California faces threat from the type of back-to-back mega-earthquakes that devastated Turkey


Rong-Gong Lin II
Wed, February 8, 2023 

The mega-quakes in Turkey this week showcase how a magnitude 7.8 quake could trigger a magnitude 7.5 aftershock on a different fault, with 60 miles of distance between the epicenters.

A similar seismic scenario could occur in California.

Mega-quakes that could rupture the southern San Andreas fault from near the Mexican border through Los Angeles County and beyond could trigger major aftershocks and shake cities as far away as Sacramento and San Francisco, according to documents and interviews.

In a U.S. Geological Survey report published in 2008 detailing a hypothetical magnitude 7.8 earthquake in Southern California, scientists said a plausible aftershock scenario included a magnitude 6.95 quake that would shake Sacramento and Modesto three days after the mainshock, endangering the stability of the levees, which are crucial for maintaining flood control and water movement from the northern Sierra Nevada to cities across the state.

Distant sizable aftershocks have occurred in California before.

The great 1906 earthquake, best known for destroying much of San Francisco, also triggered quakes much farther away on the same day, said seismologist Lucy Jones, a research associate at Caltech. They included a magnitude 5.5 in Santa Monica Bay and a magnitude 6 in the Imperial Valley, near the Mexican border, Jones said.

Supersized earthquakes are more likely to cause supersized aftershocks — and they can happen much farther away than more modest quakes.

For instance, the great 1906 earthquake ruptured a vast swath of the northern San Andreas fault, from Humboldt County near Eureka, through the San Francisco Bay Area and approaching San Benito County, east of Monterey.

The length of the ruptured fault — nearly 300 miles — is important.

Earthquake scientists say that a subsequent quake that is generated "one ruptured fault length" away from the mainshock can be considered an aftershock.

That means the Santa Monica Bay quake, roughly 250 miles from the southernmost end of the ruptured San Andreas fault, would be considered an aftershock of the 1906 San Francisco quake.

In addition, subsequent earthquakes a distance of roughly four times that of the ruptured fault length of the mainshock are considered "triggered" quakes.

So the fault length that ruptured in the Turkey quake — about 125 to 185 miles long — would produce a higher chance of follow-up earthquakes as far as 620 miles from the mainshock fault's ruptured length, according to Jones.

"So out to something like 1,000 kilometers [620 miles], we have an increased chance of having earthquakes," Jones said. "We aren't going to see it everywhere 1,000 kilometers away, but we're going to see it."

It's therefore plausible that a magnitude 8.2 earthquake on the southern San Andreas fault, rupturing from near the Mexican border, through Los Angeles County and ending in Monterey County, could result in a subsequent earthquake in San Francisco, Jones said.

A plausible magnitude 8.2 earthquake on the San Andreas fault involves the rupture of more than 300 miles of fault, from the Mexican border through Los Angeles County to Monterey County. (Angelica Quintero and Maneeza Iqbal / Los Angeles Times)

"If we get the bigger rupture, and it extends north to Parkfield [in Monterey County] — then all of the Bay Area's within one fault length," Jones said.

Simulations of huge quakes in California show how aftershocks can occur far from the mainshock. Large aftershocks can occur for months, years and even decades in a broad region, with a mega-quake potentially ushering in a generation of heightened seismic activity.

Another plausible scenario: A magnitude 7.8 earthquake on the southern San Andreas fault, rupturing near the Mexican border to Lake Hughes near Santa Clarita spurs a magnitude 7.2 aftershock on the Cucamonga fault, rupturing between the Cajon Pass and Monrovia.

"This event would cause substantial further damage throughout the San Gabriel Valley, perhaps increasing the financial losses and deaths by 20% to 30%," the U.S. Geological Survey said in the 2008 report.

A magnitude 7.71 aftershock could affect communities such as Palm Springs, Palm Desert, Rancho Mirage, Coachella, Thermal, Mecca, Imperial Valley, Brawley and El Centro. Significant damage could extend to San Diego and Imperial counties.

And a magnitude 7 earthquake rupturing 52 miles of the Hayward fault east of San Francisco could produce significant, damaging aftershocks farther away from the hardest shaken areas beneath Oakland, Berkeley, Hayward and Fremont. One scenario includes a magnitude 6.4 earthquake in Cupertino, in the heart of Silicon Valley, more than five months after the mainshock, a USGS report said.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

States push to enshrine protections for tribal children



- Participants listen during a rally in support of three-year-old baby Veronica, Veronica's biological father, Dusten Brown, and the Indian Child Welfare Act, in Oklahoma City on Aug. 19, 2013. Montana is one of a handful U.S. states considering legislation this year to ensure other Native American children don't have to endure similar experiences by including provisions of the U.S. Indian Child Welfare Act in state law. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki, File)

AMY BETH HANSON
Tue, February 7, 2023

HELENA, Mont. (AP) — Leo Thompson received plenty of love, food and shelter from the non-Native American family who raised them, but missed out on any exposure to their Indigenous culture, heritage, ancestors and community.

“The only time they acknowledged my heritage was when they’d make passive comments like, ‘Oh, you know, you’ve always liked that Native American stuff,'" said Thompson, who lives in Missoula, Montana. “That stuff that they so casually referred to is not casual at all. It’s the practices of my ancestors. It’s the very same culture that’s healed my soul. Reconnecting with my heritage as an adult has been a long and arduous journey.”

Montana is one of a handful U.S. states — along with Wyoming, Utah and North Dakota — considering legislation this year to keep more Native American children from enduring similar experiences by including provisions of the U.S. Indian Child Welfare Act in state law.

The states are driven by concerns that Supreme Court challenges have put the federal law in jeopardy. During a hearing last year, the justices seemed likely to leave in place most of the law that gives preference to Native American families in foster care and adoption proceedings involving Native children. The law also requires child welfare agencies to provide services to help Native families move toward reunification.

Ten other states have similar laws in place, including New Mexico, whose law took effect this year, and they too could be affected, depending on how the justices rule. Most federally recognized tribes want the act upheld, fearing that an adverse ruling could dismantle a whole range of federal laws based on their political relationships with the U.S. government.

Thompson, who uses she/they pronouns, shared their story during a recent legislative hearing on a bill sponsored by Montana Democratic Rep. Jonathan Windy Boy.

The federal Indian Child Welfare Act was passed by Congress in 1978 in response to the alarming rate at which Native American and Alaskan Native children were taken from their homes by public and private agencies. From 1887-1969, Native children were placed in boarding schools that used abusive practices to assimilate them into white society. Many were adopted by non-Native families, often depriving them of their tribal and cultural heritage.

The law has helped change that, but there is still work to do.

In Montana, nearly 11% of all children are Indigenous but they made up 37% of those in foster care in 2021, according to the National Indian Child Welfare Association. About 9% of North Dakota children are Indigenous, but account for 44% of the children in foster care, the association said.

“I have witnessed and experienced the benefits of keeping a child within the care of their family where he stays connected, rooted and knows who he is and where he comes from,” Sharen Kickingwoman, with the ACLU of Montana. testified. “We know from our experiences and research that affirming Indigenous identity, especially for youth, is some of the strongest things you can do to enhance resilience amidst adverse childhood experiences.”

Wyoming’s effort is furthest along, having passed the Senate 20-11. In Utah, tribes and statewide officials support the proposal, yet lawmakers held it in a legislative committee during the final week of January amid questions about whether it was needed yet and despite a request by Navajo Nation leaders to pass it.

Bills in Montana and North Dakota have had committee hearings but no votes, while a South Dakota bill was rejected this week.

One aspect of the case awaiting a Supreme Court ruling argued that the Indian Child Welfare Act amounts to federal overreach, and that such protections should be enacted in state law. Another argument is the act provides race-based protections that violate the equal protection guarantee in the Constitution. Native Americans argue the measure is a government-to-government agreement between the U.S. and sovereign tribal nations that, like the U.S., determine citizenship in ways that aren't based on race.

No one testified against the proposed policy during a Montana hearing, while supporters testified about the importance of family relationships within tribes.

Kickingwoman, a member of the Gros Ventre and Blackfeet nations, said Native societies are built around kinship. Kickingwoman said she’s been honored to provide guardianship to many of her relatives, including her cousin's son, who she said by mainstream society's standards would be considered a distant relative," but to her is a son.

“A lot of our extended families and friends are close kin in relation to us,” she said. “What may be on paper seen as a second or third cousin really is a brother or sister, maybe a niece or a nephew.”

Keegan Modrano, a policy director with the ACLU of Montana who is Muscogee Creek, also was raised by a non-Native family, and was therefore deprived of being raised with their cultural practices, language or people.

“I can not fully ever completely express the incompleteness I feel living my life,” Modrano told the committee.

“My younger self wants nothing more than a Native father figure in my life. My younger self wants nothing more than a Native mother, for cousins and kin, aunties and uncles," they said. "I cannot rest and I will fight every day so that no other Indian child feels that loss or experiences child removal or the foster care system.”

The World's Largest Carbon Capture Plant Gets a Second Chance in Texas



Kevin Crowley
Wed, February 8, 2023 

(Bloomberg) -- Owners of the world’s largest carbon capture facility plan to restore operations at the $1 billion plant three years after it shut down, providing a test case for a nascent industry that experts believe is essential in achieving climate goals.

JX Nippon aims to restart the Petra Nova facility in Texas after NRG Energy Inc. finishes repairs on the coal-fired power unit to which it is connected, the company said in an emailed response to questions. NRG said it’s scheduled to complete the work in June.

The resumption would mark a significant step forward for US carbon capture, providing a new lease of life for a project that critics saw as one of the industry’s highest-profile failures. The Biden Administration’s Inflation Reduction Act provides major tax incentives to boost development of the technology that would scrub emissions from burning fossil fuels. Some environmentalists contend that even if it works, carbon capture extends the life of oil and gas extraction. Supporters say there’s no other viable option to decarbonizing high-polluting industries.

Petra Nova, which cost $1 billion to build including $195 million from the US government, shipped carbon it captured from burning coal to an oil field operated by Hilcorp Energy Co., where it was used to extract crude through a process called enhanced oil recovery. In that process, the carbon dioxide acts like soap to squeeze out oil and is then stored in reservoirs deep underground.

During its three years of operation it was the world’s largest post-combustion carbon capture plant by tons captured annually, according to NRG.

But the system faltered in 2020 after plunging oil prices and crude production “made the project economics challenging,” NRG said in a statement. NRG sold its 50% stake in Petra Nova to JX Nippon for $3.6 million at the end of last year, making the Japanese company its sole owner.

JX Nippon’s goal is to obtain further technical knowledge of the carbon capture process and help Eneos Holdings Inc., its Tokyo-based parent, become carbon neutral by 2040, spokesman Hoshina Tatsuro said by email. Petra Nova’s feasibility depends mainly on the price of oil, he said.

Carbon capture is seen by some as a vital tool to limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels because it enables the use of fossil fuels while removing their emissions. However, compared to other low carbon technologies like wind and solar power, it’s still in its infancy due to high cost and technical difficulty.

Energy modelers forecast that US carbon capture will rise tenfold to to 200 million metric tons by 2030, as emitters are encouraged by IRA tax breaks as well as pressure from customers and regulators. But even that lofty target is far from the 6.2 billion metric tons required to be captured if the world is to meet the goals of the Paris climate accord, according to the International Energy Agency.

Advocates claim Petra Nova was a technical success. The plant, located in greater Houston, captured 92.4% of the carbon dioxide from gas processed from the coal unit and demonstrated that a commercial-scale project can be built, former owner NRG said in a report sponsored by the Department of Energy.

However, the report also revealed that the amount of carbon captured in the first two years of operation “fell well below expectations” due to extensive downtime of various system parts.

NRG’s decision to sell at a fraction of its cost suggests the plant was either difficult to run or uneconomic, said David Schlissel, a director at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, an environmental research group. In any case, the facility’s purported climate benefits are undermined by the fact that it was used to extend the life of an oil field.

“You’re producing more oil, and burning that oil which produces CO2,” he said. “The end result offsets some if not all of the CO2 you’re capturing.”

BEING USED FOR ENHANCED OIL EXTRACTION

Carbon capture too expensive, takes too long to build: Report



Thu, February 9, 2023

CALGARY — By betting it can solve its emissions problem with carbon capture and storage, Canada's oil and gas industry risks saddling itself with expensive stranded assets, a new report argues.

The report, released Thursday by the International Institute for Sustainable Development — a Winnipeg-based think-tank that focuses on climate and sustainable resource development — concludes carbon capture and storage technology costs too much and takes too long to build to have any hope of helping industry meet Canada's 2030 emissions reductions target.

Calling the technology "expensive, energy intensive (and) unproven at scale," the report urges the federal government not to put any more public money into the oil and gas industry for carbon capture deployment.

"The application of CCS does not align with the time scale or ambition necessary for limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees C," the report states.

"The opportunity cost of investing in CCS and the risk of stranded assets for Canada’s oil and gas sector will intensify as global climate ambition ratchets up and demand for oil and gas declines."

Carbon capture and storage is a technology that captures greenhouse gas emissions from industrial sources and stores them deep in the ground to prevent them from being released into the atmosphere.

The technology has existed for decades, but it's expensive and has been slow to scale up. There are currently just seven CCS projects currently operating in Canada, mostly in the oil and gas sector, and only 30 commercial-scale CCS projects in operation globally.

Still, the oil and gas industry has high hopes for the technology, with a number of new projects in the planning stage in Canada. Most notably, the Pathways Alliance — a consortium of the country's six largest oilsands companies — has proposed a major carbon capture and storage transportation line that would capture CO2 from oilsands facilities and transport it to a storage facility near Cold Lake, Alta.

While a final investment decision has not been made, the project is estimated to cost $16.5 billion and is the centrepiece of the Pathways group's total $24.1-billion pledge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from oilsands production by 22 million tonnes by 2030.

"The oil sector in Canada has been identifying CCS as the major component of its plan to bring down emissions," said Angela Carter, co-author of the IID report.

"In fact, some industry representatives, they frame CCS as the only option to make the kind of large inroads that are needed to reduce emissions in the oil and gas sector. It's very much like the industry is putting all of its eggs in the basket of CCS."

In a recent op-ed, James Millar — president and CEO of the International CCS Knowledge Centre in Regina, Sask. — argued that carbon capture is a way for Canada to "have its environmental cake, and eat it too."

Millar said the wide-scale deployment of carbon capture technology will allow for a transition to net-zero "while maintaining the viability of industries that have long sustained communities and workforces across the country."

"To build this capacity, industry is looking for strong signals that investments in CCS and other emissions reduction technologies align with Canada’s low-carbon future," Millar said.

"Wider investment in CCS requires clear policy providing long-term certainty on carbon pricing, along with other mechanisms that will ensure Canada remains an attractive location (especially when compared to the United States) to undertake multi-billion-dollar projects."

Carter said this kind of continued lobbying by industry for more government funding and regulatory support for carbon capture projects, above and beyond the investment tax credit announced in last year's federal budget, is problematic.

She pointed out the seven CCS projects currently operating in Canada capture just 0.5 per cent of national emissions, and that ramping that up to significant levels by 2030 would require massive government subsidies.

"CCS has been over-promised and under-delivered," she said, adding a more cost-effective use of public funds would be to encourage near-term emissions cuts through regulations, such as the federal methane rules currently under development.

Government should also be focusing on energy efficiency and electrification, as well as planning for a long-term decline in oil and gas production, Carter said.

In a report published last August, BMO Capital Markets argued that government can and must do more to get carbon capture projects up and running in this country.

The report said the Inflation Reduction Act south of the border ensures roughly two-thirds of carbon capture project costs (capital and operating costs) are covered by the U.S. government.

By comparison, the BMO report said, the investor tax credit announced by the Canadian federal government in 2022 would cover less than 15 per cent of the proposed Pathways Alliance carbon capture project's total costs by 2050.

"We believe the U.S. policy advancement further underscores the need for substantially more robust policy incentives to bolster Canada's competitive position in the decarbonization race," the BMO report stated.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 9, 2023.

Amanda Stephenson, The Canadian Press

Carbon Capture Is Coming Under Fire For Underperforming

Editor OilPrice.com
Thu, February 9, 2023

There has been a lot of hype around carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology in the last few years. Many energy companies and governments have touted CCS as the potential savior of oil and gas in a decarbonized world. As political powers around the globe race to decarbonize their economies in the transition away from fossil fuels to green alternatives, CCS has been seen as a way of bridging the gap in the transition, as renewable energy operations continue to expand. CCS technologies are being incorporated into oil and gas projects to help reduce the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere, allowing energy firms to continue producing fossil fuels while the global demand remains high. While many see this as a necessary move to maintain energy security, others believe CCS is just another form of greenwashing, helping to delay the inevitable shift to real green.

Both the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the International Energy Agency (IEA) have highlighted the use of CCS technology in oil and gas projects as important for emissions reduction, a necessary stage in the transition to clean energy. It is seen as an easy way to reduce emissions while still providing the energy needed to meet the global demand before enough renewable energy projects are in operation to supply this energy. However, as the public is being told that CCS will help decarbonize operations, few questions are being asked about the scale of this technology and its ability to remove carbon effectively.

National decarbonization aims and carbon taxes have put pressure on oil and gas firms to make a change, with many quickly investing in CCS technology to ensure they can keep running their fossil fuel operations. But now experts are worried that people are seeing CCS as a silver bullet to climate change, with its use for decarbonization having been highly exaggerated. A 2022 report from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) revealed that CCS projects were underperforming, with significant challenges in terms of the technology and regulatory framework. The analysis of several projects showed that approximately 90 percent of the proposed CCS capacity in the power sector has not been realized, and many projects fail to achieve their anticipated maximum capture rates.

Bruce Robertson, an author of the report, stated “Many international bodies and national governments are relying on carbon capture in the fossil fuel sector to get to net zero, and it simply won’t work.” He added, “Although it might have a role to play in hard-to-abate sectors such as cement, fertilisers and steel, overall results indicate a financial, technical and emissions-reduction framework that continues to overstate and underperform.”

In 2019, there were 59 CCS plants in operation worldwide, capable of removing over 40 million tonnes of CO2 on an annual basis. This was just a fraction of the carbon that was being released each year, which amounted to around 43 billion tonnes, or 1,000 times more. In addition, the high cost of CCS technology has long deterred many companies from using the decarbonization method more widely.

CCS has existed since the 1970s, although it was previously called enhanced oil recovery. But seeing the potential for CCS to be viewed as a mechanism for climate change action, it was rebranded by energy firms as ‘carbon capture utilization and storage’. Yet, in 2022, around 70 percent of CCS projects used captured CO2 to support the production of more oil and gas.

In Port Isabel, Texas, climate activists are now campaigning against a $10 billion project to export liquefied natural gas, Rio Grande LNG. The developer, NextDecade, has labeled the plant the “greenest LNG project in the world”, thanks to the incorporation of CCS technology into operations. But environmentalists say that calling the project ‘clean’ is an outright lie and a clear case of greenwashing. NextDecade plans to construct one of the biggest CCS systems in North America, to remove 5 million tonnes of CO2 a year, reducing its emissions from gas cooling by around 90 percent. However, gas cooling only accounts for between 6% and 7% of the plant’s emissions, meaning that a large quantity of waste CO2 is not being accounted for.

And despite high hopes for CCS in the transition to green, at least in the mid-term, environmentalists worldwide are now worried that as Big Oil declines, another giant industry – that continues to contribute to climate change – will emerge. One media outlet said that “Big Oil has given way to Big Suck.” And of course, there is wide public support for a technology that’s being viewed as a major decarboniser that helps boost the world’s energy security. As CCS continues to be used to support the provision of lower-carbon fossil fuels, which are still in high demand, it is unlikely that governments will demonize its use. However, it should be viewed as a temporary solution rather than a long-term fix in the transition to green, to avoid the longevity of oil and gas operations beyond their need.

By Felicity Bradstock for Oilprice.com

Can We Slow Climate Change by Shooting Dust at the Sun?

Tony Ho Tran
Wed, February 8, 2023 


Melissa van Niekerk via Unsplash

So things are pretty grim right now. Runaway greenhouse gas emissions have resulted in a rise in global temperatures—causing a domino effect of deadly weather crises and environmental disasters like flooding, droughts, and hurricanes. It’s gotten to the point where researchers are suggesting we take drastic measures in order to save humanity—even if that means pursuing the comic book villain-esque idea of literally blocking out the sun.

That’s the idea behind solar geoengineering, a catch all term that refers to the science and tech used to artificially change the climate by dimming the amount of sunlight that hits the Earth. There have been numerous proposals for this throughout the years including marine cloud brightening, which involves injecting aerosols into the stratosphere to reflect away sunlight. There are also proposals to take things even further by going beyond Earth’s atmosphere.

A study published on Feb. 8 in the journal PLOS Climate investigated the possibility of creating a solar shield by shooting dust into orbit between the sun and Earth. The dust would be placed at Lagrange points, or specific positions in space where gravity allows objects placed there to stay put. In doing so, the study’s authors say that the goal would be to provide up to six days worth of shade throughout the year—thereby resulting in a cooler climate.

Meet the People Who Want to Stop the Next Hurricane by Hacking the Ocean

“The goal of a geoengineer solution like ours, if necessary, would be to stave off increases in the weather fluctuations brought on by increasing climate change,” Benjamin Bromley, a theoretical astrophysicist at the University of Utah, told The Daily Beast in an email. He added that tools like the dust shield are important to have “in case we need more time for the main work” of reducing greenhouse gasses.

To create the dust shield, Bromley said that millions of tons of dust would need to be mined in order to be sent into a Lagrange point. They could also be dispersed in different areas in the space between the Earth and sun. Some dust shields could last just a few days before all that matter dissipates into parts unknown; while other dust shields could linger in orbit for much longer “depending on the dust properties and how the dust grains are launched.”

The researchers acknowledged that it’s not only more expensive to launch the dust from Earth, but it’s also difficult considering how far it would have to travel. To that end, the University of Utah team explored the possibility of using the moon as a launching point for the dust shield. Not only does the lunar surface provide a massive amount of dust that can be used, but the shield can be easily ejected from the moon towards the Lagrange point.

Blocking the Sun Is a Risky Gambit for Fighting Climate Change. It May Also Be Our Best Option.

“Major advantages of the moon include plentiful amounts of dust on its surface, and low force of gravity compared to Earth making it easier to launch the large amounts of dust required in this concept,” Bromley said.

While you might be worried that such a measure might inadvertently result in a permanent solar shield blocking sunlight from Earth, the study’s authors noted that it would naturally dissipate due to solar winds and radiation. Their investigation found that the dust would “not otherwise interact with our planet again.”

One area that the dust could potentially impact is space travel. Dust in the cosmos is famously one of the biggest challenges that spacecraft face when off Earth. While it might seem small and unassuming, in the vacuum of space, dust can turn into tiny bullets capable of shredding into a rocket or satellite. Millions of tons of dust floating in between the Earth and Sun could potentially pose a hazard if we were to travel that way.

However, Bromley said that their "simulations show that the dust would disperse into the broader solar system" without posing a threat to Earth.

Could Cooling the Planet Through Geoengineering Lead to More Disease Outbreaks?

Of course, there are plenty of critics that point out that research into solar geoengineering ultimately distracts from the real issues of climate change—namely greenhouse gas emissions. After all, why would we want to lower greenhouse gasses when we could simply yeet a bunch of dust into orbit to block the sun?

However, more and more people and institutions with deep pockets are beginning to ramp up investments in geoengineering tech. Solmar management projects are all the rage—from universitites, to gung-ho geoengineering startups, to even the White House. Dustin Moskowitz, one of Facebook’s co-founders who has a current estimated net worth of $14.1 billion, recently announced a massive $900,000 investment in a non-profit lab dedicated to solar geoengineering research.

That doesn’t change the fact that the most important and impactful thing we can do to reverse climate change is to lower our greenhouse gas emissions in order to stop the rise of global temperatures. That’s a lot easier said than done, especially with the immense power that the fossil fuel industry wields, but it’s really the best thing we can do.

So, as kooky and downright sci-fi as a solar shield sounds, it’s not all that out there. Unfortunately, with the way things are going, we might find ourselves in the situation where shooting dust at the sun isn’t just a radical solution—but also one of the only ones we have.

 The Daily Beast.

Space claw! Sun shoots powerful flare that knocks out shortwave radio (video)

Elizabeth Howell
Wed, February 8, 2023 

A powerful solar flare bursts out from the sun on Feb. 7, 2023.

A medium-sized solar flare briefly blocked shortwave radio Tuesday (Feb. 7).

The active sun fired off several solar flares in recent days, with one causing a momentary lapse in shortwave communications over the Pacific Ocean at 6:07 p.m. EST (2307 GMT), according to SpaceWeather.com.

The originating area is a huge Earth-facing sunspot, AR3213, which currently stretches across 62,000 miles (100,000 km) of the surface of the sun. Magnetic tangling in the sunspot caused the lines to "snap," firing off charged solar particles towards our planet via a medium-class (M6) flare.

Related: Strange unprecedented vortex spotted around the sun's north pole

The sun is climbing towards a peak in its 11-year cycle that it should reach in 2025. There's ample evidence of the sun firing off flares already in pictures and videos from sun-gazing satellites, like NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory. These were shared extensively by users on Twitter.

Most solar activity is harmless and just causes brief interruptions in shortwave, but the sun is able to generate more powerful bursts of energy that can knock out satellites or other infrastructure.

RELATED STORIES:

— 2 massive 'active regions' on the sun have rotated into Earth's view

— Tiny, bright flashes on the sun could help scientists predict solar flares

— As sun's most active regions turn toward Earth, potential for violent solar activity builds

As such, NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) partner with entities around the world to keep a 24/7 watch on our solar neighbor through telescopes, satellites and other observations in multiple wavelengths.

Burgeoning science also seeks to better understand how solar activity originates. For example, NASA's Parker Solar Probe and ESA's Solar Orbiter both swoop within a close range of the sun to sample the solar wind of particles that stream through the solar system, and to examine solar structures and the sun's atmosphere up close.

Elizabeth Howell is the co-author of "Why Am I Taller?" (ECW Press, 2022; with Canadian astronaut Dave Williams), a book about space medicine. Follow her on Twitter @howellspace. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.

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FSU, FAMU students march against Gov. DeSantis' move to dismantle diversity programs

Tarah Jean,Tallahassee Democrat
Thu, February 9, 2023 

Students at Florida State University are taking a stand against Governor Ron DeSantis’s efforts to dismantle diversity, equity and inclusion programs from their campus and other ones across Florida.

Led by Students for a Democratic Society, a political student activist organization, about 50 individuals — which included Florida A&M University students and other community members — gathered Wednesday at 6 p.m. to march from the Legacy Fountain on FSU’s Landis Green to the Westcott Building.

“Even though FSU is a PWI (predominantly white institution), white students are not the only students at FSU,” Isabela Casanoba, a second-year graduate student at FSU pursuing a degree in education, told the Tallahassee Democrat.

“There are plenty of Black students, Asian students, Middle Eastern students and more on campus,” said Casanoba, who is president of the organization. “Just because they are minorities, that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be represented in our curriculum and in our social spaces.”


While marching, the students yelled out chants such as “We won’t go back, we will fight back” and “Money for schools and education, not for racist legislation.”

Related news:

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FSU faculty say it's 'rubbish' as Christopher Rufo targets FSU 'radical' diversity programs

Delilah Pierre, president of the Tallahassee Community Action Committee, speaks to students and community members gathered at Florida State University on Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2023, to protest Gov. Ron DeSantis’s push to defund and close diversity, equity and inclusion programs on campuses.

While most of the participants of the rally were students, a few faculty members — including FSU's Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor Maxine Montgomery — marched in support of the students as well.

Montgomery, who was appointed to chair the FSU President's Task Force on Anti-Racism, Equity and Inclusion by former President John Thrasher in 2020-2021, recorded the protesters from the back of the group as she chimed in with their chants along the way.

Signs were held up high with the phrases "Hands off our schools” and “You can’t erase us.”

DeSantis has called such diversity, equity and inclusion programs "trendy ideology," and made their dismantling a key part of his so-called war on woke.

“I think DeSantis’ intent is to white-wash history, to normalize racism and exclude any former version of realistic Black history, queer history and trans history,” FSU alumna Delilah Pierre said.

She graduated from the university in 2019 with a degree in creative writing and is now the president of the Tallahassee Community Action Committee, an organization that fights for peace, justice and equality.

“If we don’t take a stand now against what DeSantis is doing, we’re going to create an environment in our public colleges and grade schools that totally distorts history,” 24-year-old Pierre said.

DeSantis in the headlines:

DeSantis wants to know how much Florida colleges spend on 'trendy ideology'

More:DeSantis pushes Florida universities to the right, targeting tenure, diversity initiatives

Students and community members gather and march at Florida State University on Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2023, to protest Gov. Ron DeSantis’s push to defund and close diversity, equity and inclusion programs on campuses.

Recent reports show that FSU spends over $2.4 million on DEI programs, with $2.2 million funded by the state. FAMU spends a total of $4.4 million with the state funded portion being $4.1 million.

“We call on FSU to not allow this to go through, and I call on my school to not capitulate,” FAMU student Tim White said from the steps of the Westcott Building.

White — who goes by "Tewa" — is a student on break this semester who will be entering his senior year at FAMU this fall.

“I truly do not want to see this happen to an HBCU (historically Black college or university) here or anywhere else," they added. "We are going to fight it every day that we can."

More:A detailed look at how much FSU, FAMU spend on diversity, equity and inclusion programs

The Students for a Democratic Society plans to continue holding rallies and is also working on mobilizing support from other chapters of the organization across the state.

FSU junior Jason Carles marches at Florida State University on Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2023, to protest Gov. Ron DeSantis’s push to defund and close diversity, equity and inclusion programs on campuses.

A list of demands will also be sent to FSU President Richard McCullough, according to the organization’s Vice President Eric Carson. They include:

Protect all multicultural studies


Increase Black enrollment and professors


Protects trans students and athletes


Listen to students and oppose DeSantis

Contact Tarah Jean at tjean@tallahassee.com or follow her on twitter @tarahjean_.

University fired professor who reported sexual misconduct, Oregon lawsuit says


Street View Image from (August and 2011) © (2011) Google


Madeleine List
Wed, February 8, 2023

A tenured professor fired by his university after he repeatedly brought concerns about sexual misconduct to university leaders was awarded $1 million in a settlement, according to an Oregon lawsuit.

The professor, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner, was fired by Linfield University “without notice” on April 27, 2021 — the day his students were scheduled to submit their final projects, the lawsuit says.

Pollack-Pelzner says in the complaint he was fired for reporting allegations of sexual harassment from colleagues and students at the private university, which enrolls about 1,700 students with campuses in McMinnville and Portland.

In a statement, a university spokesperson said it had agreed to resolve all legal claims with Pollack-Pelzner but denied the allegations.

“The university has made its position clear on the merits of the litigation through filings and submissions to the court,” the statement says. “However, defending against litigation, even when confident in the legal outcome, diverts time and energy from the mission of the institution. We felt it preferable to resolve this situation and move on… Most importantly, this agreement allows Linfield to focus on building and expanding upon its rich educational heritage and creating a welcoming community for all.”
Reporting sexual misconduct

In November 2019, a faculty member told Pollack-Pelzner, who served on the university’s Board of Trustees, that a new trustee had “touched her, asked about her marital status, and proposed that she accompany him off-campus,” during a faculty-trustee event, the complaint says .

That month, another faculty member told Pollack-Pelzner one of her former students said a trustee had inappropriately touched her and made inappropriate comments at a student-trustee event in spring 2019, the complaint says .

Pollack-Pelzner told the university’s vice president about the reports and suggested the Board of Trustees conduct sexual harassment training for trustees, come up with clear guidelines for trustee behavior and have “alternative formats” for social events, the complaint says.

He led a group of faculty and staff members in sending a letter to university leadership requesting diversity and inclusion training for the campus community after hateful and racist graffiti was found in a dorm, the lawsuit says.

Pollack-Pelzner, who is Jewish, also reported anti-Semitic comments from university leaders, the complaint says.

In February 2020, the university president said Linfield would be “destroyed from within” like many ancient civilizations because of internal dissent and “disloyal” people who criticize the institution, according to the complaint. He also said people who criticize Linfield should follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, the complaint says.

During a meeting, a board chair also accused Pollack-Pelzner of having a “secret agenda” and attempting a “power grab,” comments he interpreted as anti-Semitic, according to the lawsuit.

Pollack-Pelzner, who was a tenured professor of English and Shakespeare, learned he was terminated on April 27, 2021, when his university-issued laptop “froze in the middle of a work-related video conference,” the complaint says. When he tried emailing his university email address, he received a bounceback message stating that he was no longer a Linfield employee.

A few hours later, he received an email from the university’s provost saying he had been terminated, according to the complaint.

The university did not pay him the salary or severance he was entitled to, the complaint says.

“(Pollack-Pelzner’s) reports and opposition to unlawful discrimination, sexual harassment, and sexual assault were a substantial factor in Linfield’s decisions to censor, discredit, disparage, and discharge plaintiff without even providing him the predismissal notice and a hearing to which all tenured University faculty are entitled,” the complaint says. .

Pollack-Pelzner’s firing in April 2021 touched off a wave of protest from parents, alumni and a national education organization, according to The Oregonian.

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a national civil liberties organization focusing on the rights of students and faculty on college campuses, sent a letter to the university’s president in response to the firing.

“The egregious nature of terminating a faculty critic without process cannot be overstated, nor can the chilling effect on student and faculty expression that will follow Linfield’s reckless conduct,” the letter said, according to The Oregonian.

Pollack-Pelzner signed an agreement for a total settlement amount of $1,037,500 on Jan. 26, according to his lawyers.

Pollack-Pelzner, who is now a visiting scholar at Portland State University, said in a statement that everyone should “be able to work and study without fear of discrimination or harassment.”

“And everyone should be able to report their safety concerns without fear of retaliation,” the statement says. “I’m grateful for the many students, alumni, and colleagues who joined me in demanding change and refused to be silenced when Linfield failed to uphold these essential principles.”

Column: Big oil companies are already reneging on their global warming goals

Michael Hiltzik
Thu, February 9, 2023

The Kern River Oil Field in Bakersfield: Don't expect scenes like this to go away any time soon. (Associated Press)

If there's an enduring truism about corporate promises to do well by doing good, it's that believing them is a mug's game.

Latest case in point: The promise by some of our largest fossil fuel companies that they would be in the forefront of the transition to renewable energy.

In the last few days, two of the companies that made the most grandiose promises, BP and Shell, have backed away from their pledges about investments in renewable sources such as solar and wind.

We want to continue to go for lower and lower and lower carbon, but it has to be profitable.

Shell CEO Wael Sawan

On Tuesday, for example, BP Chief Executive Bernard Looney revealed that the company now expects its oil and gas production in 2030 to fall about 25% below what it was in 2019; previously, the company projected a reduction by 40%.

The company also scaled back its projection of emissions from its oil and gas production to a 20% to 30% reduction from 2019 levels by 2030, down from its earlier projection of a 35% to 40% reduction.

"We need continuing near-term investment into today’s energy system — which depends on oil and gas — to meet today’s demands and to make sure the transition is an orderly one," Looney said in BP's strategy update, published Tuesday.

At Shell, renewables advocates were cheered last month by the promotion of Wael Sawan, director of the company's renewables business, to the CEO post.

Sawan promptly poured cold water on the expectation that Shell would continue to increase its investments in low-carbon fuels, given that the returns on those investments trail those in oil and gas.

Shell's capital spending on low-carbon energy had risen by about 50% to about $3.5 billion in 2022 from its spending in 2021, up from $172 million in 2017 . But the company said in a media call Feb. 2 that there would be no further increase this year.

"Let me be, I think, categorical in this," Sawan told investment analysts Feb. 2. "We cannot justify going for a low return. Our shareholders deserve to see us going after strong returns. If we cannot achieve the double-digit returns in a business, we need to question very hard whether we should continue in that business. Absolutely, we want to continue to go for lower and lower and lower carbon, but it has to be profitable."

BP and Shell were among the companies with the most aggressive renewables projections. Other major oil and gas companies such as Chevron and Exxon Mobil had been much more modest in their expectations.

All four companies, however, had ramped up their rhetorical commitments to the fight against global warming: A study by Japanese researchers published last year found appreciable increases in the use of terms such as "climate change" and "low-carbon energy" in their annual reports from 2009 through 2020.

The reason that the fossil fuel industry is ratcheting back its commitment to renewables is easy to discern: These investments are anathema to Wall Street.

The very day that BP disclosed its slowdown in renewables investments, its stock rocketed higher by 8.35%. BP and Shell have been trading at much lower price-to-earnings multiples — a common indicator of what Wall Street expects from a company's future earnings — than Exxon Mobil and Chevron: 4.17 and 5.18, respectively, for BP and Shell, and 8.6 and 9.31 for Exxon and Chevron.

It's tempting to see the transition from oil and gas to wind, solar and other renewable energy sources as dependent on price — and therefore to assume that the declining cost of the renewable sources will allow them to keep gaining on oil and gas in terms of installed capacity.

For the big energy companies, however, it's profitability, not price, that matters. And their traditional businesses have been spectacularly profitable lately — to the point that it's become a political scandal. That's largely because the companies have been notching record or near-record profits while gasoline prices at the pump have soared, driving the worst inflation in decades.

The industry has been accused of gouging motorists. It's hard to argue with that general conclusion, though it's harder to pinpoint where in the gasoline system the excess profits are being extracted; regular gas prices in California rose to about $6.43 per gallon in October from about $4.68 at the start of 2022, while crude oil prices fell from a peak of nearly $3 per refined gallon to $2.13.

(In a hilariously stupid riposte in October to President Biden's public criticism of oil industry profits and demand that the oil companies return some of their gains to American consumers, Exxon Mobil CEO Darren Woods said, "That’s exactly what we’re doing in the form of our quarterly dividend." Someone might remind Woods that average Americans and Exxon shareholders are not necessarily the same species.)

There's nothing new about the reluctance of incumbent energy producers to move into new technologies. History teaches us that when a major technological transition is underway, big legacy companies end up ceding leadership to small, nimble startups.

That happened at the onset of the personal computer age, when a clutch of brilliant young scientists and engineers employed by Xerox at its Palo Alto Research Center, the legendary PARC, invented the personal computer.

As I've chronicled, Xerox's dependence on its world-beating copier business made it a poor candidate to lead the PC transition. One of the key PARC developers, Larry Tesler, moved to a small company and helped manage the transition from there: Apple. Others went to unheralded new companies such as Atari and Microsoft.

(It's true that giant IBM did jump into the PC business, but did so at first through a disrespected internal skunk works and embraced the new technology largely after its potential became clear.)

The main reason that fossil fuel companies are reluctant to plunge full-hog into the renewables business has much to do with the fundamentally different economic incentives in those two categories of energy production.

Oil and gas is a highly concentrated industry with high barriers to entry — not just everyone can set up as a major integrated fossil fuel company. As a result, the returns on investments are high — 15% or more, in the reckoning of Nick Butler of Kings College, London, a former BP executive.

It's much easier to enter the solar or wind business, which is fragmented and competitive, and where returns are much lower, typically less than 10%.

Moreover, the payback from fossil fuel investments are consistent and long term. From the standpoint of oil and gas producers, fossil fuel power plants are the gift that keeps giving, as their fuel supplies need constantly to be topped off, Swedish researcher Brett Christophers observed in 2021. For wind and solar installations, the heaviest capital investments are upfront, and the ultimate returns are years into the future.

"It’s comparing apples and oranges,” Christophers told Kate Aronoff of the New Republic. As he explained in his paper, ”Promoting renewables requires considerable resources with very long payback periods for projects with no proven track record."

When a big corporation decides where to invest, the key metric is return on investment. Under the circumstances, it shouldn't surprise anyone that Big Oil still sees its traditional products as the key to profits.

Indeed, it should have been clear to anyone paying close attention to Big Oil's pledges on renewables investment that they were always hedged.

For instance, Shell's pledge in its 2019 annual report to reduce the net carbon footprint of its own emissions and those of its customers using its products "by around 20% in 2035 and by around 50% in 2050" carried the qualifier, "assuming society aligns itself with the Paris Agreement’s goals."

(The Paris agreement of 2015 aimed to limit the rise in mean global temperature to less than 2 degrees centigrade, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, and preferably less than 1.5 degrees C.)

The realities of corporate finance have kept investments in renewable technologies from rising beyond half the level estimated to be needed to meet the Paris goals, according to the International Energy Agency. Of the $1.9 trillion in global energy investment in 2021, the IEA estimated, only about $367 billion was devoted to renewable power. The rest largely went to fossil energy.

The implication of energy finance is that government investment through public subsidies will remain crucial for years, even decades, into the future. That's what makes the $370 billion in clean energy initiatives in the Biden administration's Inflation Reduction Act, signed in August, so important — they signal that the U.S. government, at least, is on board.

None of this means that the big fossil fuel companies won't eventually increase their investments in wind and solar, or recognize that the oil and gas era will come to an end, so their survival depends on transitioning to new technologies.

At the moment, though, the big companies are still hooked on oil and gas. That's why they've been resistant to shareholder demands that they move away from their traditional businesses, and why even the companies that positioned themselves as farsighted avatars of the energy transition are backing down. No one should have taken their promises at face value to begin with.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.