Energy

Since 2021, Big Oil Has Spent Over $200 Million To Sabotage Climate Action

July 29, 2022 Jake Johnson, Common Dreams. Educate! Big Oil, Congress, Energy, Money in Politics

The oil and gas industry, one of the most powerful corporate forces in American politics, has spent more than $200 million over the past year and a half to stop Congress from slashing carbon emissions as evidence of their catastrophic impact—from deadly heatwaves to massive wildfires—continues to accumulate in stunning fashion. That topline estimate of the fossil fuel industry's lobbying outlays and congressional election spending in the U.S. was calculated by Climate Power, which provided its findings exclusively to Common Dreams. Nearly 80% of the industry's campaign donations during the time period examined went to Republican candidates, according to Climate Power, whose analysis draws on data from OpenSecrets.

South Africa’s Energy Crisis Escalates

July 28, 2022 Brian Kamanzi, Black Agenda Report. Educate! Colonialism, Energy, South Africa, Worker Rights

On the morning of June 27, 2022, National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) shop steward David Fankomo joined his fellow members at the picket line outside Eskom’s Emalahleni office in the heart of South Africa’s coal belt. Workers at Eskom, the nation’s state-owned electricity utility, have been embattled in four rounds of wage negotiations with the executives since April 2022. South Africa is rich in energy but is in the midst of cascading energy shortages. Fankomo’s union is at the heart of this crisis: the workers bring the coal out of the ground but live with barely enough of its energy. On June 28, Eskom announced that it was going to implement “Stage 6 load shedding” due to “unlawful industrial action.” “Load shedding” is defined as a rationing measure to reduce the demand for electrical energy by imposing rotational power outages when the supply from power plants is severely constrained.

Africans Decry Europe’s Energy Hypocrisy

July 24, 2022 Nosmot Gbadamosi, Foreign Policy. Educate! Africa, Energy, Europe, Oil and Gas, Russia

Europe, one of the largest consumers of Russian gas, is scrambling to find African alternatives as Russia threatens to permanently turn off the taps. Russia’s gas supply to Germany via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline was halted for routine maintenance last week, and there are concerns that Russia may not restart it. Moscow has already cut natural gas supplies to Poland, Finland, and Bulgaria, which refused Russia’s demand to pay in rubles. The Bavarian Industry Association forecasts that Germany could lose almost 13 percent of its economic performance in the latter half of this year if Russian gas stops flowing. Facing an energy crisis, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz went to Senegal in May to pursue the development of a gas field that’s expected to open next year.

Puerto Rico: Major Protest Over Energy Privatization

July 21, 2022 Reuters. Resist! Energy, Neocolonialism, Privatization, Puerto Rico

Hundreds of people marched on Wednesday in Puerto Rico's capital San Juan to demand that the island's government cancel its contract with power grid operator LUMA Energy over chronic power outages and frequent rate hikes. Demonstrators including union leaders and community activists say LUMA has steadily increased power rates despite frequent outages including one in April that left more than one- third of the island in darkness. read more Protestors shouted slogans including "There goes LUMA, there goes LUMA with another increase" and "LUMA, a bunch of morons who burn substations." Power rates have gone up five times since LUMA began operating Puerto Rico's transmission and distribution system on June 1, 2020. The last rate hike, which took effect at the start of July, pushed rates up by 17.1%.

Acceleration Forever? The Increasing Momentum Of Mineral Extraction

July 11, 2022 Kurt Cobb, Resilience. Educate! Energy, Environment, Mining, Oil and Gas, Resources

Half of all the oil consumed since the dawn of the modern oil age in 1859 has been consumed from 1998 through 2021 inclusive based on data available from the BP Statistical Review of World Energy. Approximately 1.4 trillion barrels of oil is thought to have been consumed to date (though there are estimates as low as 1.1 trillion). That means that in just the last 24 years total historical oil consumption has doubled. It is hard for most people to imagine the vast increases in the rate of consumption of practically everything that makes modern life possible. Resources appear without most of us ever thinking about how or whether the rising rates of consumption can be sustained.

Billions Of Humans Depend On 50,000 Wild Species For Food, Fuel And Income

July 10, 2022 Olivia Rosane, EcoWatch. Educate! Biodiversity, Economic, Energy, Food and Agriculture, Sustainability

A new report from the The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) – which is often described as the “IPCC for biodiversity” – found that billions of people depend on 50,000 wild species for food, medicine, fuel and income from activities like tourism. “70% of the world’s poor are directly dependent on wild species. One in five people rely on wild plants, algae and fungi for their food and income; 2.4 billion rely on fuel wood for cooking and about 90% of the 120 million people working in capture fisheries are supported by small-scale fishing,” assessment co-chair Dr. Marla R. Emery said in a press release.

The Pacific Northwest Has Defeated Dozens Of Fossil Fuel Projects

June 27, 2022 Nick Cunningham, DeSmog. Resist! Energy, Fossil Fuels, Northwest, Pipelines

New large-scale fossil fuel projects have become mostly unworkable in the Pacific Northwest, with dozens canceled over the past decade due to fierce opposition from local communities. But the industry’s blitz is not yet over. Instead, rather than building new pipelines, it is seeking to expand existing infrastructure in a way that will provoke less pushback. Since 2012, an estimated 55 coal, oil, and natural gas projects have been proposed for the Pacific Northwest — encompassing Oregon and Washington, as well as British Columbia. But more than 70 percent of them have been defeated, according to a recent study from the Seattle-based Sightline Institute. “The fossil fuel industry really was trying to turn the Pacific Northwest into a coal, oil, and gas export hub,” Emily Moore, a senior researcher at Sightline Institute, told DeSmog.

The Mexico Option

June 27, 2022 Bruce Baigrie, Africa Is A Country. Create! AMLO, Energy, Mexico, South Africa

In the 2018 Mexican general election, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (known as “AMLO”) swept to victory. His presidential victory coincided with the historic collapse of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI). Barring losses in 2000 and 2006, the PRI had ruled Mexico uninterrupted since 1929 (under three different titles). In 2012, PRI’s Enrique Peña Nieto won the presidency with 39.17%; but by 2018, the PRI received just 16.4% of the vote compared with the 54.71% (the largest margin since 1982) received by AMLO’s Movimiento Regeneración Nacional (MORENA). The issue of corruption was front and center in this election, and AMLO explicitly framed it as a systemic byproduct of neoliberalism.

Young Victims Of Climate Disasters Sue EU States Over Energy Treaty

June 23, 2022 Olivia Rosane, EcoWatch. Resist! climate crisis, Energy, European Union (EU), Legal System

In the latest attempt to use the courts to address the climate crisis, five young people are suing 12 EU countries over membership in a treaty that they argue puts the needs of fossil fuel companies above climate action. The young people brought their case before the European Court of Human Rights on Tuesday, as Euractiv reported. The lawsuit targets the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT), which gives energy companies the right to sue governments for compensation when their policies threaten profits. “Governments are still putting profits of the fossil fuel industry over human rights. But climate change is escalating and demanding more and more lives every day,” a plaintiff named Julia, who is 17, said in a statement reported by Reuters.

National Community Solar Programs Tracker

June 19, 2022 Maria McCoy and John Farrell , Institute For Local Self-Reliance. Create! Community Control, Energy, Solar Energy

For decades, rooftop solar has allowed homeowners to generate their own renewable electricity — reducing their dependence on monopoly utilities and lowering their energy bills. However, solar rooftops are not a viable option for many people. What about those who can’t afford one? What about renters? Plus, only a portion of buildings have roofs that are large enough, facing the right direction, and sunny enough for solar. Community solar picks up where traditional rooftop solar fails. Through community solar, individuals subscribe to a portion of a nearby solar garden and get credits on their energy bill for the electricity it produces. This way, people without the financial means for solar on their rooftops and people who don’t own suitable rooftops can still reap the benefits of renewable energy.

Unions Making A Green New Deal From Below

June 13, 2022 Jeremy Brecher, Labor 4 Sustainability. Organize! Energy, Green New Deal, Just transition, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Somerville, MA is an inner suburb of Boston and the most densely populated city in New England with 81,000 residents. It was long an industrial center inhabited by repeated waves of immigrants, but it has increasingly become a bedroom community for Boston and Cambridge. Somerville is currently being transformed by the extension of the Boston Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) subway system’s Green Line throughout the city, bringing transit access to 80% of Somerville residents. Over five million square feet of new development is in the works. Somerville’s long-term mayor supported development but not union labor for either city employees or for construction, much of which, to the dismay of building trades unions, was done non-union.

As US LNG Expands In Europe, A Hidden Threat Grows

June 11, 2022 Justin Nobel, DeSmog. Educate! Energy, Gas export, health, Radiation

In March, President Biden and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced a joint task force with the goal of getting Europe off Russian gas and onto more of America’s fracked gas. Most Russian gas reaches Europe via pipeline, so getting U.S. gas to Europe will involve liquifying it and then shipping it across the Atlantic. And as shipments of liquified natural gas (LNG) from the United States increase, so too do the threats from an unwelcome intruder inherently part of America’s natural gas mix — radioactivity. That’s because government figures indicate that much of the gas that will be shipped to Europe may come from the Marcellus and Utica, black shale formations in Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania.

Electric Co-ops Are Well Situated To Lead The Green Energy Transition

June 3, 2022 Robert Raymond, Resilience. Create! Cooperatives, Energy, Green Economy, Public Banks

To maintain a livable climate, the United States must make immediate and drastic changes to its energy policies. Perhaps the most important change is the need for a transition away from fossil fuels toward cleaner, more renewable sources of energy. A new report by the Democracy Collaborative has found that community utilities — those that are publicly or cooperatively owned — are better suited for a green transition than their for-profit corporate counterparts. The report also found that many community utilities, as they currently exist, must be significantly reformed to fulfill their full potential. Electric co-ops operate in pretty much the same way as investor-owned utilities companies, like PG&E.

Appalachia Does Not Need More Fossil Fuel Greed

June 3, 2022 Emily Satterwhite, DeSmog. Educate! Appalachia, Capitalism, Energy, Environment, Fossil Fuels

A fossil fuel executive recently told Fortune, “Appalachia is the elephant in the room,” referring to the claim that demand for natural gas is rising, while supply in Appalachia and the United States is falling. Such corporate executives would like to see expansion of production in order to bail out their dying industry. And Fortune’s interviewee is right. Appalachia is the elephant in the room. We need to talk more about the role of Appalachia in the country’s energy system. But what he gets wrong is that the future does not entail further dependence on fossil fuels. The future that Appalachia can and will lead is in renewable energy. For over a century, this region has powered the country’s growth with our natural resources, including coal, gas, and oil.

Public Comment Is Taking A Back Seat In Biden’s Push To Export More LNG

May 28, 2022 Julie Dermansky, DeSmog. Educate! Energy, Gas export, Joe Biden, Oil and Gas

During a virtual meeting on May 11, the public had an opportunity to comment on a proposed floating LNG export facility 16 miles off the coast of Grand Isle, Louisiana, a barrier island that was badly crippled last year by Hurricane Ida and is still recovering. Proposed by New Fortress Energy (NFE), the planned facility will be a floating offshore export terminal that would treat, liquefy, and store methane gas before loading it onto ships headed abroad. If realized, the terminal could export up to the equivalent of 145 billion cubic feet of the fossil fuel per year. Its application comes shortly after the Biden administration committed in March “to make available up to 15 billion cubic meters additional LNG this year” in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Europe’s attempts to reduce dependency on Russian gas.

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