Is Canada prone to a devastating earthquake? Answer isn't so simple

Nathan Howes
Wed, March 8, 2023 


Canada is certainly not immune to earthquakes, but what are the chances of deadly events on the magnitudes of the Turkey-Syria tremors occurring here?

The earthquakes in early February 2023 caused catastrophic damage, pegged at more than $100 billion in Turkey alone, and massive fatalities, which have since risen to more than 52,000. It's natural to then ponder about the potential of disastrous and deadly tremors in Canada in the future.

SEE ALSO: Turkey earthquake damage set to exceed $100 billion: UN agency

Mark Robinson, meteorologist and Storm Hunter at The Weather Network, spoke with Tiegan Hobbs, research scientist with the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC) -- the national organization for geoscientific information and research -- to get the answer.

Red Cross - Turkey and Syria donation appeal

Because earthquakes aren't as high of seismic hazards in Canada as they are in Turkey, we don't expect to get the same frequency or severity of tremors, Hobbs said.

"Here in Canada, it's a little bit different. We've got the Cascadia subduction zone on the West Coast and then [we] can also get what we think of as shallow, crustal earthquakes," said Hobbs.

The shallow earthquakes happen where the surface of the Earth is "just crushing around," she added. These tremors occur in Eastern Canada, in a zone stretching from the Great Lakes to the St. Lawrence River, which includes major cities like Toronto, Hamilton, Ottawa, Montréal and Québec City.

The good news for Eastern Canada is these kinds of earthquakes are unable to register on a large-scale magnitude such as an 8 or 9, which happen in the Cascadia subduction zone, Hobbs noted.

CASCADIAZONE

The largest earthquake recorded in Eastern Canada was the Nov. 18, 1929 (7.2 magnitude) event off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. Twenty-eight people perished after a tsunami rushed ashore.

"You really don't want them happening near a city, which, as we saw in Turkey, was a shallow, crustal earthquake that was quite big for [that type of tremor]," said Hobbs. "It happened near a populated centre and that's why it was such a devastating sequence of events."

Although there have been several large earthquakes in Canada, some occur in incredibly remote regions with no threat to life. Injuries, damage and the risk of deaths increase along the B.C. coast, however, with the hazard of a tsunami near the top of the list.

SUBDUCTIONZONE
Certain buildings don't hold up against earthquakes

The bigger the population and the more infrastructure a community has, the higher the risk of a disastrous earthquake, she said.

Bricks, or unreinforced masonry as they're categorized as, are examples of the types of infrastructure that won't offer much protection during a tremor. A wood building, on the other hand, tends to be a "really good performer" during earthquakes, she said.

"[It is] pretty flexible, so [when there] is shaking, the building can shake and that's just fine. A lot of our wood buildings are maybe one, two or three storeys, so you're not going to have some of the effects you have to worry about when you have high-rise buildings," said Hobbs.

GETTY: Emergency kit

(Getty Images)

While Canadians aren't as likely to experience catastrophic earthquakes, such as the ones that occurred in Turkey and Syria last month, it's always good to be prepared. This includes having an emergency kit, creating and reviewing an evacuation/earthquake plan, and practise dropping, covering and holding in a safe place.

Thumbnail courtesy of Getty Images.

With files from Tyler Hamilton, a meteorologist at The Weather Network.

Follow Nathan Howes on Twitter.

Artists honour women, pay tribute to Turkey, Syria earthquake victims in Vancouver exhibit

Wed, March 8, 2023 

Artist Inanna Cusi says her painting of a woman's cracking body holding up the earth symbolizes women's strength and vulnerability. (Rafe Arnott/CBC - image credit)

Artists in Metro Vancouver are honouring women and paying tribute to the victims of the devastating earthquakes in Turkey and Syria in an exhibit for International Women's Day and the centennial anniversary of the Turkish Republic.

The exhibit, titled Women's Art On Women's Day, will be held at Simon Fraser University's Segal Building in Vancouver, featuring the works of 15 artists, all of them women.

Although preparations for the event began months ago, when the powerful earthquakes hit in February, the artists decided to change their projects, and work on paintings related to the quakes and the strength of women simultaneously.

"The quakes affected us deeply … I lost a very dear friend of mine," said Eser Ince, who moved to Canada from Turkey in 2011 and now lives in North Vancouver.

Rafe Arnott/CBC

Nilufar Moayeri, an Iranian-born artist who grew up in Istanbul, is organizing the exhibition with the Turkish-Canadian Society. Proceeds from the artists' paintings will go towards supporting survivors of the quake.

"After that painful tragedy, we were all prepared to paint a woman to show how strong they are," Moayeri said.

'I tried to capture the strength of women'

Moayeri's painting shows a woman's face in light and darkness. The dark side shows damaged buildings and people trying to help others out of the rubble, while the light side, full of blues and yellows, represents hope, she says.

Inanna Cusi, an Austrian-Mexican painter and filmmaker, will be showcasing a piece titled Gaia after the ancient Greek goddess of the Earth. It features the body of a woman carrying the planet. The body and the ground are full of cracks.

"I tried to capture the strength of women and how we are holding together the world but also the doom … the earthquake destroying our world and the hardships that we're enduring at the same time," she said.

"So I guess it's up to interpretation how optimistic or pessimistic you see it."

Rafe Arnott/CBC

Ince's painting shows a building full of cracks and diagonal lines, representing fault lines. A woman is seen at the bottom — an homage to the friend she lost in the earthquake.

Her friend was visiting her mother in a hospital in İskenderun when the earthquake struck.

"I was really deeply hurt and traumatized by what happened," Ince said.

Since the earthquakes shook southern Turkey and northern Syria one month ago, killing more than 45,000 people, hundreds of thousands of people are still in need of adequate shelter and sanitation, according to the United Nations. An appeal for $1 billion to assist survivors is only 10 per cent funded, hampering efforts to tackle the humanitarian crisis.

About two million survivors have been housed in temporary accommodation or evacuated from the earthquake-devastated region, according to Turkish government figures. Around 1.5 million people have been settled in tents while another 46,000 have been moved to container houses.

Showcasing 'the power of women'

Moayeri and Ince say it's essential to showcase "the power of women" through the paintings, especially as part of celebrations of the Turkish Republic's centenary and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

In 1923, Turkey started efforts to modernize and secularize the country, which included passing equality legislation. Turkish women got the right to vote in 1934.

"It's a very important day," Ince said.

For Moayeri, it's doubly important to create art that empowers women because of the women's movement in Iran that began in the fall of 2021.

Stephanie Keith/Getty Images

Protests were held around the world after 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died after being detained by Iran's morality police, allegedly for not wearing her hijab properly.

"As a woman," she said, "I always try to tell with my paintings that women are powerful.

Ontario mayors seek help, clarity from Ottawa to support Roxham Road asylum seekers

Wed, March 8, 2023


The mayors of three Ontario cities are calling on the federal government to help them support asylum seekers being transferred to their communities after entering the country through an unofficial border crossing in Quebec.

The leaders of Niagara Falls, Cornwall and Windsor say local supports are being stretched to capacity as migrants who crossed into Canada via Roxham Road arrive in increasing numbers. In addition to federal funding, they're seeking clarity from Ottawa on what lies ahead.

"We need to know the plan," Niagara Falls Mayor Jim Diodati said in an interview. "Don't just tell us the plan, let's develop it together."

Roxham Road is an irregular border crossing on a country road stretching from New York state to Quebec, about 50 kilometres south of Montreal. In 2021, 4,246 migrants entered Canada via Roxham Road, with that number jumping to nearly 40,000 last year, the federal government has said.

Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada said the government began transferring asylum claimants to various cities in Ontario in June last year, after Quebec voiced concerns the migrants were placing pressure on publicly funded services and accommodation.

The department said 7,131 people have been transferred to Ontario communities so far – 4,313 to Niagara Falls, 1,396 to Cornwall, 720 to Windsor and 702 to Ottawa.

"IRCC is now in the process of working with other provinces and municipalities to identify new destinations that have the capacity to accommodate asylum seekers," spokesman Remi Lariviere said, noting that Atlantic provinces have received a few dozen asylum seekers.

Diodati said the federal government initially approached his city last summer and said 87 hotel rooms were needed for asylum seekers.

"They didn't want this to be public so we thought that's fine, we'll do our part. Then it quickly went to 300, then 687, 2,000, and it's gotten much bigger," he said.

The city now needs Ottawa to provide guidance on how the community can support the growing number of asylum seekers, Diodati said.

Niagara Falls has also asked Ottawa for $5 million to support local food banks and legal aid groups, the mayor said.

In Cornwall, Mayor Justin Towndale is seeking similar support from the federal government.

He said his eastern Ontario city has been doing "the Canadian thing" and supporting the migrants but needs clarity on long-term plans.

"In this case, the initial communication wasn't there," Towndale said in a phone interview. "We were having meetings with IRCC on a regular basis but they weren't really giving us updates to their plan."

Cornwall has brought on more staff to support asylum seekers who have arrived, Towndale said, and the city is asking the federal government for $2 million to fund those extra city employees.

There are also concerns about the effects of having many hotel rooms in the city booked up by the federal government to house the asylum seekers, Towndale said. Cornwall recently lost two conferences because organizers couldn't find enough hotel rooms, he noted, and future sporting events hosted in the city could face similar issues.

In Niagara Falls, Diodati said there are concerns about fewer hotel rooms being available for tourists as summer approaches.

"Tourists fan out, they go to the restaurants, the attractions, the golf courses, the wineries," he said. "There's a lot of mom-and-pop operators in Niagara Falls that count on that rubber tire and the overnight traffic to visit the city."

Syed Hussan, the executive director of the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change, criticized the suggestion that having migrants take up hotel rooms would hit tourism operations and other businesses hard.

"There's a lot of hysteria that's been generated," he said. "Part of this is the fact that these are poor, racialized Black, brown people who are walking in the downtowns of these tourist centres."

Drew Dilkens, the mayor of Windsor, said his city has been acting on the Canadian principle "to help people who need help."

"But at the end of the day, we have to find a pathway to do this in a sensible way, in a smart way," he said. "The city is feeling the strain."

Dilkens said, however, that having asylum seekers choose to settle in Windsor would be a benefit for the city.

"We may be able to find people who are skilled and want to work and that would be great for our local economy," he said.

Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada said Canada is continuing to work with the U.S. on strengthening the Safe Third Country Agreement.

The agreement prevents people who come to Canada from the U.S. via official land border crossings from claiming asylum in Canada. But if asylum seekers cross through unofficial border crossings, such as Roxham Road, they avoid the application of the agreement and can proceed with a claim for asylum.

The Ontario mayors say they are expecting more guidance from the federal government in the coming weeks, after U.S. President Joe Biden makes a visit to Canada this month.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 8, 2023.

Fakiha Baig, The Canadian Press

'It is simply not true': Grocery CEOs push back at price-gouging allegations

Wed, March 8, 2023 

Empire Foods CEO Michael Medline, foreground, and Loblaws chairman and CEO Galen Weston both appeared before a parliamentary committee probing grocery prices on Wednesday.

 (Blair Gable/Reuters - image credit)

The heads of Canada's biggest grocery chains pushed back at allegations they are profiteering from high inflation on Wednesday, telling lawmakers that they aren't the cause of high food prices — and claiming their profit margins are as razor thin as ever.

"We are not profiting from inflation, it doesn't matter how many times you say it ... it is simply not true," said Michael Medline, the CEO of Empire Foods, which owns Sobeys, FreshCo, Farm Boy, Foodland and other chains.

Medline was speaking to the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, which is probing the causes of food inflation, which has skyrocketed to its highest level in decades.

Do you have a question, experience or story tip to share? Send an email to ask@cbc.ca.

Prices for food purchased at grocery stores increased by 11.4 per cent in the year up to January, according to Statistics Canada. That's almost twice the overall inflation rate of 5.9 per cent in that same period.

Medline was summoned to speak, along with his compatriots at rival Loblaws, led by Galen Weston, and Eric La Flèche, president and CEO of Metro, which owns Food Basics and other chains.

Together, those three grocery chains make up the majority of Canada's grocery industry, with thousands of stores across the country. Profits at all three firms are up sharply in the pandemic, but all three say their profit margins on food are razor-thin.

As overall inflation flattens, grocery prices continue to climb

"It is folly to suggest that an unprofitable grocery business is somehow better for customers," Medline said. "Like all Canadians, we look forward to seeing the end of this tough inflationary period."

Weston echoed that sentiment, insisting that higher profits at Loblaws are mostly due to higher sales in non-food items, such as discretionary spending at Shoppers Drug Mart, its Joe Fresh clothing line and its financial services arm.

"As unexpected as it may sound, grocery chains operate with extremely small profit margins, which means we have minimal influence on inflation," Weston said, adding that the profit margin on the company's grocery arm is about four per cent. "That means even if the industry had zero profits, a $25 grocery bill would still cost $24," Weston said, "so the claim that Canadian grocers can correct food price inflation is simply wrong."

Weston cited his company's highly publicized price freeze on thousands of No Name items during the holiday period. Critics have dismissed it as a publicity stunt, but Weston said that price freeze saved Canadians $45 million at the cash register for the three months it was in operation. He also said the company pushed back against price increases by refusing to accept $500 million in "unjustified cost increases" from suppliers.

He singled out items such as milk, butter, some cheeses and vegetable oil as products that the chain sells at a level that makes them unprofitable, in order to get customers into the store. "As a matter of interest, we lose money on every breast of chicken that we sell," Weston told reporters in a scrum outside the committee hall after he had finished testifying.

"So no matter how many times you read it on Twitter, the idea that grocers are causing food inflation is not only false, it's impossible," he said. "Our retail prices have not risen faster than our costs," he said.

La Flèche went further still, arguing that his company's profit margin on its food business is lower today than before.

"Our food profit margin has actually decreased, though it's been offset by a higher pharmacy product margin," he told the committee in French.

"Focusing on grocers will not solve the problem of food inflation because we are not causing it and we're not benefiting from it."

'Too much profit'

Weston was the target of a number of testy exchanges with NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, who has been drawing attention to the profits in Canada's grocery sector for months.

Singh cited a recent academic research paper that tabulated, based on its recent financial results, Loblaws took in a profit of about $1 million per day above what it saw before the pandemic. "How much profit is too much profit?" Singh asked Weston, repeatedly.

"Reasonable profitability is an important part of operating a successful business," Weston replied. He added that the company reinvests those profits into opening new stores and hiring more employees. "It doesn't go to me. It goes back into this country."

Stuart Smyth, a professor of agri-food innovation at the University of Saskatchewan, says that consumers are noticing high food prices at grocery stores because they shop so frequently, unlike other products.

"There is a little bit of price inflation going on, certainly within the retail sector, but I'm not convinced that is the real driver of higher food prices," he told CBC News in an interview.

He said calls for a tax on excess profits in the grocery sector are misguided, since it is employees and investors who will pay that price. "We face the challenge of higher food prices but do we want our investments to be investing in companies that are not trying to be profit maximizing?"

Biden's big, bold green spend sends shockwaves around the world, including Canada

Wed, March 8, 2023 

U.S. President Joe Biden signs the Inflation Reduction Act in August 2022. (Leah Millis/Reuters - image credit)

U.S. President Joe Biden's climate bill is only six months old, but its impact on the energy industry around the world continues to grow as pressure mounts on countries to offer similar subsidies toward green energy or risk losing out on valuable investment dollars.

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is a multi-billion-dollar program that pledges government dollars toward developing low-carbon energy. The policy is aimed at boosting the country's manufacturing sector and takes aim at China's dominant position in the clean energy technology supply chain.

The legislation is regarded as the most ambitious climate bill ever passed in the U.S. Still, the IRA could force governments around the world, including Canada, to introduce their own sweeping series of subsidies and have a much larger impact on climate change.

It's a big wake-up call for world leaders, said Marcel van Poecke, head of Carlyle International Energy Partners, a global investment firm based in Washington, D.C.

"That is going to be very, very powerful, and in Europe, people are shocked, but I think it's exactly what we need," he said while on stage at CERAWeek, an energy conference in Houston.

There are many facets of the IRA, such as tax incentives aimed at increasing the manufacturing of wind turbines, solar panels, and electric vehicle batteries. There are also subsidies to promote the development of hydrogen, biofuels and carbon capture and storage facilities. The financial supports are estimated to total nearly $60 billion US ($82.5 billion Cdn) over the next 10 years.

"The IRA will have the effect of really attracting capital back to the U.S. for the reasons and the results that it sort of needs," Tengku Muhammad Taufik, CEO of Petronas, told the CERAWeek audience.

CERAWeek by S&P Global

The IRA is a policy that is easy to understand and offers clear incentives for industry, compared to a more complex system in Europe, said Sanjiv Lamba, the chief executive of Linde, a European industrial gas company.

"There's no denying the fact that suddenly people have woken up with the IRA and said 'Hey, we can do a lot more,'" said Lamba, who doesn't think the European Union will be able to match the level of subsidies.

Carrot vs. stick

Canada has offered subsidies to promote low-carbon sources of energy, although its main policy to promote the decarbonization of the energy sector is the carbon tax. Putting a price on pollution is described by some experts as using a stick to motivate industry, while the IRA is like dangling a carrot.

"You can really feel that the rest of the world is looking at the Inflation Reduction Act and saying, 'How are we going to participate?' and that will help change the pace and accelerate transition," said Lance Uggla, the chief executive of BeyondNetZero, a climate-focused private equity fund. Uggla is a former bank executive with TD and CIBC.

Kyle Bakx/CBC

In Canada, oilsands companies are pressuring the federal government to increase the level of financial support for building and operating carbon capture and storage facilities. Ottawa has already introduced a tax credit, although the government has admitted the policy is not as robust as the IRA.

Oilsands executives have formed a group called Pathways to Net Zero to work together cutting emissions. It's also seeking provincial government subsidies in Alberta.

Cenovus Energy chief executive Alex Pourbaix spoke with CBC News in Houston about subsidies for a proposed carbon capture project in northern Alberta, saying it will need support from both levels of government to move ahead.

"People just need to be very thoughtful about what failure would mean," he said. "What we need is a little bit of help on the order of what we're seeing in the U.S. with the IRA, and I would be very, very surprised if people didn't see the value."

Canadian response

The next federal budget could include a commitment of more cash aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions and promoting low-carbon sources of energy.

In October, the government hinted at further action to boost subsidies as part of its fall economic statement, which said, "Canada will need to do even more to secure our competitive advantage and continue creating opportunities for Canadian workers. This challenge has become even more pressing with the United States' recent passage of the Inflation Reduction Act."

The oilpatch earned record profits in 2022 as commodity prices spiked following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The industry has faced criticism for not using those profits to move quickly enough to respond to climate change.

Some industry executives in the U.S. have questioned the effectiveness of the IRA because of the permitting process in the country, which they say takes much too long. The climate law has plenty of potential, but it could stumble without improvements to speed up the permit system for energy projects.

It is "procedurally impossible" for the country to transition to cleaner and more sustainable forms of energy, said ConocoPhillips chief executive Ryan Lance, even if the IRA makes those types of projects more economical.

ZIONIST THUGS

West Bank Palestinian village on edge after Israeli settler attacks




Fri, March 10, 2023 
By Henriette Chacar

HUWARA, West Bank (Reuters) - Palestinians in the occupied West Bank town of Huwara say a rise in settler attacks has made them fear walking to school, going to work and shopping at the local supermarket.

A settler rampage through the town last month, amid rising tensions in the West Bank, drew worldwide condemnation, with Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin saying on a visit to Israel on Thursday that the United States was "especially disturbed" by settler violence.

Huwara, near a checkpoint on a highway between the West Bank cities of Ramallah and Nablus that links four nearby Israeli settlements, has become a fault line of violence over the years.

Residents of the town and its neighbouring villages told Reuters they felt defenceless in the face of the increased attacks, with no protection from either the Israeli army or Palestinian Authority security forces.

"I've lived in Huwara my entire life," said Ghazi Shehadeh, a 58-year-old glazier, as he fitted a glass window into a frame from one of dozens of houses that were recently vandalised. "These attacks are not new, but they have become more intense," he said.

"I want to walk without fear. I want to enjoy a trip out of town. I can't anymore. They (the settlers) will hurl rocks or shoot at us. We don't dare leave anymore because the settlers are in the streets."

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) recorded 849 settler attacks last year that resulted in casualties or property damage across the West Bank - the highest since it began monitoring cases in 2005.

But the issue has attracted global attention since hundreds of settlers went on a rampage in Huwara on Feb. 26 after a Hamas gunman shot dead two Israeli brothers from the nearby settlement of Har Bracha as they sat in their car.

During the riot, a Palestinian man was killed and dozens of Palestinian houses and cars were torched. Fifteen settlers were arrested, most of whom were released for lack of evidence, but two were in administrative detention and investigations were continuing, a police source said.

Some parties in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government criticised the violence and called for people not to take the law into their own hands. One senior army commander described it as a "pogrom", a word normally associated with massacres of Jews in Russia during the 19th and early 20th century.

But days after the rampage, far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who has responsibility for aspects of Israel's West Bank administration, said Huwara should be "erased", before he partially retracted the remark.

For their part, the settlers see Huwara as a "terror village". Nati Rom, a lawyer representing suspects arrested following the attack, said settlers faced constant violence from Palestinians who threw stones at their cars and incited to violence on social media and through calls at the mosque.

Hours after the shooting of the brothers, some Palestinians expressed support for the incident on Facebook and in one post mockingly offered the car the brothers were in for sale.

"Our children have to ride in bulletproof buses, our cars are rock proof, and the other sides never needs to worry because they don't have that," Rom said.

PALESTINIAN STATE

More than half a million Israeli settlers live in the West Bank. Settlers living around Nablus are among the most ideological and many see themselves as exercising a biblical birthright to the West Bank, which Palestinians want as the core of a future state.

ZIONIST APARTHEID;

Huwara is surrounded by settlements that cut off Palestinian communities from each other and from their land. 

It veers between periods of relative calm, when Israelis visit Palestinian businesses in the town to buy goods or get their tyres changed cheaply, and outbursts of violence.

The main road, dotted with signs in Arabic and Hebrew, was now scarred by scorched walls and piles of shattered glass. Soldiers behind barricades aimed their weapons at passing cars, carrying Israeli and Palestinian licence plates.

"We're living on edge," said Kayed Awad, a member of the Huwara municipality and the owner of a bathroom appliances store, as he took quick glances at the screen mounted above his desk showing CCTV footage. Awad said he survived a settler attack last year, when young men shattered the shop's glass door, broke sinks and beat him with sticks and pipes.

Palestinians say such experiences are part of their everyday lives, made worse because they say soldiers either stand by and allow attacks to take place or actively participate themselves.

The Israeli military, which has overall authority in the West Bank, said soldiers were instructed and authorised to stop violence against Palestinians. But it acknowledged that the Huwara rampage should have been prevented and said "lessons had been learned" on sending reinforcements more quickly and improving coordination with police.

However, international concerns over how effectively settler attacks are policed long predate the current escalation. An OCHA report from January said "some settler attacks occur in the presence of or through active support by Israeli forces".

Israeli rights group Yesh Din found that 93% of investigations into settler violence in the West Bank from 2005 to 2022 were closed without indictment.

"There is nothing to do when you are facing armed settlers who are backed by the military," said Usama Abuzayn, 25, who was working in a supermarket on Monday when a gang of blackclad youths attacked a Palestinian family in a car outside. "We are left to defend ourselves."

(Reporting by Henriette Chacar; Additional reporting by Emily Rose; Editing by James Mackenzie and William Maclean)

Norfolk Southern derailment ‘is a wake-up call,’ professor says

Thu, March 9, 2023

Northwestern University Professor Emeritus of Civil & Environmental Engineering Joseph L Schofer joins Yahoo Finance Live to discuss the Ohio train derailment, railroad regulation, employment struggles across the railroad space, and the outlook for Norfolk Southern.

Video Transcript

- Norfolk Southern's CEO is facing the US Senate Committee on Environment and Public Work amid scrutiny over last month's train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. Will the turmoil of recent events be enough to alter the trajectory for US rail infrastructure? Here to discuss is Joseph Schofer. He's a Northwestern University professor emeritus of civil and environmental engineering.

Thank you for being here. So I know that's a big question to kick it off. But I guess first I would ask whether you think there need to be fundamental changes in rail infrastructure. Was this some sort of wakeup call for the industry, Joseph?

JOSEPH SCHOFER: I think it's a wakeup call. I mean, this is a real disaster. On the other hand, keep in mind that no one was killed. It doesn't look like the environmental consequences are all that serious.

And my concern going forward is, what are the causes? What's fundamental here, and what should motivate changes? As I watch the news coverage, it looks like every politician, from the local level to the federal level, is trying to jump in front of the camera and say, I'm gonna save your lives. But we really don't have a good sense of the scope of the problem and whether what we're seeing, particularly the several events in Ohio, are in any way connected. My sense is they're not connected.

The railroad industry has a motivation to take care of its infrastructure because its livelihood depends on that infrastructure. And they have a variety of strategies for doing that. Can they do better? I'm certain that they can do better. I'm certain that there are opportunities for better use of technology, more investment in safety and in the workforce.

But right now, they tend, particularly the class I railroads, the largest railroads in the nation, are very much driven by you, by Wall Street, and by the pressures to keep their operating ratios low, which means to make a bigger profit. And there needs to be some balance in that. I think that this incident is getting people's attention.

- Joseph, Ines here. And so what do you think should this investigation look like? I mean, what are some of the questions that need to be asked to get to the bottom of what happened and whether or not it was preventable?

JOSEPH SCHOFER: I think it's very straightforward. I think it's a matter of answering the question, what was the cause, or what were the precipitating causes? I don't think we have a full answer. I know we have a partial answer on the Palestine event, but not yet on the other events.

My concern is acting too soon, that is, everyone trying to jump in and saying, I'm gonna solve this problem, when I don't really quite know what the problem is. It looks like there may be an opportunity to add some detection capability to detect overheated bearings or other kinds of anomalies in the rail system. But my guess is, based on looking at long-term trends in derailments in particular, and railroad accidents in general, is that I don't really see a crisis here.

I see a need to respond to this and to make sure this doesn't happen. And in the long run, I think the railroads need to rethink their workforce strategy, that is, to assure that they have a sufficient number of employees. And that's a problem because they've tried, but they haven't had great success in recruitment.

And part of that is these are difficult jobs. And while they pay well, they're difficult, and they're dangerous, and the working conditions need to be adapted to attract a 21st-century workforce.

- Well, and to that point, of course, the railroads have been fighting with their unions, right, over the past six months or so. Among other things, the folks who work for the railroads want more flexible sick leave policies, et cetera. Is that at odds with the push that we've also seen from the railroads over the past few years for efficiency, right, for--

JOSEPH SCHOFER: Yes.

- --you know, so how--

JOSEPH SCHOFER: It is at odds.

- How is that gonna resolve?

JOSEPH SCHOFER: Well, it's gonna resolve because this is a typical labor-management conflict. And it has to resolve because the railroads need the workers to function. They're moving more toward automation. And I think that's probably, in the long run, inevitable and probably a good thing.

But there needs to-- each party in this dispute needs to find a compromise. The working conditions are a challenge. And some of the railroads are trying, are experimenting and trying to do better.

I think people that are looking at the industry from the outside, including me, are saying, yeah, you guys you can do better. These working conditions are not good. You can look at what other people have done in the logistics industry. There are examples of developing a better balance and treating employees better.

The stories that I'm hearing from the railroads is that they're desperately trying to hire, and they're not finding the people that are willing to accept the jobs under the current conditions. So current conditions have to change.

- We've also seen some consolidation and attempted consolidation, of course, within the railroad industry. Does that also contribute to potential safety issues? Or do you think that, you know, when you have integration, it can go smoothly and not risk those kinds of things?

JOSEPH SCHOFER: Well, I'm not sure I'm not sure what you mean by consolidation. I mean, you've got the major merger in place-- on the table right now. And my sense is that's likely to go through. And the expectation is that this is the last merger you're gonna see for the foreseeable future.

So I don't see so much consolidation. But I do see a matter of finding a different balance. And consolidation doesn't seem to me to be a huge threat in the sense that the industry has an incentive to be safe.

And mistakes were made. You have this event in East Palestine. It isn't really clear to me that a mistake was made. It looks like the employees on the train-- and there were three operators on the train-- they did the right thing. Maybe they didn't have the right information. And so that's a technological problem that we can solve.

But I guess I don't see a long-term threat here. One of the things you have to keep in mind is if you didn't have, whatever it was, 330 or 350,000 gallons' worth of hazardous materials on that train, how would they have moved? They would have moved in 30 trucks. Would they have been safer? And the evidence is no, they wouldn't have been safer.

- And speaking of hazardous materials, do you see more regulations coming down the line when it comes to transporting hazardous materials via rail?

JOSEPH SCHOFER: It's possible, but I seriously doubt it. I mean, again, my sense is let's try to understand what the causal factors here were and address those causal factors. So I would not jump right away to regulation. It doesn't say that it's gonna happen. But I don't see that as an immediate answer.

Probably, if there's a change in operations and strategy and in regulations, it may be in detecting events as they proceed, that is, to catch this before it happens. But I don't think it's a matter of pulling hazardous materials out of the railroads. One of the things to keep in mind is that railroads have an obligation to serve. They have a common carrier obligation. And within broad limits, they're not in a position to say, no, I won't carry your goods. Their business is to keep the economy going.

So the question is, how do you find a way to assure that? They're motivated to do it. Norfolk Southern is gonna pay a price for this, at least, certainly, a public relations price, if not a monetary price as well. The whole industry will learn from this. Going to more automated detection, yeah, probably a really good idea-- feasible, cost, money, that's fine. It's worth it.

- All right. We'll see what happens. Joseph Schofer, thank you so much for your time this morning. We appreciate it.

Railroad group warns that car flaw could cause derailments


- This photo taken with a drone shows portions of a Norfolk Southern freight train that derailed Feb. 3, in East Palestine, Ohio, are still on fire on Feb. 4, 2023. The major freight railroads announced a number of steps Wednesday, March 8, 2023, that they are taking to improve safety in the wake of last month’s fiery Ohio derailment, but it’s not clear if their actions will be enough to satisfy regulators and members of Congress who are pushing for changes. 

(AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)

JOSH FUNK
Thu, March 9, 2023 

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — U.S. railroads were warned to take certain cars out of service Thursday after Norfolk Southern discovered loose wheels on a car involved in last weekend's derailment in Ohio.

It's not clear that the loose wheels caused the derailment near Springfield last Saturday because the National Transportation Safety Board has just begun investigating that crash — the latest in a string of high-profile derailments that have been grabbing headlines. But the railroad said the loose wheels on the car could cause a derailment.

Norfolk Southern said in a statement that after the railroad discovered “additional cases of unusual wheel movement,” it acted quickly to notify accident investigators and the rest of the industry. The Association of American Railroads trade group responded Thursday by issuing an advisory about the suspect cars.

The trade group said the problem was linked to new wheel sets that were installed on specialized steel coil cars beginning in August. The association said all of the cars with those wheels should be inspected and have their wheels replaced immediately.

It wasn’t immediately clear how many railcars might be affected or their location, Association of American Railroads spokeswoman Jessica Kahanek said.

Railroad safety has been in the spotlight since a fiery Norfolk Southern derailment in Ohio last month. Roughly half of the town of East Palestine had to be evacuated after several hazardous materials cars caught fire. The railroad's CEO was answering questions about that wreck at a Congressional hearing on Thursday.

Besides the Springfield derailment, two others have been reported across the country in the past week, although none of those involved hazardous materials.

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Big Oil Lashes Out At Brazil For Surprise Crude Export Tax

Editor OilPrice.com
Thu, March 9, 2023 

Big Oil majors with operations in Brazil have filed an injunction against a new oil export tax that the Lula da Silva government introduced surprisingly a week ago.

The Brazilian government announced at the start of this month that it would collect taxes on crude oil exports for four months in a bid to offset the effects of an earlier decision to keep fuels tax-exempt, Reuters reported at the time.

That decision, however, was made without consulting the industry and it will increase uncertainty about future investments in Brazil’s oil and gas resources, according to Shell, one of the authors of the injunction, which spoke to Bloomberg.

Shell has been joined by the local subsidiaries of TotalEnergies, Repsol, Equinor, and Portugal’s Galp in fighting back against the government’s decision.

“This measure, which was announced with no significant consultation with the industry, brings uncertainty to new investment decisions, negatively impacting the country’s competitiveness in the upstream sector – one where Brazil carries significant geological potential,” Shell told Bloomberg.

The sentiment was recently expressed by a local oil company executive as well. Decio Oddone, chief executive of Enauta and former head of Brazil’s National Petroleum Agency, said the tax decision represents a departure from the country’s tradition of respecting contracts.

Oddone said, as quoted by Reuters, that this tradition has been essential for the success of recent oil and gas tenders, which in turn have led to an increase in oil and gas investments.

"This was fundamental for us to be able to attract that amount of investment that we attracted between 2017 and 2020, which allowed the resumption of production," he said.

Even Petrobras, the state energy major, is not a fan of the new levy. Speaking on the sidelines of CERAWeek, the company’s Jean Paul Prates said, as quoted by Bloomberg, that this was not a smart way to solve Brazil’s money problems and that Petrobras exports would suffer from it.

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com

The Impressive Impact Of Clean Energy Projects On Global Emissions In 2022

Editor OilPrice.com
Wed, March 8, 2023 

According to a recent International Energy Agency (IEA) report, carbon emissions in 2022 rose by less than was feared, largely thanks to a multitude of new green energy projects worldwide. Carbon dioxide emissions worldwide increased by under 1 percent in 2022, or 321 million tonnes, lower than initially anticipated, according to the IEA. This was supported by the growth in solar and wind power, EVs, and heat pumps, as well as greater efforts at increased energy efficiency. Despite a rise in coal and oil use, in response to the global energy crisis, these efforts meant emissions did not rise substantially, particularly compared to the 6 percent increase seen in 2021. Despite the improvement last year, the world’s emissions are still rising in an unsustainable way, threatening the net-zero by 2050 scenario of many countries. Carbon emissions still totaled over 36.8 billion tonnes in 2022. However, the acceleration of renewable energy projects and the rollout of related technologies could support a rapid decrease in CO2 emissions.

And the IEA has made its stance on the oil and gas industry clear, suggesting that greater efforts need to be made to hold oil majors accountable for their impact on climate change. The IEA Executive Director, Fatih Birol, explained “we still see emissions growing from fossil fuels, hindering efforts to meet the world’s climate targets. International and national fossil fuel companies are making record revenues and need to take their share of responsibility, in line with their public pledges to meet climate goals. It’s critical that they review their strategies to make sure they’re aligned with meaningful emissions reductions.”

Meanwhile, certain fossil fuels that many countries hoped to be moving away from saw increased use last year in response to the energy crisis. Carbon emissions from coal increased by 1.6 percent, as several countries across Asia used more coal, and states in Europe, such as the U.K., delayed the planned closure of several coal plants. The rise in coal emissions was offset by a 1.6 percent decline in natural gas emissions, thanks to the movement away from Russian gas, which led to stricter usage limits across Europe. However, instead of switching to green alternatives, many countries relied on an increase in coal use.

Nevertheless, the report highlighted some positive achievements in clean energy that have helped reduce emissions significantly. According to the report, an additional 550 million tonnes of emissions were avoided by increased deployment of clean energy technologies, showing the importance of developing the green energy sector at a more advanced rate. The IEA suggested that without the growth that’s been seen in clean energy, the increase in emissions last year would have been almost three times as high.


In 2022, the IEA stated that the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the resulting global energy crisis, had spurred significant advancements in green energy. The increased momentum in the sector could make renewables the largest source of electricity generation globally by as early as 2025. As such, there is a huge green energy pipeline planned for this year and next, which will help several countries around the globe achieve energy security after a year of great uncertainty.

At the beginning of 2022, the renewable energy pipeline looked bleak due to supply chain disruptions, trade policy uncertainty, inflation, and increasing interest rates. However, due to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, it quickly became evident that countries worldwide would have to accelerate their green energy investments and timelines to ensure greater energy security. In addition, supply chain disruptions eased throughout the year, supporting this momentum. While several challenges continue into 2023, heightened interest in developing the renewable energy industry, seen through the launch of climate policies, such as the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), will help address these issues.

Worldwide, continued growth is expected across the wind, solar, batteries, CCS, and hydrogen industries. Experts expect the demand for batteries to increase significantly from 2023 onwards, as a vital component to enhancing grid flexibility, as more electricity will be generated from renewables. In terms of the decarbonization of fossil fuel projects, the uptake of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies is expected to rise in 2023, helping to reduce emissions from oil operations.

Several factors are helping drive green energy projects forward including improved cost competitiveness, new climate policies, utility decarbonization, greater residential solar demand, and increased private investment in renewables. In the U.S., a rise in domestic manufacturing will help energy companies contend with supply chain disruptions. This will support the development of several new or revived sectors, such as green hydrogen production, lithium mining, and nuclear power plant development. Traditional renewable energy sources are also seeing rapid growth. The U.S. offshore wind project development pipeline grew to 40 GW across 12 states in 2022, from a total of 42 MW of capacity at present. Approximately 1 GW is currently under construction, with around 19 GW in the permitting phase.

While the IEA reported lower-than-expected carbon emissions in 2022, the organization was quick to quash any complacency that might have come with the results. It warned that carbon emissions need to rapidly decrease for the world to battle the effects of climate change; greater accountability is still needed in the oil and gas industry; and there needs to be an acceleration in green energy production. But with a positive renewable energy pipeline, and the ongoing pressures to reduce fossil fuel use, due to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, as well as climate concerns, this positive trend is set to continue.

By Felicity Bradstock for Oilprice.com

Smuggled note exposes violence against women in Myanmar jail -lawyers, activists


An undated secret note exposes brutal violence on women inside Myanmar prison

Thu, March 9, 2023

(Reuters) - In early February, four members of an anti-junta group in the Myanmar city of Mandalay said they received a secret, one-page, handwritten note spirited out of a prison that details two days of clashes and beatings of female political prisoners.

The note, received by the "Anti-Junta Forces Coordination Committee - Mandalay" and since seen by Reuters, provides the first detailed account of a crackdown on defiant female prisoners inside Mandalay's Obo prison that left scores of women injured, according to six activists and lawyers who work with political prisoners.

Two family members of prison inmates contacted the anti-junta group after being told by prison authorities that they couldn't send food and packages to relatives, the four anti-junta group members said.

The group started looking into the matter and, within days, received the note, the four members said.

Two lawyers, two family members of inmates and the human rights minister from Myanmar's exiled parallel civilian government confirmed the information contained in the note. Reuters could not independently verify the authenticity of the note or the details it contains.

A spokesman for Myanmar's military government that has ruled since seizing power in 2021 and two prison department officers did not answer repeated calls over two days from Reuters seeking comment.

The junta has previously denied holding political prisoners, saying people in jail broke the law and were sentenced after due legal process. Human rights organisations have frequently criticised the hearings as kangaroo courts.

Inside the prison, which rights activists say houses some 2,000 political inmates including 330 women, an altercation between an inmate and a prison official on Feb. 3 led to around 150 male prison guards arriving with slingshots, batons and bamboo sticks, the note, written in Burmese, said.

"During that incident, more than 100 female political prisoners were seriously injured including a broken arm, eye injuries and facial bruises," the note said.

The following day, some female prisoners and prison guards faced off again, leading to another bout of violent clashes, according to the note and the lawyers, activists and family members who spoke to Reuters. They said they obtained the information from around a dozen people, including prison wardens, medical staff and inmates.

SERIOUS INJURIES

All four activists declined to reveal exactly how the note was smuggled out, citing risk to individuals involved in the process and fearful that such routes to leak information from inside the prison may be blocked by authorities.

The activists and lawyers said the note, and the details of the clashes on Feb. 3-4 they pieced together from conversations with prison staff and others, afforded a rare insight into what they described as harsh conditions faced by thousands of prisoners across Myanmar under military rule, including women, who are often given limited food and medicines.

The activists, lawyers and family members interviewed by Reuters asked not to be identified for fear of repercussions as they are working inside Myanmar.

In the second week of February, the parallel civilian government said in a social media post that 150 male guards at Obo prison had "violently beaten up" women inmates, supporting the version of events that the activists, lawyers and family members separately provided to Reuters.

Of the 100 female inmates injured in the clashes, all aged between 20 and 35, 21 were seriously injured, including six who were hit in the head, according to activists and lawyers. The smuggled note did not specify injuries or provide such detailed figures.

Myanmar's jails were inundated by new prisoners in 2021 after the junta seized power from the elected government led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, triggering a wave of protests that has morphed into a guerrilla resistance movement.

Accused by local and international rights activists of rampant abuses in its response, the junta has said that it has a duty to ensure peace and security, and that it is carrying out a legitimate campaign against “terrorists”.

The junta has imprisoned around 16,000 people, more than 3,000 of them women, as of Feb. 28, according to the non-profit Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.

'THEY USED MEN' TO GUARD WOMEN

Aung Myo Min, the human rights minister in Myanmar's exiled parallel civilian government, said Obo prison authorities had violated prison rules by using male guards to handle female inmates.

"As these people are women prisoners, they have to be handled by women prison guards. But they used men,” he told Reuters, echoing similar allegations made separately by activists and lawyers.

Male guards cannot enter dormitories housing female inmates without the presence of women guards and female inmates cannot be physically beaten, according to a copy of a nationwide prison rule book published in 1992 seen by Reuters.

Reuters could not independently verify if there were any female guards present during the incidents on Feb. 3-4 or if the rule book remains current.

"They used excessive force," Aung Myo Min said, adding that his ministry had investigated the violence at Obo prison. He declined to explain how the investigation was conducted and offered no evidence to support the allegation.

The anti-junta group and two Mandalay-based lawyers who work with political prisoners said those involved in the violence were also denied medical care.

"They refused to give medicines to the injured prisoners after beating them severely. We had to use under-the-table methods to be able to send medicine," one lawyer said. Reuters could not independently verify that information.

After the violence, 72 female political prisoners were isolated from other inmates at Obo and dozens were transferred to other jails without their families being notified, according to three activists, two lawyers and two family members.

(Reporting by Reuters staff; writing by Devjyot Ghoshal; editing by Mark Heinrich and Nick Macfie)