NUKE NEWS

Hanford, WA ‘shooting’ alert was a false alarm, but the panic and anxiety were real



The Tri-City Herald Editorial Board
Wed, March 2, 2022

The Tri-Cities was on high alert Tuesday after reports of possible shots fired at the Hanford site spread a subdued, yet terrible panic throughout the community.

The Tri-City Herald provided updates as frequently as possible while Hanford Patrol and other Tri-City law enforcement officers checked out the possible danger. Fortunately, police officials eventually determined the shooting was a false alarm.

And while Tri-Citians were relieved in the end, the experience still left people shaken.


It was only a few weeks ago when a routine day was shattered by a deadly shooting at the Richland Fred Meyer. The man charged in that case, Aaron C. Kelly, 39, was reportedly spiraling mentally in the weeks and months ahead of the Feb. 7 shooting. He has since been ordered by Benton County Superior Court to undergo a mental health evaluation.

We said at the time of Kelly’s arrest that mental health services in the Tri-Cities are woefully inadequate to meet the needs of the community’s growing population, and that Benton and Franklin counties must assure the public that progress is being made to remedy this deplorable situation.

Last year both the Benton and Franklin county commissions made the smart move to tack on an extra penny to every $10 in sales in order to put money toward a substance abuse recovery center and mental health facility in the Tri-Cities.

As it happens, commissioners on both sides of the river met recently to form a bi-county advisory committee to help direct how to use that extra tax money for mental health and detox services.

The advisory board will include 16 voting members and 7 non-voting members coming from a variety of backgrounds that include law enforcement, mental health officials, substance abuse experts, people with related life experiences and other citizens.

While talks are still underway between Benton County and LifePoint Health to turn the old Kennewick General Hospital building into a safe place for people to go for addiction and mental health treatment, it is encouraging that efforts are moving forward to see what other services might be made available through the new tax.

Several communities have mobile crisis teams that go to people in need of help. Typically, the response team gets referrals from citizens who personally know someone in distress, or who see someone on the street in obvious need of help.

Once crisis team members make contact, they can guide those who are struggling. They can help get them meals, shelter, clothing, medical treatment and other basic needs. The best thing about the service is that people in need can finally get plugged in to the social service network.

This is the kind of service that the Tri-Cities could implement while waiting for the recovery center to be completed. And this is just one example. Once the advisory board gets going, who knows what other creative approaches might be suggested?

The Tri-Cities is the only major metropolitan area in Eastern Washington without a detox center, which means the jails in Benton and Franklin counties often end up being the default location for addicts.

The jails also end up with far too many people who should be in a bed in a mental health facility instead of a cot in a cell.

We hope that Benton County and LifePoint Health, which owns Trios Health in Kennewick and Lourdes Health in Pasco, will be able to come to an agreement soon so the community can get the mental health facility and detox center it so desperately needs.

With the new center and an advisory board guiding the community approach to mental health services, the Tri-Cities will be able to make a huge difference in the lives of many who are suffering.

Adding more treatment options for those living with drug addiction and mental health issues is no guarantee against another random shooting in the Tri-Cities, but it certainly has to help our odds.

County officials are pushing ahead. Now all they need to do is quicken the pace.

Lockdown amid reports of shooting at Washington nuclear facility

Josh Marcus
Tue, March 1, 2022

(Getty Images)

Employees are on lockdown at the Hanford nuclear site in eastern Washington state, where police were called on Tuesday after reports of an active shooter with a shotgun.

Officials have not confirmed whether a shooting did indeed take place, or if anyone was harmed.

“Hanford Patrol continues to search the 2750 E Building,” officials from the Hanford site said in a news release, referring to one of the buildings on the property. “They have not found any evidence of shots fired, and have not found any injured employees.”

The Benton County Sheriff’s Office reported similar findings.

“Law enforcement has searched the building,” they wrote on Facebook. “They have not located any victims inside the building or any evidence at this time of shots being fired. Law enforcement will be conducting additional searches of the building.”

Sheriff Tom Croskrey told reporters on Tuesday that officials are moving to deescalate the police posture at the scene.

Police have recovered a gun from a car at the facility, though it is unclear if the weapon is related to the potential shooting.

Employees received an emergency text message alert after the shooting was called into police.

“Affected employees prepare to run fight hide,” the message read, local news outlet KAPP-KVEW reports. “Employees in nearby buildings are to lockdown and prepare to run fight hide. All others stay away.”

Police officers from the Hanford Patrol, Benton County Sheriff’s Department, as well as the Richland and Kennewick police departments, are on the scene, searching through buildings for the potential shooter.

The site, which used to produce plutonium for US nuclear weapons as part of the Manhattan Protect, has been decommissioned since the Cold War, and now houses nuclear waste.

Access to the area requires passing through a security checkpoint with an ID badge.

The facilities at Hanford have been undergoing one of the longest-running nuclear cleanup efforts in the world.

The Independent has contacted local police for further information.

What is the Hanford nuclear reservation? Where is it? Here’s what you need to know

Cameron Probert
Tue, March 1, 2022

The 580-square-mile Hanford site is the nation’s largest nuclear waste cleanup project after producing two-thirds of the nation’s plutonium for its nuclear weapons program.

The site in Eastern Washington was created as part of the Manhattan Project, and produced the plutonium that fueled the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, at the end of World War II.

Then as the Cold War started, it ramped up production again, producing plutonium through 1987.


Hanford made more than 20 million pieces of uranium metal fuel that were irradiated to produce plutonium at nine nuclear reactors along the Columbia River.

Massive plants in the center of the Hanford Site processed 110,000 tons of fuel to chemically separate out plutonium.

The processing left 56 million gallons of radioactive and hazardous chemical waste that remain stored in underground tanks, many of them prone to leaking.

As the Cold War drew to a close, so did production at the site. The final reactor stopped production in 1987.

Then two years later the U.S. Department of Energy started an environmental clean up effort that is expected to continue for decades to come. The remaining weapons grade plutonium has been shipped off site.

Currently, about $2.5 billion a year is spent on maintaining the site and cleanup work.

An overview of the Handford’s 200 areas is illustrated in this Oregon Department of Energy map.

The site is located north and west of Richland, and covers an area that is about half the size of Rhode Island. Most of it is located in Benton County.

The workforce numbers 11,000 people, most of those working for contractors under the federal agency. It is the largest employer in the Tri-Cities, and has its own security and fire departments.

The Northwest’s only commercial nuclear power plant, the Columbia Generating Station, operates on leased land at the nuclear reservation but is unrelated to the weapons work and cleanup at the site.

NUKE NEWS

4 Hanford contractors awarded $77M in incentive pay. Veteran company does the best

Annette Cary
Tue, March 1, 2022, 

The Department of Energy has awarded $77 million in incentive pay to four contractors for their work at the Hanford nuclear reservation in fiscal 2021.

Three of the contractors were new that year, and none of them earned as high a percentage of pay as their predecessors. They also did not do as well as the fourth contractor, a veteran at the site.

Washington River Protection Solutions, which has held the Hanford site’s tank farm contract since 2008, earned 94% of its available incentive pay, or fee as it is called by DOE.

The company, which is owned by Amentum and Atkins, will be awarded nearly $42 million for its work at Hanford in fiscal 2021.

It’s rating was slightly down from last year, when it earned 95% of available pay, but was well above the performance of the other contractor ratings announced on Monday.

Hanford Mission Integration Solutions earned 87% of its available pay; Central Plateau Cleanup Co. earned 79% of its available pay; and Hanford Laboratory Management and Integration earned 75% of its available pay.

Environmental cleanup is underway at the 580-square-mile Hanford nuclear reservation. The underground radioactive waste storage tanks and the vitrification plant are in the center of the site.

Rather than releasing the complete review, DOE in recent years has made public a scorecard that lists the fee earned and a brief recap of work that was done well and also areas needing improvement.

Not included in the fee awards announced Monday is Bechtel National, which is building and starting up the $17 billion Hanford vitrification plant. It is on a calendar-year review and fee schedule.

The Hanford site adjacent to Richland in Eastern Washington was used from World War II through the Cold War to produce about two-thirds of the plutonium for the nation’s nuclear weapons program.

Now about $2.5 billion a year is spent on cleanup of radioactive and other hazardous chemical waste and contamination at the site.
Washington River Protection Solutions

“Our team safely and consistently overcame challenges related to weather, supply chain and COVID-19 to deliver results,” said John Eschenberg, chief executive of Washington River Protection Solutions.

The tank farm contractor is responsible for 56 million gallons of radioactive waste stored in underground tanks, some of them prone to leaking. It also is preparing to feed pretreated waste to the nearby vitrification plant to be turned into a stable glass form for disposal starting by the end of 2023.

Washington River Protection Solutions crews excavate trenches to install electrical wiring and other equipment to support future tank waste retrieval operations. A mini conveyor increases efficiency.

In a major win for the contractor, it got enough work done on the the Tank Side Cesium Removal System, or TSCR, last year to begin pretreating Hanford tank waste last month for eventual delivery to the vitrification plant.

It is the first industrial-scale processing of radioactive tank waste to prepare it for disposal in the 78-year history of the site.

DOE also praised the contractor for retrieving as much was as possible with two technologies from underground Tank AZ-104 and retrieving 77% of the waste in another single-shell tank by the end of fiscal 2021.

The tank farm contractor also completed several construction projects, including installing piping to connect the tank farms to the vitrification plant; replacing the cover on a basin holding liquid waste; and installing a barrier over a tank farm to prevent precipitation and snow melt from driving radioactive contamination already in the soil deeper toward groundwater.

Areas needing improvement included promptly submitting complete notices of construction permit applications to DOE and its regulators and its oversight of a program to insure quality in purchases.
Central Plateau Cleanup Co.

CPCCo was awarded $21 million of available incentive pay for its work as the new cleanup contractor for central Hanford for the eight months it held the contract in fiscal 2021.

It is owned by Amentum, Fluor and Atkins.

Central Plateau Cleanup Co. crews enter the Hanford 324 Building airlock to do radiological surveying and other tasks. They are preparing to dig up of highly contaminated soil beneath the building.

The 79% of available fee it earned compared to 85% of the fee earned by CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co., its predecessor, in its last full year of work before its contract expired.

“I am especially proud that the department recognized CPCCo’s strong performance despite the challenges inherent in contract transition during the middle of the COVID pandemic while transforming many of our core business practices,” said Scott Sax, contractor president, in a message to employees.

CPCCo has an incentive program that awards employees when the company meets DOE objectives, and workers will receive their share of incentive pay in a March paycheck, he said.

DOE praised CPCCo for completing demolition of the last of the Plutonium Finishing Plant’s highly contaminated Plutonium Reclamation Facility.

It also treated more than 1.7 billion gallons of contaminated groundwater.

DOE said the contractor consistently delivered required reports early and that it maintained excellent safety performance.

Areas needing improvement were in administration, including quickly reporting adverse events to authorities at DOE and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

It also needs to have its accounting, estimating, purchasing and property administrative functions approved to reduce what DOE called “significant” federal oversight.

The contractor earned all but about $370,000 for completing required work, but only about half of the $10.6 million available through a subjective evaluation.
Hanford Mission Integration Solutions

The sitewide services contractor for Hanford earned $14 million for its first eight months of work at Hanford.

Hanford Mission Integration Solutions is comprised of Leidos Integrated Technology, Centerra Group and Parsons Government Services and provides services such as information technology, firefighting, security, utilities, road maintenance, management of the HAMMER training center and preservation of cultural artifacts.

Bryan Hurt, a field support worker with Hanford Mission Integration Solutions, installs cables and antennas on the Hanford site’s 405-foot meteorological tower.

The previous contractor, Mission Support Alliance, received 93% of pay possible during fiscal 2020, compared to the 87% earned by the new contractor.

“With major contract transitions, including our own, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and more, HMIS found much success in 2021,” said Bob Wilkinson, contractor president, in a message to employees.

DOE said the new contractor managed electric, water and sewer utilities and roads for maximum reliability and completed planning for improving the secure entrances to the Hanford site.

Most performance targets for services, such as cybersecurity and water pressure, were met.

The exception was fire systems maintenance, according to DOE.

The contractor earned all but $290,000 for completing specific work in its contract, but lost $1.8 million in possible fee for its scores in its subjective evaluation by DOE.
Hanford Laboratory Management and Integration

The contractor for the 222-S Laboratory, Hanford Laboratory Management and Integration, earned about $977,000 in incentive pay in its first four months of work, or 75% of pay available.

That compares to previous contractor Wastren Advantage, also known as VNS Federal Services, which earned 93% of available pay in the previous fiscal year.

The 222-S laboratory at Hanford

DOE said the new contractor improved turnaround times for industrial hygiene sampling by 60% and it solved performance issues in testing for failed metal analyses to reestablish the laboratory’s accreditation in that area.

Areas needing improvement included meeting due dates for contract requirements, more quickly communicating potential issues to DOE and the quality of its invoices, overtime requests and contract proposals submitted to DOE.

The contracting company was formed by Navarro Research and Engineering and Advanced Technologies and Laboratories International.

Holocaust Museum Begs U.S.: Leave Our Shady Russian Oligarch Donor Off Your Sanctions List

Tom Sykes, Barbie Latza Nadeau
Wed, March 2, 2022

BEN STANSALL/AFP 

One of Britain’s richest men, Russian-born Roman Abramovich, widely believed to be a member of Vladimir Putin’s inner circle, has found himself at the center of a sanctions debacle. Asked by Ukraine to sit at the negotiation table in peace talks with Russia, the billionaire is one of the few people on good terms with both sides of the war. But that is not enough to get him out of sanctions, so Yad Vashem, the head of Israeli’s Holocaust memorial and museum, is petitioning the U.S. government to give him a pass, according to The Washington Post.

Quoting a letter to U.S. Ambassador Tom Nides, Yad Vashem and a number of high-ranking Israelis have officially asked the U.S. government to exclude Abramovich from their sanctions, warning that not doing so could be harmful to Jewish institutions that need his money. Abramovich recently donated an “eight-figure” sum to bolster research projects and commission two new editions of the Book of Names that will be overseen by Yad Vashem’s museum.

Abramovich became a dual Israeli citizen in 2018, shortly after he was turned down for a U.K. passport during heightened tensions with the Kremlin after the nerve-agent poisoning of ex KGB officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter by Russian agents.

Abramovich, clearly concerned about the sting of sanctions, is said to be conducting a fire sale of his British assets, including a $260 million London property empire and his multibillion-dollar stake in the Chelsea football club, fearing his assets will be frozen by British lawmakers.

On Wednesday, he released a statement on the team website confirming rumors that the club was now for sale. “In the current situation, I have therefore taken the decision to sell the Club, as I believe this is in the best interest of the Club, the fans, the employees, as well as the Club’s sponsors and partners.” Never mind that keeping it in his wheelhouse would have surely seen it shuttered under the strict sanctions set forth by the British government against oligarchs. He went on to say the sale of the club would “not be fast-tracked but will follow due process.” While no buyer has been named, he wrote, “I will not be asking for any loans to be repaid. This has never been about business nor money for me, but about pure passion for the game and Club.”

As a final note, he said the money from the sale will be donated to a new fund he is setting up. “The foundation will be for the benefit of all victims of the war in Ukraine,” he wrote, without mentioning his best pal Putin or Russia actually leading the war effort. “This includes providing critical funds towards the urgent and immediate needs of victims, as well as supporting the long-term work of recovery.”

Swiss billionaire Hansjorg Wyss preempted the news, saying Wednesday that he was offered the iconic London football club, telling Swiss newspaper Blick: “Abramovich is trying to sell all his villas in England, he also wants to get rid of Chelsea quickly. I and three other people received an offer on Tuesday to buy Chelsea from Abramovich. I have to wait four to five days now. Abramovich is currently asking far too much.”

Wyss said he had not been given an “exact selling price” and would not agree to the deal unless as part of a consortium of partners joining him in the investment. However Blick said the deal is thought to be valued at around $2.5 billion.

The comments by Wyss came after British lawmaker Chris Bryant used parliamentary privilege Tuesday to accuse Abramovich of plotting a speedy selloff of his trophy London properties, including a $200 million home on the city’s most exclusive street, where his neighbors include Prince William and Kate Middleton.

Bryant said in a debate in parliament: “I think [Abramovich] is terrified of being sanctioned, which is why he’s already going to sell his home tomorrow, and sell another flat as well. My anxiety is that we’re taking too long about these things.”

He added he was afraid the billionaire would have “have sold everything by the time we get round to sanctioning him.”

Bryant has been a regular thorn in Abramovich’s side: Last week, he used a parliamentary debate to air passages from a leaked Home Office report that alleged Abramovich was flagged by a 2019 government investigation for links to the Russian state and “corrupt activity and practices.”

The move to sell Chelsea comes after a week of turmoil for the club. Two days after Russia invaded Ukraine, Abramovich said in a statement: “I am today giving trustees of Chelsea’s charitable foundation the stewardship and care of Chelsea FC. I believe that currently they are in the best position to look after the interests of the club, players, staff, and fans.”

However the proposal appears to have caught trustees by surprise: They promptly reported the move as a “serious incident” to Britain’s Charity Commission.

It was notable for being one of the very few public statements Abramovich has ever made about Chelsea. The second was his confirmation of the club’s sale four days later.

Last year, his fortune was said to be around $15 billion. However that changed with the collapse of Evraz, the London-listed mining giant in which he has a significant stake. It fell by 84 percent in value as sanctions hit, and knocked his wealth, with Forbes putting his real-time net worth Wednesday at $12.6 billion.

Abramovich was born in Saratov, in southwest Russia, and, orphaned at the age of 3, was brought up by his uncle. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, he made billions from the former state energy companies he bought up in the 1990s. By 2008, when his net worth peaked at $23 billion, he was Russia’s richest man.

He is not believed to have spent any significant amount of time in the U.K. since 2018, when his application for a U.K. visa was withdrawn.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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WHY WOULD HE DO THAT?

Oil driller invests in carbon-capture pipeline for Midwest

An ethanol refinery in Chancellor, S.D., one of many in the midwest, is shown, July 22, 2021. North Dakota’s biggest oil driller says it will commit $250 million to help fund a proposed pipeline that would gather carbon dioxide produced by ethanol plants across the Midwest and pump it underground for permanent storage. Billionaire oil tycoon Harold Hamm’s Continental Resources was scheduled to make a formal announcement of the investment into Summit Carbon Solutions’ $4.5 billion pipeline Wednesday, March 2, 2022 at an ethanol plant in North Dakota. 

(AP Photo/Stephen Groves, file) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

JAMES MacPHERSON
Wed, March 2, 2022

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — North Dakota’s biggest oil driller said Wednesday it will commit $250 million to help fund a proposed pipeline that would gather carbon dioxide produced by ethanol plants across the Midwest and pump it thousands of feet underground for permanent storage.

Continental Resources, headed by billionaire oil tycoon Harold Hamm, discussed the investment into Summit Carbon Solutions’ $4.5 billion pipeline at an ethanol plant in Casselton, in eastern North Dakota. The plant is one of 31 ethanol facilities across Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska and the Dakotas, where emissions would be captured and piped to western North Dakota and buried deep underground.

The Summit project is one of at least two major CO2 pipelines planned for the Midwest. Navigator CO2 Ventures is planning a pipeline that will stretch over 1,200 miles (1,931 kilometers) through Iowa, South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota and Illinois.

Similar CO2 pipeline plans are being considered elsewhere after the federal government increased tax credits, by 2026, to $50 for every metric ton of carbon dioxide a company sequesters. Ethanol producers are aiming to make the fuel more marketable along the West Coast and especially California which requires distributors in that state buy only ethanol with a low carbon emissions impact; companies that produce such ethanol can get a higher price.

The Summit pipeline system would extend 2,000 miles (3,219 kilometers) and could move up to 12 million metric tons of carbon dioxide a year, said Wade Boeshans, executive vice president of the Iowa-based pipeline developer. That’s equal to removing the annual carbon emissions of 2.6 million cars, he said.

Boeshans said the involvement of Hamm likely will help raise capital and boost the project's profile. Hamm’s company helped lead a renaissance in the U.S. oil industry through the use of horizontal drilling to free oil trapped in shale rock. Continental is the biggest producer and largest leaseholder in the Bakken shale formation, with more than 1 million acres (404,686 hectares) in North Dakota and Montana.

Hamm told The Associated Press that his company is looking at the pipeline project as more than an investment.

“We feel it's the right thing to do at the right time,” Hamm said. “Carbon capture and storage is going to be more and more important every day as we go forward in America.”

North Dakota is the nation’s No. 3 oil producer behind Texas and New Mexico.

Continental and Summit officials said there are no plans to inject carbon dioxide into old oil wells to boost production, a process that has been largely unsuccessful in North Dakota.

“That is not part of our business plan,” Boeshans said.

North Dakota’s underground rock formations are ideal for carbon storage, state Geologist Ed Murphy said.

The Trump administration in 2018 gave North Dakota the power to regulate underground wells used for long-term storage of waste carbon dioxide. North Dakota was the first state to be given such power, the Environmental Protection Agency said in announcing the move. The state has since invested heavily in carbon capture and sequestration technology.

Republican North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum praised the Summit pipeline and other proposed carbon storage projects in North Dakota, which are integral as part of the state’s plan to become carbon neutral by 2030.

Boeshans said the company in December began negotiating with landowners along the pipeline’s path for easements, though the company would not rule out the use eminent domain if agreements with landowners can’t be reached voluntarily.

“Overall, we’re making progress with voluntary easements,” he said.

The company has not filed permit applications in North Dakota for the pipeline, or for the estimated dozen underground wells needed for storage. The project could employ up to 17,000 people during construction, and lead to 500 permanent jobs when it’s expected to come online in mid-2024, Boeshans said.

SEC Chief Takes to Twitter to Issue New Warning on Greenwashing

Jesse Westbrook
Tue, March 1, 2022,



(Bloomberg) -- U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler is making it clear he’s skeptical the hundreds of investment funds that tout ESG credentials are as green or socially conscious as advertised.

On Tuesday, The Wall Street regulator posted a video on Twitter that highlights some of his top concerns. Gensler pointed out that there’s no industry consensus on what environmental, social and governance investing means. He questioned whether firms are adhering to a 1940 law that requires fund names to match what they invest in. And he noted that unlike many high-yield bond funds, ESG offerings don’t publish debt ratings that back up their labels.

“When I think about these questions, I’m reminded of walking down the aisle of a grocery store and seeing a product like fat-free milk,” Gensler said. “In that case, you can see objective figures, like grams of fat, which are detailed on a nutrition label. Investors should be able to drill down and see the ingredients underlying these funds.”

The video is Gensler’s latest attempt to clamp down on so-called greenwashing, in which money managers improperly market funds as ESG. He reiterated that the SEC is working on a rule that would force firms to disclose the criteria and underlying data they rely on in labeling funds ESG.

Environmental groups sue TotalEnergies over climate marketing claims

03/02/2022 

LONDON/PARIS (Reuters) - A group of environmental organisations has filed a lawsuit in France against the country's largest energy company TotalEnergies, accusing it of misleading consumers about its efforts to fight climate change.

The claim, which has been served on TotalEnergies and was to be filed before the Paris Judicial Court, concerns the company's "reinvention" marketing campaign. Claimants say the campaign broke European consumer law by suggesting TotalEnergies can reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 whilst still producing more fossil fuels.

Environmentalists have long complained about corporate "greenwashing" which they define as marketing or public relations campaigns that attempt to hide pollution or make a company's operations appear more environmentally friendly than they are.

TotalEnergies told Reuters it was implementing its strategy in a "concrete way", including through investments and reducing its greenhouse gas emissions, and was acting "in line with the objectives that the company has set itself... It is therefore wrong to claim that our strategy is 'greenwashing'."

Launched globally in May 2021, the adverts said TotalEnergies was committed to being "a major player in the energy transition" and was aiming for carbon neutrality by 2050.

The campaigners allege the company's plan to continue increasing production of fossil fuels such as oil and gas - key contributors to man-made global warming - was at odds with this.

A report from the International Energy Agency last year said no more new oil and gas fields should be developed from this year if the world is to have a chance of capping global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average by 2050.

Claimants allege TotalEnergies was in breach of the European Unfair Consumer Practices Directive (UCPD), which bans misleading practices that can include promoting false or leaving out relevant information that impacts consumer decision-making.

The case, part of a growing field of legal challenges to corporate climate efforts, was brought by Greenpeace France, Friends of the Earth France and Notre Affaire à Tous and supported by environmental lawyers ClientEarth.

"We need to protect consumers from disinformation PR strategies that leave them trying to tell fact from fiction and delay the urgent climate action we need," Clara Gonzales, legal counsel at Greenpeace France, said in a statement.

TotalEnergies has previously said it expects its oil production to peak in the decade before declining, with an increase of around 3% per year by 2026 driven by the growth of liquefied natural gas (LNG), expected at 6% per year.

It plans to spend $13-15 billion a year between 2022-25 and will allocate half to developing new energies, mainly renewables and electricity, and the other 50% to natural gas.

More companies have been making climate pledges to appeal to consumers, and investors and climate activists are increasingly probing their actions to determine whether they can help meet the world's climate goal of net-zero emissions by 2050.

In the case of TotalEnergies, a leading investor group engaging with companies over climate transition plans has also flagged concern over its efforts https://www.climateaction100.org/company/total, including lack of a target to reduce emissions from the use of its products by consumers.

"We've seen a huge rush to adopt this language...even oil and gas companies which have a real challenge to get to net-zero," said Thomas Hale, a global public policy researcher at the University of Oxford and co-lead of the Net Zero Tracker Project.

"Companies who take on these targets are under additional scrutiny to see that they're really walking the walk."

(Reporting by Simon Jessop in London; Editing by David Gregorio)

By Simon Jessop, Gloria Dickie and Benjamin Mallet

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M 
Ericsson says U.S. DoJ deems investigation disclosure insufficient


Wed, March 2, 2022

STOCKHOLM, March 2 (Reuters) - Ericsson has been informed that disclosures it made to the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) about an internal investigation into conduct in Iraq were insufficient, the company said on Wednesday.

At this stage it is premature to predict the outcome of this matter, Ericsson said in a statement.

In 2019, Ericsson signed a Deferred Prosecution Agreement (DPA) with the DoJ, paid more than $1 billion to resolve a different series of probes into corruption, and agreed to cooperate with the department for ongoing investigations.

Last month the company disclosed that an internal investigation in 2019 had found serious breaches of its compliance rules in Iraq, including evidence of corruption-related misconduct and improper use of sales agents and consultants.

While the company did not comment on whether the DoJ was informed about the investigation, people familiar with the matter told Reuters that the DoJ was aware of the investigation.

The DoJ has now determined https://www.ericsson.com/en/press-releases/2022/3/update-on-deferred-prosecution-agreement that Ericsson breached the DPA by failing to make disclosures related to the investigation subsequent to signing the DPA on Dec. 6, 2019.

Ericsson said it was in communication with the DOJ regarding the facts and circumstances of the breach determination.

 (Reporting by Supantha Mukherjee, European Technology & Telecoms Correspondent, based in Stockholm; editing by Jason Neely)

The world could be on the brink of an energy crisis rivaling the 1970s, says IHS Markit's Yergin

Patti Domm 

Russia's Ukraine invasion could have set in motion an energy market disruption on the scale of major oil crises in the 1970s, according to Daniel Yergin, vice chairman of IHS Markit.

Sanctions by the U.S. and allies on Russia's financial system have disrupted sales of Russian oil, with banks and buyers wary of running afoul of the punitive measures.

"This could be the worst crisis since the Arab oil embargo and the Iranian revolution in the 1970s," said Yergin.

© Provided by CNBC A driver holds a fuel nozzle at a Shell gas station in San Francisco, California, U.S., on Friday, Feb. 25, 2022.

Russia's Ukraine invasion could have set in motion an energy market disruption on the scale of major oil crises in the 1970s, according to Daniel Yergin, vice chairman of IHS Markit.

Moscow is one of the world's largest oil exporters. Sanctions by the U.S. and allies on Russia's financial system have already set in motion a backlash against Russian crude from banks, buyers and shippers.

Yergin, also an author and energy market historian, said even though Russian energy was not sanctioned by the U.S. and other countries, there could be a large loss of Russian barrels from the market. The country exports about 7.5 million barrels a day of oil and refined products, he noted.

"This is going to be a really big disruption in terms of logistics, and people are going to be scrambling for barrels," Yergin said. "This is a supply crisis. It's a logistics crisis. It's a payment crisis, and this could well be on the scale of the 1970s."

He said strong communications between governments imposing the sanctions and the industry could head off a worst-case scenario. "Governments need to provide clarity," Yergin said.

He noted that members of NATO receive about half of Russia's exports. "Some share of that is going to be disrupted," Yergin said.

Wariness toward Russian oil

Yergin said there are "de facto" sanctions working to keep Russian oil from the market, even though energy was not specifically sanctioned. Buyers are wary of Russian oil because of pushback from banks, ports and shipping companies that do not want to run afoul of sanctions.

JPMorgan estimates that 66% of Russian oil is struggling to find buyers, and that crude prices could reach $185 by the end of the year if Russian oil remains disrupted.

"This could be the worst crisis since the Arab oil embargo and the Iranian revolution in the 1970s," Yergin said. Both events were major oil shocks in that decade.

In 1973, Middle Eastern oil producers cut off supply from the U.S. and other Western countries in retaliation for assisting Israel during the Arab-Israeli war that year. Oil was immediately in short supply, and Americans lined up at gas stations to buy skyrocketing gasoline. The other shock was the result of the 1978-1979 Iran revolution, which led to the overthrow of the Shah of Iran.

Oil majors, like BP and Exxon Mobil have said they are exiting Russian ventures. The price of Russia's Ural crude has fallen sharply, compared with the international benchmark Brent crude.

"What we haven't seen before is the big reputational issue as well, companies not wanting to do business with Russia," said Yergin. Oil companies are giving up major investments, where they may have spent years developing operations and employed hundreds of people in Russia.

"Vladimir Putin in a week has destroyed what he spent 22 years building, an economy that was basically integrated with the global economy. Now what's happened is Russia is unplugged from the global economy," he said.

An approaching disruption

Yergin said the disruption is coming when the market is already tightly supplied. OPEC+, an alliance between OPEC, Russia and others, decided Wednesday to continue their current production plans. They are returning about 400,000 barrels a day to the market each month until they reach their target in June.

Also adding to the pain for Russia's customers has been the spike in European natural gas prices. Europe is the biggest customer for both Russian oil and gas.

Oil prices were already rising when Russia rolled its tanks into Ukraine last Thursday. Brent was trading above $116 per barrel Thursday before backing off amid speculation that Iran may reach a deal to reenter its nuclear deal. That could bring 1 million barrels of Iranian oil back to the market.

Industry analysts say it is difficult to tell how much Russian oil will be affected. The White House said while there are no sanctions on energy, they are on the table.

IHS Markit hosts the annual CERAWeek energy conference in Houston next week. Executives from many energy companies, including Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Total, Occidental Petroleum and ConocoPhillips, will be speaking, and a major topic at the conference is expected to be how Russian barrels will be replaced.

"I think you're talking about losing 2 to 3 million barrels a day," said John Kilduff, partner at Again Capital. Bank of America has estimated that for every million barrels lost from the market, the price of Brent could rise by $20 per barrel.

Kilduff said he expects Russian pipeline oil to continue to flow to China. Beijing said it will not join sanctions against Russia.

Analysts have said crude that is carried by ships is more likely to be wanting for buyers.

"This time we're cutting off the oil ourselves. It's a self-inflicted embargo," said Kilduff. "It's a buyers' strike this time, not suppliers acting out. ... If you can't finance it and you can't get it paid for there's no way the Russians are going to sell it."

Grain Markets Set for Supply Shock of a Lifetime, Economist Says

Elizabeth Elkin
Wed, March 2, 2022



(Bloomberg) -- Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could devastate global grain markets so deeply that it’s likely to be the biggest supply shock in living memory.

That’s according to Scott Irwin, an agricultural economist at the University of Illinois. Tens of millions of acres of grain production are at stake, he said Wednesday on Twitter.

“I am convinced it is going to be the biggest supply shock to global grain markets in my lifetime,” Irwin said.

The world “desperately” needs farmers to plant more acres in 2022, he said, but “basically nothing can be done in the short-run except to run up the price of grain high enough to ration demand.”

Ukraine and Russia together account for more than a quarter of the global trade in wheat, as well as a fifth of corn sales. Prices for those staple crops are soaring on concerns over supply disruptions at a time when global food prices had already reached record highs.

Even before Russia’s war with Ukraine, food inflation was already plaguing global consumers. Extreme weather has made it harder to grow crops, while a shortage of workers and higher shipping costs snarled supply chains. The world’s grain inventories are also very tight, so any prolonged disruptions to supplies from Russia or Ukraine has the potential to dislocate markets for years to come.

OLDE FASHIONED CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
Chamath Palihapitiya Sued Over Insider Sale of Virgin Galactic Shares

Joel Rosenblatt
Wed, March 2, 2022,


(Bloomberg) -- Chamath Palihapitiya took advantage of his insider role as chairman of Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc. to sell 10 million shares of the struggling space travel company for $315 million before he abruptly quit the board last month, a shareholder alleged in a lawsuit.

The complaint, filed on behalf of Virgin Galactic to seek damages from its directors and officers, also alleges that founder Richard Branson pocketed $301 million by dumping his shares while the stock price was “artificially inflated.”

Leaders of the company were well aware of defects in its spacecraft three years before they were publicly disclosed last year, according to the complaint filed in federal court in Brooklyn, New York.

Virgin Galactic has worked to commercialize space flight since 2004, receiving regulatory approval last year to fly customers into space. Its shares have been volatile as it has delayed the start of commercial flights due to an investigation and potentially defective parts.

Palihapitiya, a former Facebook Inc. executive who has raised billions via blank-check firms, earned a reputation as the “SPAC King” for his use of the investment tool to bring companies public. Virgin Galactic began trading in 2019 through a merger with Palihapitiya’s Social Capital Hedosophia.

While Virgin Galactic has promoted the flights of its Eve and Unity spacecraft as successes, they were in fact “rudimentary prototypes” lacking key engineering documentation, with some documentation containing design errors, according to the complaint. Branson and the company have capitalized on periods of good news, according to the lawsuit.

A Social Capital spokesperson declined to comment. Branson and Virgin Galactic didn’t immediately respond to emails seeking comment.

The complaint isn’t the first accusing Virgin Galactic executives of misleading investors.

Virgin Galactic has said it remains on track to begin carrying paying customers into space by the fourth quarter of this year. It has has a backlog of about 750 customers who have placed deposits for tickets priced at $450,000 for a 90-minute excursion to space.

(Updates with Social Capital spokesperson declining to comment.)

STATE PIRACY

Estonian cargo ship sinks off Ukrainian Black Sea port in Odessa

By REUTERS 

© (photo credit: REUTERS/STRINGER/FILE PHOTO) 

Russian Navy vessels are anchored in a bay of the Black Sea port of 

Sevastopol in Crimea May 8, 2014

An Estonian-owned cargo ship sank on Thursday off Ukraine's major Black Sea port of Odesa, hours after a Bangladeshi vessel was hit by a missile or bomb at another port, underlining the growing peril to merchant shipping following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Many shipping firms have suspended sailings to affected Black Sea ports and other terminals in Ukraine, with insurance premiums for voyages soaring in recent days. At least three commercial ships have been hit by projectiles since February 24.

Six crew members from the Marshall Islands-flagged and Estonian-owned Helt cargo ship were picked off by the Ukrainian Rescue Services, the Ukraine Maritime Administrator said.

Two crew members were in a life raft at sea while four others were previously unaccounted for, Igor Ilves, managing director of Tallinn-based manager Vista Shipping Agency, told Reuters.

"The vessel has finally sunk," he said. "Two of the crew are in a raft on the water and four others are missing. I don’t know where they are at the moment."

© Provided by The Jerusalem Post Russian Navy's diesel-electric submarine Rostov-on-Don sails in the Bosphorus, on its way to the Black Sea, in Istanbul, Turkey February 13, 2022. 

(credit: REUTERS/YORUK ISIK)

Ilves said the vessel might have struck a mine.

"It’s a big problem - nobody can help them. The Ukrainians cannot go to sea because it is under Russian control."

Ilves said the crew comprised four Ukrainian nationals, one Russian and one Belarusian.

NATO's Shipping Center warned on Wednesday that there was "a high risk of collateral damage on civilian shipping in the northwestern part of the Black Sea," which included mines.

"There are several open-source reports of civilian ships being hit directly or indirectly as a result of the acts of war in the northwestern Black Sea within Ukrainian territorial waters and adjacent international waters," NATO said.

"Civilian shipping is encouraged to exercise caution and be on high alert in the area."

This comes as Ukraine's Armed Forces accused the Russian Black Sea Fleet of using civilian vessels as human shields.