Coronavirus thumps palm oil demand

• Soumya Sarkar 08.04.2

020

Supply chain disruption and shrinking profits could hinder the expansion of ethical production amid the global pandemic

An anxious restaurant worker (Image: Alamy)

The global palm oil sector is feeling the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, as demand drops across the world, trade is disrupted and production is hampered in Indonesia and Malaysia, the top producers of the vegetable oil. 

Although the short-term prospects of the sector are bad, experts suggest it is still too early to say whether the viral epidemic will hurt efforts to expand the sustainable palm oil market in the medium-to-long term. 

Indonesia, the world’s largest producer of palm oil, is seeing drastic falls in exports to its main markets. Exports to China plunged by as much as 57% in January, the Indonesian Palm Oil Producers Association (GAPKI) said in a statement. Exports to the European Union, India and the United States fell 30%, 22% and 64%, respectively, the industry grouping said. India, China and the European Union are the top consumers of palm oil after Indonesia, according to IndexMundi, a data aggregator. 

The decline is attributed to the ongoing outbreak of Covid-19. “The novel coronavirus pandemic has slowed down the global economy and made the consumption of vegetable oil edge down,” GAPKI’s executive director, Mukti Sardjono, said. 

Covid-19 first emerged in China’s Hubei province in December 2019 and has since spread rapidly across the globe. The World Health Organization declared it a pandemic on March 11. 

Malaysian palm oil exports to China declined by nearly 17% in January and February, according to the Malaysian Palm Oil Council (MPOC). Exports to India, until recently its main market, plummeted by as much as 91% in these two months, mainly due to a trade spat with the South Asian nation. The council said export of palm oil in February fell by 11% to 1.08 million tonnes from 1.21 million tonnes in January. 

Work at plantations has also been affected due to lockdowns in producer countries. In Malaysia, for instance, palm oil estate and milling operations have been halted in six districts of Sabah, the country’s largest palm oil-producing province. Such stoppages could lead to a monthly national production loss of up to 20%, according to UOB Kay Hian, a Singapore-based brokerage and research firm.  

Demand destruction

“In the short term, we expect some demand reduction of palm oil in India,” said Bhavna Prasad, director of sustainable business at WWF India. Prasad’s view is borne out by the latest statistical update by the Solvent Extractors’ Association of India (SEAI). Vegetable oil imports into the country declined by more than 10% in February, the industry lobby group said. The share of palm oil stood at 50% of total edible oil imports, down from more than 65% a year ago. 

Indians, partial to curries and deeply fried food, consume about 1.9 million tonnes of edible oil a month. Palm oil is used extensively in restaurants, which are now closed until 14 April due to a nationwide lockdown to contain the spread of coronavirus. 

Lower demand is likely to drag down imports by some half a million tonnes in the financial year that starts on 1 April, according to B.V. Mehta, executive director of SEAI, compared with 14.9 million tonnes imported in 2018-19.

Sustainability efforts

It is still unclear whether the trade and consumption shocks will hamper efforts to make the palm oil sector more sustainable. Clearing land for plantations in Southeast Asia has led to widespread destruction of tropical rainforests and peatlands, resulting in loss of species and habitat and increasing greenhouse gas emissions. Palm oil plantations have also worsened the spread of forest fires, a significant contributor to global warming and a public health hazard.

The efforts to expand sustainable palm oil, in India and globally, will not stop because of the outbreak

“The efforts to expand the sustainable palm oil space, in India and globally, will not stop because of the outbreak,” said Kamal Prakash Seth, India representative of Roundtable of Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), which develops and implements global standards for sustainable palm oil. 

Some ground-level efforts, such as an initiative to involve smallholder farmers in Andhra Pradesh, India’s largest palm oil-producing province, will be delayed due to the national lockdown, Seth admitted. The RSPO has also been forced to postpone its technical training programme. 

At the same time, “the sustainable palm oil sector has expanded exponentially in the past few years in India,” Seth said. “We do not anticipate any significant loss in momentum.” 

Seth’s expectations are mirrored by Anjana Shanmugavel, senior manager, sustainable business at WWF. “There has been a lot of multi-stakeholder effort when it comes to promoting sustainable palm oil across the value chain,” said Shanmugavel, who focuses specifically on palm oil. “As things go back to normal, we will go back to the baselines we have already established.” 

Sustainability setbacks

Not everyone is so optimistic. “Covid-19 could severely impact smallholders’ income if they or their families contract the virus, and not all smallholders have access to medical facilities,” said Katie Major, a UK-based conservation psychologist who leads the Global Alliance for Sustainable Palm Oil. 

Smallholder farmers across Asia are ill-equipped to deal with medical shocks, which often lead them to slide back into poverty and destitution. In such a scenario, it is unlikely that they would in the near future be able to join the sustainable palm oil movement. 

In India, for instance, small plantations are typically family affairs and any disruption in estate operations or difficulty in getting produce to processors due to transport restrictions could adversely impact cash flows, making it harder for them to recover from the disruption.

Industry insiders say that the coronavirus epidemic could potentially be a setback to ethical palm oil expansion. “All stakeholders in the sector work on very thin margins. With demand and production disruptions, profits will be further squeezed,” an industry executive said on condition of anonymity. “Adding costs to participate in the sustainable palm oil value chain will be low in their priorities right now.” 

With input from Dr. Josie W. Phillips, palm oil researcher for China Dialogue.

This article is part of a new China Dialogue series on palm oil. Read more here:

China and India are the new palm oil frontiers

Can China shift to sustainable palm oil?

Palm oil: The pros and cons of a controversial commodity

How palm oil is certified as sustainable

Does Colombia hold the answer to sustainable palm oil?

A boycott is not the answer to palm oil’s environmental problems

India’s curbs on Malaysian palm oil set to shake up sector

REMEMBERING MOUNT ST. HELENS
 Kalispell residents recall eerie aftermath of volcanic eruption
IN THE AGE OF COVID-19 SARS CORONAVIRUS

A man hoses ash off the sidewalk in front of Conrad National Bank

 in Kalispell in this Daily Inter Lake file photo.By Jeremy Weber

By Jeremy Weber Daily Inter Lake---Kalispell, Montana | April 12, 2020

Annie McLaughlin of Whitefish was six months pregnant and headed to work at the Roundup (now the Town Pump) in Whitefish when she saw the ash cloud moving in from the catastrophic Mount St. Helens volcanic eruption.

“It was warm and still and the sky began to turn yellow. I have been in tornadoes before and it reminded me a lot of those kind of skies,” she said. “It was pretty eerie. We woke up the next morning to 3 inches of ash everywhere.”

In an eerie mirror of recent events spurred by the coronavirus pandemic, all but the essential businesses in the Flathead Valley were closed for three days while residents were advised to wear masks if they left their homes. With gas stations deemed essential businesses, McLaughlin returned to work the next day, mask and all.

Jim Oliverson of Kalispell was in Bozeman when he heard about the eruption that fateful day in 1980. Then 41, Oliverson was attending a CEO meeting as the administrator of St. Luke’s Hospital in Ronan. When someone came in and told the group that Mount St. Helens had erupted, Oliverson admits that didn’t mean much to him. It was not until later that evening that he began to understand the magnitude of the situation.

“I remember turning a TV on and seeing a reporter from one of the Missoula stations standing in the middle of an abandoned street in what looked like a snowstorm, but it was ash,” he recalled. “It was so odd.”

Oliverson soon learned what kind of impact the ash fallout was having after he returned to work in Ronan.

“I had to call the maintenance guy and make sure he babysat those air-conditioning systems and changed the air filters as often as he had to. I told him not to throw the old ones away because I thought we might have to clean them and reuse them,” he said. “Nobody knew for sure how long the falling ash was going to last.”

Oliverson said the reaction was strikingly similar to what is happening today with COVID-19.

“Nobody really knew what was going to happen. Human beings, being as predictable as we are, did pretty much what we are seeing now. Everyone was going down to the grocery store and stocking up on everything they could. People were frightened and they didn’t know what to expect,” he said. “There were people saying you had to wear a mask to go outside. There were others saying a bandanna was alright, if [it was wet]. Other people were warning that wetting the bandanna was dangerous because it turned the ash more solid. There was a lot of panic going around.”

For Chris Dasios of Troy, then a senior at Eastern Washington University in Cheney, that Sunday morning started with a deep sense of dread. No, he was not worried about a possible eruption of the volcano 235 miles to the southwest. Dasios was worried about the set of final tests that stood between him and graduation. After an all-night cramming session, complete with coffee and NoDoz, Dasios was convinced all was lost. Needing to clear his mind, Dasios took the elevator to the ground floor of the 11-story Dressler Hall and walked outside. He was not ready for what awaited him.

“All of a sudden, a rolling, boiling black cloud came in from the west. I thought ‘God help us, what is that?’ We were told to go back to our dorms and apartments as the ash started falling all around us,” he recalled.

IT WAS an event unlike any other seen in the United States up until that time and is still the most destructive volcanic eruption in the nation’s history. Final estimates placed damages at $1.1 billion ($3.5 billion today) with the destruction of 200 houses, 47 bridges, 15 miles of railways and 185 miles of highway. In the first nine hours of eruption, an estimated 540 million tons of ash fell over more than 22,000 square miles.

Stories in the May 19, 1980, edition of the Daily Inter Lake reported all schools in Northwest Montana closed. Glacier Park International Airport canceled all commercial flights and mail delivery was canceled. Roads were open to emergency traffic only as the ash could easily cause severe damage to vehicles. Residents were advised to stay inside if they could, or wear a mask if they couldn’t.

As destructive as it was, the eruption did provide a silver lining for some. McLaughlin recalled never having a better garden than she did that year.

Dasios actually credits the eruption for his graduation from college.

“After I found out what was going on, I studied up. I stopped partying for a while and got ready and when classes started back up I passed my finals and graduated in June with a major in history and a minor in sociology in June,” he said with a laugh. “I am proud to say the eruption actually helped me. I’m not sure how many people can say that.”

For Oliverson, recent events have brought memories of Mount St. Helens to mind. He still finds himself thinking about the destruction the mountain caused that day.

“Not long after the eruption, I found myself at an intersection where I could see a mile to my left and a mile straight ahead of me. I looked at that and tried to imagine a mile straight above me, because they had said that when the volcano blew that it took a cubic mile of mountain with it. That was just a numbing thought for me. It still is,” he said.

“I am feeling some of the same feeling now as I did back then because we really don’t know how long this crisis with COVID-19 is going to last."

“Back then, we didn’t know how dangerous the ash from Mount St. Helens was. Because we didn’t know then and we don’t know now, it is very similar,” he said. “We had no control over it and everyone was waiting for the federal government to do something. We just have to ride it out today like we did back then.”

 Ash from the May 18, 1980, eruption left many areas in the Flathead covered in ash. (USGS photo)

Ash covers a farm in Connelll, Wash. 180 miles from Mount St. Helens. (Lyn Topink, NFS)
 

Ash clouds from Mount St. Helens move over Ephrata airport in Washington on Monday, May 19, 1980. Communities across central and eastern Washington were covered in 3-5 inches of gritty, fine, ash particles. (NFS photo)

Photo taken on May 18, 1980, of Mount St. Helens at about 3:30 pm. Jim Hughes took this from about 20 air miles away. (NFS photo)
The May 18, 1980, eruption of Mount St. Helens destroyed nearly a cubic mile of the top of the mountain. (USGS photo)

A Daily Inter Lake file photo shows a man selling masks, as protection from volcanic ash, out of his truck.

Holy Light to Arrive in Greece under Strict Measures due to Coronavirus Pandemic

ORTHODOX FETISH OBJECT OF DUBIOUS ORIGIN 

NOT UNLIKE THE OLYMPIC FLAME WHICH IS ALSO ETERNAL

By Philip Chrysopoulos-Apr 12, 2020

This year the Holy Light will arrive in Greece from the Church of the Resurrection in Jerusalem under very austere measures due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

This Easter in Greece will be like no other Easter in history, with the churches closed and people quarantined in their homes. The holiest and biggest Greek Orthodox feast will take place at home with close family and friends.

The ceremonial transport of the Holy Light from the Church of the Resurrection (or Church of the Holy Sepulchre) in Old Jerusalem to Athens by airplane will be no exception.

Despite draconian security measures against the coronavirus and the universal ban on Jewish Easter holidays in Jerusalem, including the closing of the doors of the Church of the Resurrection, the Israeli authorities finally permitted the Holy Light (or Holy Fire) to be transported to Greece and other Orthodox countries in Eastern Europe.

After days of consultations between the Athens-Tel Aviv-Jerusalem triangle, the plan to transfer the Holy Light to Greece with all the emergency health precautions taken has been approved.

It should be noted that the last time the Church of the Resurrection had its doors sealed was in 1349 when the Black Plague killed 100-200 million people in Europe and Asia. 

This Easter, only 10-15 high priests will conduct the holy liturgy and receive the Holy Fire from the tomb of Jesus Christ inside the Church of the Resurrection. It is agreed that immediately after the liturgy, the Holy Light will be passed to the faithful, a ceremony that has been carried out since 867.

The Holy Light will be transported in a lantern with a special police escort to Ben Gurion airport, in Tel Aviv.

The only stop on the human chain of air transport of the Holy Light to the Orthodox world is the Jaffa Gate, where representatives of the Jerusalem Patriarchate will deliver the Holy Light to the Consul General of Greece in Israel, Christos Sofianopoulos. It will then be given to the Greek delegation, which will depart from Athens on Saturday morning for Tel Aviv.

At the Jaffa Gate, one of the eight oldest gates in the old city of Jerusalem, representatives of the rest of the Orthodox Church – Russia, Ukraine, Serbia, Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania – will receive the Holy Light to transport it in time to their homelands.

At the same time, the Greek Air Force aircraft will be waiting on the runway, as its crew is prohibited from landing on Israeli soil due to the quarantine.

The Greek Consul General will hand over the Holy Light to the Exarch of the Holy Sepulcher, Archimandrite Damianos, who will board the Greek plane.

Once the Holy Light lands on Greek soil, the reception ceremony will be very austere due to the pandemic. The minimum military staff and band will be present to give the Holy Light the head of state honors. Specifically, only 18 army and band members will give donors, compared to 80 last year.

Also, there will be no red carpet on the runway this year, a very limited number of state officials. Only the competent deputy foreign minister, the Exarch of the Holy Sepulchre and the Representative of the Church of Greece, and the Metropolitan of Mesogeia Nikolaos will be present to give the message of the arrival of the Holy Light.

Why Orthodox and Western Easter Are on Different Dates

ORTHODOX IN THE WEST GET TWO EASTERS AND TWO CHRISTMASES 

By Tasos Kokkinidis-Apr 10, 2020 https://greece.greekreporter.com/

Greece is slowly but surely coming closer to the great feast of Easter — a religious occasion celebrated here with more gusto than in many other Western Christian countries.

Unlike most European nations, which will celebrate on April 12, Greece will adhere to the date for Orthodox Easter, which falls very late this year — on April 19.

Orthodox Churches still use the Julian calendar for Easter, meaning at some times that there can be a 13-day lag behind the Gregorian.

So, for example, on Mount Athos — an autonomous religious state in northern Greece under the protection of Athens — the residents there are always 13 days behind the rest of Europe.

However, the Passover link has been largely dropped by Western Christianity’s calculation of Easter. In fact, the last time the two great Christian denominations shared a date for Easter was in 2017.

Calculating the date

Another complicating factor historically was finding a date and sticking to it. In the early days of their faith, Christians celebrated the resurrection of Jesus Christ at different times.

It was the Holy Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council in 325 AD who came up with a uniform way of setting the date. They decreed that Easter was to be celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the vernal equinox, but always after Passover.

In order to ensure there was no confusion as to when the vernal equinox occurred, the date of the vernal equinox was set to be March 21 (April 3 on the Julian Calendar).

To this day, the Orthodox have stuck with this method of calculating the date of Easter, leading to it usually falling later than in the Western world. In some years, however, Eastern and Western Easter fall on the same date, and this will happen again in the year 2025.

In 1923, a group of Orthodox churches met in Istanbul to re-examine the calendar issue, eventually adopting a controversial position that important religious dates would follow the more astrologically-accurate Georgian calendar — except Easter.

So, in 2020 the Greek Orthodox will celebrate Good Friday on Friday, April 17, Easter Sunday on April 19 and Easter Monday on April 20.

KLAUS SCHULZE --- CYBORG

2019: The Year Fracking Earthquakes Turned Deadly

The first fracking-induced earthquake to claim human lives shows why magnitude may underestimate the danger such earthquakes pose

Image credits: Inked Pixels/Shutterstock

Friday, February 21, 2020 - Nala Rogers, Staff Writer

(Inside Science) -- On Feb. 25, 2019, an earthquake shook the village of Gaoshan in China's Sichuan Province, leaving 12 people injured and two dead. New research indicates the earthquake and its two foreshocks were likely triggered by hydraulic fracturing, also called fracking. If this is true, it would mark the first time in history that a fracking-induced earthquake has killed people.

The study shows why magnitude, the most common way of reporting earthquake size, could lead people to underestimate the true threat fracking-induced earthquakes might pose. The Feb. 25 earthquake was only a magnitude 4.9, which would not traditionally be considered very dangerous. But it was able to destroy older and more vulnerable buildings because it was so close to the surface -- only about one kilometer deep according to the new study. That's shallow even by fracking standards, but fracking-induced earthquakes do tend to be much shallower than natural ones.

"The shallower it is, then for the same magnitude of earthquake, the stronger the shaking," said Hongfeng Yang, a seismologist at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and senior author of the study. The findings are not yet published, but Yang and graduate student Pengcheng Zhou presented them last December at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.

How it happened

Fracking involves drilling wells in shale deposits, then pumping in water and other additives at high pressure to break the rock and release trapped oil. In some regions fracking can trigger earthquakes by causing faults in the rock to slip. The slipping happens either because fluids seep into the fault itself, or because the weight or volume of the fluid presses against the fault indirectly, said Thomas Eyre, a seismologist at the University of Calgary in Canada.

Most fracking operations in North America don't cause earthquakes, and the earthquakes that do occur have generally been small. Some media reports have attributed damaging earthquakes in Oklahoma to fracking, but experts believe most of those earthquakes were caused by wastewater that oil and gas developers disposed of by injecting it deep underground. Some of the wastewater included fluids used during the fracking process, but most of it came from ancient underground aquifers, according to Mike Brudzinski, a seismologist at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. The oil beneath Oklahoma is naturally mixed with large volumes of water, and developers must filter out the water before they can sell the oil.

Western Canada has experienced a few moderate-sized fracking earthquakes with magnitudes up to about 4.5, but they mostly occurred in remote locations far from major human settlements. And even in western Canada, only about one in 300 fracking operations causes earthquakes large enough for a person to feel, said Eyre.

"In North America at the moment, we haven't had any hydraulic fracturing-induced earthquakes that have actually caused any damage," said Eyre.

It's a different story in China, however. Several recent studies have shown that the fracking boom that began in about 2014 is triggering destructive earthquakes in formerly tranquil parts of China's Sichuan basin. For example, a magnitude 4.7 earthquake on Jan. 28, 2017, a magnitude 5.7 on Dec. 16, 2018, and a magnitude 5.3 on Jan. 3, 2019 were all caused by fracking, according to published research. The 2018 earthquake injured 17 people and damaged more than 390 houses, nine of which collapsed.

The deadly February 2019 event included a magnitude 4.9 main shock and two smaller foreshocks of magnitudes of 4.7 and 4.3. Using seismic sensors and satellite data, Yang, Zhou and their colleagues found that the foreshocks occurred on a previously unknown fault located within half a kilometer of a fracking well. The foreshocks were between 2.5 and 3 km underground, the same depth where fracking is typically conducted in this region. The main shock struck about eight hours later, on a different, shallower fault a short distance away. The findings suggest that the first two earthquakes and the fluid pumped during fracking may have combined to change the pressures in the rock, causing the second fault to slip.

"It looks to me like some very solid research," wrote Art McGarr, a seismologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, California, in an email, after reviewing a digital copy of the researchers' poster. McGarr has studied induced earthquakes extensively, and was one of the researchers who conducted a recent paper attributing prior Sichuan Basin earthquakes to fracking.

Shallow depth increases danger

The magnitude 4.9 earthquake last February damaged buildings in Gaoshan in part because the buildings were old and not designed for earthquake safety, said Yang. The location was densely populated and didn't have a history of dangerous earthquakes, so it was highly vulnerable.

But even so, the earthquake would have been less damaging had it occurred 5 to 20 km underground, as most natural earthquakes do, according to Brudzinski. Instead, it occurred about a kilometer underground, with hardly any rock to absorb the shock before it reached the surface. Most fracking-related earthquakes are less than 5 km deep.

"We always pin everything on the magnitude, so that can be kind of misleading," said Pradeep Talwani, a geophysicist at the University of South Carolina in Columbia. According to Talwani, people in Gaoshan probably felt more shaking from the shallow magnitude 4.9 quake than someone in Seattle would feel from a natural magnitude 6.5 earthquake that struck deep beneath their feet.

Magnitude is a measure of the total amount of energy released during an earthquake, and researchers estimate it by calculating the surface area of a fault and the distance it has slipped, said Brudzinski. What actually matters to a person on the surface is how much the ground they're standing on shakes and how that affects structures around them -- a concept known as intensity, which researchers estimate using a variety of scales. Intensity depends in part on the earthquake's magnitude, but also on its depth, lateral distance away, and the types of rock and soil in the area.

"Right now, most regulations are still based on the magnitude. But there's a recognition now, a growing recognition, that the true risk is related to what kind of structures are there, what kind of soil they're built on, how shallow those earthquakes might be," said Brudzinski.
Deadly earthquakes continue

After the Feb. 25 earthquake that killed two people in Gaoshan, the local government halted fracking, said Yang. But in surrounding parts of the Sichuan Basin, fracking continues. According to online reports by the China Earthquake Administration, several more damaging earthquakes struck the region later in 2019:

• A magnitude 6.0 on June 17 in Changning County that killed at least 13 people and injured 220

• A magnitude 5.4 on Sept. 8 in Weiyuan County that killed one person and injured 63

• A magnitude 5.2 on Dec. 18 in Zizhong County that injured at least nine

Yang, Zhou and their colleagues have not yet analyzed these earthquakes, and according to Zhou, it is not yet clear whether they were fracking-induced. The Chinese government has denied that the June 17 earthquake that killed 13 people was caused by fracking, according to reporting by Reuters. A recent study suggested it may have been triggered by a combination of salt mining and a previous fracking-induced quake.

Despite multiple attempts over several weeks, Inside Science has been unable to obtain comment from anyone affiliated with the China Earthquake Administration regarding either the earthquakes in 2017, 2018 and early 2019 or the more recent ones that haven't yet been analyzed in detailed studies. The administration has reported greater depths for Sichuan Province earthquakes than would be expected if they were caused by fracking. However, those numbers don't match up with the shallow depth estimates from detailed studies, including Yang and Zhou's research and several published studies that included China Earthquake Administration researchers as authors.

Yang said he wasn't surprised that the depth estimates differ. He explained that the China Earthquake Administration's online reports use estimates that are generated automatically using a network of stationary seismic sensors and a general-purpose model. He claimed that his own study and other studies that have pinpointed shallower depths are much more accurate. That's because they use additional data sources and models that are customized for specific locations, he said.

It's unlikely that any of the earthquakes highlighted in this story occurred naturally, according to McGarr. The northeastern edge of the Sichuan basin has long been prone to earthquakes because it is bordered by a large, active fault. But the fracking is happening further to the south and east, where natural earthquakes are rare.

"It used to be a very stable region," said Yang.

Researchers in the U.S. are taking note. No fracking-induced earthquakes in North America have exceeded magnitude 5 so far, and they may still be unlikely to do so, given differences in the local geology, said Brudzinski. But most are quite shallow, only about 2-4 km belowground.

In the past, said Brudzinski, researchers have debated whether there might be something about the fracking process itself that keeps earthquakes small, ensuring some measure of safety despite the shallow depth. The recent tragedies in China suggest that people shouldn't depend on that as a safeguard.

"To me, that has been sort of the most important aspect of what I've seen from China," said Brudzinski. "It suggests that, yes: We can have some larger-size events."


Editor’s Note: Yuen Yiu contributed additional reporting to this story.

Authorized news sources may reproduce our content.© American Institute of Physics
Author Bio

Nala Rogers is a staff writer and editor at Inside Science, where she covers the Earth and Creature beats. She has a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Utah and a graduate certificate in science communication from U.C. Santa Cruz. Before joining Inside Science, she wrote for diverse outlets including Science, Nature, the San Jose Mercury News, and Scientific American. In her spare time she likes to explore wilderness.

Earthquakes linked to fracking cause controversy in China 

• Feng Hao 11.04.2019

 http://tinyurl.com/svct3ad

Protests against shale gas mining sparked by the Rongxian earthquakes unlikely to dent the sector, reports Feng Hao

Workers of a subsidiary of Sinopec, China's largest oil refiner, disassemble facilities after a trial operation in Chongqing, south-west China (Image: Liu Chan/Xinhua)

China’s shale gas industry has been shaken by controversy after three earthquakes in Sichuan province.

The earthquakes, all with a magnitude of over four, hit Rongxian near the city of Zigong on the 24th and 25th of February. They killed two people, injured 12 and damaged numerous buildings. Locals suspect shale gas extraction was to blame, and according to the local government, about 3,000 people gathered in Rongxian to protest the practice shortly after the earthquakes hit.

On the 25th the local government instructed shale gas firms to temporarily halt operations for the sake of what they called “earthquake safety”. There has been no word as yet on when extraction will start again.

Shale gas mining has proved highly controversial worldwide due to its potential safety risks and environmental impacts. Although the public response in China has not been equivalent, February’s protests are a sign of how high feelings run. Nevertheless, experts say this is unlikely to reduce the ambitions of government and businesses.

Cleaner energy

Market demand is behind China’s increased efforts to find and extract shale gas.

Shale gas is referred to as an unconventional natural gas, but it is effectively the same fuel. A cleaner and lower-carbon option than coal, natural gas is viewed as a transitional source of energy as the mix of energy changes to tackle air pollution and climate change. As a result, it has seen rocketing demand. In 2017 demand for natural gas outstripped supply by 4.8 billion cubic metres in northern China (where need is higher due to heating demand) and 11.3 billion cubic metres nationwide.

Na Min, chief information officer with BSC Energy, said: “Shortages naturally mean more capital flowing into the shale gas sector, encouraging upstream companies to prospect and increase output.” According to the firm’s calculations, China’s demand for natural gas will continue to grow in 2020.

Strong growth in demand for natural gas has also caused reliance on imported gas to escalate, with policymakers becoming concerned about energy security. In September 2018 the State Council published its first document promoting development of the natural gas industry, instructing domestic oil and gas firms to increase prospecting and development funding to boost output and reserves.

Li Rong, chief public sector researcher with Cinda Securities, said there is little chance of natural gas discoveries being made in China in the near term, so any breakthroughs will have to come from unconventional sources: shale gas, tight gas and coalbed methane. “Future increases in domestic gas production will mainly come from unconventional sources, such as shale gas,” she said.

A growth bottleneck

But China’s shale gas ambitions predate the recent leap in demand for natural gas.

Shale gas extraction started in the United States, where technological improvements in the early 2000s led to rapid expansion, making the country much less reliant on energy imports. China is now looking to the US and hoping to replicate that success. According to estimates from the US Energy Information Administration, China has more shale gas reserves than any other nation – using current technology, its recoverable reserves are 68% larger than those of the US. China hopes this will provide energy self-sufficiency.

China’s Ministry of Land and Resources started investigating shale gas resources in 2004 and the first exploratory well was drilled in 2009.

2012 saw an ambitious five-year plan for shale gas development, with a production target of 6.5 billion cubic metres per year for 2015, and a subsidy of 0.4 yuan (US$0.06) per cubic metre for shale gas firms between 2012 and 2015. But by 2015 production stood at only 4.5 billion cubic metres per year, with only the two state-owned oil and gas giants, CNPC and Sinopec, running commercial operations.

BSC Energy’s Na Min says that further increases in output are being held back by bottlenecks in the prospecting and commercialisation process.

The Sichuan basin, where the recent earthquakes occurred, is one of China’s three richest natural gas basins and currently the most suitable for drilling. But reserves are deeper compared with the US, and the geology is more complex. That means technology used at one well may not be useful at another, even when its nearby, making prospecting and extraction more challenging and costs harder to control. The area is also densely populated, and intensive drilling could ferment public discontent.

The wells are already unpopular with local people. Tan Huimin, associate professor at Southwest University of Finance and Economics, conducted in-depth interviews with residents of the Sichuan county of Weiyuan in 2016. She found many were deeply concerned about water and air pollution, especially close to mining activities.

Despite this, the current five-year plan for shale gas has raised production targets again: “Assuming policy support is in place and market conditions are favourable, strive for annual shale gas production of 30 billion cubic metres by 2020.” This is lower than a pre-2015 target for 2020 of 60-100 billion cubic metres, but ongoing subsidies and tax breaks show that China still has high hopes for shale gas.

Earthquake worries

One of the main reasons members of the public oppose shale gas extraction is the link with earthquakes. This is especially so in Sichuan, where memories of the 2008 earthquake that killed over 69,000 people are still raw.

The gas is found in layers of shale rock, and hydraulic fracturing – the high-pressure pumping of water, sand and chemicals into the rock formation – is necessary to extract it, by enlarging cracks and allowing the gas to escape. This creates a lot of contaminated wastewater, which is often dealt with by injecting it into deep disposal wells.

Although the whole process is controversial, for both safety and environmental reasons, it is the injection of this wastewater that is thought to trigger earthquakes. In 2013 the US Geological Survey published research in Science saying “several of the largest earthquakes in the U.S. midcontinent in 2011 and 2012 may have been triggered by nearby disposal wells”.

The epicentres of February’s earthquakes were all about eight kilometres from Rongxian, right in the middle of CNPC’s Changning-Weiyuan National Shale Gas Demonstration Zone.



Despite this, some experts say it is hard to draw a direct link between the earthquakes and shale gas extraction in the region. Zhang Jianqiang, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Chengdu Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment, explained that the epicentres lay five kilometres beneath the surface, some distance from the deepest fracking at about 3.4 kilometres. Zhang claimed that a causal relation could therefore be eliminated, although further research would be necessary. He made no reference to wastewater disposal wells.

According to Tian Bingwei, associate professor at the Sichuan University – Hong Kong Polytechnic University Institute for Disaster Management, this area is prone to seismic activity. There have been five earthquakes of magnitude four or above within a 50-kilometre radius of February’s epicentres since monitoring began in 1970, a relatively high number.

But there are also other concerns about fracking, such as the huge quantities of water used. According to research from the World Resources Institute, 61% of China’s shale gas reserves are in areas under high levels of water stress. But WRI researcher Luo Tianyi argued that Sichuan lies in the Yangtze River basin so has more water available than many other areas. As such, it shouldn’t suffer increased water stress, but there may be localised competition for water in the short-term, he said.

Unshakeable ambition

On 4 March during the Two Sessions, China’s biggest annual political meetings, CNPC chairman and delegate to the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Wang Yilin said in an interview that his corporation plans to produce 12 billion cubic metres of shale gas annually by 2020, and to double that to 24 billion cubic metres by 2025. This was only a week after the earthquake protests in Rongxian.

Sichuan is a focus for that expansion. In 2018 CNPC drilled 330 new operational wells in the Sichuan Basin – nearly 60% more than the total number of wells the company had in production by the end of 2017 (about 210).

Experts interviewed by chinadialogue generally agreed that the controversy over the earthquakes will not reduce the market and energy security ambitions of the shale gas sector and the government. But they said it will be necessary to address the discontent of residents and avoid putting the public at risk.

Li Rong of Cinda Securities said there should be a full scientific review of the risks of shale gas mining to ensure the safety of locals and their homes. She also suggested that during mining or well drilling, seismologists should be employed to monitor any links with earthquakes, and during initial site selection, seismic risks should be an essential part of environmental impact assessments.

Commenting on the huge quantities of water used, the WRI’s Luo Tianyi said that mining firms need to plan when and how they mine in line with seasonal water availability, local hydrology, and local demand for water.

New Scientific Study Places Santorini Volcano Eruption at 1560 BC

By Philip Chrysopoulos-Mar 31, 2020

File photo

Scientists using approximately dated tree-ring records from the East Mediterranean Bronze–Iron Age have reached the conclusion that the Minoan volcanic eruption of Thera (Santorini) occurred at around 1560 BC.

The method used in the study, which was published on the website for the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, was a chemical analysis of the dated tree-ring sequence which identified a chemical change in their growth environment around 1560 BC.

While requiring further substantiation, it is believed that this might well be evidence that the Thera eruption took place around that time.

According to the scientists, calendar-dated tree-ring sequences offer an extremely valuable resource for high-resolution paleoenvironmental reconstruction.

Where such records exist for a few limited geographic regions over the last 8,000 to 12,000 years, they have proven invaluable for creating precise and accurate timelines for past human and environmental interactions. The most valuable tool in the study was the Gordion tree-ring sequence.

In the study, examination of the newly dated Mediterranean tree-ring sequence between 1630 and 1500 BC using X-ray fluorescence revealed an unusual calcium anomaly around 1560 BC. This anomaly may be a potential marker for the approximate time of the eruption of Thera.

Subsamples of Juniperus excelsa wood from the East Mediterranean Bronze–Iron Age tree-ring chronology were taken from the base of the eastern outside wall of the Midas Mound Tumulus and from Kizlarkaya. These were remeasured and checked against the Gordion master chronology.

The study concludes: “Anchoring the Gordion tree-ring series more securely in time is an important contribution to improving timelines in the ancient East Mediterranean and maximizing the potential of this record as a paleoenvironmental resource.

“The first step toward this is the identification of the calcium anomaly around 1560 BC, which while clearly requiring replication and much further substantiation, opens up potential that may now be pursued toward finding an exact date for Thera.”

EASTER 
Brown hares and chickens were treated as 'gods,' not food when they arrived in Britain, research shows

by University of Exeter APRIL 10, 2020

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Archaeological evidence shows that the first brown hares and chickens to arrive in Britain were buried with care and intact. There is no signs of butchery on bones examined and the ongoing research suggests the two animals were not imported for people to eat.

Work by experts from the Universities of Exeter, Leicester and Oxford is revealing when brown hares, rabbits and chickens were introduced to Britain, and how they became incorporated into modern Easter traditions.

The team has previously analyzed the earliest rabbit bone to be found in the country, which dates to the first/second century AD. New radiocarbon dates for bones found on sites in Hampshire (Houghton Down, Weston Down, Winnal Down and Winklebury Camp) and Hertfordshire (Blackhorse Road) suggests brown hares and chickens were introduced to Britain even earlier, arriving simultaneously in the Iron Age, between the fifth and the third century BC.

The discovery of buried skeletons fits historical evidence that neither animal was eaten until the Roman period, which began hundreds of years later.

Julius Caesar's De Bello Gallico says: "The Britons consider it contrary to divine law to eat the hare, the chicken, or the goose. They raise these, however, for their own amusement and pleasure." The third-century AD author, Dio Cassius reported that Queen Boudicca released a live hare in order to divine the outcome of her battle with the Romans, calling upon the goddess Andraste to secure their victory.

During the Roman period, both species were farmed and eaten, and rabbits were also introduced. But in AD 410 the Roman Empire withdrew from Britain causing economic collapse. Rabbits became locally extinct, while populations of chickens and brown hares crashed. Due to their scarcity at this time, chickens and hares regained their special status.

Professor Naomi Sykes, from the University of Exeter, who is leading the research, said: "Easter is an important British festival, yet none of its iconic elements are native to Britain. The idea that chickens and hares initially had religious associations is not surprising as cross-cultural studies have shown that exotic things and animals are often given supernatural status.

"Historical accounts have suggested chickens and hares were too special to be eaten and were instead associated with deities—chickens with an Iron Age god akin to Roman Mercury, and hares with an unknown female hare goddess. The religious association of hares and chickens endured throughout the Roman period.

"However archaeological evidence shows that, as their populations increased, they were increasingly eaten, and hares were even farmed as livestock. Rather than being buried as individuals, hare and chicken remains were then disposed of as food waste."

After the Romans had left Britain, people stopped hunting hares and this may explain why archaeologists have found few remains of the animal until the medieval period. By contrast, chicken populations increased. This is likely because, in the sixth century Saint Benedict forbade the consumption of meat from four-legged animals during fasting periods such as Lent. His rules were widely adopted in the tenth and eleventh centuries, increasing the popularity of chickens and eggs as fast-day foods.

Historical and archaeological evidence show rabbits were reintroduced to Britain as an elite food during the thirteenth century AD. Rabbits were increasingly common in the nineteenth-century landscape, likely contributing to their replacement of the hare as the Easter Bunny when the festival's traditions were reinvigorated during the Victorian period.

These new findings have emerged just as the country has gone into lockdown, so the team has created an Easter craft activity that can be printed out and made at home. The activity is inspired by the results and from artifacts recorded by the Portable Antiquities Scheme.

First confirmed cases of rabbit virus found in UK hares

THE EASTER CURMUDGEON 

Simon Harris’s pronouncement on the Easter bunny made me gag
I know it’s a time of crisis, but when did this mythical rabbit become part of Irish Easter?

Sat, Apr 11, 2020

Donald Clarke

German-American pride: US president Donald Trump and the Easter Bunny.

 Photograph: Joshua Roberts/Reuters THE BUNNY IS NOT SEAN SPICER

I don’t think I could love anyone who smiles when newsreaders – at gunpoint, I trust – report on the progress of Santa’s sleigh. Never does the dread phrase “only a bit of fun” more vigorously curl the lip. We’re getting this at Easter now.

Yes, I know it’s a time of crisis. Yes, I know it’s particularly difficult if you insisted upon having children. Sorry and all that. But Simon Harris’s pronouncement on the Easter bunny put my gag reflex into paroxysms. “Important news for children,” he tweeted. “Many of you contacted me & asked … if the Easter Bunny was allowed work this weekend. I have checked with our top doctors & the good news is he can.” Nurse! The kidney dish!

Never mind the nauseatingly cosy tone. Here’s the real issue. Since when did this mythical rabbit become part of Irish Easter? When I was a child (screen turns to monochrome, violins accompany the sounds of hooves on cobbled streets), the season was about the bloody death of the God child and his subsequent miraculous recovery. The St Matthew Passion. There is a Green Hill Far Away. All that stuff.

When I was a child, nobody pretended the Malteser or Crunchie eggs were delivered by a supernatural leporine presence

Okay, that’s a lie. Then as now, Easter was mainly an excuse to eat chocolate in the shape of novelty ovoids. But nobody pretended the Malteser or Crunchie eggs (shot of apple-cheeked child munching to the strains of Little Jimmy Osmond) were delivered by a supernatural leporine presence. My Auntie Daphne did that and she got the credit she deserved. 

Softball and root beer

The Easter Bunny and his foreign egg hunts were largely unknown here until the end of the century. Most middle-aged people regard him as some American thing encountered in Bugs Bunny cartoons. He belongs with softball, root beer and the sale of bazookas in Walmart. Yet children, young adults and teenagers (like Simon Harris) view the creature as an integral part of the domestic festival.

Will the creeping Americanisation of our culture never cease?

The Easter Bunny is largely a German invention and it has remained part of north European culture for centuries

The rise of the Easter bunny is analogous to the similar bastardisation of the Irish Halloween. In both cases a European invention is being flogged back to the old countries in homogenised, marketable form. We can claim the autumn festival as our own. But I’m not sure I had even seen a pumpkin in the flesh until I was a grown man. Trick or treat, a variation on an Irish tradition, seems, under that name, to have taken off here after the success of ET in the early 1980s. If you are in your mid-40s you probably remember it. If you are in your mid-50s you probably don’t.

The Easter Bunny is largely a German invention and it has remained part of north European culture for centuries. The film critic Guy Lodge, who writes for Variety, attributes its prominence in the country of his birth to Dutch influence. “Very much a thing in my 1980s South African childhood, and my parents largely did these things according to their own experience, so I think it goes back some way,” he told me.

Yet, despite making its way to the other end of the planet, the tradition just couldn’t get itself across the North Sea. In order to set in here, it had to go to the US, get transferred into corporate junk and hitch its way back as – among other things – a useless 2011 movie featuring the perennially unwelcome Russell Brand. Now we’re stuck with it.
Right about everything

Our parents were right about almost everything. Drop into almost any Irish home in the past 100 years and you’ll find them complaining about the malign influence of the US on domestic culture.

Obviously, we wouldn’t be without rock’n’roll, Hollywood or tomato ketchup. Let’s be reasonable, the place was a genuine dump before those things arrived to wake us up. But a tussle between disdain and admiration has been raging since at least the last war. Look at the American tourist in Fawlty Towers. He may be vulgar in his language and flash with his money, but he’s right about the shoddiness of the British service industry. Even in the age of Trump, we still want to be like them.

We’re saying “I’m good” for “I’m fine”. We’re saying “lawmaker” for “politician”. We say “grilled cheese” for “toasted cheese”

Younger people have, thank goodness, learned to look elsewhere for influence. Never before has east Asia – particularly Japan and Korea – had such an influence on youth culture. But we’re still dallying with the American versions of Halloween and the Easter Bunny. We’re saying “I’m good” for “I’m fine”. We’re saying “lawmaker” for “politician”. We say “grilled cheese” for “toasted cheese”.

We may have only a few years before Irish politicians are wishing us “Happy Thanksgiving”. At which point, I’m off to set up shop in Pyongyang.

WTF THE GODS HAVE TO WORK WEEKENDS DURING A PANDEMIC?

Simon Harris has announced that the Easter Bunny is allowed to work this weekend

By Anna O'Donoghue Tuesday, April 07, 2020

Simon Harris has announced that the Easter Bunny is in fact, allowed to work this weekend.

Worried children across Ireland have been contacting the Health Minister to ask whether their furry friend is classed as an essential worker during the Covid-19 crisis.



In a tweet this morning, Harris said that he has checked with Ireland’s top doctors, who agreed that he is allowed to work, once washes his hands regularly and keeps his distance.

Important news for children: Many of you contacted me & asked me to if the Easter Bunny was allowed work this weekend. I have checked with our top doctors & the good news is he can. But he has been contacted to remind him about washing his hands regularly & keeping his distance
— Simon Harris TD (@SimonHarrisTD) April 7, 2020

New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern also announced at a press conference yesterday that both the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy are considered as “essential workers”.

You'll be pleased to know that we do consider both the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny to be essential workers.

She also warned children it may be "a bit difficult at the moment" for the Bunny to make it to all their homes, as they are potentially quite busy with their family as well and their own bunnies.