E. Africa crude pipeline math does not add up

TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 28 2021

In the past two years, Africa has experienced some damning climate change events that have affected millions of people.

The climatic events, including unforgiving droughts and floods, have resulted in the destruction of property, food insecurity and even loss of lives.

Ugandan Minister of Water and Environment, Sam Cheptoris, recently confirmed the same, saying: “Uganda is already feeling the impacts of climate change. From extreme drought to extreme flooding, the threat is growing in Africa.

For governments, regional stakeholders and civil society to collaborate on our common challenge, we need to act now and act together. Climate action is a path to a better future for Africa and for the world.”

And yet, as climate change hits us hard and costs us lives and livelihoods, the Ugandan Cabinet moved in haste to approve a special Bill to pave the way for the construction of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP)

The climate change consequences of carrying on with the project are clear. That the project will emit up to 34 million tonnes of carbon annually has not yet been disputed by anyone, including TotalEnergies, China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), and the governments of Uganda and Tanzania.

Backers of the pipeline and associated projects have sought to justify the project from an economics standpoint.

The governments of Tanzania and Uganda are expecting economic benefits from the oil extractions and the EACOP projects. But unfortunately, even the economics do not hold up to scrutiny.

Since the discovery of oil in Uganda, the government has continually put its economy at risk by fully immersing itself in the EACOP projects. This has resulted in overborrowing.

While among the reasons cited for the overborrowing is the expectation of oil revenue, the ones benefiting from this exercise are the oil companies that enjoy tax breaks and seek additional concessions through laws such as the EACOP Bill.

There are also many uncertainties and risks in the oil sector. The plummeting oil prices, strides made globally on clean energy transition and the increasing threats from international litigation should concern Uganda as its economic future is put at risk.

While our eyes glow when the oil barons preach the gospel of the revenue from oil, it is clear that the golden age of oil is on its deathbed.

In fact, experts from the UK-based think tank Climate Policy Initiative (CPI) say that Uganda’s oil reserves have already lost over 70 percent of their value since 2013.

In 2020 Tullow, who was the then proponent of EACOP and associated projects, appeared to step back and cut its losses.

Tullow was expecting to fetch $900 million, but the sale ended up at $575 million. The Ugandan government had to settle for taxes to the tune of $14 million instead of the $167 million it was demanding.

Increasingly, more banks and financial institutions have been avoiding investments in fossil fuels like the plague. Globally, over 100 financial institutions have announced their intention to divest or are divesting from fossil fuels.

In the case of the pipeline, 11 out of the 25 banks approached to finance the project have have expressed their reservations due to the project’s cost on people living within the corridor and climate change concerns.

It is apparent that they have done their calculations and realised that this pipeline will not offer good returns on their investments and would therefore culminate in stranded assets.

Perhaps even worse, is that the Ugandan government could also extend the existing 10-year tax holiday granted to the EACOP developers. Experts estimate that this will result in a 10 percent decrease in earnings expected by the Ugandan government from the Ugandan oil.

In comparison, tourism contributes up to 10 percent of the Ugandan GDP and is responsible for 23 percent of Uganda’s exports.

The sector has earned the country about $1.6 billion. It is, therefore, not complicated. The oil activities in Uganda’s national parks, forests, lakes, rivers and other natural resources will negatively affect this promising sector.

Additionally, this pipeline and associated projects will significantly affect the agriculture sector. Seven people out of 10 in the labour force in Uganda are employed in agriculture.

This poses a huge risk following the land acquisition of up to 5,300 hectares that 15,000 households depend on for their livelihoods. The same concerns go for the fishing industry, which employs over 1.2 million people.

If we are keen on development, we need to focus our energies on green opportunities like tourism, agriculture, fishing, and renewable energy that are already injecting fortunes into our economies and whose potential we are yet to fully exploit.

Let us embrace a people-centred model, geared towards a sustainable, green future and not one rigged to benefit big oil companies like Total Energies and CNOOC.

Nakate is the founder of the RiseUp Movement. Elmawi is a lawyer and the Coordinator of the #StopEACOP Campaign

Maximise benefits of Kenya’s carbon pricing mechanism

MONDAY SEPTEMBER 27 2021 

Treasury Cabinet Secretary Ukur Yatani recently announced the government’s intention to introduce carbon emissions pricing mechanisms to combat climate change and support sustainable development. This move is welcome and timely.

Carbon pricing mechanisms such as Emissions Trading Systems (ETS), carbon taxes, or a hybrid of the two, have been demonstrated to be efficient policy tools in over 46 countries in driving down emissions that are responsible for climate change, and delivering other vital national priorities.

They achieve this by imposing caps on emissions, and applying charges on firms that exceed them, or requiring them to purchase additional emission allowances from the market. This system provides economic incentives for polluters to cut emissions to avoid incurring costs.

To maximise benefits to the country, the envisaged system should direct a portion of carbon pricing revenues to the conservation, restoration, and sustainable management of forests, agricultural land, and other natural ecosystems.

Doing so would deliver significant and cost-effective natural solutions to tackling climate change, while simultaneously helping to achieve Kenya’s other core goals of enhancing livelihoods and economic growth and conserving its rich biodiversity.

The land and forestry sectors in Kenya, including agriculture, generate the highest share (38 percent) of carbon emissions due to deforestation and land degradation.

They also hold the biggest emissions reductions potential that could get the country almost 90 percent of the way to meeting its Paris Agreement target.

However, these crucial sectors are receiving disproportionately less climate finance, thus impeding effective climate action. A good carbon pricing architecture could help rectify this glaring anomaly.

Carbon pricing is one of the tools that can help Kenya realise its commitment under the Paris Agreement of cutting emissions by 32 percent by 2030 and strengthening the country’s resilience to worsening climate shocks.

It can aid in raising part of the Sh6.8 trillion (US$62 billion) needed to implement Kenya’s updated national climate change plan or Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), that is largely (87 percent) dependent on external funding.

Under an Emissions Trading model of carbon pricing, a part of the charges imposed on companies exceeding their emissions limits could be invested in natural ecosystems that are critical in addressing climate change.

These firms could also be allowed to purchase carbon offsets that conserve nature, instead of paying penalties, but this arrangement should be strictly managed to maintain the integrity of the emissions cap.

The government could also institute emission caps on the land sector to incentivise emissions cuts, though this may be a challenging proposition politically.

In a carbon tax scenario, a share of tax revenues could be invested into protecting and restoring natural ecosystems as a solution to climate change, or the government can permit companies to purchase carbon offsets that are linked to conserving those ecosystems.

These two suggestions are consistent with options being considered under the draft National Green Fiscal Incentives Framework Policy.

To ensure that carbon pricing mechanisms deliver optimal benefits, existing and upcoming voluntary carbon offset projects in Kenya need to be ‘nested’ or integrated into the national system to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+).

This ‘nesting’ will enhance private and public financial flows to projects that are keeping vital carbon-rich ecosystems intact, while ensuring equitable distribution of compensation for those delivering emissions reductions, right from the grassroots to national levels.

Kenya is making headway in this regard through the establishment of the National Expert group (NEG) on REDD+ nesting and related activities, thereby signalling to the world its intention to generate a welcoming and enabling environment for continued investment.

Carbon pricing mechanisms have been successfully implemented in developed and developing countries. For instance, Costa Rica’s tax on fossil fuels generates Sh3.3 billion (US$30 million) yearly for forest conservation and restoration, while lowering carbon emissions from fuel use.

FOREST CREDITS

In Colombia, companies subject to the carbon tax may reduce their tax obligations by purchasing carbon offsets that protect nature.

The tax can also be paid with carbon credits from energy efficiency or other energy related projects. Additionally, a portion of the collected tax revenues is invested in nature conservation.

The US State of California’s Emissions Trading System allows use of nature-based offsets to fulfil a small portion of emission reduction requirements, including through forest carbon offsets.

To date, nearly 165 million forest credits have been traded under the system, and approximately $432 million of the revenue from forest credits has gone to Native American communities.

As discussions proceed on the design of Kenya’s carbon pricing mechanism, there is a significant opportunity to ensure it delivers the most benefits to the country, including climate action, biodiversity conservation, and socioeconomic development.

Bank of America: Carbon offset market may need to grow fiftyfold to meet 2050 net-zero emissions goals

Catherine Clifford@IN/CATCLIFFORD

PUBLISHED MON, SEP 27 2021

KEY POINTS

The carbon offset market may need to grow by as much as 50 times if companies are going to meet 2050 net-zero greenhouse gas emissions goals, a research note from Bank of America said.

Offsets issued in 2020 were equivalent to 210 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions, which is 0.4% of total global emissions, the note said.

Achieving net-zero energy emissions by 2050 will demand approximately 7.6 gigatons of carbon dioxide offsets or removal, it said.


Smoke rises from a coal-fired power plant in Obilic, near Pristina, Kosovo, November 18, 2019.
Ognen Teofilovski | Reuters

The carbon offset market may need to grow by as much as 50 times if companies are going to meet 2050 net-zero greenhouse gas emissions goals, according to a new research note from Bank of America Global Research.

Net-zero, also known as carbon neutrality, is achieved when an entity removes as much carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from the atmosphere as it releases into it, according to the World Resources Institute, a nonprofit global research organization. Removal methods include restoring forests — because trees remove carbon dioxide from the air during photosynthesis — or more technical means, such as direct carbon capture technology.

The market for carbon offsets is “still relatively small,” Bank of America said in its research note, which was released to clients Friday and more broadly Monday. Offsets issued in 2020 were equivalent to 210 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions either removed or avoided, which is equivalent to 0.4% of total global emissions, BofA said.

Governments around the world have set goals of becoming net zero between 2050 and 2060.

Achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 will demand approximately 7.6 gigatons of carbon dioxide offsets or removal, BofA said. That would be as much as a fiftyfold increase in the offset market, it said. The low end of the growth in demand for carbon offsets would be at least quadrupling, the bank said.

Nations are not likely to meet their 2050 goals, BofA said. “Current policies remain insufficient to adequately incentivize the changes necessary to reach these lofty goals, whether through carbon pricing or other means.”

Many companies are voluntarily setting their own emissions targets, and those stated goals will increase demand for carbon offsets, the note said.

Carbon offsets cost between $2 and $20 per metric ton of emissions removed, admittedly a broad range, and “offer a relatively cheap way to decarbonize,” BofA said.

There are four primary registries for carbon offsets: Verified Carbon Standard, or Verra; The Gold Standard, the American Carbon Registry and the Climate Action Reserve. The market started about 25 years ago with the American Carbon Registry, then called the Environmental Resources Trust, the BofA note said.

Early in the carbon offset markets, projects included chemical processing and industrial and manufacturing projects. Now forestry, land use and renewable energy projects are about 80% of carbon offset projects, the note said. This “may be due to growing interest in nature based solutions,” it said, and to falling prices of renewable energy, such as wind and solar

Scientific team uncovers additional threat to Antarctica's floating ice shelves

by University of California, Irvine

Ice melange, a combination of ice shelf fragments, windblown snow and frozen seawater,

 can act as a glue to fuse large rifts in floating ice in Antarctica. Researchers at UCI and

 NASA JPL found that a thinning of the substance over time can cause rifts to open, 

leading to the calving of large icebergs. Credit: Beck / NASA Operation IceBridge

Glaciologists at the University of California, Irvine and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory have examined the dynamics underlying the calving of the Delaware-sized iceberg A68 from Antarctica's Larsen C ice shelf in July 2017, finding the likely cause to be a thinning of ice melange, a slushy concoction of windblown snow, iceberg debris and frozen seawater that normally works to heal rifts.

In a paper published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers report that their modeling studies showed melange thinning to be a major driver of ice shelf collapse. The circulation of ocean water beneath ice shelves and radiative warming from above, they say, gradually deteriorate ice melange over the course of decades.

As ice shelves are thought to buttress and prevent land-borne glaciers from more rapidly flowing into the ocean, this new knowledge about rift dynamics illuminates a previously underappreciated link between climate change and ice shelf stability.

"The thinning of the ice melange that glues together large segments of floating ice shelves is another way climate change can cause rapid retreat of Antarctica's ice shelves," said co-author Eric Rignot, UCI professor of Earth system science. "With this in mind, we may need to rethink our estimates about the timing and extent of sea level rise from polar ice loss—i.e., it could come sooner and with a bigger bang than expected."

Using NASA's Ice-sheet and Sea-level System Model, observations from the agency's Operation IceBridge mission, and data from NASA and European satellites, the researchers assessed hundreds of rifts in the Larsen C ice shelf to determine which ones were most vulnerable to breaking. They selected 11 top-to-bottom cracks for in-depth study, modeling to see which of three scenarios rendered them most likely to break: If the ice shelf thinned because of melting, if the ice melange grew thinner, or if both the ice shelf and the melange thinned.

"A lot of people thought intuitively, "If you thin the ice shelf, you're going to make it much more fragile, and it's going to break,'" said lead author Eric Larour, NASA JPL research scientist and group supervisor.

Instead, the model showed that a thinning ice shelf without any changes to the melange worked to heal the rifts, with average annual widening rates dropping from 79 to 22 meters (259 to 72 feet). Thinning both the ice shelf and the melange also slowed rift widening but to a lesser extent. But when modeling only melange thinning, the scientists found a widening of rifts from an average annual rate of 76 to 112 meters (249 to 367 feet).

The difference, Larour explained, reflects the different natures of the substances.

"The melange is thinner than ice to begin with," he said. "When the melange is only 10 or 15 meters thick, it's akin to water, and the ice shelf rifts are released and start to crack."

Even in winter, warmer ocean water can reach the melange from below because rifts extend through the entire depth of an ice shelf.

"The prevailing theory behind the increase in large iceberg calving events in the Antarctic Peninsula has been hydrofracturing, in which melt pools on the surface allow water to seep down through cracks in the ice shelf, which expand when the water freezes again," said Rignot, who is also a NASA JPL senior research scientist. "But that theory fails to explain how iceberg A68 could break from the Larsen C ice shelf in the dead of the Antarctic winter when no melt pools were present."

He said that he and others in the cryosphere studies community have witnessed ice shelf collapse on the Antarctic Peninsula, stemming from a retreat that began decades ago.

"We have finally begun to seek an explanation as to why these ice shelves started retreating and coming into these configurations that became unstable decades before hydrofracturing could act on them," Rignot said. "While the thinning ice melange is not the only process that could explain it, it's sufficient to account for the deterioration that we've observed."

Joining Rignot and Larour on this NASA-funded project were Bernd Scheuchl, UCI associate project scientist in Earth system science, and Mattia Poinelli, a Ph.D. candidate in geoscience and remote sensing at Delft University of Technology in the NetherlandsSlushy iceberg aggregates control calving timing on Greenland's Jakobshavn Isbræ

More information: Physical processes controlling the rifting of Larsen C Ice Shelf, Antarctica, prior to the calving of iceberg A68, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2021). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2105080118 , www.pnas.org/content/118/40/e2105080118

Journal information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 

Provided by University of California, Irvine 

China's power cuts may foreshadow shortages of global goods

Steam billows out of the cooling towers at a coal-fired power station in Nanjing in east China's Jiangsu province on Monday, Sept. 27, 2021. Global shoppers face possible shortages of smartphones and other goods ahead of Christmas after power cuts to meet government energy use targets forced Chinese factories to shut down and left some households in the dark. (Chinatopix via AP)

Joe Mcdonald And Zen Soo, The Associated Press
Published Monday, September 27, 2021 7:13AM EDT
Last Updated Monday, September 27, 2021 10:05PM EDT

BEIJING (AP) - Global shoppers face possible shortages of smartphones and other goods ahead of Christmas after power cuts to meet official energy use targets forced Chinese factories to shut down and left some households in the dark.

In the northeastern city of Liaoyang, 23 people were hospitalized with gas poisoning after ventilation in a metal casting factory was shut off following a power outage, according to state broadcaster CCTV. No deaths were reported.

Factories were idled to avoid exceeding limits on energy use imposed by Beijing to promote efficiency. Economists and an environmental group say manufacturers used up this year's quota faster than planned as export demand rebounded from the coronavirus pandemic.

A components supplier for Apple Inc.'s iPhones said it suspended production at a factory west of Shanghai under orders from local authorities.

The disruption to China's vast manufacturing industries during one of their busiest seasons reflects the ruling Communist Party's struggle to balance economic growth with efforts to rein in pollution and emissions of climate-changing gases.

“Beijing's unprecedented resolve in enforcing energy consumption limits could result in long-term benefits, but the short-term economic costs are substantial,” Nomura economists Ting Lu, Lisheng Wang and Jing Wang said in a report Monday.

They said the impact might be so severe that they cut their economic growth forecast for China to 4.7% from 5.1% over a year earlier in the current quarter. They cut their outlook for annual growth to 7.7% from 8.2%.

Global financial markets already were on edge about the possible collapse of one of China's biggest real estate developers, Evergrande Group, which is struggling to avoid a default on billions of dollars of debt.

Manufacturers already face shortages of processor chips, disruptions in shipping and other lingering effects of the global shutdown of travel and trade to fight the coronavirus pandemic.

Residents of China's northeast, where autumn temperatures are falling, report power cuts and appealed on social media for the government to restore supplies.

The crunch comes as global leaders prepare to attend a U.N. environmental conference by video link on Oct. 12-13 in the southwestern city of Kunming. That increases pressure on President Xi Jinping's government, as the meeting's host, to show it is sticking to emissions and energy efficiency targets.

China is one of the world's biggest emitters of climate-changing industrial gases and consumes more energy per unit of economic output than developed countries.

The ruling party also is preparing for the Winter Olympics in the Chinese capital, Beijing, and the nearby city of Shijiazhuang in February, a period when it will want clear blue skies.

Scores of companies have announced power rationing could force them to delay filling orders and might hurt them financially.

Apple components supplier Eson Precision Engineering Co. Ltd. said Sunday it would halt production at its factory in Kunshan, west of Shanghai, through Thursday “in line with the local government's power restriction policy.”

Eson said the suspension shouldn't have a “significant impact” on operations.

Apple didn't immediately respond to a question about the possible impact on iPhone supplies.

China's energy consumption and industrial emissions have surged as manufacturers rush to fill foreign demand at a time when competitors elsewhere still are hampered by anti-coronavirus controls.

China's economy is “more driven by exports than any time in the past decade,” but official energy use targets fail to take that into account, economists Larry Hu and Xinyu Ji of Macquarie Group said in a report.

Some provinces used up most of their quotas for energy consumption in the first half of the year and are cutting back to stay under their limits, according to Li Shuo, a climate policy expert at Greenpeace in Beijing.

Utility companies, meanwhile, are being squeezed by soaring coal and gas prices. That discourages them from increasing output because the government limits their ability to pass on costs to customers, said Li.

Prices have risen “past the range of what China's electricity industry can bear,” Li said.

China has launched repeated campaigns to make its energy-hungry economy more efficient and clean up smog-choked cities.

City skies are visibly clearer, but the abrupt way the campaigns are carried out disrupts supplies of power, coal and gas, leaving families shivering in unheated homes and forcing factories to shut down.

Shopping malls in the northeastern city of Harbin have announced they will close stores earlier than usual to save power.

In Guangdong province in the south, the government told the public to set thermostats on air conditioners higher even as temperatures rose above 34 degrees C (93 degrees F).

State Grid Corp., the world's biggest power distributor, issued a pledge to ensure adequate supplies.

Meanwhile, state media say local governments have signed long-term coal contracts to ensure adequate suppliers.

Soo reported from Singapore. AP writer Huizhong Wu in Taipei, Taiwan, contributed to this report.

EXPLAINER: What is behind China’s power crunch?

Reuters | September 27, 2021 

Dust-up in the coal trade. Stock Image.

China is in the grip of a power crunch as a shortage of coal supplies, toughening emissions standards and strong demand from manufacturers and industry have pushed coal prices to record highs and triggered widespread curbs on usage.

How long has there been a power supply problem in China?

Restrictions on power use in homes have only just taken effect. However, China’s massive industrial base has been wrestling with sporadic jumps in power prices and usage curbs since at least March, when provincial authorities in Inner Mongolia ordered some heavy industry including an aluminum smelter to curb use so that the province could meet its energy use target for the first quarter.




In May, manufacturers in the southern province of Guangdong, a major exporting powerhouse, encountered similar requests to curb consumption as a combination of hot weather and lower than usual hydropower generation strained the grid.

Other major industrial zones along China’s east coast have also encountered recent consumption caps and power cuts.
What are China’s energy use targets and why do they exist?

China’s President Xi Jinping announced in late 2020 at a United Nations summit on climate change that the country would cut its carbon dioxide emissions per unit of gross domestic product, or carbon intensity, by more than 65% from 2005 levels by 2030.

As the world’s top producer of carbon dioxide and other polluting gases, China’s ability to cut emissions is seen as critical in the global fight against climate change.

Xi also pledged sharp increases in renewable energy capacity at the summit, but his carbon intensity targets have been the most closely followed guidelines for emissions reduction since, especially at the provincial level where local authorities have the responsibility of making sure the targets are reached.
Has energy use declined since Xi announced those goals?

According to the country’s main planning agency, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), only 10 out of 30 mainland Chinese regions achieved their energy reduction targets in the first six months of 2021.

In response to that collective overshoot, the NDRC announced in mid-September tougher punishments for regions that fail to meet their targets, and said it would hold local officials to account for limiting absolute energy demand in their regions.
Has China produced less power in 2021 due to targets?

China’s total power generation through August of 2021 was actually 10.1% greater than in the same period in 2020, and nearly 15% more than in the same slot in 2019 as utilities across the country cranked up power to meet surging industrial demand.


However, along with the higher power generation came higher toxic emissions, which surpassed pre-pandemic levels in the first quarter of the year.
How are regions limiting power for certain users?

Local governments in Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Yunnan and Guangdong provinces have asked factories to limit power usage or curb output.

Some power providers have sent notices to heavy users to either halt production during peak power periods that can run from 7 a.m. and 11 p.m., or shut operations entirely for two to three days a week.


Others have been told to shut until further notice or a particular date, including soybean processing plants in Tianjin in eastern China which have been shut since Sept. 22.
Which industries have been impacted by the power shortages?

The impact on industries is broad and includes power-intensive sectors like aluminum smelting, steel-making, cement manufacturing and fertiliser production.

At least 15 listed Chinese firms that produce a range of materials and goods – from aluminum and chemicals to dyes and furniture – have reported that their production has been disrupted by power curbs.

Residential users have also been hit, with households in parts of northeast China told to limit use of water heaters and microwaves to conserve power.
What has been Beijing’s response to the power crunch?

The NDRC said on Friday it will work to resolve the power shortages, but did not provide any specific details on what steps it would take.

One major near-term challenge for Beijing is its ongoing trade dispute with Australia, the world’s second-largest coal exporter, which has greatly curbed coal shipments to China just as local authorities stepped up safety standards that have slowed production at Chinese coal mines following a series of accidents.

Another factor is a global shortage of natural gas, as a number of major economies look to stock up on the fuel simultaneously following the easing of covid-19 restrictions.

Even so, the State Grid Corporation of China said on Monday it would “go all out to fight the battle of guaranteeing power supply” to customers and would dispatch more power across its network.

(By Shivani Singh, Min Zhang and Tom Daly; Editing by Gavin Maguire and Susan Fenton)

China energy crunch triggers alarm, pleas for more coal

David Stanway
Mon., September 27, 2021

FILE PHOTO: A man walks near a coal-fired power plant in Harbin, Heilongjiang province, China

By David Stanway

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - As a severe power crunch roils China's northeastern industrial heartland, senior officials face mounting pressure from alarmed citizens to ramp up coal imports thick and fast in order to keep lights on, factories open and even water supplies flowing.

With electricity shortages sparked by scant coal supply crippling large sections of industry, the governor of Jilin province, one of the hardest hit in the world's no.2 economy, called for a surge in coal imports, while a power company association said supply was being expanded "at any cost".

News organisations and social media carried reports and posts saying the lack of power in the northeast had shut down traffic lights, residential elevators and 3G mobile phone coverage as well as triggering factory shutdowns. A utility in Jilin even warned power shortages could disrupt water supplies at any time, before apologising for causing alarm.

Cities such as Shenyang and Dalian - home to more than 13 million people - have been affected, with disruption at factories owned by suppliers to global companies like Apple and Tesla. Jilin is one of more than 10 provinces that have been forced to ration power as generators feel the heat of soaring coal prices that they can't pass on to consumers.

Speaking to local power firms on Monday, Han Jun, the governor of Jilin province, with a population of close to 25 million people, said "multiple channels" needed to be set up to guarantee coal supplies, and China should source more from Russia, Mongolia and Indonesia.

Han said the province would also urgently dispatch special teams to secure supply contracts in the neighbouring region of Inner Mongolia, according to the province's official WeChat social media account.

Goldman Sachs estimated that as much as 44% of China's industrial activity has been affected by power shortages, potentially causing a 1-percentage point decline in annualised GDP growth in the third quarter, and a 2-percentage point drop from October to December.

It said in a note published on Tuesday that it was cutting its 2021 GDP growth forecast for China to 7.8%, from the previous 8.2%.

'AT ANY COST'

The power crunch has taken hold as a shortage of coal supplies, toughening greenhouse gas emissions standards and strong demand from industry have pushed coal prices to peaks - China's thermal coal futures climbed 7% by 0500GMT on Tuesday to a record 1,324 yuan ($204.76) per tonne.

Rationing has been implemented during peak hours in many parts of northeastern China since last week, triggering state media reports of power supply disruptions in many cities and stoking concern among the country's avid social media users.

As some shops in the northeast operated by candlelight and malls shut early, posts on China's Twitter-like Weibo service expressed concern about water after a public utility in Jilin warned users that power shortages could hit supplies at any time.

Jilin governor Han urged companies to fulfil their "social responsibilities" and "overcome the difficulties" caused by coal price rises.

The China Electricity Council, which represents the country's power suppliers, said in a note on Monday that coal-fired power companies were now "expanding their procurement channels at any cost" in order to guarantee winter heat and electricity supplies.

It said China needed to increase the production and supply of coal while guaranteeing safety and environmental protection. More medium- and long-term contracts needed to be signed to raise power plant inventories ahead of winter.

Coal traders noted finding fresh import sources may be easier said than done.

"Russia has to first meet demand from Europe, Japan and South Korea," said one northeast China based trader. "Indonesia's export shipments have been curbed by rainy weather the last couple of months and Mongolia's exports, mostly by trucks, are small."

David Fishman, China energy policy researcher and manager at the Lantau Group consultancy, said flaws in China's pricing system were ultimately to blame for the current shortages.

"In the short term, the only relief policies that make sense are digging more coal out of the ground, which is bound to be an unpopular idea, or make end-users pay more for their power," Fishman said.

Policymakers had previously warned that China needed to build more coal plants in order to offset potential power shortages over the 2021-2025 period, but utilisation rates at existing plants remain low.

Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst with the Helsinki-based Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, said northeast China currently had 100 gigawatts of coal-fired capacity, which would be more than enough to meet demand if plants had the incentive to buy more coal.

"Not a single grid region has reported peak loads that would be even close to exhausting available generating capacity," he said.

(Reporting by David Stanway; Additional reporting by Chen Aizhu in Singapore; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell)

 'MAYBE' TECH

New way to simulate hydrogen storage efficiency of materials

by Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology

The energy change associated with hydrogen removal from silicon carbide nanotubes.

　　The graph shows the variation of system energy with the distance of a hydrogen

 molecule from the surface of a silicon carbide nanotube (bottom right). The depth of 

the curve signifies the energy required to extract hydrogen from storage. A comparison 

of prediction methods is presented, with DMC being the most accurate and vdW-DF2 

being its closest match. Credit: Kenta Hongo from JAIST

Hydrogen energy has the potential to be a key measure to meet the United Nations net zero emissions target, but its industrial use has been hindered by the difficulty in its storage and handling. Hydrogen becomes a gas at a very low temperature (-252°C), which makes its storage at room temperature challenging. The interaction between hydrogen and its storage material is simply too weak to persist at room temperature. This makes the design of storage materials crucial to achieving the goal of bringing hydrogen energy into daily use.

This is where computational materials design comes in. A lot of time and effort can be saved during the development of hydrogen technology by designing a material on a computer and simulating its capacity for hydrogen storage. But the predictions become very limited in their use unless they are accurate and can be made at a reasonable computational cost. In a recent study published in ACS Omega, scientists develop a computationally expensive, but highly accurate novel method for predicting hydrogen storage: "Improving prediction reliability for simulations can help accelerate the development of materials for hydrogen fuel storage and lead to a more energy efficient society," says Dr.Kenta Hongo from the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST), who led the study.

One of the fundamental forces of attraction between objects is the van der Waals force, which defines the interaction between atoms or molecules based on the distance between them. Since the Van der Waals force is the consequence of quite complicated quantum processes, conventional treatments could not describe it well, and hence the simulations so far are at the level of rough estimations of it. But is it right to do that when simulating hydrogen storage? This was the primary concern of Dr. Hongo and team.

To answer this question, they looked at silicon-carbide nanotubes, one of the most promising materials for hydrogen storage. Using a computational technique called diffusion Monte Carlo (DMC), they created a model that accounted for van der Waals forces when simulating the storage of hydrogen in silicon-carbide nanotubes. Most conventional models consider the interactions between hydrogen and silicon-carbide nanotubes as a whole, but the DMC method uses the power of a supercomputer to reconstruct the interaction mechanism faithfully by following the arrangement of individual electrons. This makes the DMC model the most accurate method of prediction to date. Using the DMC model, the researchers were also able to predict how much energy would be required to dislodge hydrogen from its storage, and how far away the hydrogen was likely to be from the surface of the silicon-carbide nanotube. They then compared the results from their modeling to those obtained via conventional prediction methods.

Conventional prediction methods are usually based on a computational techniques called the density functional theory (DFT). DFT uses functionals (model descriptions of quantum interactions) that describe the spatial variations of electron density to determine the properties of complex systems. While there have been several DFT-based studies on the storage of hydrogen on silicon-carbide nanotubes, none of them have incorporated van der Waals forces in their predictions. Van der Waals-corrected DFT functionals have, however, been employed in the prediction of other materials. Dr. Hongo and team simulated hydrogen storage using a wide range of DFT functionals, those with van der Waals corrections and those without. They found that the DFT functionals without van der Waals corrections misestimated energy required for hydrogen storage by 4–14%. On the other hand, van der Waals-corrected DFT functionals produced results that were quite similar to those of DMC. Moreover, they found that the contribution of the van der Waals force to the storage energy was about 9–29%, which is hardly insignificant.

These findings, Dr. Hongo believes, can be a stepping stone for further innovation in hydrogen storage simulation technology. "Although the DMC method is computationally expensive, it can be used to clarify the peculiarities (tendencies of prediction error) of each prediction method. This will help us understand which prediction to trust, and also how to modify prediction methods to make them more useful," he explains.High-speed alloy creation could revolutionize hydrogen's future

More information: Genki I. Prayogo et al, Importance of Van der Waals Interactions in Hydrogen Adsorption on a Silicon-carbide Nanotube Revisited with vdW-DFT and Quantum Monte Carlo, ACS Omega (2021). DOI: 10.1021/acsomega.1c03318

Journal information: ACS Omega 

Provided by Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology

 NOT REALLY THEY SPECULATE

Geologists solve half-century-old mystery of animal traces in ancient rocks

by University of California, Los Angeles

Quartzite with traces of burrowing animals. The scale is marked in centimeters. Credit: Stefan Bengtson/Swedish Museum of Natural History

Geologists have been baffled by perforations in an Australian quartzite (rock), identical in shape to burrows made in sands by crustaceans; the original sandy sediment is a billion years older than the oldest known animals. An international team of scientists has now resolved the mystery.

When animals move, they leave traces, such as dinosaur footprints or the burrows of worms. These reveal how ancient animals moved, how they foraged and how they interacted with one another. Trace fossils are as old as the animal world.

Geologists were therefore stunned by the discovery in Western Australia of traces of burrowing animals in ancient quartzite, a rock type that was formed when sandy sediments were subjected to high pressures and temperatures.

"Quartzite is as hard as concrete and impossible for burrowing animals to penetrate," said Bruce Runnegar, UCLA professor emeritus in the Department of Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences and co-author of the new research, published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "The traces would therefore have had to be made while the sand was still loose. But the sand was deposited 1.7 billion years ago—a billion years prior to the appearance of the first animals in the fossil record, and its transformation to quartzite occurred more than 1.2 billion years ago, much earlier than the oldest animal fossils, which are less than 0.6 billion years old."

A Swedish-Australian-Chinese-American team has now offered a solution to this riddle. The scientists present an explanation that does not require unreasonably ancient animals or concrete-chewing worms with diamond teeth.

The team measured the age of sand in the burrows using unusual radioactive minerals.

"The age turned out to be more than a billion years younger than the enclosing quartzite," said co-author Birger Rasmussen, adjunct professor at the University of Western Australia. "The burrows could therefore have been made by animals."

But how can animals burrow through hard quartzite? The answer was given by microscopic investigations, which showed that the grains had first separated at contact surfaces, resulting in a friable matrix, and then been fused again through later deposition of quartz, returning the rock to the state of hard quartzite.

"A similar process produced the stuff of the standing stones of Stonehenge," Runnegar said.

A window in time had thus been opened to enable burrowing, the researchers report. Through comparisons with surrounding sedimentary strata, the scientists could date this window to about 40 million years ago, during the Eocene epoch of Earth's history.

"Most likely, the traces were made by crustaceans, which invaded southwestern Australia during a short-lived marine transgression associated with the opening of the Southern Ocean," said senior author Stefan Bengtson, professor emeritus and paleontologist at the Swedish Museum of Natural History.

"These trace fossils in the 'wrong' rocks have been a mystery for half-a-century," Bengtson said. "We are glad to have been able to demonstrate geological processes that resolve this conundrum.New depth limit for deep-sea marine burrows

More information: Eocene animal trace fossils in 1.7 billion-year-old metaquartzites, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2021). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2105707118 , www.pnas.org/content/118/40/e2105707118

Journal information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 

Provided by University of California, Los Angeles 

Real Canadian Superstore staff in Alberta vote 97 per cent in favour of strike action

POSTED ON SEPTEMBER 27, 2021 

Blair McBride

Publishing date: Sep 27, 2021  •  

The Clareview Real Canadian Superstore is seen in Edmonton on Monday, Sept. 27, 2021. Workers have voted overwhelmingly to strike, and the union is waiting for a final offer from the company before workers hit the picket lines. Photo by Ian Kucerak /Postmedia

Thousands of Real Canadian Superstore employees in Alberta could go on strike after an overwhelming vote in support of job action.

Ninety-seven per cent of voting members of the union voted to strike last week. About 10,000 union members work at Superstores in the province, said United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 401 spokesperson Scott Payne.

Local president Thomas Hesse said the vote “reflects anger and frustration” felt by workers.

“They can’t work from home. Out of 40 Superstores in Alberta, over 30 have had (COVID-19) outbreaks,” Hesse said. “They’ve been at the front lines ensuring we can cook and eat at our kitchen tables with our families.”

The latest round of bargaining started Monday and is expected to last until Friday, he said. Negotiations between the two sides have been ongoing for more than one year.

The strike vote came after the union was unsatisfied with Loblaw’s latest offer to employees. The union has 72 hours to serve strike notice if one occurs, Payne said.

Hesse declined to provide details on what the employer had previously offered, saying conditions created by the COVID-19 pandemic call for an unprecedented analysis of what employees are seeking.

“I talked to a cashier the other day. She said, ‘I work in a makeshift plexiglass terrarium. I’m scared. There’s (minimal) enforcement of rules, there’s no mandatory vaccination of customers and hundreds of people are pouring through the workplace daily.’

“I’m seeing people terrified going to work in crowded public places,” Hesse said. “Their billionaire bosses gave them so-called hero pay and then took that away. It’s almost like the employer saw it as a calculation error in their enormous profits.”

Loblaw rolled out $2-per-hour pay raises to encourage workers in the early months of the pandemic. It phased it out in June 2020, “clawed back far sooner than the (COVID-19) risks dissipated,” said Payne.

But wage and benefit issues are on the table in negotiations, and the union is seeking “very significant” improvements, Hesse said.

“(There’s) one word to describe what the employees are looking for: lots. What will the tipping point be when workers will say, ‘this makes me feel OK to go into this environment?’ We’re bargaining this week to probe that question. What is an essential worker worth in this environment?”

Loblaw spokesperson Catherine Thomas said the company had no comment on the issue while bargaining is ongoing.

Joseph Marchand, a labour economist and an economics professor at the University of Alberta, said there’s always room for an employer to go above and beyond COVID-19 safety measures in the workplace.

“I understand that the workers would want the same requirements that are in the non-essential businesses,” Marchand said. “But it also goes the other way. I’ve seen at least one of these video snippets where people are very angry at this new policy. There’s been backlash on employees who are just following the rules. If these incidents happened to employees, they would also feel unsafe due to possible violence.”

In terms of demands for better wages, Marchand noted that many government policies aimed at improving conditions for workers, such as the Canada Recovery Benefit (CRB) have distorted labour markets and created upward pressure on wages.

The CRB ends on Oct. 23.

“I question whether there’ll be that upward pressure as that policy response goes away,” he said. “I wonder where that leaves wages afterwards. The upward pressure on wages could start to go away, but who knows what COVID will deliver us?”

bmcbride@pos