Energy

Gas-Backed Front Group Spreads Misinformation About Electrification

February 13, 2022 Nick Cunningham, DeSmog. Educate! Astroturfing, Colorado, Energy, Oil and Gas

A group of natural gas companies and utilities in Colorado formed a front group to oppose the state’s push towards electrifying homes and businesses, spreading misinformation about the cost of electric heating while also promoting false solutions to lock in the ongoing use of natural gas. The group, “Coloradans for Energy Access,” is made up of a coalition of gas companies, real estate interests, utilities, and other energy trade associations, including Atmos Energy, American Public Gas Association, and the Consumer Energy Alliance. Announcing its formation in an op-ed in the Colorado Sun, Coloradans for Energy Access decried what it calls “forced electrification,” a reference to a growing movement in Colorado and around the country to discourage or prohibit natural gas connections in newly constructed homes and commercial buildings in an effort to slash greenhouse gas emissions.

Shell Needs To Be Dismantled – Here’s How

February 13, 2022 Marie-Sol Reindl, Open Democracy. Strategize! climate crisis, Energy, Fossil Fuels, Shell Oil

It has been a turbulent year for the oil and gas giant Shell. Last May, Dutch courts ruled that Shell must drastically reduce its carbon emissions. In October, ABP, a major shareholder, divested from the company. The following month, the firm announced plans to move its headquarters from the Hague to London and drop its iconic prefix, ‘Royal Dutch’ (the company is now just Shell plc). And, in recent weeks, it has come under fire for its mammoth 14-fold increase in quarterly profits, having made $16.3bn (£12bn) pre-tax profit in the last quarter of 2021, while gas prices surged across Europe. Now, as Shell presents itself as a global leader in the green energy transition, it is still actively investing in new oil and gas drilling.

Rather Than Sink Main Street, The Fed Could Save It

February 11, 2022 Ellen Brown, Scheer Post. Create! Energy, Federal Reserve, Finance and the Economy, Food Access

Not only will raising interest rates not fix the supply crisis, but according to Alasdair Macleod, head of research at GoldMoney in London, U.K., that wrong medicine is likely to trigger the next financial crisis. He thinks it is imminent and will start in Europe, where negative interest rates brought the cost of doing repo trades to zero. As a result, the European repo market is now over €10 trillion ($11.4 trillion), far more than the capital available to unwind it (to reverse or close the trades). Rising interest rates will trigger that unwinding, says MacLeod, and the ECB lacks the tools to avoid the resulting crisis. Meanwhile, oil prices have risen over 50% and natural gas over 60% in Europe in the past year, “due to a supply crisis of its governments’ own making,” writes Macleod.

New Reports Allege Texas Oil And Gas Regulator’s Lax Enforcement

February 9, 2022 Amal Ahmed, DeSmog. Educate! Energy, health, Oil and Gas, Regulation, Texas

When a Canadian company started drilling for oil and gas near Jim and Sue Franklin’s ranch in a small Permian Basin town called Verhalen, Texas, it didn’t bother the couple too much at first. But Sue suspects that it was the third well that started causing problems. “They put up these big signs that said, ‘H2S gas, danger, keep out, blah blah blah,’” she says. The well was being drilled in what’s called a sour-gas field, an oil field that naturally has a high concentration of a deadly gas called hydrogen sulfide (H2S). The company promised the Franklins that the gas — which can cause headaches, irritate respiratory systems, and even be fatal in high concentrations — would never get into their home, despite the fact that it was barely a mile away.

Cost Of Living Crisis Was Caused By Privatisation And Austerity

February 9, 2022 Diane Abbott, Open Democracy. Educate! Austerity, Energy, Neoliberalization, United Kingdom (UK)

On official forecasts, the British public is facing the biggest fall in living standards since records began. This is in the headlines now because of the huge rise in energy bills, which will force more households into choosing between eating and heating. Blaming Russia for the surge in energy prices is a classic conjuror’s trick of misdirection. The US gets almost zero oil from Russia, but is currently experiencing even higher consumer price inflation. In reality, a laissez-faire approach to the energy sector is at the root of the problem in both the UK and the US. In France, where EDF is largely nationalized, energy prices are set to rise – but by just 4%. Government and especially Treasury ideology going back to Margaret Thatcher has been based on false assertions about the superiority of private enterprise.

Is The California Coalition Fighting Subsidies For Rooftop Solar A Fake Grassroots Group?

February 8, 2022 Anne Marshall-Chalmers and Dan Gearino, Inside Climate News. Educate! Astroturfing, California, Energy, Solar Energy

In the fight over California’s rooftop solar policy, a coalition that claims to represent low-income, senior and environmental leaders is running ads warning about a cost shift that forces consumers to subsidize solar for people who live in mansions. This message, by Affordable Clean Energy for All, is trying to influence the debate as California regulators consider rules that would sharply reduce the financial benefits of owning rooftop systems. But Affordable Clean Energy for All is not a grassroots movement. It is a public relations campaign sponsored by big utility companies that stand to benefit from policies that hurt rooftop solar. Many of the 100-plus groups that make up the coalition have received charitable donations or other financial support from the utilities.

Big Problems With Proposals For Small Nuclear Reactors

January 28, 2022 Mike Garrity, Counter Punch. Educate! Energy, Environment, Montana, Nuclear Energy

Politicians and investor-owned utilities are now proposing small nuclear reactors in Montana to replace the old coal-fired power plants at Colstrip. For the last 44 years a successful Citizens’ Initiative banned nuclear power in Montana unless approved by the voters. But Republican majorities in the 2021 Montana legislature repealed the initiative and Republican Governor Gianforte signed the bill into law. There are similar proposals in Wyoming and Idaho. But the rush to nukes suffered a major setback this month when the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission denied the application to build and operate the nation’s first small modular nuclear 720 megawatt reactor at the Idaho National Laboratory.

Climate Change In The American Empire

January 28, 2022 Simon Turner, Audacity Magazine. Strategize! climate crisis, Energy, Environment, Nationalization

Here’s to 2022. A new year to displace one of the twenty previous warmest years globally since records began: the last twenty apart from 1998 with its strong El Niño. The summer of 2021 saw the Met Office in the UK issue what was its first-ever “extreme heat warning.” Over in Germany’s North Rhine-Westphalia, flash floods left more than 120 people dead. “You don’t expect people to die in a flood in Germany. Maybe in poorer countries, you could understand it, but not in Germany” was a comment that went viral. Question: What’s the difference between climate change and COVID?

Hydrogen’s Hidden Emissions

January 22, 2022 Global Witness. Educate! Carbon emissions, Energy, Hydrogen, Shell Oil

In just a few years, hydrogen has shot into mainstream conversations about tackling the climate crisis. It is now one of the most hotly discussed energy topics, and a very particular form of hydrogen known as fossil hydrogen (or 'blue hydrogen’) is being pushed by the fossil fuel industry for government backing. They claim it is climate friendly and can help with efforts to decarbonize our energy system, as it involves the use of carbon capture technology to trap and store emissions. One of the very few plants of this type, “Quest” is owned by Shell in Alberta, Canada. Shell have boasted about the project as an example of how it is tackling global heating, claiming that the project demonstrates that carbon capture systems are “safe and effective” and is a “thriving example” of how this technology can significantly reduce carbon emissions.

Farmers Reject Nicor’s Pipe Dream

January 21, 2022 Zoe Pharo, In These Times. Resist! Chicago, Community organizing, Energy, Pipelines

Pembroke Township, Illinois - At the end of a maze of dirt roads lies a 40-acre teaching farm called Black Oaks Center, where local residents gathered on a Sunday in November 2021 for a farmland restoration workshop and community gathering. “If you all want to bust wood again, they’re out there,” said Dr. Jifunza Wright-Carter — who runs the center with her husband, Fred Carter — to the newest arrivals. Some joined the group clearing felled trees for off-grid homesteading, while others stayed inside to warm up and chat. In addition to raising food and hosting classes, Black Oaks has become a hub for organizing against a proposed natural gas pipeline some locals say threatens the area’s farming way of life, which is rooted in environmental stewardship.

The Indigenous Grandmothers Who Stopped A Pipeline

January 13, 2022 Lindsay Jones, Maclean's. Strategize! Energy, Environment, Indigenous Rights, Pipelines

Cheryl Maloney’s eyes glossed over with tears as she stood near the bank of the Stewiacke River in the middle of Nova Scotia. The news was finally sinking in. Behind her, about 100 people filled plates with spaghetti and fried chicken; the crowd included her 11-year-old grandson, Drake Nevin, one of many children who’d spent most of their childhoods fighting alongside Elders to protect this river system. She saw the drift netters—white fishers who catch shad in these waters—reminiscing, and amber leaves floating on the water like confetti. Two weeks earlier, Alton Gas, a subsidiary of Calgary-based AltaGas, had abandoned a project that would have pumped 10,000 cubic metres of brine into the mouth of this river each day for as long as a decade, leaving behind subterranean caverns where the company planned to store natural gas.

What Can A 1970s Farmers’ Uprising Against An Energy Transition Teach Us?

January 4, 2022 Dan Gearino, Inside Climate News. Educate! Energy, Farmers, Infrastructure, Minnesota

If the United States is to make a transition to clean energy, it will need to build many more transmission lines—the thick wires that deliver power from rural areas, where there’s enough open space for wind and solar, to cities where the most power is consumed. But the process of building those lines is likely to be fraught with conflict and delays, because people in rural and suburban communities often don’t want to see wires and tall metal towers in their backyards. Clean energy advocates say that power companies need to do more to understand what fuels public opposition and how best to engage with power line opponents. And one way to start, they say, might be to examine one of the most intense battles over an interstate power line in U.S. history, which unfolded across rural Minnesota for much of the 1970s.

Germany One Step Closer To Nuclear-Free Future

January 1, 2022 Brett Wilkins, Common Dreams. Create! Energy, Environment, Germany, Nuclear Power

Green groups on Friday celebrated as Germany prepared to shut down three of its six remaining nuclear power plants, part of that country's ambitious goal of transitioning to mostly renewable energy by the end of the decade. The nuclear phaseout—which was proposed by the center-left government of former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder at the turn of the century and accelerated under former Chancellor Angela Merkel following the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan—is a key component of a plan by Germany's new Social Democrat, Green, and Free Democrat governing coalition to produce 80% of the country's power from renewable sources by the end of the decade. Renewables accounted for 43% of German electricity consumption through the first three quarters of 2021, down from 48% during the same period last year, according to Clean Energy Wire.

Rally Calls For ISO To Fix The Grid In New England

November 15, 2021 Community Action Works, Popular Resistance. Resist! Electric Grid, Energy, Fossil Fuels, Northeast

Dozens of people gathered in Holyoke, Massachusetts to protest the New England electric system operator, known as ISO-NE, for ignoring public concerns and hampering the transition from dirty fossil fuels to clean solar and wind power. One speaker, Nathan Phillips, a professor in the Department of Earth and Environment at Boston University, summed up the prevailing spirit, “It's time for ISO to declare independence from our fossil fueled energy system and operate differently, with the urgency our climate crisis demands.” Mirelle Bejjani of Community Action Works said, “We’re having this rally because the electric system in the Northeast needs to be powered by renewable energy and the steps decision-makers are proposing are too little too late.”

Cop26: Surging Wood Pellet Industry Threatens Climate

November 10, 2021 Sharon Guynup, Mongabay. Educate! Biomass, climate crisis, COP26, Energy

Representatives From 192 Nations Continue Meeting In Glasgow, Scotland, At COP26 This Week In Hopes Of Making Deals To Save Humanity, Cool The Planet, And Salvage Their Nations’ Reputations. However, Absent From The Conference Agenda Are Discussions Of Carbon Accounting Loopholes That Scientists Say Are Dangerously Underreporting Emissions And Speeding Climate Change. An Overlooked Issue Is Forest Biomass: Burning Wood To Produce Energy. Despite Research Proving Otherwise, The Practice Continues To Be Called Carbon Neutral By Nations And The Forestry Industry, Allowing Significant Greenhouse Gas Emissions To Go Uncounted. That Has Caused Some Policy And Advocacy Groups To Dub Forest Biomass Burning “The Green Myth.”

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