Over 7,000 metallurgists and miners join Ukraine's Army since Russian invasion

Wed, May 4, 2022,

Steel smelting

As of today, Ukrainians of various professions are serving in the Armed Forces of Ukraine and other units defending Ukraine from Russian invaders.

Before the war, metallurgical and mining enterprises were among the country's largest employers.

NV Business has learned how many employees from major Ukrainian factories have joined the army.

The Metinvest Group, an international steel and mining group of companies, has the largest number of mobilized employees. At the request of NV Business, the company's press service reported that more than 3,000 workers had been mobilized at their enterprises. However, Metinvest did not specify which factories and plants had workers fighting in the Armed Forces. However, the largest assets of the group are located in Kryvyi Rih, Zaporizhzhya, Kamianske, Mariupol, and Pokrovsk.

Read also: Rinat Akhmetov to sue Kremlin for $10 billion for ruining his assets

The Metinvest Group reported allocating 900 tons of steel to produce approximately 90,000 bulletproof vests for the Armed Forces and the territorial defense units. The company bought another 10,000 bulletproof vests abroad. As of early May, 4,000 bulletproof vests and helmets had been supplied to the military. In particular, it was reported that 300 workers of the Kametstal metallurgical plant, who had been mobilized for the Armed Forces and the territorial defense units, had received level 4 bulletproof vests.

In late April, ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih, a member of the multinational corporation ArcelorMittal, reported that about 1,800 employees were defending Ukraine from the enemy.

Read also: Russian army has almost destroyed Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, says interior ministry

Workers from other enterprises in Kryvyi Rih are also going to war.

"About 800 of our employees are defending Ukraine with weapons in their hands as part of the Armed Forces and territorial defense units," Serhiy Barabanov, HR Director of JSC Kryvbaszalizrudkom, told corporate media in an interview.

At the same time, the industrial company Interpipe recently reported that 760 of its employees were defending the country in the Armed Forces of Ukraine and territorial defense units.

"As many as 580 of them have been mobilized since late February," the press service said.

Some 470 of them have already received clothing and equipment from the company.

"First of all, we help our colleagues with bulletproof vests, as well as providing (medical supplies)," the company said.

"If necessary, we provide tactical equipment, such as uniforms, army boots, tactical vests for ammunition magazines, anti-fragment glasses, tactical gloves, sleeping bags, etc."

DCH Steel employees have also been called up to join the Armed Forces and other units.

"Dniprovskiy Metallurgical Plant – 215 people. Sukha Balka mining and processing plant – 391," the company's press service said.

Thus, about 7,000 employees of the largest metallurgical and mining enterprises are defending Ukraine.

As of early 2022, more than 246,000 people, including 195,000 soldiers, were serving in the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

CRYPTO CAPITALI$M FAIL
El Salvador's bitcoin bond reportedly hasn't lured a single investor, and markets are bracing for a default on conventional debt


Phil Rosen
Tue, May 3, 2022

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele gestures during a speech for his second anniversary in power on June 1, 2021 in San Salvador, El Salvador.

Emerson Flores/APHOTOGRAFIA/Getty Images

El Salvador's $1 billion bitcoin bond hasn't worked as planned, and no investors have bought in.

Now, El Salvador's conventional bonds due in 2032 yield 24%, a level that suggests markets are bracing for a default.

Still, El Salvador's finance minister recently said there's "zero risk" of a default.

Investors aren't flocking to El Salvador's bitcoin bond, and in fact, the crypto-backed offering hasn't drawn a single buyer, according to Bloomberg.

Millennial president Nayib Bukele is seeking $1 billion for the crypto-backed bond, though instead of financing he's received skepticism from credit agencies and the International Monetary Fund.

The IMF previously criticized Bukele's call to make bitcoin legal tender, and has called for the government to reconsider its reliance on the cryptocurrency.

Now, El Salvador's conventional bonds due in 2032 yield 24%, a steep level that suggests markets perceive the debt to be high risk and are bracing for a default. Bloomberg data shows that yields on El Salvador's conventional bonds have fallen further than every other nation except those of war-torn Ukraine.

When Bukele first debuted his plan for bitcoin bonds in November, the nation's dollar debt hit an all-time low, Bloomberg reported. In February, Fitch Ratings slashed El Salvador's rating to CCC, pointing to its increased dependence on short-term debt and limited financing sources. However, El Salvador's finance minister recently said there's "zero risk" of a default.

Investors have grown concerned as to whether El Salvador will be able to keep up with its current bond payments, but also its willingness to keep servicing the debt.

In November, Bukele had said half of the $1 billion raised for the bitcoin bond would be used to purchase more bitcoin, while the other half would be used for energy and bitcoin mining infrastructure.

For marine biologist, Haitian gangs make work dangerous
























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A fisherman pulls his net back onto his boat in the waters surrounding Cap-Haitien, Haiti, Friday, March 11, 2022. 

A prize winning marine biologist is working to bring together fishermen from Haiti and the Dominican Republic and find a solution that will not only save their livelihoods but also vital marine resources in a region under extreme pressures from climate change.

 (AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph)More

TRENTON DANIEL and PIERRE-RICHARD LUXAMA
Wed, May 4, 2022,

PEPILLO SALCEDO, Dominican Republic (AP) — In a blue bay that spans the border of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, fishermen from both countries recently aired grievances in a rare face-to-face meeting thanks to the efforts of marine biologist Jean Wiener.

The meeting, overseen by Dominican naval officers with rifles, was no small feat for Wiener, who has been forced to work on conserving this biologically sensitive region from afar — his house in Bethesda, Maryland — because of rampant violence in Haiti, his homeland. Now the prize-winning biologist stood in the steaming Caribbean heat at the mouth of an ominously named spot called the Massacre River, trying to bring together the two sides and find a solution that will not only save their livelihoods but also vital marine resources in a region under extreme pressures from climate change.

“The constant fishing, or overfishing, in these areas has decimated an entire ecosystem,” said Rodolfo Jimenez, director of an agricultural border project in the Dominican Republic.

The Haitian fishermen, standing across from Jimenez on the beach, agreed. But they also said they were not to blame for the damage in the Monte Cristi National Park in northwestern Dominican Republic.

Wiener's work has grown in significance over the years in large part because of charcoal vendors in Haiti who hack down trees for cooking fuel and, more recently, wade into the country’s mangroves, the tropical vegetation that is a natural barrier against the Caribbean’s increasingly destructive hurricanes. With ocean storms becoming more severe, Haiti’s coastline and its biodiversity are becoming even more vulnerable.

It was the first trip for Wiener, leader of Foundation for the Protection of Marine Biodiversity, since November 2021, his absence largely attributed to the violent gangs that have engulfed the Haitian capital in recent years and reached parts of the countryside. Nominally present already and undermined further with the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moise in the bedroom of his home, the government has done little to wrest control from the brazen gangs.

For years, Wiener used to visit Haiti every month or so, but now restricts his trips to only a few times a year while being compelled to work remotely and delegate more responsibility to staff members dispersed throughout the country. Haiti is just too dangerous otherwise. So when he does come, as he did for three weeks in March, he hopscotches the country via puddle-jumper plane; travel by road is too perilous, with major thoroughfares blocked by gangs fond of extortion. Many passengers hide in their cars by lying on the backseat.

It’s a conundrum that bedevils Jean and others like him around the world. As climate change plays a greater role in contributing to conflicts, that in turns makes it more difficult to carry out scientific research and work on environmental projects that seek to offset the effects of climate change. The environmental group Global Witness released a report last year noting that 2020 saw a record number of environmental activists killed around the world; the death toll of 227 was the highest number recorded for a second consecutive year, with Colombia having the highest number of recorded attacks, with 65, and Mexico second, with 30.

“The extent to which failed states make it difficult for scientists and the international scientific community to work on these issues simply means it will be more difficult to solve these problems,” said Peter Gleick, president emeritus and a senior fellow with the Pacific Institute, an Oakland-based research group that focuses on water issues around the world.

Said Jessica Olcott Yllemo, senior fellow for climate security at the American Security Project, a nonpartisan group in Washington, D.C.: “If the temperatures continue to rise and you don’t have basic functions because you don’t have a functioning government, climate sort of just exacerbates all of those different threats and hazards.”

In several reports released in October, the U.S. signaled that climate change would occupy a central role in security strategy, a policy shift that underscores how climatic changes are exacerbating long-standing problems. One of the studies identified 11 countries that were of “greatest concern,” because they were especially vulnerable to climate change and unable to deal with the attendant problems. Haiti was among them.

The Caribbean nation has the highest travel advisory—”Level 4: Do Not Travel”—from the U.S. State Department due to kidnapping, crime and civil unrest. Kidnapping, the State Department says, “is widespread and victims regularly include U.S. citizens." In a March newsletter, the U.S. Embassy offered U.S. citizens in Haiti a tip sheet on ways to avoid being kidnapped.

The kidnappings have persisted for years, rising significantly after the 2017 departure of a U.N. peacekeeping mission. In October, 16 U.S. citizens, including five children, and one Canadian, were part of a group of missionaries who were abducted by the dreaded 400 Mawozo gang and held for ransom for two months. An untold number of Haitian Americans have also been kidnapped.

This past week, north of the Port-au-Prince capital, fighting between 400 Mawozo and a rival gang led to the displacement of thousands of people and the killing of at least 20, including six children. Officials warned that the main roads leading to Haiti’s northern region could be cut off as a result of the fighting, as has already happened to a thoroughfare heading south.

The March meeting Wiener set up was held at the beach of an estuary meant to be easy to reach for both parties, just a few steps on the Dominican side of the border. It was a Thursday morning, and a white mangrove provided shade to Wiener, the fishermen and their associations, a few environmental officials from the two countries and the Dominican naval officers. On the shore behind them stood a string of wooden posts used to hold seines for catching eels.

A big part of the two sides' discussion was over the exact location of the border above Hispaniola, the name of the island shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

“The marine border is not completely north, it is northwest," Cmdr. Irving Cabrera, of the Dominican Navy, said in the meeting.

The meeting took place at the mouth of a river with a name that harkens back to a bloody episode on the island of Hispaniola: The Massacre River, also the Dajabón River. Though named for an earlier massacre, it’s mostly known for when Dominican soldiers, under the orders of dictator Rafael Trujillo in 1937, executed thousands of Haitian families and Dominicans of Haitian descent. The weapon of choice was a machete.

“I don’t think it was lost on either side of the border,” said Frederick Payton, of AgroFrontera, the Dominican environmental group that worked with Wiener to organize the March meeting. Payton also helped lead the meeting. “The Río Massacre kind of represents both the tension and the integration of the economies in the border region.”

The antipathy toward Haitians persists today, not least with Dominican President Luis Abinader’s newly launched plan to build a multimillion-dollar, 118-mile (190-kilometer) wall along the border. Construction has already begun.

Bereft of the usual tension, let alone animosity, the beach meeting lasted a few hours, with both sides able to voice their concerns as Payton and Wiener served as peacekeepers of sorts in the absence of a strong border state. Both stressed the importance of seeking solutions instead of dwelling on problems.

“We were trying to frame the meeting not just as a session to complain and to point fingers, but to try to look for some possible solutions that will take time,” Payton said. “But will give each side hope and expectation that something will be done in the future.”

Out of the meeting came the idea of creating a boat registration and a licensing for fisheries so Haitian and Dominican authorities know who is in the water and where they’re going.

Perhaps Wiener’s biggest achievement has been creating Haiti’s first protected marine areas, including the Three Bays National Park known for its mangrove forests, coral reefs and seagrass beds, but he concedes that his work has become more difficult working remotely. Josué Celiscar, field operations director for Wiener's foundation and a graduate student in agronomy, says the same, noting the inevitable delays that accompany projects.

“When you are the director, when you are present, you are executing the project,” Celiscar said. “When you aren’t there, you’re left with the assistant. It’s not going to be the same thing.”

In recent years, Wiener has seen the brother of his assistant director kidnapped and later released and spends considerable time making sure his staff is safe.

Born in Haiti, Wiener and his family fled the Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier regime when he was six months old for Queens, New York. He went back to Haiti at six while Duvalier's son and successor, Jean-Claude “Baby Doc,” was in power and left again for college, studying biology at the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut. Haiti came calling once more, and Wiener returned at 23 and, in 1992 started his foundation. Now 57, Wiener is a married father of two children, a boy and a girl.

In the end, the March trip to Haiti proved fortuitously uneventful—though danger wasn't far away.

When Wiener visited the southwestern part of the country, in the coastal town of Les Cayes, his driver got wind of protesters' plans to storm the local airport. The attack didn't happen until after Wiener flew out, a few days later: People ran onto the tarmac and torched a small plane owned by a U.S. missionary group. One person died and five others were injured, including four police officers, according to a police official working at the airport.

One day during his recent visit to northern Haiti, Wiener brought to the beach a group that included game wardens and university students with an interest in the environment. The idea was to get them in the water, make them feel comfortable and learn the basics of snorkeling.

Standing on the sand, Wiener gave a brief lesson on how to use a snorkel, explaining how to expel water from the breathing device. Minutes later they waded into the surf. A pufferfish floated toward them.

One man picked up the blowfish and studied it. Wiener told him to put the fish back in the water, which he did. Inflated like a ball as it bobbed supine, the puffer looked as if it were playing dead.

Wiener sloshed knee-high through the shore's lucent water, and gently picked up the prickly fish with both hands. He then walked a few steps out, toward the northern horizon, and sent the pufferfish into the ocean.

“We really know that there’s a part, you know, where you can be in a classroom," Wiener said later from the hotel, where a few security guards patrolled the grounds with rifles. “But it is critically important that people actually get out and touch and see and feel the environment.”

___

Associated Press journalist Trenton Daniel reported from New York.

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Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Sculpture sold for just $34.99 at Texas Goodwill turns out to be priceless Roman bust

San Antonio Museum of Art.

Mitchell Willetts

Wed, May 4, 2022, 

A priceless work of Roman art went missing after World War II— until it was sold for $34.99 at a Goodwill store in Texas.

The marble bust, titled simply “Portrait of a man,” was sculpted some time in the 1st century B.C. or early A.D., according to the San Antonio Museum of Art, where it is on display as of May 4.

How it traveled 2,000 years and untold miles to a resale store in Austin is a mystery only partially unraveled.

Experts believe that the sculpture was looted from a German museum after WWII and taken home by a U.S. soldier, according to the SA Museum of Art. But what happened between then and it’s arrival at Goodwill decades later is anyone’s guess.

Laura Young, of Austin, found the marble man looking up at her from beneath a table at local Goodwill in 2018, dirty and disheveled, a yellow price tag on his cheek, she told The Art Newspaper. She bought the man, buckled him in the backseat and drove off.

After bringing the bust home, Young started to do a little research, Texas Public Radio reported. Soon realizing the marble man may be more valuable than he initially seemed, she reached out to an auction house in London, which confirmed the sculpture was likely ancient, and almost certainly looted.

It possibly depicts Drusus Germanicus, a respected Roman general.

It was last cataloged at the Pompejanum in Germany, the outlet reported. Modeled after a Pompeeian villa, the Pompejanum museum housed a great deal of art from all over Europe, but was caught in the crossfire between U.S. and Nazi forces in the waning days of the war — an easy target for any soldiers with opportunistic tendencies.

Young reached out to an attorney in New York, Leila Amineddoleh, who specializes in art, The Art Newspaper reported.

“US law doesn’t recognize the transfer of title when theft is involved,” Amineddoleh said. “I advised Laura not to sell it, either publicly or privately, that is, on the black market. She risked expensive legal battles or criminal penalties if she tried.”

Instead, they contacted German authorities, who were very interested in seeing the bust returned.

The Bavarian Administration of State-Owned Palaces, Gardens and Lakes agreed to pay Young a finders fee, and to allow the San Antonio Museum of Art to display the bust temporarily, Amineddoleh told the outlet, adding that the last of the documents were finalized just days ago.

“What is very unusual is that most instances of looting were committed by the Nazis — it is estimated that 20% of all the art in Europe was looted by the Nazis,” Amineddoleh said. “However, this bust of Drusus Germanicus was most likely looted by a member of the Allied forces.”

The bust was revealed at the San Antonio Museum of Art on May 4, and will remain on display there until May 21, 2023.

Descent to bottom of ‘Bottomless Pit’ in New Mexico finds oddities tossed by tourists

Mark Price

Wed, May 4, 2022,

The “Bottomless Pit” at Carlsbad Caverns National Park does, in fact, have a bottom, and a group of cavers recently made the perilous decent on an odd-but-important mission.

“At approximately 140 ft (43m) deep, it can be a treacherous climb to the bottom,” the New Mexico park wrote May 2 on Facebook.

“Occasionally, cavers must descend into the pit to pick up trash and other objects that have been thrown into the pit. This can be a dangerous job, but anything that gets thrown into this pit must be removed to protect the fragile cave environment.”

Three cavers participated and the park shared a photo of the collective junk pile they found in “various Big Room Pits,” including:

• a bullet shell casing

• a lug nut

• a Jolly Rancher

• a pack of belVita biscuits

• two keys

• three lip balm sticks

• five plastic bottles

• lots of pennies, dimes, nickles and quarters

The trash found at the bottom of the Bottomless Pit included $14.36 in change, the park says.

“A grand total $14.36 in coins,” the park said, “which were placed in the park donation box.”

Park officials also posted a photo of the pit’s rarely seen floor bathed in light, showing it opens up into a giant cavern.

The revelation of what was found has gotten hundreds of reactions on social media, with some wanting to know dates on the coins and others joking a bottomless pit is the perfect place to lose a cell phone.

The notorious pit is located in the cave’s Big Room, which counts as “the largest single cave chamber by volume in North America” at approximately 357,480 square feet, the park service reports.

“Many people enjoy staring beyond the rail and wondering, like early explorers, just how deep the darkness goes,” the park service wrote in a 2018 Facebook post.

“For early explores without strong lights, this gaping hole appeared bottomless.”

The Bottomless Pit! This popular destination is one of the deepest pits inside of Carlsbad Cavern.

At approximately 140ft (43m) deep, it can be a treacherous climb to the bottom. Occasionally, cavers must descend into the pit to pick up trash and other objects that have been thrown into the pit. This can be a dangerous job, but anything that gets thrown into this pit must be removed to protect the fragile cave environment.

This panoramic photo was taken earlier this year by...

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Growth resembling cotton candy sprouting from rocks in Carlsbad Caverns National Park

Overzealous tourist brought wooden stake to New Mexico cave filled with 500,000 bats

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Pieces of "fireball" that exploded over Mississippi found on ground

Stephen Smith

Tue, May 3, 2022, 

Days after a streaking fireball was spotted in the skies over three Southern states, NASA scientists have confirmed that fragments from the meteor have been found on the ground in Mississippi.

NASA said the exceptionally bright meteor was going 35,000 mph (scientists previously estimated it was traveling at 55,000 mph) when it exploded in the sky near the Louisiana-Mississippi border.

"There are confirmed reports of meteorites being found in the area east of Natchez," NASA said, while sharing an image of one of the meteorite pieces in a Facebook post on Monday.

Dozens of people in Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi reported seeing the meteor in the sky around 8 a.m. Wednesday after hearing loud booms in the area.

At its peak, the fireball was more than 10 times brighter than a full moon, officials said. The fireball disintegrated approximately 34 miles above a swampy area in Louisiana, generating "an energy equivalent of 3 tons of TNT," NASA said.

The Mississippi Emergency Management Agency previously posted a satellite image on Facebook in which the bright object can be seen just east of the Louisiana-Mississippi border, along with NASA's confirmation. The agency said the fireball caused no injuries or property damage and that it ran parallel to the Mississippi River.

Image from the GOES 16 satellite shows the fireball just east of the Louisiana border. / Credit: NOAA

Law dictates that meteorites belong to the owner of the property on which they fell, so NASA said it would not disclose the locations of any fragments that are found.

NASA also said it would not authenticate any possible meteorite discoveries and referred the public to a meteorite website hosted by Washington University in St. Louis.

"We are not meteorite people, as our main focus is protecting spacecraft and astronauts from meteoroids," NASA said. So we will be unable to identify any strange rocks you may find - please do not send us rock photos."

NASA said that if confirmed, this will mark the fifth recorded meteorite fall in Mississippi. The others happened in 1854, 1910, 1922 and 2012.

#CRYPTOZOOLOGY #CRYPTID

Mysterious ‘scary-looking’ creature washes up on shore of Lake Michigan, photos sho

Mitchell Willetts

Wed, May 4, 2022, 

A mysterious creature recently washed up on the shore of Lake Michigan, photos show, triggering speculation, fascination and the question, what the heck is it?

Robert Loerzel, a photographer and freelance journalist, came across the decomposing animal on Montrose Beach, in Illinois, he said in a tweet.

Whatever it was, it appears to have died quite some time ago. But what remained of it, the serpentine skeleton and scaly skin, provided plenty of fuel for people’s imaginations.

“I KNEW there were sea monsters in Lake Michigan,” a Twitter user commented on Loerzel’s post.

“Scary looking,” wrote another.

“A sign of the apocalypse,” one comment read.

Looking for answers, Loerzel shared his photos on iNaturalist, a self-described “social network of naturalists, citizen scientists, and biologists.”

The consensus was that Loerzel’s mystery critter is a type of fish called a burbot.

Despite being one of Lake Michigan’s top predators, the burbot is seen as a somewhat obscure resident, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported in 2019.

They can grow to around 60 pounds, but spend most of their lives out of sight, hanging at the bottom of the lake, where it’s deep and dark, the outlet reported.

While considered undesirable by many — a trash fish that’s ugly to boot — others see a “poor man’s lobster,” a fish that tastes significantly better than it looks, according to the Sentinel.

Other common names for burbot include eel pout, mudblow, and lawyer, according to experts.

IT REMINDS ME OF THIS:

Should Gavin Newsom keep Diablo Canyon open? SLO anti-nuclear group has concerns


Pacific Gas & Electric Co.

Kaytlyn Leslie
Tue, May 3, 2022,

State leaders’ stance on Diablo Canyon Power Plant may be shifting, but one San Luis Obispo County group says it is concerned about the possibility the nuclear power plant may stay open.

On Friday, the Los Angeles Times reported that Gov. Gavin Newsom is considering applying for federal funding that would potentially help keep Diablo Canyon open beyond its expected closure in 2025.

In response, San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace released a statement questioning “whether the governor has the power to make any decisions about how long Diablo Canyon should operate,” and noted several difficulties the anti-nuclear group sees with attempting to keep the plant open this late in the decommissioning process.

The anti-nuclear group noted that the funding in question, part of the Biden administration’s $6 billion Nuclear Credit Program, requires the applicant to be the owner of the nuclear plant. That means the “decision is solely in the hands of PG&E” and not the governor, Mothers for Peace said in its statement.

California’s last operating nuclear power plant, Diablo Canyon is the single largest producer of electricity in the state — generating roughly 6% of California’s power in 2021, according to the Times.

PG&E, which operates Diablo Canyon, in 2016 reached a joint agreement with environmental groups, labor unions and other parties to close the nuclear power plant near Avila Beach after licenses for its nuclear reactors expire in 2024 and 2025.

As the push to keep the plant open has gained traction in recent months, PG&E has consistently said it plans to shutter the plant as scheduled.

After the Los Angeles Times reported that Newsom is considering applying for the nuclear funding, however, the utility company released a statement indicating a potential willingness to consider keeping the plant open.

“PG&E is committed to California’s clean energy future,” company spokeswoman Suzanne Hosn told The Tribune in an email. “The people of PG&E are proud of the role that Diablo Canyon Power Plant plays in our state. We are always open to considering all options to ensure continued safe, reliable, and clean energy delivery to our customers.”

In its news release, Mothers for Peace said that if PG&E wishes to continue past the 2025 closure date, “it would have to face a variety of complicated issues.”

Those include changes to its once-through-cooling system, navigating mitigation funding already dispersed to local governments and employee programs and reversing the settlement agreement approved by the California Public Utilities Commission in 2018.

“Logic and the safety of our community requires Diablo Canyon to close as planned in 2024 and 2025,” the group concluded. “Millions of dollars of taxpayer and rate payer money have already been spent to support an orderly shutdown process.”

With Emissions Soaring, Democratic Governors Sour On Plans To Shut Down Nuclear Power

Alexander C. Kaufman
Tue, May 3, 2022, 3:45 AM·9 min read

Virtually every place that shuts down nuclear plants — from San Diego to New York City, Germany to South Korea — replaces them with fossil fuels, swapping an abundant source of zero-emissions electricity for the very energy sources roasting the planet.

But with gas prices and emissions on the rise, two governors are rethinking plans to shut down major nuclear power stations.

With just weeks to go before the Palisades Nuclear Generating Station becomes the next U.S. plant to shutter, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) formally asked the Biden administration on April 20 for federal funding to keep the reactors running.

On Friday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) told the Los Angeles Times he also wanted federal money to keep Diablo Canyon, his state’s last remaining nuclear plant, open past its 2025 closure date.

The announcements mark a shift in the politics of atomic power. At a time when planet-heating gas pollution is surging and efforts in Congress to cobble together a historic clean-energy spending plan have faced repeated setbacks, nuclear energy is becoming more appealing, even among Democrats whose party has historically championed closing down reactors.

Nuclear energy is by far the most efficient and reliable electricity source humans have ever harnessed. Nuclear reactors produce power 24/7 on vastly less acreage than wind and solar, regardless of weather conditions. Atomic energy is also safer than fossil fuels, which not only cause global warming but lace the air with deadly, disease-causing particles.

But connections to nuclear weapons and rare but catastrophic disasters like the meltdowns in Chernobyl in 1986 and Fukushima in 2011 have long stoked opposition to reactors. Natural gas, made cheap by the U.S. drilling boom, gobbled up nuclear companies’ share of the electricity market, while state regulators have made increasingly challenging demands of plant operators, making it even harder to compete.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, left, and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer are both asking for federal money to keep nuclear plants in their states open. (Photo: Getty Images)

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, left, and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer are both asking for federal money to keep nuclear plants in their states open. (Photo: Getty Images)

There are some efforts to stave off shutdowns. Last September, Illinois approved nearly $700 million in new subsidies to keep the state’s nuclear fleet afloat in the decade ahead. In November, President Joe Biden signed into law the bipartisan infrastructure deal that established a $6 billion fund to bail out financially troubled reactors.

But nuclear power in the U.S. is in trouble. Twelve nuclear reactors in the U.S. have closed permanently since 2012, and another seven are scheduled to shut down by 2025, according to a Congressional Research Service report. Together, they make up more than 7% of the country’s nuclear capacity.

California’s Unique Issues

Money from the new fund to bail out reactors could make a practical difference in Michigan, where owner Entergy Nuclear has long operated the Palisades plant at a loss. The relatively modest-sized, single-reactor station on the east coast of Lake Michigan had struggled to find buyers for its electricity as more gas plants and wind turbines came online. In January, it won federal regulators’ approval to sell Palisades to Holtec International, a company that decommissions reactors.

But an application from California for federal money to save its last remaining nuclear plant would mark more of a symbolic change in the Golden State.

The state banned the construction of new nuclear reactors in 1976. But since the two reactors at Diablo Canyon, which were already under construction, came online in 1987, the plant profitably produced nearly one-tenth of California’s electricity from its isolated location near San Luis Obispo.

Environmentalists campaigned to close the plant for decades before climate change became the defining issue in drought- and wildfire-prone California. Some feared Diablo Canyon, located near a volatile fault line, could set off a disaster in an earthquake. On the other side of the Pacific, an earthquake played a key role in triggering the accident that irradiated the area around the Fukushima-Daiichi plant 11 years ago.

Other critics complained that the plant hurt aquatic animals because its system for cooling reactors with seawater spewed out warmed water that made the coastal area immediately near the plant less habitable for certain species.

In 2016, when Newsom was the state’s lieutenant governor, he helped broker a deal between environmentalists, the reactor’s owner, Pacific Gas & Electric and the union representing its workers to shut the plant down. Under the agreement, its first reactor is set to come offline in 2024, with the second following the next year.

Aerial view of the Diablo Canyon, the only operational nuclear plant left in California, due to be shut down in 2024. (Photo: George Rose via Getty Images)

Aerial view of the Diablo Canyon, the only operational nuclear plant left in California, due to be shut down in 2024. (Photo: George Rose via Getty Images)

But in the years that have followed that deal, the effects of climate change have become more visible and have taken a toll on the state’s electricity grid. Wildfires, some sparked by electrical equipment, caused rolling blackouts across the state. Hydroelectric dams that provided close to 13% of California’s power started facing shortages as drought dried reservoirs to new crisis levels. And the limited progress the power sector had made toward slashing emissions under the Obama administration’s climate regulations slowed after President Donald Trump took office and pushed to increase fossil fuel use.

In 2020, California regulators delayed the enforcement of new rules banning gas-fired plants from spewing warmed coolant water into waterways — the same problem for which the state went after Diablo Canyon — in a bid to avoid blackouts.

Last week, Newsom said California “would be remiss not to” file an application, due May 19, for federal funding to keep the plant open.

In an email, Newsom spokesperson Erin Mellon cautioned that the “governor does not have authority over Diablo Canyon’s license,” but added that the “Governor is in support of keeping all options on the table to ensure we have a reliable grid.”

Preventing a closure would require PG&E to apply to relicense the plant, then win approval from state and federal regulators. The process would likely take years. PG&E spokesperson Suzanne Hosn said in an email that the company was“always open to considering all options to ensure continued safe, reliable, and clean energy delivery to our customers.”

We always knew this was a political decision, not a financial decision. So I think it’s huge in that this opens the door. 

Isabelle Boemeke, pro-nuclear advocate

A 2021 study by researchers at MIT and Stanford University found that retrofitting Diablo Canyon to keep it operating until 2035 would reduce power sector emissions in California more than 10% below 2017 levels and save the state $2.6 billion in power system costs. If operated until 2045, those savings increase to $21 billion.

“We always knew this was a political decision, not a financial decision. So I think it’s huge in that this opens the door,” said Isabelle Boemeke, a pro-nuclear advocate in California who founded the group Save Clean Energy. “It’s just the beginning in terms of everything that needs to happen. ”

But opponents of nuclear power say salvaging the power station would divert resources away from efforts to slash energy use and increase renewable electricity generation.

“My worry is that if you create this false prospect that somehow Diablo Canyon stays around, you reduce pressure on everyone involved to accelerate the acquisition of new zero-carbon sources,” said Ralph Cavanagh, the energy co-director at the Natural Resources Defense Council and a key supporter of closing the plant. “Diablo Canyon is a false hope and a false prospect.”

The state has many options to import clean power from neighboring states if its own development of new sources lags, Cavanagh said. He added that the labor union representing the workers at the plant supported its closure. But on Friday, the union, now under new leadership, issued a public statement of support for keeping Diablo Canyon open.

“Californians are facing big challenges, from COVID to the impacts of extreme drought,” IBEW 1245 business manager Bob Dean wrote in a press release. “A shortage of electric power supply and rolling blackouts must not be added to this list.”

Political Smoke Signals, And Problems With Federal Funding

The White House’s $6 billion bailout fund limits eligibility to plants that are losing money in the face of competition from gas and other energy sources. That means Diablo Canyon, which is not losing money, would likely not qualify.

Paris Ortiz-Wines, a California-based organizer with the pro-nuclear group Stand Up for Nuclear, said Newsom was likely using the federal program as a way to signal his willingness to support the Biden administration’s efforts to keep reactors running.

“There’s some game being played,” she said. “Diablo Canyon does not need the federal funding, but I do think it’s in the political conversation right now, so it’s a safe way to make his announcement.”

The Colorado Fire burns down toward the Bixby Bridge in Big Sur, California, early Saturday morning, Jan. 22, 2022. 

(Photo: MediaNews Group/The Mercury News via Getty Images via Getty Images)

The Colorado Fire burns down toward the Bixby Bridge in Big Sur, California, early Saturday morning, Jan. 22, 2022. (Photo: MediaNews Group/The Mercury News via Getty Images via Getty Images)

Mark Nelson, a nuclear engineer and consultant who advocates for atomic power, said the move by Whitmer put pressure on Newsom. While Whitmer had not played the active role Newsom did in setting the stage for the next U.S. nuclear closures, the Michigan governor had remained silent throughout the process, according to the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a think tank that pushed to keep Palisades open. Both governors are widely discussed as potential Democratic presidential candidates.

“What he sees is another ambitious Democratic governor that’s pretty young going along with Biden’s desire, Sen. Joe Manchin’s desire and [Energy Secretary Jennifer] Granholm’s desire to save a nuclear plant,” Nelson said. “He wants to show, ‘I, too, can go along with the program if the program is nuclear.’”

A spokesperson for Whitmer did not respond to a request for comment on Monday.

But Chris Gadomski, the lead nuclear analyst at the energy consultancy BloombergNEF, warned that the eligibility requirements of the federal fund would make it difficult for many utilities to apply. Natural gas prices have more than doubled since the legislation creating the fund was debated, meaning reactors that financially struggled in years past might have more balanced books now that higher costs are making nuclear power more competitive.

“The way the rules are written, you have to be losing money to be eligible for support,” he said. “So now you have a problem: How can you close down nuclear plants when gas prices are so high? But when that’s the case, you have to change the rules.”

Nelson said he would be “utterly unsurprised if not a penny were disbursed” from the federal fund. But he still sees it as progress toward saving the country’s existing reactors and, eventually, building more.

“Nuclear plants are closing because they don’t know that they have long-term revenue, yet this is being addressed by an extremely short-termist program,” Nelson said. “I don’t look at the $6 billion as anything other than a very powerful, attractive sign of nuclear being in favor among Democrats.”

This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.

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America has created an elitist and tribal culture on abortion, climate change and immigration

’40 years ago, if I told you that this person supports abortion, you wouldn’t be able to tell how they felt about taxes, healthcare and immigration’


Abortion-rights and anti-abortion activist rally outside of the U.S. Supreme Court late Monday after Politico reports on a leaked draft majority opinion in which Justice Samuel Alito appears to hold that the cases Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey were wrongly decided, pointing to an end to federal protection of abortion rights across the country.
KEVIN DIETSCH/GETTY IMAGES


Last Updated: May 4, 2022
By Quentin Fottrell
MARKETWATCH

Does your financial security impact your moral priorities at the ballot box?

New research from Harvard University economists looks at political polarization in response to wealthy Americans prioritizing moral issues, even if these moral issues are split along party lines. The paper was released on Monday, hours before Politico reported that the U.S. Supreme Court appears set to strike down the landmark Roe v. Wade decision. The high court is expected to announce a decision within the next two months, ruling on a case brought by Mississippi that seeks to ban most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.


The group of social scientists from Harvard developed a theory on wealthy voters after creating a model, based on over 18,000 responses from Americans across the political spectrum, that predicted the emergence of economically left-wing elites and suggested that wealthier people are more likely than economically disadvantaged people to vote against their own financial interests. The model suggested that while rich moral liberals tend to be Democrats, and less wealthy moral conservatives skew Republican, there is more diversity on these issues within the Democratic Party than the Republican Party.

In other words, wealthier Americans can afford to prioritize concerns that don’t immediately affect their own personal financial well-being. The paper, “Morals as Luxury Goods and Political Polarization,” was distributed by the National Bureau of Economic Research on Monday, and was co-authored by Benjamin Enke, an associate professor at Harvard University; Mattias Polborn, a professor of economics and political science at Vanderbilt University; and Alex Wu, a doctoral student in the business economics program at Harvard.

Case in point: A generation ago, studies showed that abortion was rarely a decisive factor in party membership, Wu told MarketWatch. It has since, though, become a catalyzing issue in the U.S. that sharply divides the political left and right. “Forty years ago, if I told you that this person supports abortion, you wouldn’t be able to tell how they felt about taxes, healthcare and immigration. Today, if I told you they supported abortion, you would be able to predict what policy issues they hold and in that way those issues have become more aligned.”

‘Forty years ago, if I told you that this person supports abortion, you wouldn’t be able to tell how they felt about taxes, healthcare and immigration.’— Alex Wu, co-author of the working paper on money and morals

“Moral values are a luxury good,” Wu told MarketWatch. “We’re trying to understand a lot of patterns that have emerged about political polarization over time. It’s not to say that the poor don’t care about morals and the rich do; it’s that as people get richer they care more about morals.” Or, put another way, wealthier people are more vocal about prioritizing moral values when they vote and/or choose a political party. The model also predicted increasing polarization among political parties, leading to poorer moral conservatives swinging Republican even if their relative incomes have fallen.

Rich liberals are moving left, and poorer conservatives are moving right, even if it seems to outsiders that they are voting against their own financial interests, Wu said. “How are you going to trade your moral interests with your economic interests? Why does it seem that they have swung towards the moral side? Our story that can explain part of this is that the party positions have actually moved. The Democratic Party is more appealing to a poor conservative on economic issues, but the Republican Party is more appealing to poor conservatives on moral issues.”

The irony is that overturning Roe v. Wade will impact the poorest women and women of color, abortion rights advocates say, while wealthier women will have the resources to get abortions. (Roughly half of southern states have anti-abortion laws that would be triggered by overturning the 1973 ruling, and more than 50% of the nation’s Black population live in the south.) Similarly, rich Americans will be able to move to higher ground as sea temperatures rise due to climate change. And an “elitist” and “clientelist” U.S. immigration policy is leading to stagnation in a “broken” immigration system, according to this Cambridge University paper.

For their part, the Harvard researchers aggregated studies to create indicators of economic and social conservatism, and classify issues as economic or moral. They asked multiple-choice questions on a range of issues, including abortion: “(a) By law, abortion should never be permitted. (b) The law should permit abortion only in case of rape, incest, or when the woman’s life is in danger. (c) The law should permit abortion for reasons other than rape, incest, or danger to the woman’s life, but only after the need for the abortion has been clearly established. (d) By law, a woman should always be able to obtain an abortion as a matter of personal choice. (e) Other.”

The irony of theories drawing a line between politics, morals and money is that overturning Roe v. Wade will impact the poorest women and women of color, abortion rights advocates say.

Wu and his fellow authors cited the 2019 report “Hidden Tribes: A Study of America’s Polarized Landscape,” which also highlighted that wealthier voters at both ends of the political spectrum are particularly occupied with moral issues such as fairness and/or abortion — especially groups defined as “devoted conservatives” and “progressive activists.” (The other groups are defined as “traditional liberals,” “passive liberals,” “politically disengaged,” “moderates” and “traditional conservatives.” The report itself was based on an online poll of 8,000 Americans, 30 hour-long interviews, and six separate focus groups with 8 to 10 people.)

The results revealed the paradox of polarization: 55% of Americans believe that changing views on marriage and sex are causing a decline in family values, while 51% of Americans say those same changes are making America more accepting and tolerant. “The #MeToo movement, transgender rights, same-sex marriage and abortion are all sources of deep conflict in American politics,” according to Hidden Tribes. “Across a wide range of issues, the survey shows strong correlations between core beliefs and views on these issues.”

Putting those deeply emotional issues aside, a society’s moral values and beliefs also play a critical role in how that economy develops, and who is prioritized under that government’s policies, economists say. The World Values Survey, which explores people’s values and beliefs, and how they change with time and wealth or lack thereof, gives this broad example of how morality, money and government policies interact: “People’s beliefs play a key role in economic development, the emergence and flourishing of democratic institutions, the rise of gender equality, and the extent to which societies have effective government.”

Rich liberals are moving left, and poorer conservatives are moving right, even if it seems to outsiders that they are voting against their own financial interests.— Alex Wu

Consumers can soften their moral opposition to an issue with more information. Last month, researchers from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, the University of Toronto and Universidad del CEMA in Argentina looked at social disapproval and requests for regulation and price controls among consumers when prices surge. Those surges are not just seen as a sign of scarcity in a product, but also result in strong and polarized moral reactions. When disgruntled consumers are made more aware of, say, the increase in production costs and/or labor costs, however, they are more able to make trade-offs when deciding to buy that product or not.

But U.S. voters are fickle — and complex, and their opinions on issues like abortion may not exactly jive with their personal standards for who becomes president. For example, a large majority of Americans believe it’s important for the occupier of the Oval Office to lead an ethical and moral life, a poll released in 2020 by the Pew Research Center, a Washington, D.C.–based think tank, found. However, Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters are more likely than Republicans and Republican-leaning voters to say that is “very” important (71% vs. 53%). And yet fewer of the Democratic group (30%) than the Republican group (47%) say it’s “very” important to have a president stand up for their religious beliefs.

Simone Polillo, a professor of sociology at the University of Virginia who teaches a course in money and morality, wrote about the contradictions and misconceptions about how money affects morality, and how money itself is a democratic tool (with a small “d”), given that governments issue money and political communities can decide how it is spent and, indeed, if it should be spent. Polillo recently wrote in the University of Virginia publication UVA Today: “Thinkers as different as Adam Smith, Karl Marx and Georg Simmel all made some version of the argument that whenever money is involved, that’s when morality stops.”

Money, Polillo wrote, is intrinsically related to morality. On a personal — rather than political — level, he points out how bank lending, for example, is based on algorithms rather than on a handshake at your local bank, and those algorithms are based on policies created by a vast political and social infrastructure. “Consider the arcane, intricate and often-contested practices that constitute tipping culture in the United States — how much, when and who to tip are questions that can be rarely settled through simple quantitative calculations of the kinds Marx was so worried about.”


While almost all lawmakers on Capitol Hill agree with their party’s stance on abortion, these shifts have left some voters as outliers on moral issues in their own political party of choice.

As moral issues such as abortion increasingly become a catalyst for attracting and engaging voters amid heated debate everywhere from Twitter TWTR, +0.39% and Facebook FB, +5.37% to cable news, political analysts say parties will continue to bolster their bases using hot-button moral issues, creating a more politically polarized nation. “The Democratic Party has switched more to the left to appeal to these voters, while the Republican Party has switched more to the right to maintain their rich voters,” Wu said. “Some of those wealthy voters switched from Republican to Democrat.”

While almost all lawmakers on Capitol Hill agree with their party’s position on abortion, it has not been a straight line, these shifts have also left voters as outliers on moral issues in their own political party of choice. A sizable minorities of Republicans (35%) and Democrats (29%) said they do not agree with the majority position on abortion of the party they identify with or lean toward, a 2019 poll by the Pew Research Center concluded. Some are more likely to disagree than others: Democrats with less education, for instance, are less likely to agree with that party’s abortion-rights stance.

The current and previous occupier of the Oval Office have also flip-flopped. President Joe Biden has shifted in his position on abortion over the years. “While he has long supported Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling for a constitutional right to abortion in at least the first trimester, Biden also has often backed curbs on abortion. In 2006 he characterized himself as being ‘a little bit of an odd man out in my party’ on the issue,” Pew observed.

Former President Donald Trump, whose three nominees to the Supreme Court will widely be perceived as pivotal to the Roe reversal that the leaked draft majority opinion heralds, made a 180-degree turn on abortion rights. In 1999, he said he was “pro-choice in every respect.” As a presidential candidate and then president, he said, “Unborn children have never had a stronger defender in the White House.”

Wu and his authors had this to say about the political changes around issues such as abortion, immigration and environmental protection: “Our formulation implies that an agent who believes the morally appropriate economic policy is more conservative also believes that the morally appropriate social policy is more conservative.” As a result, observers say those polarizing forces in U.S. politics — turning abortion into a decades-long political wedge, as one example — further divide a country that seems increasingly unable to agree on a response to anything, whether foreign adversaries or a global pandemic.