Romania adds Canada to its Cernavoda team

06 August 2021

Romania and Canada have agreed to strengthen cooperation in nuclear energy in a key move enabling the completion, refurbishment and possible expansion of the Cernavoda nuclear power plant. The signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in Bucharest yesterday follows similar agreements with the USA and France.

Romanian minister of mineral resources Virgin Popescu and Canadian Ambassador to Romania Annick Goulet shake hands following the signing of the MoU (Image: Romanian energy ministry)

"I am glad that in our project of modernisation and construction of new nuclear reactors, in addition to the partners from the USA and France, we are joined by the Canadian partners, with whom we have a very good and long collaboration in this field," said Romanian minister of mineral resources Virgin Popescu. He signed the MoU with Canadian Ambassador to Romania Annick Goulet, who was standing in for Seamus O'Regan, the minister for natural resources. Goulet said, "Nuclear cooperation has been a pillar of the 55-year relationship between Canada and Romania."

Romania has long wanted to complete two additional Candu units at the Cernavoda plant, and is also making plans to refurbish the two operational Candus there for longer service lives. Since January 2020, it has been assembling an international team to complete the work, and the text of the MoU with Canada includes explicit provision to set up multilateral discussions between several governments jointly implementing work at Cernavoda.

Romanian prime minister Florin Cîțu attended the signing. "The investments are vital," he said, "and I am glad that the Canadian partners are joining the American partners in order to develop the nuclear field in our country." Romania signed cooperation agreements with the USA and with France in October 2020.

"I wanted to be present at this event to show that I support the development of nuclear energy projects in Cernavoda and those in the civil nuclear energy sector in Romania," Cîțu added.

The MoU prioritised Candu work but also included passages on several other areas, including: integration of the countries' nuclear supply chains; strengthening Romania's nuclear supply chain; developing a highly skilled, mobile and adaptable workforce; production of medical isotopes using Candu technology; hydrogen production; and discussion towards cooperation on small modular reactors.

Cernavoda is Romania's only nuclear power plant. It has two operational Candu-6 units that provide up to 20% of the country's electricity. As well as completion of units 3 and 4, Nuclearelectrica is working with Candu Energy, part of Canada's SNL-Lavalin Group, towards extending the operational life of unit 1 until 2026 when it would undergo a full refurbishment. Similar work has been completed, or is in progress, at several Canadian Candu units.

Researched and written by World Nuclear News

USA-Romania cooperation gets to work

04 August 2021

Romania and the USA have started cooperation work towards the expansion and modernisation of the Cernavoda nuclear power plant. A working meeting last week followed a series of strategic agreements by Romania.

Cernavoda has two operational reactors, and two that are only partly constructed (Image: Nuclearelectrica)

The owner of the Cernavoda plant, Nuclearelectrica, announced on 30 July that a working meeting had begun with a delegation from the US Department of Energy (DOE). This was led by Kathryn Huff, the acting assistant secretary and principal deputy assistant secretary. The company said the visit, "envisages the continuation of cooperation" based on an agreement the two nations signed in Washington, DC in October 2020 and which has since been ratified by both sides.

Nuclearelectrica explained its three-part strategy to complete two partly constructed reactors at Cernavoda. First, a 24-month preparatory stage would see legal and financial services contracted "to shape the project". Next, preliminary works lasting 18 to 24 months would see an engineering procurement and construction contractor "carry out the critical engineering part of the project and [prepare] the nuclear safety documentation." Last would come the actual construction phase, lasting 69-78 months.

"Based on these stages of realisation, it is estimated that unit 3 will enter into commercial operation in 2030, and unit 4 in 2031," Nuclearelectrica said. This fits with previous announcements that placed "site mobilisation" in around 2024.

Nuclearelectrica CEO Cosmin Ghită, said, “The Romanian energy system needs resilience and sustainability, and the expansion of nuclear capacity in Romania, in the context of the current transition to a clean economy, responds to these needs."

Romania has also been discussing the project with France, signing a declaration to cooperate in nuclear energy in October 2020. Announcements made at the time envisaged Romania and France working together with other strategic partners and encouraged French investment in Romania.

The US cooperation with Romania was described by the DOE as laying the foundation "for Romania to utilise US expertise and technology with a multinational team building reactor units 3 and 4 of the Cernavoda nuclear power plant and refurbishing reactor unit 1."

Cernavoda is Romania's only nuclear power plant. It has two operational Candu-6 units that provide up to 20% of the country's electricity. As well as completion of units 3 and 4, Nuclearelectrica is working with Candu Energy, part of Canada's SNL-Lavalin Group, towards extending the operational life of unit 1 until 2026 when it would undergo a full refurbishment. Similar work has been completed, or is in progress, at several Canadian Candu units.

Ghită said that expanding Cernavoda "leads to economic and social growth and supply chain development" including the creation of 19,000 indirect jobs. The expanded power plant would avoid 20 million tonnes of CO2 emissions per year, he said.

Researched and written by World Nuclear News

Romania ratifies Cernavoda agreement with USA

24 June 2021

The Romanian Senate, the upper house of the country's parliament, has ratified an intergovernmental agreement on cooperation to expand and modernise Romania's nuclear power programme that was signed between Romania and the USA in October 2020. Areas for cooperation could include the completion of units 3 and 4 at the Cernavoda nuclear power plant and the refurbishment of unit 1 at the plant.

The Cernavoda nuclear power plant (Image: Nuclearelectrica)

Cernavoda is the only nuclear power plant in Romania and consists of two 650 MWe pressurised heavy-water reactors. Unit 1 went into commercial operation in 1996 and unit 2 in 2007. Operator Nuclearelectrica plans to extend the operating life of unit 1 to 60 years. Most of the work on units 3 and 4 - like units 1 and 2, CANDU-6 reactors - was done in the 1980s prior to the fall of the government of Nicolae Ceausescu in 1989. In July 2020, Romania launched a tender for a new feasibility study to complete units 3 and 4.

Welcoming the Senate's vote in favour of the agreement with the USA, Nuclearelectrica CEO Cosmin Ghita said today that the Cernavoda projects were essential to Romania's decarbonisation targets and energy security. He noted that the intergovernmental agreement had already been endorsed by the European Commission.

"From the operator's point of view, time is an important variable in carrying out projects and our goal is to have unit 3 connected to the grid in 2030 and unit 4 in 2031. Thus, Romania will align itself with the states that heavily capitalise on domestic resources to ensure the transition, as well as the energy consumption at sustainable prices considering that, for example, based on international studies, the cost of electricity resulting from the extension of nuclear unit lifetimes is the lowest of all sources, and that of new nuclear projects is considered competitive. Therefore, nuclear projects come with a double advantage: competitive costs and zero CO2 emissions."

The upgrade projects for units 3 and 4 represents "a significant contribution", he said, to the reduction of CO2 emissions, from the 10 million tonnes of CO2 emissions avoided each year currently, to 20 million tonnes after 2031.

The projects will also boost the development of the internal supply chain, creating up to 9000 jobs and stimulating research and innovation in the nuclear industry, he said. An exponential macroeconomic growth effect will follow and help Romani's efforts to retain its highly qualified nuclear specialists, he added.

According to the Senate's website, there were 129 votes in favour of the bill, one against and one abstention. It bill will now be forwarded to Romanian President Klaus Iohannis for his approval.

Researched and written by World Nuclear News

Battery technology: Form Energy 

'a solution that has a very clear 

path,' CEO says

Grace O'Donnell

·Assistant Editor

Fri., August 6, 2021, 

Form Energy's recent announcement about its new iron-air battery could be a major leap forward in the transition to renewable electricity. 

“We set out about four years ago to develop the kind of battery that it would take to enable a fully renewable and reliable electric grid,” Mateo Jaramillo, CEO and co-founder of Form Energy and former head of battery development at Tesla, said on Yahoo Finance Live (video above). “A few years later, a lot of hard work, some fantastic breaks going our way in the lab, but also the market moving very, very quickly to decarbonize the electricity sector — and we find ourselves today with a solution that has a very clear path to get into the market.”

Form Energy's new iron-air battery is both low-cost and long-duration. (Photo: Form Energy)

Should that path remain clear, the Boston-based company aims to deliver its first commercial product by 2025.

“The winds are really on our backs, so to speak, on this market,” Jaramillo said. “And there's just tremendous demand for new infrastructure solutions, which allow more and more renewable power to be brought onto the grid — again, primarily because it's the cheapest power to be had out there.”

A more reliable alternative

Jaramillo noted that Form Energy's iron-air battery — which is both low-cost and long-duration — would complement existing lithium-ion battery systems. 

But with the capability to run for over 100 hours, iron-air batteries could offer a more reliable storage solution for renewable energy. The battery works through a chemical process of "reversible rusting." When discharging, the battery takes in oxygen that reacts with iron to create rust. When charging, an electrical current converts that rust back into iron and the battery releases oxygen.

Furthermore, at $20/kWh, the iron-air battery would be more cost-competitive with nuclear and natural gas power plants. For comparison, utility-scale lithium-ion battery systems have been projected to cost $208/kWh in 2030.

“The cheapest marginal cost of electricity today comes from solar power," Jaramillo said. "And so that's really driving this big trend that we're sort of sitting just behind." 

Innovations and investment in battery technology have largely been driven by plummeting costs of renewables. The cost of solar photovoltaic power alone dropped by 89% in the last decade.

Electricity from renewables became cheaper as we increased capacity. (Source: Max Roser/OurWorldinData.org)

However, renewables still remain a small percentage (around 20%) of the overall U.S. energy mix. One reason for the laggard adoption of renewables despite competitive costs has been inefficient or expensive energy storage. Unlike fossil fuels, wind and solar power are intermittent and require capable storage systems to keep power plants humming when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing.

For that reason, battery innovations are critical to enabling cheap, abundant, and renewable electricity everywhere.

The $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill could also provide a boost to the renewable energy market and nudge the United States toward its carbon emission goals — although the current bill omits many of the clean energy initiatives that President Biden pledged in January.

“I think certainly having more domestic manufacturing is a critical part of any piece of the infrastructure bill that goes forward," Jaramillo said, adding that “being able to make the kinds of energy storage solutions that we need in our system right here in the United States is critically important.”

The United States is the second-largest manufacturer of battery cells behind China, which has dominated the industry.

“Obviously, iron is very abundant in the United States,” Jaramillo said. “We make a ton of it. We make a lot of steel. And that's one reason why we chose that element. It is something that can be made right here in this market at tremendous scale using existing processes today.”

Grace is an assistant editor for Yahoo Finance and a UX writer for Yahoo products

Lightning No Match for Wind Turbine Blade Protection System


By U.S. Department of Energy


Standing hundreds of feet above ground, wind turbines — like tall trees, buildings, and telephone poles — are easy targets for lightning. Just by virtue of their height, they will get struck.


Lightning protection systems exist for conventional wind turbine blades. But protection was needed for blades made from a new type of material—thermoplastic resin composites — and manufactured using an innovative thermal (heat-based) welding process developed by scientists at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).

Thermoplastic materials, like plastic bottles, can be more easily recycled than the thermoset materials commonly used to make wind turbine blades today. While thermoset materials need to be heated to cure, thermoplastics cure at room temperature, which reduces both blade manufacturing times and costs.

NREL’s patent-pending thermal welding process for thermoplastic blades allows for these benefits and even adds to them by replacing the adhesives currently used to bond blade components. The use of welding instead of adhesives eliminates the downsides of added weight and cracking potential.

While thermal welding offers benefits, it also requires adding within the blade a metal heating element — which can attract lightning. As a result, a team of NREL researchers led by Robynne Murray and supported by General Electric (GE) and LM Wind Power (a GE subsidiary) invented a new lightning protection system to keep the novel thermoplastic materials safe.

Thermal Welding Goes for the Patent

In 2018, Robynne Murray, an NREL engineer who specializes in advanced manufacturing methods and materials for wind turbine blades, received a two-year NREL Laboratory Directed Research and Development award to research thermal welding of thermoplastic wind turbine blades.

To make one of these new blades, a vacuum pulls liquid thermoplastic resin into the fiberglass material that is placed in a mold for each blade half. To weld the blade halves together, scientists sandwich a conductive material — such as an expanded metal foil or carbon fiber — between the two blade components and attach a wire to a power source. This creates the heating element. As current flows through this element, the thermoplastic materials melt. Once they are melted, the current is switched off and the bond cools under pressure.

Murray’s research demonstrated that thermal welding can effectively bond thermoplastic wind turbine blade segments. She submitted a patent application on the process in 2018.

A Pathway for Lightning

Thermal welding works. But it leaves the conductive heating element, which can attract lightning, within the blade.


“Thermal welding is an important step in the progression of commercializing thermoplastic materials for wind blades, but what happens when lightning strikes a thermal-welded blade? That was an unanswered question and a big concern,” Murray said. “For thermal welding of thermoplastic blades to become commercially viable, it is critical that the conductive bond lines be protected from a lightning strike.”

Partnering with GE and LM Wind Power, Murray submitted a research proposal to the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Technology Commercialization Fund (TCF). TCF awards are designed to advance technology developed at national laboratories toward commercialization while encouraging lab-industry partnerships.

“With our partnership with GE, a company that can take the thermal welding process to commercialization, our TCF was a strong proposal,” Murray said. “Together, we wanted to determine whether we can protect these blades from lightning strikes and eliminate a big reason to stop us from using the technology.”

In 2019, the team received $150,000 in TCF funding; GE matched that amount.

The research partners set up shop in NREL’s Composites Manufacturing Education and Technology (CoMET) Facility to demonstrate that thermoplastic blades sealed using thermal welding can be protected from lightning strikes.


The team infused an expanded aluminum foil into the blade skin to divert lightning current away from the metal heating elements. They then completed experiments using a simulation that showed that a lightning strike would not cause blade failure with the lightning protection system in place.

Lightning protection To build a lightning shield for their innovative wind turbine blade design, the research team added an expanded aluminum foil layer (left) and a carbon-fiber heating element at the bond lines (right) to enable thermal welding of the blade parts. Photos by NREL

Lightning strike. Researchers used a lightning simulation technique to see where lightning might strike the blade and found that, typically, electricity hit the tip of the blade or one of the edges—but not inside the blade or welded seams where it could cause excessive damage. Photo by NREL

Physical damage tests — which subject the blades to high currents of electricity — demonstrated that about 80% of the electric current went into the expanded aluminum foil layer for lightning protection and not into the blade skin. The carbon fiber beneath the damaged area of the tip was also unscathed.

The research confirmed the design can protect wind turbine blades against failure caused by lightning strikes.

“LM Wind Power and GE Research were excited to work with NREL on the development of this technology and appreciated the support by DOE’s Technology Commercialization Fund. Thermal welding technology for thermoplastic, recyclable wind blades offers a significant opportunity to impact the sustainability and carbon footprint of wind blade structures,” said James Martin, director of blade platform deployment for LM Wind Power. “NREL’s focus on mitigating the lightning damage risks associated with the electrically conductive elements in the welded bond is a key challenge to be overcome, and their work has helped mature the technology toward potential commercialization.”
Still More Questions To Answer

The project has already delivered two strikes against lightning. Murray’s work developing a market-ready thermal welding system, however, is still at bat.


“We answered the question about lightning. But there are more questions to answer and more work to be done,” Murray said. “The next step for us is to do structural validation of thermally welded blade bond lines and blade tip segments. I hope we can do this in the next year or so.”

Read more about this project in Wind Engineering.

Article courtesy of NREL.

TRUMPF-WINDTURBINE

The wind farm where turbines shut down 400 times a day when eagles approach

Sophie Vorrath 

6 August 2021 


As Tasmania enters a new phase of wind farm development that will test the bounds of social licence and environmental stewardship, one of the state’s largest wind farms has been making key progress on one of the industry’s most divisive issues: turbine-related bird deaths.

The 144MW Cattle Hill wind farm, owned by Power China Group and Goldwind Capital Australia, was formally launched in Tasmania’s Central Highlands in late 2019, and started sending power to the grid in early 2020.

The project is also nearly a year into an 18-month Australia-first trial of an aerial monitoring and detection system, called IndentiFlight, designed to mitigate the wind farm’s impact on the endangered Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagle. It is already winning awards, including the Clean Energy Council’s Innovation Award for 2021.

The technology uses tower-mounted optical units – 16 of them are spread out across the wind farm – to detect flying objects, and then algorithms to identify them as eagles.

If an eagle’s speed and flight trajectory puts it on a collision path with a turbine, the system then sends a signal to shut that turbine down.

So far, the technology has proven highly successful in protecting the local population of “Wedgies,” with just one mortality due to a turbine collision identified during the initial commissioning of the IdentiFlight system.

One of the IdentiFlight cameras installed at Cattle Hill. Image: Goldwind

Goldwind says a comprehensive investigation into that initial bird death found it was most likely the result of human error, via an “inadvertent overriding” of the IdentiFlight system. Corrective and preventative actions have since been implemented to remove this risk.

“Besides that incident, there have been no Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagle or white-bellied sea eagle impacts recorded at Cattle Hill since the first turbine was turned on in November 2019,” a spokesperson told RenewEconomy.

“We consider that IdentiFlight has played a significant role in mitigating the risk to eagles to date.” The technology has even won the Clean Energy Council’s Innovation Award for 2021.

Death and injury caused to birds by wind farms is a common complaint against the technology, although solid figures on this – in particular, in comparison to other energy technologies – are not easy to come by.


A 2017 article by Simon Chapman, published in The Conversation, noted that while wind turbine blades do indeed kill birds and bats, studies show their contribution to total bird deaths is extremely low – and the focus on them as bird killers disproportionate to other far more damaging energy generation technologies.

Chapman cited a 2009 study using US and European data on bird deaths that compared estimations of the number of birds killed per unit of power generated by wind, fossil fuel and nuclear power systems. Essentially, the study found that for every one bird killed by a wind turbine, nuclear and fossil fuel powered plants killed 2,118.

A Canadian study in 2013 came to a similar conclusion, with wind turbines not even making the list of the top 10 biggest bird killers nationally, where power line collisions and electrocutions ranked second, and collisions with houses and buildings ranked third.

Nevertheless, in certain spots considered perfect for wind farms, concessions must be made for local populations of bird species, particularly those that need to be protected. And in Tasmania, the preservation of the wedge-tailed eagle is of particular concern.

In 2019, the UPC/AC Renewables’ Robbins Island wind farm, which proposes to construct 340MW worth of wind turbines in Tasmania’s north-west, was met with unexpected opposition from former Australian Greens leader Bob Brown, who specifically cited the project’s potential impact on wedge-tailed eagle populations as a reason for his objections.

For Goldwind, a key condition of the Cattle Hill project’s approval hedged on protection of the local population of Tasmanian “Wedgies,” a sub-species of the wedge-tailed eagle known to nest in the area of the wind farm and which is listed as endangered in the state.

As part of the project’s planning permit conditions, an allowance was made for five eagle mortalities in its first year of operation, but Leigh Walters, Goldwind’s project director said that from the outset, the team’s firm goal was for zero harm.



This has more or less been achieved, which is a huge point of pride for Walters and his team, but it has been an enormous – and costly – undertaking.

The team is also in the process of working out what the eagle activity and turbine shutdowns, or curtailments, will mean to the overall productivity of the wind farm – and how to fine-tune the system to maximise eagle safety while minimising turbine down-time.

“On average, we’re seeing about 400 curtailment signals sent to a turbine daily within the wind farm, with each shutdown averaging slightly more than two minutes, or about 14.5 hours daily on average across the 48 turbines,” Walters told RE.

“Obviously there’s periods of heightened activity with eagles. And we also found early in the system commissioning that we had a lot more curtailment because … (at the start of the trial) we had quite a wide (radius for eagle detection)… in order to be conservative with the system.

“Part of tuning of the system is to bring in that radius, a little bit tighter, and also to have a quicker release of the curtailment signal, whilst maintaining a protective strategy.”

Meanwhile, the Cattle Hill IdentiFlight system is chalking up masses of valuable data on eagle behaviour around wind farms and how birds and turbines might be able to exist in greater harmony in a future of 100 per cent renewables.

“So the system has taken, so far, over three million eagle images,” Walters said. “So there’s a massive amount of data, with 130,194 eagle flight paths are being tracked.

“What we’re finding with this system… is we’re getting amazing data which can then be used for both conservation and planning… and we’ll learn a lot more about what eagles do and how they behave, which, you know, we’re hoping will really underpin part of the protection tools and policies for these as a threatened species.”

On the wind energy generation side, the team is getting a good understanding that the eagles don’t fly at night, which translates to a lower risk of curtailment at night, when the wind tends to blow more consistently.

“So if you’ve got a wind farm that’s generating mostly with the wind at night, then curtailment is going to be a lot less than one that operates [mostly] during the day,” Walters said.

“It’s a pretty good news story to say it works so far and I can see there’s probably going to be a broader adoption of these types of technologies and, from an industry point of view, hopefully that will help projects get approved and supported, particularly in Tasmania.

“From a conceptual point of view, it is paving a better collaborative relationship between the regulators and industry in terms of what can we do from an ecologically sustainable development perspective to get these [projects] into implementation.

“We’ve actually introduced something that is making a positive difference, and not just relying on the eagles avoiding the turbines, I suppose, or having a license to cause harm. I think that’s pretty cool and we have had a lot of support from industry, government departments and the community.

“It is great to be actually investing in something that is making a difference, despite spending significant costs on doing it, while adding significant value beyond the consent conditions.

“From a development perspective, yes, it’s money, but it’s not a huge percentage of the total costs … and [gaining social licence] and being transparent and open about it is just good industry and corporate behaviour.”

Sophie Vorrath
Sophie is editor of One Step Off The Grid and deputy editor of its sister site, Renew Economy. Sophie has been writing about clean energy for more than a decade.

Biden's Clean Car Proposal Shows How to Turn the Industry Around—But it Takes a Wrong Turn

August 6, 2021

WHITE HOUSE

Dave Cooke

Senior Vehicles Analyst

Union of Concerned Scientists

One of President Biden’s first official acts was to direct his administration to revisit fuel economy and emissions standards set by the previous administration, an urgent act commensurate with the immediate need to get the largest source of global warming emissions in the United States back on track. At first blush, it may look like the administration went big. Unfortunately, the deeper you dig, the more clear it becomes that the proposal released Thursday falls short of that level of urgency.

The proposal released Thursday is unequivocally better than the egregiously bad standards put in place by the previous administration—that is undeniable. But when it comes to what is necessary to address climate change, the hard facts of the proposal show we are only getting part of the way there. Even the administration’s own analysis shows there’s a much better option for the near-term, and if they don’t finalize it, this could limit our ability to address climate change in the long-term by continuing to kick the can down the road.

Could have been a contender

President Biden’s proposal matches the voluntary agreements with California in 2023, an inauspicious starting place. However, the targets ramp up at a rate consistent with the original standards (nearly 5 percent), and by 2026 the targets exceed those of the original 2012 standards, on paper.

Compared to the current 2021-2026 rules, the standards set under the Obama administration in 2012 would avoid 630 million metric tons of global warming emissions (black bar). Simply reimplementing those standards as quickly as possible would have recovered over 80 percent of the benefits of these rules (gray bar). The Biden administration considered an alternative (#2) which would have done even better, with targets comparable to extending those standards by a year (green bar), but by instead choosing voluntary agreements made by industry with the state of California (hashed blue bar) as the starting point for its proposal, the proposed rule (red bar) falls well short of what is needed. (Source: UCS analysis)

But this headline number doesn’t take into account the various loopholes which peck away at the benefits of the rule, and so these top-line numbers can’t tell the bigger story. We’ve already seen reporters mistake this rule as stronger than the standards set back in 2012 under Obama—it doesn’t matter what the rules are on paper but what their effect is in the real world, and here the standards fall well short.

As I’ve iterated repeatedly, loopholes erode the standards by crediting emissions reductions on paper that are incommensurate with what actually occurs on the road. The Obama administration sacrificed roughly 16 percent of the benefits of its standards through 2021 with the various loopholes requested by industry. However, the most egregious of these loopholes were set to expire after 2021. By giving new life to these automaker asks, the Biden administration could be doing even greater damage to its own proposal.

Zombie loopholes

Automakers have asked for a lot of things over the years, and I had thought that we’d finally killed some of these bad ideas under the previous administration. Unfortunately, this proposal brings many of them back from the dead, and made others even worse:

Electric vehicle incentives

I’ve written already about how bad regulatory incentives are for EVs. The Obama administration recognized that at most they could serve a purpose in the very early days of EV deployment—sure, they would erode the short-term benefits of the rule, but maybe it would help jumpstart the industry. State ZEV rules negated much of that potential benefit, but at least they were set to expire in 2021. While the administration has proposed a significantly stronger cap compared to the voluntary California agreements, giving them new life will likely lead to fewer EVs on the road by 2026 than if the administration lets them phase out as originally intended.

Off-cycle credits

Off-cycle credits were supposed to incentive novel technologies that result in real-world reductions. Unfortunately, rather than rein in this program based on the data indicating some of these technologies are not as good as they’re credited for, the proposal actually increases the availability of such credits, putting even more of the benefits of the rule at risk. While clarifications to applicable technologies may result in reduced opportunities for some of the most egregiously overcredited technologies, this does not fix the most fundamental issues with the program and will increase emissions overall by crediting emissions not matched in the real world.

Credit lifetime extension

Generally credits are supposed to last 5 years, long enough to ebb and flow with the automotive product cycle. In the first round of standards, the Obama administration granted a “one-time credit lifetime extension” of up to 10 years, which has led to a significant delay in adoption of more efficient vehicle technologies as manufacturers can just continue to use credits earned early on when the program was exceptionally weak. Now, the Biden administration is turning that one-time thing into a regular practice, extending credit life yet again, which will continue to kick the can down the road as manufacturers use credits to comply rather than sell more efficient vehicles.

Hybrid pick-up truck credits

Another zombie loophole was one that was eliminated during the rollback, appropriately so. The 2012 rule incentivized strong hybrid pick-up trucks as a “game changing technology,” an option now available in the Ford F-150 PowerBoost, with a rather large credit of 20 g/mi. Not only does this credit result in a mountain of credits that don’t yield real world reductions, but forthcoming electric pick-up trucks like the F-150 Lightning and Rivian R1T indicate the fallacy of calling these credits game changing. We can electrify this segment—why incentivize hybrids?

The administration shows a better way

The good, and perhaps perplexing, news in all of this is that the administration actually points to a much better path. Included in the proposal is an alternative (#2) much more consistent with what is needed: it would reinstate the 2012 standards in 2023, and extend them by a year from 2025 to 2026, while eliminating some of the most damaging loopholes. Their own analysis shows that this would be better for the country, with greater benefits, fuel savings, and emissions reductions. And frankly, EPA doesn’t even try to make a good case for why the weaker preferred alternative was chosen compared to this far superior alternative.

To make it clear just how much weaker the proposal is than what is both achievable and more consistent with the requirements of the Clean Air Act, I thought a “by the numbers” rundown would help put the actual proposal in contrast with what could have been. Here is how the loophole-riddled proposal compares to the administration’s Alternative #2, according to UCS analysis:

• Vehicles sold through 2026 will emit an additional 130 million metric tons of global warming emissions as a result of the loopholes undermining this proposal. In total, the proposal will result in approximately 30 percent fewer emissions reductions than the rule finalized back in 2012.
• By 2026, nearly 400,000 fewer electric vehicles could be on the road by choosing the weaker alternative.
• Fewer efficient vehicles will have a serious impact on the economy: consumers are projected to spend $57 billion more at the pump, with total net social harms of $29 billion (3 percent discount) even after factoring in technology costs, increased vehicle travel, etc. These additional costs are likely to adversely impact jobs economywide as well, with money spent at the pump not being efficiently pumped back into the economy.

Chance for improvement

The numbers are clear: this proposal is not quite enough to put the industry back on track. But there’s still time for the Biden administration to finalize something much better, as I plan on iterating repeatedly throughout the next two months during the public comment period.

Importantly, other aspects of the rule roll-out indicate that at least they have an eye towards the future—for one thing, President Biden issued an Executive Order targeting at least a 50 percent target of new electric vehicle sales by 2030, something that is consistent with what is needed to address climate change. The President also laid out a timeline for dealing not just with emissions from new passenger vehicles, but also for the medium- and heavy-duty vehicles that are at the core of so much inequity in transportation pollution and its disparate health impacts.

But at the end of the day, it isn’t about lofty aspirations or goals—it’s about being able to guarantee we are addressing climate change in a way consistent with the science of what is needed. This proposal could have gotten there—and now we’ve got a little over two months to put it, and the industry, back on track by the Biden administration finalizing something stronger that eliminates all the extra loopholes mucking up the works.

About the author

MORE FROM DAVE

Dave Cooke conducts research on fuel efficiency technologies and the implications for oil consumption and greenhouse gas emissions across the transportation sector

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Scientists name new frog-legged beetle fossil for Sir David Attenborough

by Denver Museum of Nature & Science

The new frog-legged beetle species, Pulchritudo attenboroughi, or Attenborough’s Beauty, was identified by Frank Krell, Denver Museum of Nature & Science Senior Curator of Entomology and Francesco Vitali, National Museum of Natural History of Luxembourg Invertebrate Zoology Collections Curator in August 2021. Credit: ©Denver Museum of Nature & Science

A new frog-legged beetle species, Pulchritudo attenboroughi, or Attenborough's Beauty, was announced today in the scientific journal Papers in Palaeontology. Frank Krell, Denver Museum of Nature & Science Senior Curator of Entomology, and Francesco Vitali, National Museum of Natural History of Luxembourg Invertebrate Zoology Collections Curator, worked together to identify this new species.

The beetle, which has been on display in the Denver Museum of Nature & Science's "Prehistoric Journey" exhibition since it opened in 1995, is from the Green River Formation in Garfield County, Colorado and lived nearly 49 million years ago. Its beautiful patterns on its wing casings caught Krell's eye.

"This is one of the most magnificent beetle fossils ever found," Krell said. "The patterning is preserved in unsurpassed clarity and contrast, making this one of the best-preserved beetle fossils. It is most definitely deserving of its name."

Beetles are sturdy when they are alive, but they do not easily fossilize as a whole beetle. They float on water, and when they sink and reach the sediment, they often fall apart. Usually, only single wing cases are found in the fossil record. Some deposits with a fine-grained sediment and particularly favourable conditions provide us with very well preserved, often almost complete fossils. These deposits are called lagerstätten. The Eocene Green River Formation in northwest Colorado is one of them.

Identifying this specimen was challenging. In the Museum's exhibition display, it was labelled as a longhorn beetle. There were some features that didn't match up with the characteristics of other longhorn beetles, which led Krell to seek out Francesco Vitali, a longhorn beetle expert from the National Museum of Natural History in Luxembourg.

"I was delighted to have the opportunity to work on such a magnificent and unique fossil," Vitali said.

Together, they looked at all the preserved details. In the end, it was the beetle's crooked legs—its curved hind tibiae—that gave away its true identity: a frog-legged leaf beetle.

What's in a Name? A scientific name consists of two components, a genus and a species name, like Homo sapiens. The beetle needed a new genus name, because it did not fit in any existing frog-legged leaf beetle genera. Because of its beauty, Krell and Vicente chose the name Pulchritudo, which is Latin for beauty. Zoologists and botanists often dedicate new species to colleagues who have contributed significantly to science, or to people who are special to them. For Krell, one person immediately came to mind: Sir David Attenborough, English broadcaster and naturalist, who has inspired him, his family and millions of others through his documentaries on the natural world.

"Nobody imparts the grandeur and beauty of nature more impressively than Sir David. This fossil, unique in its preservation and beauty, is an apt specimen to honor such a great man," Krell explained.

See Pulchritudo attenboroughi on Display Pulchritudo attenboroughi, or Attenborough's Beauty, and can be seen in "Prehistoric Journey," in The Cenozoic Era section at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science.

The paper describing the new frog-legged beetle Pulchritudo attenboroughi appears in the Aug. 6 release of the journal Papers in Palaeontology.Tiny beetle named after climate activist Greta Thunberg

More information: Frank‐Thorsten Krell et al, Attenborough's beauty: exceptional pattern preservation in a frog‐legged leaf beetle from the Eocene Green River Formation, Colorado (Coleoptera, Chrysomelidae, Sagrinae), Papers in Palaeontology (2021). DOI: 10.1002/spp2.1398

Provided by Denver Museum of Nature & Science

 

Food scientists create national atlas for deadly listeria

by Blaine Friedlander, Cornell University

Listeria, shown here in Martin Wiedmann’s laboratory, will be easier to trace in food recalls, thanks to a new genomic and geological mapping tool developed by a group led by Jingqiu Liao, Ph.D. ’20. Credit: Cornell University

Among the deadliest of foodborne pathogens, Listeria monocytogenes soon may become easier to track down in food recalls and other investigations, thanks to a new genomic and geological mapping tool created by Cornell food scientists.

The national atlas will tell scientists where listeria and other related species reside within the contiguous United States, which could help them trace and pinpoint sources of listeria found in ingredients, food processing facilities and finished products, according to research published July 15 in Nature Microbiology.

"As we're trying to figure out the risk of getting listeria from soil and different locations, our group created a more systematic way of assessing how frequently different listeria are found in different locations," said senior author Martin Wiedmann, Ph.D. '97, the Gellert Family Professor in Food Safety and Food Science in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. "We've studied listeria in places as diverse as New York, Colorado and California, but before this atlas, [it] was difficult to make comparisons and assess listeria diversity in different locations."

Listeria mononcytogenes in foods can make people extremely sick. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimate that each year 1,600 people in the U.S. get listeriosis; of those, about 260 die.

Knowing that listeria occurs naturally in soil, the Cornell group asked hundreds of other scientists across the country to scoop up soil samples from generally undisturbed places in the natural world, such as the off-trail areas of state and national parks.

From these samples, the group developed a nationwide atlas of 1,854 listeria isolates, representing 594 strains and 12 families of the bacteria called phylogroups.

Lead author Jingqiu Liao, Ph.D. '20, who worked in Wiedmann's laboratory as a graduate student, is now a post-doctoral researcher at Columbia University. She had supplemented the research by acquiring soil samples in her own travels and found listeria present across a wide range of environmental circumstances. This bacterium is controlled mainly by soil moisture, salinity concentrations and molybdenum—a trace mineral found in milk, cheese, grains, legumes, leafy vegetables and organ meats.

"The goal of this work was to systematically collect soil samples across the United States," said Liao, "and to capture the true large-scale spatial distribution, genomic diversity and population structure of listeria species in the natural environment.

"With whole genome sequencing and comprehensive population genomics analyses," Liao said, "we provided answers to the ecological and evolutionary drivers of bacterial genome flexibility—an important open question in the field of microbiology."

Liao explained that this work can serve as a reference for future population genomics studies and will likely benefit the food industry by locating listeria contaminations that may have a natural origin.

If listeria is found in a processing facility in the western U.S., for example, and that facility had used ingredients from a distant state, Wiedmann said, "knowing the genomic information of listeria isolates and their possible locations across the U.S., we can better narrow the origins to a specific region. You can use this information almost like a traceback. It's not always proof, but it leads you to evidence."Scientists discover five new species of listeria, improving food safety

More information: Jingqiu Liao et al, Nationwide genomic atlas of soil-dwelling Listeria reveals effects of selection and population ecology on pangenome evolution, Nature Microbiology (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41564-021-00935-7

Journal information: Nature Microbiology 

Provided by Cornell University