Northwest Oregon had never seen anything like it. Over the course of three days in June 2021, Multnomah County — the Emerald State’s most populous county, which rests in the swayback along Oregon’s northern border — recorded highs of 108, 112, and 116 degrees Fahrenheit.

Temperatures were so hot that the metal on cable cars melted and the asphalt on roadways buckled. Nearly half the homes in the county lacked cooling systems because of Oregon’s typically gentle summers, where average highs top out at 81 degrees. Sixty-nine people perished from heat stroke, most of them in their homes.

When scientific studies showed that the extreme temperatures were caused by heat domes, which experts say are influenced by climate change, county officials didn’t just chalk it up to a random weather occurrence. They started researching the large fossil fuel companies whose emissions are driving the climate crisis — including Exxon Mobil, Shell, and Chevron — and sued them.

“This catastrophe was not caused by an act of God,” said Jeffrey B. Simon, a lawyer for the county, “but rather by several of the world’s largest energy companies playing God with the lives of innocent and vulnerable people by selling as much oil and gas as they could.”

Now, 11 months after the suit was filed, Multnomah County is preparing to move forward with the case in Oregon state court after a federal judge in June settled a monthslong debate over where the suit should be heard.

Read Next

These Supreme Court decisions just made it harder to solve climate change

Akielly Hu

About three dozen lawsuits have been filed by states, counties, and cities seeking damages from oil and gas companies for harms caused by climate change. Legal experts said the Oregon case is one of the first focused on public health costs related to high temperatures during a specific occurrence of the “heat dome effect.” Most of the other lawsuits seek damages more generally from such ongoing climate-related impacts as sea level rise, increased precipitation, intensifying extreme weather events, and flooding.

Pat Parenteau, professor of law emeritus at Vermont Law and Graduate School, said that zeroing in on the heat and the heat dome effect are elements that might make the Multnomah case easier to prove.

“When it comes to the extreme heat events that affected Portland, the scientists concluded, in looking at that event and then looking at historical records of heat waves in the Pacific Northwest, it would not have happened but for human-caused climate change,” Parenteau said. 

“That’s actually the first time I’ve ever seen climate scientists state a conclusion like that in such absolute terms,” he added.

Korey Silverman-Roati, a fellow at Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change, also said the case was distinctive because it focused on a specific event. “A lot of these other suits are alleging more long-term impact harm from climate change, like sea level rise is something that happens over the course of decades,” Silverman-Roati said. “Whereas the Multnomah suit is this 2021 heat dome disaster that they had to deal with.”

Read Next

A group of young people just forced Hawaiʻi to take major climate action

Naveena Sadasivam

The Multnomah County lawsuit says that Exxon, Shell, Chevron, and others engaged in a range of improper practices, including negligence, creating a public nuisance, fraud, and deceit.

The suit alleges that the companies were aware of the harms of fossil fuels and engaged in a “scheme to rapaciously sell fossil fuel products and deceptively promote them as harmless to the environment, while they knew that carbon pollution emitted by their products into the atmosphere would likely cause deadly extreme heat events like that which devastated Multnomah County.”

“We know that climate-induced weather events like the 2021 heat dome harm the residents of Multnomah County and cause real financial costs to our local government,” Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson said in a statement. “The court’s decision to hear this lawsuit in state court validates our assertion that the case should be resolved here — it’s an important win for this community.”

A spokesperson for Exxon declined to comment on the case; representatives for Shell and Chevron did not respond to requests for comment.

A common defense for fossil fuel companies is arguing that existing environmental laws, such as the Clean Air Act, are already responsible for regulating air quality so legal actions should not be allowed under state law, Silverman-Roati noted.

In the suit, officials in the county, which includes Portland — Oregon’s largest city, with about 640,000 people — say that they will ultimately incur costs in excess of $1.5 billion to deal with the effects of the 2021 heat dome.

Read Next

Vermont passed a bill making Big Oil pay. Now comes the hard part.

Sachi Kitajima Mulkey & Syris Valentine

“We allege that this is just like any other kind of public health crisis and mass destruction of property that is caused by corporate wrongdoing,” said Simon, who is a partner in the law firm of Simon Greenstone Panatier. “We contend that these companies polluted the atmosphere with carbon from the burning of fossil fuels; that they foresaw that extreme environmental harm would be caused by it; that some of them, we contend, deliberately misled the public about that.”

The suit cites some of the internal correspondence by the companies, which Multnomah County officials said indicates that the industry was aware as far back as 1965 that pollution could have “catastrophic consequences.”

“Nobody in the leadership of Multnomah County imagined that it would ever be 124 degrees in Portland,” Simon said. “But we contend that the defendants did foresee that you would have extreme changes, which can include that kind of harm — and didn’t tell the truth about it.”

Legal experts said that while the allegations in the suit draw on the kind of traditional tort law that is cited in other cases in which public health wrongdoing is alleged, the efficacy of that approach in a suit involving climate change is uncertain.

Chris Wold, a professor of environmental law at Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, said the county’s case might be helped by technological advances in weather modeling that can tie greenhouse gases to “specific impacts in specific regions.”

“In the past, it was very common for people to say, ‘Look, we can’t tie this hurricane or this heat wave to concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere,’” Wold said. “Increasingly, we are able to say that. The climate models are now good enough to say, ‘We should expect to see these heat increases or these precipitation changes in these locations.’ And that is going to make it easier, I think, for plaintiffs to be able to argue successfully that emissions from certain companies are causing specific impacts.”

Read Next

Taking Big Oil to court for ‘climate homicide’ isn’t as far-fetched as it sounds

Kate Yoder

Silverman-Roati, at Columbia’s Sabin Center for Climate Change, also cited the role of improved modeling as a compelling element to the case. 

“The scientists can tell us, ‘This heat dome would not have happened but for climate change,” Silverman-Roati said. “And then this county can go to court and say, ‘Look, we have to pay for all these damages from this heat dome. And the companies that marketed their product that caused this problem and told us that these products would be fine, those companies would have to pay for a portion of all that we are having to pay in response to this heat dome.’”

Crucially, said Parenteau, of the Vermont Law and Graduate School, modeling that ties climate change to the heat dome effect in June 2021 would be hard to dispute in court.

“They’re not going to have a problem getting that evidence before a jury and getting the judge instructions to tell the jury if they agree with that evidence that leads to a finding of liability,” he said.

“I think in the minds of an average American when they think about climate change, they’re probably thinking about storms and flooding and sea level rise, things like that. But they’re probably not thinking about the fact that it’s killing people,” said Parenteau. Cases like Multnomah County’s are “making that connection clear because it’s true, it is killing people. And it’s not just killing people with heat.”

Jeff Goodell, the author of The New York Times best-seller “The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet,” said it is unclear how the pending suits might be affected by the Supreme Court’s recent ruling, which imposed limits on the regulatory authority of federal agencies. But Goodell said the trend toward communities seeking compensation from the fossil fuel industry does not show any signs of abating.

“This question of what does accountability look like and how will it play out is one of the most interesting questions in the climate world right now,” Goodell said. “And I do think that this demand for accountability will only grow. And, you know, we’re at the beginning of a kind of epic fight.” 

He added: “I don’t know what shape that will take in the next few years, but I know it’s not going to be resolved soon. And I know it’s also only going to grow and get bigger and louder and more urgent.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline In a rare court action, an Oregon county seeks to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for extreme temperatures on Jul 13, 2024.

In a settlement agreement between the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Justice (DOJ), Marathon Oil must pay a record penalty of $64.5 million and invest roughly $177 million in pollution reducing measures for ​​allegedly violating the Clean Air Act, the agencies announced in a press release on Thursday.

It is the largest penalty for Clean Air Act violations at stationary sources, including power plants, factories and refineries, the EPA said, according to The Washington Post.

“Today’s record Clean Air Act settlement is the most significant to date under EPA’s climate enforcement initiative and makes clear that EPA will hold corporate polluters like Marathon accountable for violations that put communities and our futures at risk,” said David Uhlmann, EPA’s assistant administrator of the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, as The Washington Post reported.

In their complaint, the EPA and DOJ alleged violations of the Clean Air Act by Marathon at almost 90 of its facilities, including those in western North Dakota’s Fort Berthold Indian Reservation. The agencies said the violations produced thousands of tons of unlawful pollution.

Specifically, the facilities run by Marathon released illegal amounts of carbon monoxide and volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which the agencies said are associated with respiratory illnesses.

“Volatile organic compounds are a key component in the formation of ground-level ozone, a pollutant that irritates the lungs, exacerbates diseases such as asthma, and can increase susceptibility to respiratory illnesses, such as pneumonia and bronchitis,” the EPA said.

Large amounts of methane were also produced.

“Methane, a super climate pollutant, is a hydrocarbon that is a primary component of natural gas and a potent greenhouse gas, approximately 25-28 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. It is the second most abundant greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide, accounting for about 16% of global emissions. Achieving significant reductions of methane would have a rapid and significant effect on atmospheric warming potential,” the press release said.

The settlement agreement will lower VOCs by about 110,000 tons, as well as methane emissions that are the equivalent of two million-plus tons of carbon dioxide.

Part of the EPA’s National Enforcement and Compliance Initiative: Mitigating Climate Change, the settlement is part of the agency’s wider effort to hold companies accountable for violations at oil and gas production facilities across the U.S.

“Like all of the EPA’s national enforcement initiatives, this initiative prioritizes communities already overburdened by pollution and with other potential environmental justice concerns,” the press release said.

In 2022, Marathon was the 22nd largest producer of oil in the U.S. and the seventh biggest greenhouse gas emitter in the industry. A considerable amount of the corporation’s emissions came from the flaring that occurs when methane is intentionally released into the atmosphere instead of being captured using equipment, reported The Washington Post.

“This historic settlement — the largest ever civil penalty for violations of the Clean Air Act at stationary sources — will ensure cleaner air for the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation and other communities in North Dakota, while holding Marathon accountable for its illegal pollution,” said Attorney General Merrick Garland, as The Associated Press reported.

The post Marathon Oil to Pay Record Settlement for Pollution in Violation of the Clean Air Act appeared first on EcoWatch.

A new study has found yet another source of per- and polyfluoroalkyl (PFAS) pollution: lithium ion batteries, an important component of clean energy tech and electronics.

According to the research, published in the journal Nature Communications, lithium ion batteries contain a sub-class of PFAS that can have a lasting impact on air and water and an ecotoxicity level similar to other notable PFAS, such as perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA). 

PFOA and other PFAS do not break down in the environment, which is why these compounds are often referred to as “forever chemicals.” As the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has documented, PFOA has been found in surface water, groundwater, soil and air, and PFOA has the potential for bioaccumulation and/or bioconcentration in wildlife.

Further, according to the American Cancer Society, which was not involved in the study, PFOA exposure may increase risk of certain types of cancer, including kidney and testicular cancers.

PFOA and some other PFAS have been phased out in the U.S., but novel PFAS, such as the bis-perfluoroalkyl sulfonimides (bis-FASIs) analyzed in the recent study, are taking the place of some of these older compounds.

However, researchers are now raising concerns over the impacts these other types of PFAS could have on the environment. 

The researchers collected samples of soil, sediment, snow, surface water, groundwater and tap water at 87 sites near industrial facilities in Kentucky, Minnesota, Belgium and France. Across the board, the team found high levels of bis-FASIs. According to the researchers, bis-FASIs can lead to behavioral changes and changes in the fundamental energy metabolic processes of aquatic wildlife.

The team also revealed that these compounds may also pollute the air around industrial facilities, which could lead to more widespread distribution and contamination.

The researchers explained that bis-FASIs are being used for lithium ion batteries and clean energy infrastructure and technology, which is essential to curbing the worst impacts of climate change. 

“Our results reveal a dilemma associated with manufacturing, disposal, and recycling of clean energy infrastructure,” Jennifer Guelfo, an author of the study and an associate professor of environmental engineering at Texas Tech University, said in a statement. “Slashing carbon dioxide emissions with innovations like electric cars is critical, but it shouldn’t come with the side effect of increasing PFAS pollution. We need to facilitate technologies, manufacturing controls and recycling solutions that can fight the climate crisis without releasing highly recalcitrant pollutants.”

Although the researchers found that the bis-FASIs did not break down in the environment, they did determine that these compounds could be reduced in water using the same treatment methods for removing other PFAS from water, such as ion exchange.

“These results illustrate that treatment approaches designed for PFOA and PFOS (perfluorooctanesulfonic acid) can also remove bis-FASIs,” said Lee Ferguson, an author of the study and an associate professor of environmental engineering at Duke University. “Use of these approaches is likely to increase as treatment facilities are upgraded to comply with newly enacted EPA Maximum Contaminant Levels for PFAS.”

The study authors explained that experts across a variety of fields, from scientists to lawmakers, will need to work together to reduce the impact that developing clean energy infrastructure may have on the environment.

“We should use the momentum behind current energy initiatives to ensure that new energy technologies are truly clean,” Guelfo said.

The post Lithium Ion Batteries Could Release PFAS Into Environment, Study Says appeared first on EcoWatch.

On a warm spring day in Chiang Mai, Thailand, a thick blanket of gray smog covers the city. The surrounding Khun Tan mountains are obscured by a dense haze, and residents are urged to stay indoors. Outside of an unassuming government building on the outskirts of the city, dozens line up for N-95 masks being handed out by civil servants. The air hangs heavy in their lungs and stings their eyes. For those who must venture outdoors, the masks provide a layer of protection. 

Inside the building, local officials are strategizing about more holistic ways to address the air pollution crisis. Once a week, a group of 15 to 20 gathers in a large conference room, joined by another 80 or so online, to mount their campaign against the fires that engulf the region every year. They’ve dubbed it the “War Room.”

It’s the headquarters of a provincial effort to combat the pollution crisis using technology, rooted in a novel system of fire management: a mobile application called FireD.

Chiang Mai — Thailand’s second largest city and a tourism hotspot — frequently tops charts as the world’s most polluted city during the first few months of the year. Significant industrial and car pollution contribute to an already dirty baseline, but widespread agricultural burning is considered the primary culprit. The annual “burning season” runs from January to April, when farmers traditionally have set fires on their land to dispose of waste or clear weeds from their field ahead of the planting season.  Unique weather conditions in northern Thailand combine with the region’s mountainous geography to stagnate the air and trap the smoke.  One of the byproducts of the burning is PM2.5, a fine particulate matter associated with a number of detrimental health effects. Breathing it in at levels common in Chiang Mai is comparable to picking up a smoking habit. 

A working group in the Thai Parliament is in the process of drafting a Clean Air Act to address pollution across the country, but several years are expected to pass before an official law is put forth. In the meantime, demonstrable success of the FireD system could be a breath of fresh air — and a scalable solution for northern Thailand and surrounding countries, like Laos and Myanmar. 

The problem also extends far beyond this region, affecting communities across Asia, Africa, and North America — even the United States. Smoke from local blazes can cover huge distances, contributing to poor health outcomes in some of the world’s most populous cities. A study in Nature Communications found that pollution from burning crop residue in India caused between 44,000 and 98,000 premature deaths there each year from 2003 to 2019. The release of smoke and particulate matter into the atmosphere also comes with consequences for ecosystems, waterways, and the climate.

In a country where agriculture employs one-third of the total labor force, burning has long been a natural part of the yearly crop cycle. In Thailand’s north, 33 percent of farmland is used to grow corn, with some 80 percent of that going to animal feed. Much of the agricultural burning in the region can be traced back to farms growing feed for livestock, like corn or rice. 

In the north, the steep mountain terrain makes it difficult for tractors and combine harvesters to cross fields to integrate waste from the last harvest into the soil, or for trucks to reach the fields to haul the waste away. And this machinery is expensive, often too costly for smallholder farmers, who make up the majority of farmland stewards in the region. Instead, farmers resort to burning to clear weeds, expand their planting area, and dispose of agricultural waste from the previous season ahead of planting — commonly referred to as slash-and-burn practices. 

The Thai government enforces a no-burn policy from January through April, but the restrictions have had a limited impact. Enforcement is inconsistent, and farmers are often scapegoated for the pollution problem despite having few alternatives to burning. 

Chiang Mai is now trying a more targeted approach to tackle its annual smog problem. While farmers can still face penalties for setting fires that get out of hand, leaders in Chiang Mai are hopeful that a more compassionate system can be introduced that balances farmers’ needs with the need to control air pollution. 

In 2019, a team of professors at Chiang Mai University, or CMU, had an idea. Using imagery and data from NASA satellites and thermal drones, they could get a real-time overview of the region’s pollution levels. This data could then be used to determine when and where farmers should be allowed to do controlled burns across northern Thailand. The idea turned into a research paper, which turned into FireD, a quasi-translation of fị thī̀ dī, meaning “good fire.” Instead of burning indiscriminately, farmers can submit requests to burn through the app. Using the data accumulated through FireD, local officials can then approve or reject requests depending on the existing atmospheric conditions. 

Inside the War Room, an entire wall is filled from floor to ceiling with TV monitors displaying data pulled from FireD. The screens provide a real-time glimpse of the severity of the burning and smog levels at any given time. Arrows on topographical maps follow the movement of smog across northern Thailand; video feeds show a 24-hour time lapse of haze accumulating over Chiang Mai; and data tables categorize the burn sites based on size, location, and duration of burning. 

These screens are manned by Somkid Panyadee, the director of Chiang Mai’s Office of Natural Resources and Environment and the de facto War Room general. He leads local officials through the process of accepting or rejecting burn requests. If conditions are bad enough, War Room officials can also use FireD data to help determine whether emergency fire fighting services need to be deployed across the region.

Panyadee sees this newer — though still imperfect —  system as a step in the right direction, and a more realistic approach than a blanket no-burn policy. “At present this is the best hope,” he said. 

Chaya Vaddhanphuti, a lecturer at CMU’s Department of Geography, is an independent researcher working with the developers of FireD to study the app’s rollout across Chiang Mai province. He sees FireD not only as a way to control fires, but to reframe the conversation around those who burn. “The app was called FireD, or ‘good fire’, as a way to recover the reputation of people who need to light these fires for their own well-being,” he said. 

In 2024, FireD fielded more than 14,000 burn requests, covering nearly 155,000 acres. But while researchers are optimistic the system could shift the way agricultural burning is approached in the country, there are obstacles to broad implementation. 

“We have a lack of consistent understanding of the use of FireD. I think this is quite clear,” said Vaddhanphuti. 

Due to lack of access to technology and internet service, farmers are typically expected to complete a written form that mirrors the app’s interface and submit it to their local village chief. The chiefs then submit these forms to program representatives for their districts or subdistricts, of which there are 204 in Chiang Mai. This data is fed into the FireD system. Officials contact the farmer directly three days ahead of their burn to let them know if their request is approved or delayed, and to discuss the wildfire mitigation techniques they plan to use.

Instead of undergoing the request process, farmers often just wait until May to burn so they can skirt around the no-burn policy, said Chief Pipat Tanarawithaya, a village leader in the province. Not a single farmer in his jurisdiction filled out paperwork for this burn cycle, he said. 

Farmers in the rural regions of northern Thailand must weigh the need to support themselves and their families against burning’s  environmental and health effects — including for themselves. 

This year, forest cover in Mae Chaem, an agriculturally rich district about 75 miles southwest of Chiang Mai, is visibly parched. Thipawan, a farmer from a village in the district, has been growing on this land for nearly all of her 54 years, and nearly all of her land is dedicated to corn. Her parents grew here before her. Smoke pollutes her youngest memories. 

When Thipawan decides to burn, she chooses the day strategically. She considers the weather, but first and foremost she considers the needs of her land. If she burns too early, weeds will grow back on the field and make it difficult to plant — she’d need to burn a second time. Thipawan opts to burn in May and has not yet used FireD. 

Like many of her neighbors, Thipawan has attempted to replace some corn plots with crops that don’t require burning — like mango, bamboo, or teak trees. The transition has yet to pay off; the markets for those products are less sure, and it takes time to build up the inventory. 

She has also considered switching to more lucrative crops, like vegetables. With more funds, it could be easier to invest in alternative means to get rid of agricultural waste. But those crops are water intensive, and this soil is thirsty for much of the year. Corn relies only on rainwater.

If she were to use the app, she said, it would be challenging for her to postpone her planned burns for more than a week from the date she picked, even if officials told her that it was a bad time.  If she doesn’t prepare for planting in time, it may affect her yield. And if she’s burning a large plot, she needs to ask people to help her oversee and monitor the blaze. For her, and many farmers like her in the region, changing her farming practices is easier said than done.

Another burning season ended in May, with some improvements in air quality evident from last year. Incidents of burning hotspots were down 3 percent from the previous year in protected forest areas, where most fires take place — and overall burn-scarred acreage was almost cut in half, according to an aggregation of FireD data.  The tally of days with dangerous PM2.5 levels also decreased by 24 percent, the data showed. However, public communication, oversight, and resistance to change remain key hurdles to widespread use of FireD in the coming years. 

To raise awareness of the new system, local leaders like Chief Tanarawithaya have started holding meetings with villagers in December, ahead of burn season, to inform them of the new rules and how the process works. Some forest officials are going door to door to educate villagers. 

In a few areas in Thailand’s north, adoption of the system has been more widespread, due to differing levels of technological access, expertise among local officers, or specific village dynamics. 

FireD is seen by provincial officials and local researchers alike as a promising tool for fire management, originating from the country’s worst affected region. The apparatus is complicated — merging modern technology with traditional practices requires a unique type of innovation, and a high level of cooperation between the parties involved. But what it represents is a compromise. With FireD, officials are testing a data-driven approach to addressing air pollution that also takes into account the needs and realities of Thai farmers.

“Indigenous groups in rural areas have always been targeted and blamed for the pollution problem,” said Vaddhanphuti, the app researcher. “We don’t want FireD to become a tool for reinforcing these blames. Instead, we want it to be an agent of change, so these farmers can continue their rotational farming practices in a less harmful way.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline When is it safe to burn fields? In Thailand, farmers can turn to a new app to check. on Jul 12, 2024.

Along with apple pie, baseball, and tipping, the automobile is classically American. But when it comes to the 21st century passenger car, automakers in the United States — save for Tesla — have been playing catchup, scrambling to counter the rise of China’s electric vehicle boom. Sure, both EVs and internal combustion cars have seats and four wheels, but it’s not so simple as American automakers swapping in a few parts and calling it a day.

So on Thursday, the Department of Energy announced $1.7 billion to fund the conversion of 11 auto manufacturing facilities, which had either been shut down or were at risk of shutting down, to make EVs and supplies for the burgeoning industry. Those facilities will be spread across eight states — Georgia, Indiana, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia — which the DOE says will create 2,900 new jobs and ensure that more than 15,000 union workers keep theirs. General Motors will get $500 million for one of its plants in Lansing, Michigan, and Fiat Chrysler nearly $600 million total for two of its facilities.

Soon after the announcement, Grist sat down with Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm to talk about why domestic EV manufacturing is so important, how those EVs could actually help the grid instead of destroying it, and why even children will benefit from the $1.7 billion even though they can’t drive.

The conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Q. Why is the Biden administration providing this funding? Why is it important to the DOE that electric vehicles are made domestically?

A. The funding comes through the Inflation Reduction Act, but the intent behind that, of course, is to make sure that America is reshoring manufacturing, particularly in the clean energy space, and here in the electric vehicle space. We’re competing globally, obviously with China. And we want to make these products here. We want to make them with union workers, and we want to make them in places that have been bruised by globalization. That’s where this particular round of funding really centers — communities that have built automobiles for the past 100 years, and that should be building them for the next 100 years. 

Q. Some of this money is going toward electric buses. Why is it critical to get more of those on the road?

A. Diesel particulates are not healthy for kids — increased asthma, other very serious health impacts. So having an electric bus, which is quiet and clean and healthy, is wonderful for kids. It’s wonderful for fighting climate change. It’s wonderful for communities, and now it is also wonderful for job creation.

Q. How is the Biden administration trying to boost the demand for EVs? 

A. We’re seeing an increase in demand. On top of that, the administration is working on making sure that that demand continues. So how do you do that? By reducing the price. That means those tax credits at the dealership, that are now being used everywhere, brings down the price of an electric vehicle to either be on par and, in many cases, cheaper than an internal combustion engine.

We want to make sure that there’s the infrastructure so that people don’t have range anxiety, and that’s what the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s charging funding for states is doing, to fill in the gap where the private sector hasn’t been installing chargers. So on transportation corridors every 50 miles, we want to see a high-speed charger, and we want it to be not more than a mile off the transportation corridor and [be] app-enabled. Since the president has taken office, the number of publicly available chargers has doubled. The goal is to get to 500,000 of them by 2030. We’re well on track to do that. 

Q. People have also been worrying that if we are deploying more EVs, the grid simply won’t be able to handle that additional load. Do you have a response to that?

A. The president has a goal of getting to 100 percent clean electricity by 2035, so we’ve got to continue to deploy, deploy, deploy all these clean energy assets — solar utility-scale, wind, distributed solar, other types of clean energy, like hydroelectric power or geothermal power, or small modular [nuclear] reactors. We will have enough generation capacity for the electrification of transportation.

Q. And with the development of vehicle-to-grid technology, grid operators would actually be able to tap into EVs as a vast network of batteries. In that case, EVs can actually be an asset on the grid, not a liability.

A. One hundred percent. The virtual power plants that are created — by making sure the distributed energy resources like electric vehicle batteries are part of the mix — means that we can add between 20 and 100 gigawatts just from virtual power plants like electric vehicles, or a bunch of electric vehicles connected together. So yes, that is absolutely part of the plan, and part of the funding that DOE does is to encourage those types of pilot projects, to ensure that they can be worked out and then taken to scale.

Q. A few of these facilities that would receive funding are in swing states, and we’ve got an election coming up. I was curious how they were chosen and why now, just before the election? Or is this a matter of: You’re looking more at the facilities that could be converted and less so the state itself.

A. This does not involve the election. It involves a merit process that is selected by professionals and career staff within the Department of Energy who evaluate all these objective factors about where we could make sure that we repurpose these internal combustion engine plants that were closing in this particular case. A lot of these went to historical automaking communities, because that’s what this was geared toward. This was all part of the Inflation Reduction Act, and so that law compels us to continue to award grants, whether we’re in an election year or out of an election year.

Q. Republicans have been making an effort to slow EV adoption. Could they target this sort of funding? And if there’s another Trump administration, would they also be able to reverse any of this?

A. Bottom line is, once these announcements are made and steel is in the ground and people start being hired, which is what’s happening now, it would be political malpractice for any leader of that state or that political party to go in the opposite direction of where their constituents would like to see them go. I mean, people are being hired. It’s a really good thing across the country. So I’m hopeful that any future administration would see the value and the importance of keeping this industrial strategy in place.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The $1.7 billion bet on American-made EVs, explained by the Secretary of Energy on Jul 12, 2024.

A research team has documented a pair of lion brothers crossing an African river filled with predators at night in a record-breaking 1.5-kilometer swim.

The team, led by Dr. Alexander Braczkowski from the Griffith University Centre for Planetary Health and Food Security, filmed the two lions — Jacob and Tibu — on their night swim across Uganda’s Kazinga Channel using drones equipped with high-definition heat detection cameras, a press release from Griffith University said. The Uganda Wildlife Authority supervised the team’s work.

“Jacob has had the most incredible journey and really is a cat with nine lives,” Braczkowski said in the press release.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Dr Alexander Braczkowski Jnr (@alexbraczkowski)

Jacob is a 10-year-old local icon famous for surviving multiple life-threatening events, one of which resulted in an amputated leg.

“I’d bet all my belongings that we are looking at Africa’s most resilient lion: he has been gored by a buffalo, his family was poisoned for lion body part trade, he was caught in a poacher’s snare, and finally lost his leg in another attempted poaching incident where he was caught in a steel trap,” Braczkowski said. “The fact that he and his brother Tibu have managed to survive as long as they have in a national park that has experienced significant human pressures and high poaching rates is a feat in itself – our science has shown this population has nearly halved in just 5 years.”

Braczkowski said the female lions in the park had been especially impacted, The Guardian reported.

Previously reported swims by lions in Africa have been from roughly 10 to 200 meters in length. Some of them ended in the lions being killed by crocodiles, the press release said.

“His swim, across a channel filled with high densities of hippos and crocodiles, is a record-breaker and is a truly amazing show of resilience in the face of such risk,” Braczkowski said in the press release.

So why did Jacob and Tibu undertake this long and perilous swim at night?

“It’s likely the brothers were looking for females. Competition for lionesses in the park is fierce and they lost a fight for female affection in the hours leading up to the swim, so it’s likely the duo mounted the risky journey to get to the females on the other side of the channel,” Braczkowski explained. “There is a small connecting bridge to the other side but the presence of people was probably a deterrent for them.”

Braczkowski said it was “just sad” that the lions were being pressured by humans in this way, reported The Guardian.

“This population is skewing two males to one female and that’s the reason we suspect these lions have swum across the Kazinga Channel – because they’re searching for females,” Braczkowski said, as The Guardian reported.

Braczkowski, the current scientific director of the Volcanoes Safaris Partnership Trust’s Kyambura Lion Project, has been conducting a long-term study of predators in Queen Elizabeth National Park and several other national parks in Uganda, the press release said.

Since 2017, Braczkowski has been building scientific capacity in the Ugandan government’s wildlife department to census predators like lions.

“Jacob and Tibu’s big swim is another important example that some of our most beloved wildlife species are having to make tough decisions just to find homes and mates in a human-dominated world,” Braczkowski said in the press release.

The research paper, “Long-distance swimming by African lions in Uganda,” was published in the journal Ecology and Evolution.

The post Lion Brothers Cross Predator-Filled African River in Record-Breaking Swim appeared first on EcoWatch.

Oil and gas company BP’s Energy Outlook: 2024 Edition has predicted that peak global oil demand will occur next year, putting a stop to increasing carbon emissions as solar and wind continue to expand.

The report focused on two main forecast scenarios — Current Trajectory and Net Zero — and predicted that oil consumption will peak at approximately 102 million barrels a day in 2025, reported The Guardian. Both scenarios also project that carbon emissions will culminate mid-decade.

“The world is in an ‘energy addition’ phase of the energy transition in which it is consuming increasing amounts of both low carbon energy and fossil fuels,” said BP Chief Economist Spencer Dale in the foreword to the report. “The challenge is to move – for the first time in history – to an ‘energy substitution’ phase, in which low carbon energy increases sufficiently quickly to allow the consumption of fossil fuels, and with that carbon emissions, to decline.”

The two scenarios set out in the report show dramatically different tracks for gas demand in the future, The Guardian reported.

Under the net zero pathway, gas demand would peak mid-decade and be cut in half by 2050, in comparison with 2022 levels. The current trajectory, however, has gas use continuing to increase all the way to mid-century.

BP said its current trajectory predictions — which take into account ongoing climate policies — indicated that carbon budgets to keep global temperatures below two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels would be breached.

Oil use is projected to decrease to 97.8 million barrels a day by 2035 under the current trajectory — five percent higher than BP forecast last year. Under the net zero scenario, demand is predicted to stay at 80.2 million barrels a day until then, which is 10 percent higher than BP’s 2023 outlook report.

“The two scenarios can also be compared to give a clearer sense of what needs to be done to shift the world from its current unsustainable emissions trajectory to a pathway consistent with the Paris climate goals. Spoiler alert: amongst other things, this suggests a need for greater electrification fuelled by even faster growth in wind and solar power, a significant acceleration in energy efficiency improvements, together with increasing use of a whole range of other low carbon energy sources and technologies, including biofuels, low carbon hydrogen, and carbon capture, use and storage,” Dale said.

BP angered environmentalists when it modified its promise to lower production of oil and gas by 40 percent by the end of the decade to 25 percent following Russia’s Ukraine invasion and the resulting surge in worldwide energy prices, reported The Guardian.

Dale said to keep emissions from rising further, renewable energy sources would need to be implemented at the same pace as increases in global energy demand.

The report predicted that, under current climate policies, solar and wind capacity will be eight times greater by 2050, but would expand by 14 times in the net zero scenario.

In both scenarios, China and developed economies are expected to be the renewable energy epicenters in the next decade, making up roughly 30 to 45 percent of new capacity increases.

BP added that solar and wind’s exponential expansion would further enable the lowering of costs for energy and technology that would further support renewable projects.

“The longer it takes for the world to move to a rapid and sustained energy transition, the greater the risk of a costly and disorderly adjustment pathway in the future,” Dale said.

The post Global Oil Demand to Peak Next Year, BP Predicts appeared first on EcoWatch.

Renewable energy projects are rapidly expanding in China, so much so that the country has double the amount of renewable capacity under construction compared to all other countries combined, a new analysis from the non-governmental organization Global Energy Monitor has revealed.

According to the analysis, China currently has 180 gigawatts of utility-scale solar power and 159 gigawatts of wind power under construction. By comparison, the U.S. has 40 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity currently under construction, followed by Brazil with 13 gigawatts, the UK with 10 gigawatts and Spain with 9 gigawatts.

In total, the amount of utility-scale solar and wind capacity under construction in China make up nearly two-thirds of the solar and wind capacity under construction worldwide, the report found.

The report follows the China Electricity Council (CEC)’s predictions from early 2024 that solar and wind capacity would outpace coal in China this year. According to the CEC report, solar and wind capacity in China could make up about 40% of installed energy capacity in the country by the end of 2024, while coal could make up around 37%.

Currently, wind and solar are making up around 37% of total power capacity, and coal makes up around 39%. Wind and solar’s share of total energy capacity increased by around 8% from 2022 to now, the analysis found.

The rapid expansion of renewables in China comes after the country installed nearly double the amount of utility-scale solar and wind capacity in 2023 compared to any other year, Global Energy Monitor reported. From March 2023 to March 2024, the country installed more solar capacity than the solar capacity installed during the three previous years combined, and wind capacity has doubled year-over-year.

While China is making important advancements in renewables and could soon see solar and wind outpace coal, a Greenpeace report from 2023 found that the country was still pursuing new coal projects. According to the Greenpeace report, China approved more coal capacity in the first three months of 2023 alone than it had in the entire year of 2021.

As Global Energy Monitor reported, China’s energy officials have expressed that the country’s energy-related emissions will not intentionally peak before 2030. However, Global Energy Monitor noted that China’s power-related emissions could peak before then, if they haven’t already. The organization cited a Carbon Brief analysis revealing a recent drop in China’s emissions in March 2024 because of solar and wind energy expansion. 

“A 2023 peak in China’s CO2 emissions is possible if the buildout of clean energy sources is kept at the record levels seen last year,” Carbon Brief reported.

Further, Global Energy Monitor found that China could triple its current renewables capacity if it continues the expansion of solar and wind capacity at the rate seen in 2023.

“All told, 2023 saw unprecedented wind and solar growth in China,” Global Energy Monitor concluded. “The unabated wave of construction guarantees that China will continue leading in wind and solar installation in the near future, far ahead of the rest of the world. However, China still needs to turn the massive renewables buildup into power generation, replace fossil fuels, and reach the ‘tipping point’ so as to peak its carbon emissions as early as possible.”

The post Solar and Wind Projects Under Construction in China Have 2x the Capacity of the Rest of the World’s Renewable Energy Projects Combined: Report appeared first on EcoWatch.

As society’s environmental consciousness grows, innovative solutions to everyday waste are gaining attention. One surprising…

The post Recycle Chopsticks With ChopValue appeared first on Earth911.