Fossil Fuels

The Renewables Rush In Texas

August 12, 2022 Nathan Jensen and Isabella Steinhauer, Consortium News. Educate! climate crisis, Fossil Fuels, Renewable Energy, Texas

Texas is known for fiercely promoting its oil and gas industries, but it’s also the No. 2 renewable energy producer in the U.S. after California. In fact, more than a quarter of all the wind power produced in the United States in 2021 was generated in Texas. These projects benefit from a lucrative state tax incentive program called Chapter 313. That incentive program expires on Dec. 31, 2022, and the rush of applications for wind and solar energy projects to secure incentives before the deadline is providing a rare window into a notoriously opaque industry. By reviewing the applications and ownership documents, we were able to track who actually builds and owns a large portion of the nation’s renewable energy, when and how those assets change hands, and who ultimately benefits from the tax incentives.

Against Your Demands: Lessons From Occupy McGill

August 5, 2022 Montreal CounterInfo It's Going Down. Strategize! Demands, Education, Fossil Fuels, Occupy

In 2022, I was an active anarchist in the two week occupation of McGill University. In the months prior to the occupation, I was part of the meetings that discussed the idea of pitching up tents in the Arts building. Back then, we were just 6 people at a picnic table. I witnessed the successes and failures of the occupation (and of its offshoots at Concordia and UdeM) but until now have not written anything on the subject. Earlier this month, an international call to action was launched: “End Fossil – Occupy.“ In a *Guardian* opinion piece, students are urged to “occupy our campuses to demand the end of the fossil economy.” This call seems to follow the example set by McGill, which has received somewhat broad attention.

As Congress Passes A ‘Climate Suicide Pact,’ The Fight To Declare A Climate Emergency Continues

August 1, 2022 Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG. Podcast climate crisis, Congress, Fossil Fuels, Joe Biden

As heatwaves, droughts and wild fires ravage the planet, pressure is building on the White House and Congress to take substantive action to address the climate crisis. More than a thousand organizations in the United States have come together as the People vs Fossil Fuels coalition with the demand that President Biden declare a climate emergency and use his executive powers to stop fossil fuel extraction and new infrastructure. Their actions have succeeded in reopening climate provisions in Congress' Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which is expected to pass this week, but the bill contains poison pills that offset the beneficial sections. Jean Su, an attorney and director of the Energy Justice Program with the Center for Biological Diversity joined Clearing the FOG to explain what the President could do, the problems with IRA and what we can do to protect our chances for a livable future.

Red Hill: Navy Hid Video Of 20,000 Gallons Of Jet Fuel Spewing

July 9, 2022 Colonel (Ret.) Ann Wright, Popular Resistance. Resist! Fossil Fuels, Red Hill, US Navy, Water Pollution

A dramatic video hidden for 6 months by the Navy of the 34 hours showing 20,000 gallons of jet fuel spraying into a Red Hill tunnel and disappearing into a floor drain that sent thousands of gallons into the water supply of 93,000 residents surfaced on July 5 after an undisclosed Navy employee made public a video that the Navy continued to maintain did not exist. What little good will for the Navy that was left in the civilian and military community of Honolulu has disappeared as the Navy continues to lie about the Red Hill jet fuel contamination of the drinking water of 93,000.

Fossil Fuel Interests Are Behind Canada’s Blue Hydrogen Push

July 7, 2022 Danielle Paradis, DeSmog. Educate! Blue Hydrogen, Canada, Fossil Fuels, greenwashing

Talk to fossil fuel execs, government ministers, and industry reps these days and they’ll all tell a similar story: Blue hydrogen is the clean fuel of the future that will help Canada and the world get to net-zero emissions. It’ll power everything from airplanes to long-haul trucks and will even heat our homes. Canadian media has called blue hydrogen, which is produced from natural gas and has its emissions captured, “a key part” of the nation’s emissions-reduction strategy and “fairly clean” — a claim that echoes an infographic from ATCO, a major Canadian energy company, that said blue hydrogen produces “nearly zero emissions.”

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.

Rebels Disrupt DC Council To Demand An End To New Fossil Fuel Projects

June 21, 2022 Extinction Rebellion. Resist! climate crisis, Extinction Rebellion, Fossil Fuels, Washington D.C.

Rebels wearing hazmat suits and gas masks disrupted a legislative session of the city council today to demand the council stops the construction of new fossil fuel infrastructure in the city. Washington Gas plans to spend $4.5 billion on new methane gas pipes in the district. This new fossil fuel infrastructure would lock in decades of planet-heating greenhouse gas emissions while continuing to poison and endanger DC residents. As council members met for the session on June 7th, rebels used loudspeakers to blast a speech in which United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres says that averting climate catastrophe requires an immediate stop to all new fossil fuel projects. The UN chief also calls governments that are allowing more fossil fuel projects "dangerous radicals".

Canada Steps Up Surveillance Of Indigenous Peoples To Push Pipelines

June 19, 2022 Nick Cunningham, DeSmog. Resist! Canada, Fossil Fuels, Indigenous Rights, Pipelines, Surveillance

Canadian police and security forces have intensified their surveillance and harassment of Indigenous people in recent months in an effort to clear the way for the construction of two long-distance oil and gas pipelines in British Columbia, earning the condemnation of international human rights observers. “The Governments of Canada and of the Province of British Columbia have escalated their use of force, surveillance, and criminalization of land defenders and peaceful protesters to intimidate, remove and forcibly evict Secwepemc and Wet’suwet’en Nations from their traditional lands,” the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) wrote in an April 29 letter.

Walk For Appalachia’s Future Connects Struggles In The Region

June 6, 2022 Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG. Podcast Appalachia, Extraction, Fossil Fuels, sacrifice zone

Activists just completed the "Walk for Appalachia's Future" through West Virginia, North Carolina and Virginia to highlight the impacts of fossil fuel extraction on communities and the land. At each stop, they held events with local activists to learn about their struggles and make broader connections. The Appalachian region is a sacrifice zone - rich in mineral wealth that is extracted by large corporations without benefit to the people. West Virginia is the fifth poorest state in the US with low education attainment and high rates of physical and mental diseases. Clearing the FOG speaks with two organizers of the walk, Maury Johnson and Melinda Tuhus, about the conditions that led to organizing the walk and what they have learned along the way as well as the people's vision for the region.

Emptying The Navy’s Red Hill Jet Fuel Tanks Need Not Take Two Years

June 6, 2022 Ann Wright, Popular Resistance. Educate! Fossil Fuels, Hawaii, Red Hill, US military

Ten days ago, late on a Friday afternoon, May 27, 2022, the contractor’s assessment of the repairs needed in the US Navy’s Red Hill Jet Fuel Storage Area was delivered to the Hawai’i Department of Health. The redacted report made available to the public shed light on how badly managed and maintained the massive 80-year-old, 20 storage tank, 250 million gallon facility located a mere 100 feet above Honolulu’s water supply, had become. In fact, according to the report, the November 2021 jet fuel leak that went into Pearl Harbor’s residential Red Hill drinking water well was just one of many dangerous time bombs in the facility waiting to happen. The $1.45 million Simpson, Gumpertz & Heger, Inc. contracted report underscores that there were many “near misses” with potentially even greater disasters than the May and November 2021 leaks/spills from the large jet fuel tank system.

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.

Walk For Appalachia’s Future Reaches Monroe County, WV

May 28, 2022 Appalachian Voices, Popular Resistance. Resist! climate crisis, Fossil Fuels, Walk, West Virginia

Monroe County, WV - The Walk for Appalachia’s Future, a multi-day event amplifying the Appalachian region’s fights for environmental justice and renewable energy, launched on Tuesday, May 24 in Ireland, WV and continues through June 4, where the final event will be a youth-led rally in Richmond, VA. The Walk is bringing together community members and allies to highlight environmental damages caused by the fossil fuel industry, and the need to cancel the Mountain Valley Pipeline. The Tuesday, May 24 program featured an event in Ireland, WV with a photography exhibition and a guest speaker, Rose DeProspero, who shared testimony and images of the sedimentation from the Mountain Valley Pipeline occurring at her home.

Existing Fossil Fuel Fields And Mines Must Be Closed To Meet 1.5°C Goal

May 18, 2022 Olivia Rosane, EcoWatch. Educate! Carbon emissions, climate crisis, Fossil Fuels, Mining

In 2021, the International Energy Agency (IEA) warned that, in order to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, no new oil and gas fields or coal mines could be developed. Now, a study published in Environmental Research Letters Tuesday goes even further: In order to meet the 1.5 goal, we will have to abandon nearly 40 percent of “developed reserves” of fossil fuels. “Going beyond recent warnings by the International Energy Agency, our results suggest that staying below 1.5°C may require governments and companies not only to cease licensing and development of new fields and mines, but also to prematurely decommission a significant portion of those already developed,” the study authors wrote.

How A Gas Facility Started A Fight Over Climate Change And Sovereignty

May 3, 2022 Rico Moore, Last Real Indians. Resist! Fossil Fuels, Indigenous Rights, Oil and Gas, Washington

In the Tideflats of Tacoma, Washington, beyond the masts of sailboats anchored in the Puyallup Tribe’s marina, pipelines emerge from the earth and snake their way inland. Their destination — an 8 million-gallon liquefied methane gas tank — was once considered by politicians to be the logical answer to the climate crisis. Now, it’s the center of a local controversy with international implications. The tank, owned by Puget Sound Energy, is the product of a recent era of proposed climate solutions. In 2012, the Environmental Protection Agency gave the shipping company TOTE Maritime a waiver to switch its operations to methane gas, also referred to as natural gas, in order to encourage it to lower the sulfur output from its diesel emissions.

Radioactivity Levels Found Outside Ohio Oilfield Waste Facility ‘Excessive’

May 3, 2022 Justin Nobel, DeSmog. Educate! Environment, Fossil Fuels, Ohio, Radiation

Activists and scientists have found alarming levels of radioactivity in samples collected along the road and soils outside Austin Master Services, an oilfield waste processing facility with a history of sloppy practices in eastern Ohio. The facility is located just down the street from a high school football stadium and less than 1,000 feet from a set of city drinking water wells, raising public health concerns from a nuclear forensics scientist about the extent of possible radioactive contamination. Last November, members of two advocacy groups, Concerned Ohio River Residents and Mountain Watershed Association, collected soil samples from outside the Martins Ferry, Ohio facility of Austin Master Services, a Pottstown, Pennsylvania-based company that operates in 10 states.

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