Tag: Renewable Energy

Ocean Depths Targeted for Mining Are Rich in Complex and Unknown Marine Life, Scientists Find

Like the dry land on the surface of our planet, the ocean’s depths are made up of a variety of terrain, from plains and canyons to volcanic seamounts. Scientists believe there are as many as 10 million undiscovered marine species living on the ocean floor.

Multiple new studies have found that a vast area at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean that is being targeted for destructive deep-sea mining — the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ) — is home to thousands of unknown species that are more complex than scientists once believed.

Miners of minerals used in electric vehicle batteries and other green energy technologies have been looking at this abyssal plain for “nodules” on the seafloor that contain the minerals.

In a new study, an international team of scientists looked more closely at the biodiversity of this underwater region between Hawaii and Mexico. The researchers mapped marine animals’ distribution in the CCZ and discovered their communities were more complex than once thought.

“Abyssal seafloor communities cover more than 60% of Earth’s surface. Despite their great size, abyssal plains extend across modest environmental gradients compared to other marine ecosystems. However, little is known about the patterns and processes regulating biodiversity or potentially delimiting biogeographical boundaries at regional scales in the abyss,” the authors of the study wrote. “Improved macroecological understanding of remote abyssal environments is urgent as threats of widespread anthropogenic disturbance grow in the deep ocean.”

The study, “Carbonate compensation depth drives abyssal biogeography in the northeast Pacific,” was published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution.

Along with the interest in mining the region has come more exploration and discoveries through commercially funded deep sea expeditions, reported AFP.

Among the wonders of this dark, watery world include a shrimp with long, bristly legs, an enormous sea cucumber called the “gummy squirrel,” soft-bodied anemones, glass sponges and many types of mollusks, crustaceans and tiny worms.

Conservationists have been calling for a moratorium on deep-sea mining, but last week the International Seabed Authority gave the go-ahead to a two-year plan for adopting a set of mining regulations.

“We are on the side of the ocean,” said Gina Guillén Grillo, Costa Rica’s representative to the Seabed Authority who has helped lead the opposition to seabed mining, as The New York Times reported. “We know there is not enough science. To start right now would be a disaster.”

More than half of Earth is covered in abyssal plains that are over 9,843 feet underwater. Erik Simon-Lledó, a marine biologist from Britain’s National Oceanography Centre, who was also the lead researcher of the study, called these regions the “last frontier.”

“Every time we do a new dive we see something new,” Simon-Lledó said, according to AFP.

Mining disrupts the seabed, causing large plumes of sediment that can wipe out habitat and smother delicate organisms. Nodules containing the sought-after minerals are also the homes of specialized marine animals.

“With the science as it is at the present day, there is no circumstance under which we would support mining of the seabed,” said Sophie Benbow of the NGO Fauna and Flora, as reported by AFP.

The unique array of marine life in the CCZ is due to the region’s size and age, but essential to its stunning biodiversity is the fact that it has remained undisturbed.

According to the study, more than 90 percent of the approximately 5,000 species documented in the CCZ are new to science.

Adrian Glover of Britain’s Natural History Museum, who was a co-author of the study, said mining regulations would need to consider that the distribution of marine creatures in the CCZ is “more complex than we thought.”

Glover explained that each nodule likely took millions of years to develop and began as a shard from a fish ear bone or shark tooth that had settled on the ocean floor. The nodules grew slowly over time as minerals found at very low concentrations in the water naturally accumulated on them.

The CCZ is ancient and adds only one centimeter of sediment every thousand years. Because the environment has been undisturbed for what Glover said is tens of millions of years, recovering from any mining would take an unknown amount of time.

“You are basically writing that ecosystem off for probably centuries, maybe thousands of years, because the rate of recovery is so slow,” said Michael Norton, Environment Programme Director for the European Academies’ Science Advisory Council, as AFP reported. “It’s difficult to argue that that is not serious harm.”

The post Ocean Depths Targeted for Mining Are Rich in Complex and Unknown Marine Life, Scientists Find appeared first on EcoWatch.

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Paris to Make Seine Swimmable Again After a Century

Paris is referred to as the City of Light and the City of Love, and, until 1923, it was also a city of swimming. That year, swimming was banned in the Seine due to excess sewage being drained into the river following heavy rainfall, rendering the iconic river unsafe.

An exception to the ban was the swimming competition, Traversée de Paris à la Nage, which continued into the 1940s, according to Paris Unlocked.

Paris is gearing up for the Summer Olympic Games next year, and is in the final phase of a decade-long, $1.6 billion project to restore the Seine and make it swimmable once again, reported BBC News and France 24.

“When people see athletes swimming in the Seine with no health problems, they’ll be confident themselves to start going back in the Seine,” said Pierre Rabadan, deputy Paris mayor in charge of the Olympics, as BBC News reported. “It’s our contribution for the future.”

Not only was the waterway being polluted with toxic wastewater, but all sorts of trash was being dumped into it, from plastic and cigarette butts to bicycles. Each year, around 386 tons of garbage is removed from the elegant artery dividing Right Bank from Left Bank, reported France 24.

Much of the fecal bacteria that had historically been deposited into the Seine has been eliminated thanks to better practices being implemented in the past 20 years.

“But the difficulty has been in eradicating those last few percentage points to ensure it can be officially classified as clean,” said Samuel Colin-Canivez, chief engineer for sanitation at Paris city hall, as BBC News reported.

An underground reservoir has been built to collect runoff following a deluge, rather than using the river as an overflow site.

Colin-Canivez said there could be rare exceptions when an overflow of wastewater gets into the river, but in those cases it would be deemed “unbatheable.”

The Seine will be used for Olympic events next year, as well as for the games’ opening ceremony.

For years, hardly any fish or other marine species were seen in the Seine, but 30 to 35 species of fish have returned, according to Bill François of the Paris fishing federation, as well as aquatic insects, crayfish, molluscs and sponges.

Back in 2009, wild Atlantic salmon came back to the river in droves after an absence of nearly a century, with hundreds spotted swimming past the Eiffel Tower, researchers told AFP at the time.

“The bottom of the river is developing a coat of the right kind of weed. The clearer the water, the more the weed grows, and then the weed filters the water to make it even clearer — it’s a virtuous circle,” François said, as reported by BBC News.

Three places along the Seine have been designated for public bathing beginning in the summer of 2025, announced to Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo: Bras de Grenelle, Bras Marie and Bercy, according to Time Out.

With temperatures soaring across Europe due to climate change, anywhere people can cool off safely in the summer will surely be welcome.

“It will create waves, so to speak, across the world because a lot of cities are watching Paris,” said Dan Angelescu, a scientist who has been tracking water quality in the Seine for city hall, as Euronews reported.

The post Paris to Make Seine Swimmable Again After a Century appeared first on EcoWatch.

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New EU Law Requires Fast-Charging Stations Along Highways by End of 2025

The Council of the EU has passed a new law to add more fast-charging stations and alternative fuel stations throughout the EU. As part of the new regulations, the EU will require fast-charging stations, with a total output of 400 kW for cars and vans and 600 kW for heavy-duty vehicles, to be installed every 60 kilometers (about 37 miles) along highways by the end of 2025.

The new law on alternative fuels infrastructure is meant to greatly reduce the carbon footprint of transportation in Europe and contributes to the Fit for 55 goal to reduce emissions in the EU by 55% or more by 2030. As The Verge reported, transportation makes up about 25% of all greenhouse gas emissions in the EU.

“The new law is a milestone of our ‘Fit for 55’ policy providing for more public recharging capacity on the streets in cities and along the motorways across Europe,” Raquel Sánchez Jiménez, Spanish Minister of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda, said in a statement. “We are optimistic that in the near future, citizens will be able to charge their electric cars as easily as they do today in traditional petrol stations.”

The law requires fast-charging stations for electric vehicles along main highways that are part of the the trans-European transport (TEN-T) network by 2025, and these stations should have at least one fast-charger with 150 kW or greater output. 

Recharging stations with a total output of 600 kW, including at least one charger with a minimum 150kW output, for heavy-duty EVs must be placed every 60 kilometers in the core network of TEN-T and every 100 kilometers (about 62 miles) in the larger TEN-T network by 2025. The charging stations should cover the complete TEN-T network by 2030, according to the law.

By 2030, hydrogen fuel stations will need to be installed every 200 kilometers (about 124 miles) along the TEN-T core network and in all urban nodes, or urban areas that include parts of the TEN-T network’s transportation infrastructure. 

The charging and alternative fuel stations should offer easy payment options, such as contactless payments or payment by card, without requiring subscriptions. Transparency is a key component of the law, with pricing, availability and wait times made clear to customers under the new rules.

In addition to the rules on recharging and refueling stations for cars, vans and heavy-duty vehicles, the law requires some maritime ports, depending on whether they meet a minimum number of large passenger or container vessels, to offer shore-side electricity by 2030. It also mandates that airports must offer electricity for stationary aircraft at all gates by the 2025 deadline and at remote stands by 2030.

The EU already offers a significant number of fast-charging stations, with more than 70,000 stations as of 2022, a 55% increase from 2021, according to the International Energy Agency. Germany, France and Norway lead the charge with the highest numbers of fast chargers. With the new legislation, added fast chargers with transparency on pricing and availability could help reduce range anxiety and encourage more people to switch to electric vehicles. 

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A brain-swelling illness spread by ticks is on the rise in Europe

Climate Connections is a collaboration between Grist and the Associated Press that explores how a changing climate is accelerating the spread of infectious diseases around the world, and how mitigation efforts demand a collective, global response. Read more here.


In 2022, doctors recorded the first confirmed case of tick-borne encephalitis virus acquired in the United Kingdom.

It began with a bike ride. 

A 50-year-old man was mountain biking in the North Yorkshire Moors, a national park in England known for its vast expanses of woodland and purple heather. At some point on his ride, at least one black-legged tick burrowed into his skin. Five days later, the mountain biker developed symptoms commonly associated with a viral infection: fatigue, muscle pain, fever. 

At first, he seemed to be on the mend, but about a week later, the man began to lose coordination. An MRI scan revealed he had developed encephalitis, or swelling of the brain. He had been infected with tick-borne encephalitis, or TBE, a potentially deadly disease that experts say is spreading into new regions due in large part to global warming. 

For the past 30 years, the U.K. has become roughly 1 degree Celsius warmer on average compared to the historical norm. Studies have shown that several tick-borne illnesses are becoming more prevalent because of climate change. Public health officials are particularly concerned about TBE, which is deadlier than more well-known tick diseases such as Lyme due to the way it has quickly jumped from country to country. 

Gábor Földvári, an expert at the Center for Ecological Research in Hungary, said the effects of climate change on TBE are unmistakable.

“It’s a really common problem that was absent 20 or 30 years ago.” 

Ticks can’t survive more than a couple of days in temperatures below zero, but they’re able to persevere in very warm conditions as long as there’s enough humidity in the environment. As Earth warms on average and winters become milder, ticks are becoming active earlier in the year. Climate change affects ticks at every stage of their life cycle — egg, six-legged larva, eight-legged nymph, and adult — by extending the length of time ticks actively feed on humans and animals. Even a fraction of a degree of global warming creates more opportunity for ticks to breed and spread disease.

“The number of overwintering ticks is increasing, and in spring there is high activity of ticks,” said Gerhard Dobler, a doctor who works at the German Center for Infection Research. “This may increase the contact between infected ticks and humans and cause more disease.”  

Since the virus was first discovered in the 1930s, it has mainly been found in Europe and parts of Asia, including Siberia and the northern regions of China. The same type of tick carries the disease in these areas, but the virus subtype — of which there are several — varies by region. In places where the virus is endemic, tick bites are the leading cause of encephalitis, though the virus can also be acquired by consuming raw milk from tick-infected cattle. TBE has not been found in the United States, though a few Americans have contracted the virus while traveling in Europe.

According to the World Health Organization, there are between 10,000 and 12,000 cases of the disease in Europe and northern Asia each year. The total number of cases worldwide is likely an undercount, as case counts are unreliable in countries where the population has low awareness of the disease and local health departments are not required to report cases to the government. But experts say there has been a clear uptick since the 1990s, especially in countries where the disease used to be uncommon.

Map showing increasing numbers of TBE in Europe

“We see an increasing trend of human cases,” Dobler said, citing rising cases in Austria, Germany, Estonia, Latvia, and other European countries.

TBE is not always life-threatening. On average, about 10 percent of infections develop into the severe form of the illness, which often requires hospitalization. Once severe symptoms develop, however, there is no cure for the disease. The death rate among those who develop severe symptoms ranges from 1 to 35 percent, depending on the virus subtype, with the far-eastern subtype being the deadliest. In Europe, for example, 16 deaths were recorded in 2020 out of roughly 3,700 confirmed cases.

Up to half of survivors of severe TBE have lingering neurological problems, such as sleeplessness and aggressiveness. Many infected people are asymptomatic or only develop mild symptoms, Dobler said, so the true caseload could be up to 10 times higher in some regions than reports estimate. 

While there are two TBE vaccines in circulation, vaccine uptake is low in regions where the virus is new. Neither vaccine covers all of the three most prevalent subtypes, and a 2020 study called for development of a new vaccine that offers higher protection against the virus. In Austria, for example, the TBE vaccine rate is near 85 percent, Dobler said, and yet the number of human cases continues to trend upward — a sign, in his opinion, of climate change’s influence on the disease.

[Read next: Mosquitos are moving to higher elevations — and so is malaria]

In Central and Northern Europe, where for the past decade average annual temperatures have been roughly 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial times, documented cases of the virus have been rising in recent decades — evidence, some experts say, that rising global temperatures are conducive to more active ticks. The parasitic arachnids are also noted to be moving further north and higher in altitude as formerly inhospitable terrain warms to their preferred temperature range. Northern parts of Russia are a prime example of where TBE-infected ticks have moved in. And some previously tick-free mountains in Germany and Austria are reporting a 20-fold increase in cases over the past 10 years.  

The virus’s growing shadow across Europe, Asia, and now parts of the United Kingdom throws the dangers of tick-borne disease into sharp relief. The U.K. bicyclist who was the first domestically acquired case of the disease survived his bout with TBE, but the episode serves as a warning to the region: Though the virus is still rare, it may not stay that way for long.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline A brain-swelling illness spread by ticks is on the rise in Europe on Jul 25, 2023.

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The race to defuse an oil ‘time bomb’ disaster threatening the Red Sea

Ten days ago, the crew of a ship called the Nautica lifted anchor in Djibouti and motored north in the Red Sea. Two tugboats met the vessel about five and a half miles off the coast of Yemen, then guided it into place alongside the FSO Safer, a crumbling, abandoned oil tanker thought to hold 1 million barrels of crude.  

Thus began an operation that’s the ecological equivalent of placing the pin back into a hand grenade.

Since 2019, the United Nations has likened the Safer (pronounced “suffer”) to a floating time bomb, one that could, through accident, structural failure, or attack, spill its cargo at any moment. That could release up to four times the oil spilled in the Exxon Valdez disaster, fouling the Red Sea for decades, if not centuries. Despite posing so great a risk for almost a decade, a vicious war in Yemen left the Safer beyond reach until May, when a U.N.-hired crew was allowed aboard to take the first steps in an emergency operation that could begin as early as today: transferring the oil to the Nautica, banishing the Safer to a scrapyard, and leaving the Nautica in its place.

Just getting this far is a diplomatic triumph for the U.N. Where others failed, it convinced the warring parties — particularly Houthi insurgents, who control the area around the Safer — that preventing an environmental and economic catastrophe was in their best interest. But some see this mission in a less flattering light: Even if all goes to plan — and in Yemen, that’s always an “if” — it will still leave a million barrels of oil floating in a conflict zone.

That left one Yemeni oil executive with state company SEPOC, which legally owns the Safer, grousing that the U.N. merely traded one time bomb for another. Sir Alan Duncan, a former British special envoy to Yemen who’s had a long career in the petroleum business, was more charitable when he called the operation progress but noted that the Nautica could wind up in the same position 10 years from now.

“It’s as good a plan as [the U.N.] were allowed to deliver,” he told Grist. “It’s only half a solution, but it’s better than nothing.”

A rusting and decaying oil tanker called the FSO Safer is seen in the Red Sea with the sun shining brightly directly above it.
The decaying FSO Safer, with about 1 million barrels of oil aboard. Courtesy of the United Nations

The FSO Safer was an oil tanker built for another age. In the late 1950s, the temporary closure of the Suez Canal, which had long constrained the size of such vessels due to its breadth, inspired shipbuilders to think bigger. Then in the 1970s, a spike in world oil prices drove demand for even bulkier tankers that could move more crude at lower cost. The Esso Japan, built in 1976, was one of a class of “ultra large” oil vessels built in response to these trends. At almost 1,200 feet long and 230 feet wide, it could carry as much as 3 million barrels — twice the capacity of the Exxon Valdez, built a decade later.

In 1987, after a number of oil finds increased Yemen’s crude output, the vessel got a new name and career. Outfitted with updated gear and rechristened the FSO Safer, it was moored in the Red Sea. A pipeline two feet in diameter linked it to oil fields almost 275 miles away. Under its new owners, the Yemeni government, it became a key economic asset, a floating bank that could transfer the nation’s crude to tankers still working the high seas.

But even in this role, the Safer had a best-by date. It was to be decommissioned in 2000, according to Ian Ralby, a maritime-security consultant with IR Consilium who has done extensive research on the ship. SEPOC, one of Yemen’s national petroleum companies, decided it could stay in operation, getting maintenance as needed. But as war broke out in 2014, a fanatical rebel group called the Houthis sacked the capital of Sana’a. They soon realized a strategic gift lay just offshore: the Safer, loaded with black gold.

As the war intensified, the Safer drifted into the shadows. In 2015, an international coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates began a blistering, occasionally horrific, air campaign in an effort to restore the former government. The Houthis, supported by Iranian arms, have largely held their ground, forcing peace talks with the Saudis. But the Yemeni people have paid dearly. At least 377,000 have died of war, famine, and disease. Today, some 17 million Yemenis remain food-insecure and heavily reliant on humanitarian aid brought through the Houthi-controlled port of Hodeida, about 30 miles from the Safer.

It was not until years after the war began that the first reports by international analysts picked up on Yemeni warnings of the looming disaster. Tankers, even stationary ones, require vigilant maintenance against corrosion by heat, humidity, and the salty ocean environment. These reports showed that the Safer, save for the efforts of a small crew keeping the ship on life support, was not getting it.

This posed two critical risks. On a functioning oil tanker, inert gasses are periodically pumped into its tanks to keep the payload from catching fire or exploding. The Safer’s systems were kaput. Such ships also have the integrity of their hulls regularly checked. The Safer was last checked in 2015, a particular concern because unlike modern tankers, it has only one hull between its cargo and the sea. The combination of these factors meant the Safer could, with no notice whatsoever, crack like a walnut or erupt at the slightest spark. 

“When you learn about it you think ‘holy s—,’” said Paul Horsman, an oil spill specialist with Greenpeace. “Why has this been left so long?”

A spill would cause breathtaking damage to Red Sea communities and the environment. According to U.N. estimates, in Yemen alone it would devastate the livelihoods of 2 million workers and family members dependent upon the fishing industry. Beyond sowing chaos in the aquatic food chain and casting toxic fumes over Yemeni farmland, it could poison Red Sea coral reefs currently under study for their resilience to ocean warming.

The cleanup, ballparked at $20 billion, would be daunting. The chemistry of Yemeni light crude makes it prone to mix with seawater, rather than float on top of it, and disperse over large areas. By the time crews arrived, said Chris Reddy, a senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, they might not even know where to start.

A crew member stands on the deck of the FSO Safer, a rusting and decaying oil tanker in the Red Sea
The FSO Safer has received no maintenance to speak of since 2015. Mohammed Hawaii / AFP

As it turned out, the Houthis and their enemies understood the risk the FSO Safer posed. They just disagreed on what to do with the oil, and their mutual hatred left them in no rush to strike a deal. Far from an imminent disaster that threatened them both, both sides came to treat the Safer as a strategic “tool of war,” as Musaed Aklan, a senior researcher with the Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies, put it.

An initial proposal, allegedly floated by Saudi Arabia and UAE, was to empty the Safer, cart off its oil and have the decrepit ship decommissioned in Bahrain. The Houthis rejected this flatly. Their position was cynical, but clear: They demanded an arrangement under the U.N. that would let them sell the crude and use at least part of the proceeds to govern the parts of Yemen they controlled. (Just what that might yield remains an open question, because petroleum degrades over time and prices fluctuate. Estimates have ranged from $50 to $90 million, though a new inspection may show otherwise.)

The Houthis also stipulated that no one could touch the ship without a sale in place. To their mind, whatever happened next was on Saudi Arabia, UAE, and their Western backers. “We hold the countries of aggression responsible for any damage that may befall the marine or navigational environment,” a Houthi leader tweeted in April 2019.

U.N. negotiators begged them to at least allow a safety inspection. But the Houthis, fearing an inspection might be a prelude to taking the oil, waffled. Meanwhile, the war fell into a bitter deadlock. The Saudis, Emiratis, and Yemenis seemed to grow more disengaged from the Safer, experts said, less concerned with addressing the crisis than making sure the Houthis took the blame for it. “If it explodes, it’s not our fault,” a Yemeni official told the Sana’a Center in 2020.

“Neither of Yemen’s main warring parties act like they have the slightest responsibility for preventing the massive catastrophe that could befall their country and the region,” the Center wrote, calling the behavior “obscene.”

The absurdity of the situation was underscored in November 2020, when the Houthis granted a U.N. request to inspect the Safer, only to scuttle the trip through excessive logistical and paperwork demands.

Though the U.N. didn’t have the political blessings to address the Safer, it wanted a plan ready. After the inspection debacle, a Yemeni wheat magnate, recognizing that a spill would close the country’s ports, suggested simply moving the oil to a new ship moored in the same spot. This would minimize the odds of an ecological and economic catastrophe without hurting anyone’s bargaining position.

A black and blue speedboat with a machine gun on its deck patrols the area around the rusty and decaying oil tanker FSO Safer on the Red Sea.
A Yemeni coast guard boat patrols the waters around the FSO Safer oil tanker.
Mohammed Mohammed/Xinhua via Getty Images

By December 2021, the U.N. had sketched out a draft plan, estimated to cost $80 million. The switcheroo would unfold in two stages. In the first, a salvage ship would pull up alongside the Safer, send a crew to stabilize the oil, and confirm that the tanker could survive removing it. Then a second vessel, bought by the U.N., would connect to the Safer and suck the oil out of its belly.

That done, the Safer would be hauled off to scrap and the new tanker equipped with a buoy that could offload the crude to another vessel. That provided the diplomatic linchpin of the deal: It meant that if the Houthis and Yemeni government ever agreed on how to dispose of the petroleum, the necessary machinery was in place.

It was the first plan with the political and technical elements to have a chance of working. Yet inexplicably, despite years of fundraising efforts, at no point has it been fully funded. Due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has driven up prices for oil ships, the budget for the Safer rescue ballooned to $143 million. The U.N. estimates its current purse at $121 million. It chose to start the operation anyway, raiding $20 million from an emergency fund earmarked for things like mitigating droughts in Malawi and providing flood relief in the Philippines.

The U.N. calls this a temporary fix; to avoid violating its own regulations, it must somehow return that money. It is unlikely that any of it will come from the world’s governments, experts said. The largest funder so far is Saudi Arabia, which has pledged $18 million. Other anchor donors include the Netherlands, Germany, the United States, and the United Kingdom, each of which has offered at least $10 million.

Some might be innocent enough to ask how the world’s governments can’t pony up the last $20 million needed to prevent a $20 billion oil spill. According to one official familiar with the fundraising, the reason comes down to responsibility. No one country wants to give significantly more than any other, lest they stand out. “It creates ownership, so to speak, over a problem that isn’t necessarily yours,” this source told Grist.

This shortfall prompted the U.N. to pursue the 12 or so oil companies in Yemen which, before the war, likely used the Safer. This hasn’t been particularly fruitful. For one thing, it’s not entirely clear who owns — as a legal matter — the barrels sloshing in the Safer. The likely owners are the Yemeni government and the firms that were drilling there when the war started. Though there have been independent efforts to tabulate who owns what, they are not considered conclusive. That hampers efforts to assign responsibility.

The second barrier is liability. According to the fundraising official, oil-company lawyers fear that contributing to the rescue fund could cause reputational harm by associating them with the problem — or legal exposure if the salvage operation goes sideways. 

Still, the International Association of Oil and Gas Producers did pledge $12 million. Horsman, of Greenpeace, called that a pittance, pointing to the billions in profits oil companies have booked since the Ukraine invasion. “CEOs could find that money in their top drawers,” he said.

The FSO Safer, with about 1 million barrels of oil aboard. Mohammed Hamoud/Getty Images

So what broke the deadlock and made this salvage plan possible? Experts interviewed for this story told Grist it was the gradual convergence of many factors.

Nadwa Al-Dawsari, a nonresident scholar at the Middle East Institute, said a major one was that Saudi Arabia, unable to deal the Houthis a knockout blow, developed war fatigue. This has reduced the intensity of the conflict over the last year, creating space on both sides for luxuries like addressing the Safer. “The Houthis realized, ‘I guess we can let this one go,’” Dawsari said.

Throughout the fighting, many ceasefires have been signed and broken. But diplomats say the latest, signed in March 2022, has been respected, allowing the possibility of a truce to emerge. This thaw helped the U.N. sell both sides on the rescue mission. Negotiators shuttled between the Houthis and the Yemeni government, framing it as a way to prevent a spill while punting on the knottier questions about what to do with the oil. By late 2022 both sides had formally blessed it. This gave the U.N. a clear runway for its final preparations, which included buying an oil tanker, hiring a salvage crew, and taking out a one-of-a-kind insurance policy for a one-of-a-kind tanker rescue. 

Over the last seven weeks, teams with SMIT Salvage, the Dutch contractor the U.N. hired to execute the Safer operation, puffed inert gas into its oil tanks, sent divers to check its hull, and shored up the ship’s pipes and pumps. SMIT is a company of some renown; in 2021, it dug out the Ever Given, a container ship that lodged in the Suez Canal, causing a global shipping snafu.

The Safer operation, which is expected to take two weeks to complete, is comparatively routine by industry standards. But no one who has followed the saga is exhaling just yet. “The ship has been so precarious all these years,” said Ralby, the consultant with IR Consilium. “We could just get badly unlucky.” A pipe could burst onboard, or the underwater pipeline could rupture. It’s also suspected that the waters off Yemen have been mined during the conflict. If one broke loose, it could bring disaster.

The U.N.’s funding shortfall remains unresolved. After years of repeated fundraisers — like the online crowdfunding campaign that raised $300,000, including a contribution from a Maryland elementary school — government donors are considered tapped. It’s left to private donors to provide the last $20 million. As an inducement, the U.N. has offered oil companies contracts that it believes would free them of liability if they chip in. So far, it hasn’t produced any donations, according to the fundraising official.

Looming in the background is the most unpredictable variable of all: the war. In the long and brutal arc of the conflict in Yemen, the current moment qualifies as a relative calm. Peace talks between Houthi and Saudi officials have not yet collapsed, and violence is at a low ebb. Regardless, some analysts feel it’s doubtful a truce will resolve the deep social and economic fissures that sparked the conflict. If history’s a guide, Al-Dawsari said, it’s just a matter of time before the Houthis launch a new offensive.

If hostilities resume, what would that mean for the FSO Safer, or its replacement, the Nautica (which, through an agreement between the Houthis and the recognized Yemeni government, has been renamed the MOST Yemen)? Outside experts note that either vessel would be within range of Houthi artillery or drones. U.N. officials say they have no choice but to trust everyone involved not to target it. 

“It is an operation for which there are no absolute safety nets. Let’s be very clear,” Achim Steiner, administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, said in May, responding to a reporter’s question about the security of the site. “So far we’re receiving all the collaboration that all sides have committed. But you mentioned terrorist attacks. It’s a possibility.”


There are those who argue there isn’t much to learn from the long, strange, and as-yet unresolved story of the FSO Safer. They say the crisis was born of a freakish coincidence: An aging ship carrying a volatile cargo in the sovereign waters of a nation rendered helpless by war. “If there wasn’t a conflict, this problem would have been solved very easily,” said the official involved in fundraising.

Yet the Safer is a parable about where the environment, and the existential crisis the planet finds itself in, stands within the hierarchy of global priorities. One reason so many world leaders, legislators, and citizens of the world struggle to tackle climate change is that they find it abstract: The science predicts long-term shifts with consequences that will appear in unpredictable places and ways. Yet even in the case of the FSO Safer, with its imminent, local, and easily understood threat of grave harm, Gulf nations and the world community still needed five years to solve half the problem.

It’s been a sobering education, said the Sana’a Center’s Musaed Aklan — but also a reminder to not give up. “During conflicts, political interests take priority, while environmental issues become secondary,” he said. “However, we must continue pushing for environmental issues and, most importantly, the lives of locals and their livelihoods. Political progress is difficult but necessary, and we must push leaders to compromise for the greater good.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The race to defuse an oil ‘time bomb’ disaster threatening the Red Sea on Jul 25, 2023.

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New rule for water heaters could help Americans save energy and money

The Biden administration has proposed a new energy efficiency rule for residential water heaters, a move that would jumpstart the adoption of energy-saving heat pumps and significantly reduce carbon emissions from U.S. homes. 

The federal Department of Energy, or DOE, says the proposal would eliminate more than 500 million metric tons of carbon emissions over 30 years — equal to the combined annual emissions of 63 million U.S. homes. Overall, the agency says the new standards would save consumers more than $11 billion in annual energy costs and shrink energy use from water heaters in homes by 21 percent.

These actions “improve outdated efficiency standards for common household appliances, which is essential to slashing utility bills for American families and cutting harmful carbon emissions,” said Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm in a statement last Friday. 

The rule would effectively require all households using traditional electric water heaters to switch to heat pump water heaters once their old appliance reaches the end of its life. The proposal also includes new standards for gas-fired water heaters that would require technology improvements to cut down on their energy use. If finalized, the new rule would go into effect in 2029. 

Heat pump water heaters are two to three times more energy efficient than traditional electric resistance models. They work by pulling heat from the air outside to warm up water in a storage tank, instead of directly generating heat.

Yet despite the potential energy and cost savings, only 1 percent of U.S. households currently use heat pump water heaters. A recent analysis by the nonprofit Rewiring America found that in order for the U.S. to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, households would need to purchase 200,000 more heat pump water heaters than usual over the next three years. Those extra units sold would help the sector reach a crucial tipping point called “market acceleration,” where sales will start to grow sustainably on their own. 

While the rule will not go into effect for at least six years, the Biden administration has already made efforts to boost sales of heat pumps through the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, President Joe Biden’s signature climate spending law. Heat pump water heaters — as well as other electric household appliances like induction stoves — are eligible for rebates and tax credits under the law. 

Water heating accounts for about 13 percent of both home energy use and utility costs in the U.S. The DOE says replacing traditional electric water heaters with heat pump alternatives would save households about $1,900 over the life of an appliance. 

The agency last updated residential water heater standards in 2010. Last year, the department proposed updated water heater standards for commercial buildings for the first time in over 20 years. 

Several water heater manufacturers, environmental organizations, and consumer advocacy groups welcomed the new standards in a joint statement on Friday, highlighting both climate benefits and cost savings for consumers. 

“Although long overdue, the efficiency standards proposed by DOE will deliver significant savings for consumers over the life of the water heater,” said Susan Weinstock, CEO of the Consumer Federation of America, a consumer advocacy nonprofit. “We urge the Department to move with all due speed to finalize these much-needed standards that do away with inefficient, energy-wasting water heaters so that consumers will pay less on their energy bills.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline New rule for water heaters could help Americans save energy and money on Jul 25, 2023.

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