new construction. In Chicago, gas is often used to provide residential heat and hot water, and to power stoves and laundry dryers — all of which can now be done with electricity.

The news conference was in support of a “Clean Buildings, Clean Air” ordinance that organizers said was being drafted by Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s office, with their input. The clean buildings ordinance is not yet public, according to Kolata, but he expects it to be made available soon.

Lightfoot’s office did not comment on whether it was working on an ordinance but released a statement from the mayor commending the work of the clean energy groups.

“This topic is critically important, and that’s why I commissioned the Chicago Building Decarbonization Working Group in 2021 to better understand how we can move to decarbonize buildings and alleviate the energy burden for Chicagoans struggling to pay their utility bills,” Lightfoot said in the statement.

Kolata said the expected ordinance is not technically a ban on natural gas in new construction. Instead, advocates want Chicago to follow New York’s lead, and establish emissions standards for new buildings that are so high they basically rule out fossil fuels.

In New York, that approach has been widely referred to as a ban on natural gas in new construction.

Peoples Gas provided a written statement noting that the company has been serving Chicago for 170 years and called the reasoning behind the proposed clean buildings ordinance “flawed and unrealistic.”

“Electric heat pumps may help keep Chicago warm in the future, but they cannot be relied upon today,” the statement said. “Not only do they struggle to work in cold climates, but it costs up to $60,000 to convert a single home to an electric heat pump. Further, Chicago’s electric system will be powered by natural gas for years to come, which shows that these activists’ thinking is flawed and unrealistic.”

A Consumer Reports survey found that members paid a median price of $7,791 to purchase and install a heat pump, versus $6,870 for a gas furnace. Whole-house heat pumps for cold climates can easily cost more than $10,000, Consumer Reports noted, but that’s for both heating and cooling — heat pumps provide air conditioning. With state subsidies, heat pumps can cost less than gas furnaces, according to Consumer Reports.

The federal government’s Inflation Reduction Act provides a 30% tax credit of up to $2,000 for heat pumps and ComEd offers rebates.

There’s some debate over whether high-efficiency electric heat pump heating systems can stand up to subzero temperatures in regions such as Chicago, but some local early adopters recently told the Tribune that their homes stayed warm and comfortable, in some cases with the aid of automatic backup systems intended for the very coldest days.

In Maine, which has set a goal of installing 100,000 heat pumps by 2025, a small pilot study found participants were staying warm in winter.

Home energy use accounts for about 20% of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S., according to a 2020 article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Those emissions can be reduced by switching from gas to electricity. And as electricity becomes cleaner, due to increased reliance on sources such as solar energy and wind, emissions will fall further.

Every U.S. residence combined currently creates more greenhouse gas emissions than all but five entire countries, or about as much emissions as Brazil and more than Germany, according to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences article.

In recent years, the link between gas stoves and childhood asthma has been of particular concern, with a growing number of scientific studies finding a link.

Gas cooking in the home was linked to a 42% higher risk that children would have asthma, in a 2013 study published in the International Journal of Epidemiology. The study, a meta-analysis combining the results of 41 previous studies, also suggested a 24% increase in children’s lifetime risk of asthma.

A subsequent study found that longer use of gas stoves caused higher nitrogen dioxide levels, which in turn were linked to increased nighttime inhaler use in children with asthma.

Homes with gas stoves have nitrogen dioxide concentrations 50% to 400% higher than homes with electric stoves, according to a report by the clean energy nonprofit RMI.

At the news conference, Adella Bass, the lead health equity organizer for the Altgeld Gardens nonprofit People for Community Recovery, said that her entire family suffers from breathing issues. She cited problems such as toxic pollution from industry, as well as gas stoves.

“We deserve to breathe,” said Bass. “We deserve to feel safe in our homes and neighborhoods. Clean air shouldn’t be a luxury that only the wealthiest neighborhoods can access.”

If Chicago moves to effectively ban gas in new construction, it would join dozens of cities and counties that have taken similarly strong measures, many of them in California, where Berkeley instated the first ban in 2019.

There’s pushback against gas bans as well. At least 20 states have passed laws prohibiting local governments from banning natural gas, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.

States that have banned natural gas bans include Iowa, Indiana, Texas and Missouri.

New leases to significantly expand UK offshore wind power

Thu, January 19, 2023 


The UK on Thursday announced leases for six new offshore wind projects which aim to cement the country as one of the world's leading renewable energy generators in the offshore sector.

The six new sites -- three off the North Wales, Cumbria and Lancashire coast, and three in the North Sea off Yorkshire and Lincolnshire -- will be able to power more than seven million homes by 2030.

They will generate eight gigawatts (GW) of renewable electricity.

The UK currently boasts nearly 14GW of installed wind capacity across dozens of offshore sites, according to industry body RenewableUK. That places it second globally behind China, which generates 66GW.

The British government is aiming for 50GW by the end of the decade, as it bids to meet climate change targets agreed internationally.

The Crown Estate, an independently managed portfolio of land, property and other assets belonging to the monarchy, struck the agreements as part of a fourth round of leasing deals for offshore wind, which first began in 2001.

The Estate, which owns and manages most of the seabed around the UK and awards rights to extract resources, said it has now sealed offshore wind deals totalling 41GW.

Gus Jaspert, of the Estate, hailed the latest agreements as "a significant milestone... demonstrating to the world that the UK offshore wind industry is growing at pace to help meet the climate challenge".

Under the terms of the leases, which run for at least three years before the bidders eventually switch to paying rent, the projects will generate around £1 billion ($1.24 billion) annually, according to the Estate.

Its total net income is handed to the UK government under a centuries-old agreement, but the ruling monarch sees a slice of that returned through the Sovereign Grant.

It is set as equivalent to 15 percent of the profits of the Crown Estate, and goes towards funding the Royal Household.

However, it was temporarily increased to 25 percent to cover the extensive updating work on Buckingham Palace, and totalled £86.3 million in 2021-22.

Separately, Buckingham Palace said on Thursday King Charles III has asked for profits from the new wind farms to be used for the "wider public good" rather than as a funding boost for the grant.

The Keeper of the Privy Purse, Michael Stevens, who manages the monarch's finances, has contacted Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and finance minister Jeremy Hunt to request "an appropriate reduction", the palace added.

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