Composting is a magic process where kitchen waste transforms into rich, black soil. Even those…
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The story of “John Doe 1” of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is tucked in a lawsuit filed five years ago against several U.S. tech companies, including Tesla, the world’s largest electric vehicle producer.
In a country where the Earth hides its treasures beneath its surface, those who chip away at its bounty pay an unfair price. As a pre-teen, his family could no longer afford to pay his $6 monthly school fee, leaving him with one option: a life working underground in a tunnel, digging for cobalt rocks.
But soon after he began working for roughly 2 U.S. dollars per day, the child was buried alive under the rubble of a collapsed mine tunnel. His body was never recovered.
The nation, fractured by war, disease, and famine, has seen more than 6 million people die since the mid-1990s, making its conflict the deadliest since World War II. But, in recent years, the death and destruction have been aided by the growing number of electric vehicles humming down American streets.
In 2022, the U.S., the world’s third-largest importer of cobalt, spent nearly $525 million on the mineral, much of which came from the Congo.
As America’s dependence on the Congo has grown, Black-led labor and environmental organizers here in the U.S. have worked to build a transnational solidarity movement. Activists also say that the inequities faced in the Congo relate to those that Black Americans experience. And thanks in part to social media, the desire to better understand what’s happening in the Congo has grown in the past 10 years. In some ways, the Black Lives Matter movement first took root in the Congo after the uprising in Ferguson in 2014, advocates say. And since the murder of George Floyd and the outrage over the Gaza war, there has been an uptick in Congolese and Black American groups working on solidarity campaigns.
Throughout it all, the inequities faced by Congolese people and Black Americans show how the supply chain highlights similar patterns of exploitation and disenfranchisement.
Bakari Height, the transit equity organizer at the Labor Network for Sustainability, says the global harm caused by the energy transition and the inability of Black Americans to participate in it at home are for a simple reason.
“We’re always on the menu, but we’re never at the table,” he said. “The space of transportation planning and climate change is mostly white people, or people of color that aren’t Black, so these discussions about exploitation aren’t happening in those spaces — it is almost like a second form of colonialism.”
Height said, however, when Black people are in the room, these conversations are not only more prevalent, but also more action-oriented. His organization supports Black workers and helps craft policies that support “bold climate action in ways that address labor concerns without sacrificing what science is telling us is necessary.”
While the American South has picked up about two-thirds of the electric vehicle production jobs, Black workers there are more likely to work in non-unionized warehouses, receiving less pay and protections. The White House has also failed to share data that definitively proves whether Black workers are receiving these jobs, rather than them just being placed near Black communities.
“Automakers are moving their EV manufacturing and operations to the South in hopes of exploiting low labor costs and making higher profits,” explained Yterenickia Bell, an at-large council member in Clarkston, Georgia, last year. While Georgia has been targeted for investment by the Biden administration, workers are “refusing to stand idly by and let them repeat a cycle that harms Black communities and working families.”
Solidarity activism reached a national stage last week at the Morehouse College graduation ceremony, when professors at the school sent clear messages to President Joe Biden. Samuel Livingston and Cynthia Hewitt unfurled a Congolese flag as Biden gave his speech. And Dr. Taura Taylor, wearing a DRC pin on her cap, stood up, raised her fist and turned her back to the president. Yet, less publicized has been the work of Congolese and Black American groups building bridges, including the Congo Initiative based in the Congo and the D.C.-based group Friends of the Congo.
Friends of the Congo has worked on several educational campaigns at home, brought Black Americans to the Congo for activism trips, and offered regular support to Congolese youth leaders.
The work is sorely needed, as “John Doe 1’s” story has only become more common in the country.
Roughly 75 percent of the world’s reserves of cobalt, the precious mineral with a sometimes reddish, teal, or violet tint needed for cellphones, laptops, and electric car batteries, lie under the chalky surface.
On average, an electric vehicle battery requires 30 pounds of cobalt, meaning millions of tons of the mineral is needed for America’s EV boom, which will continue to push thousands of Black women, men, and children into pits and tunnels. In the U.S., these battery packs range from around $7,000 to nearly $30,000, while Congolese miners make mere dollars for mining most of the material found in them.
“The country,” explained Maurice Carney, executive director of Friends of the Congo, “was designed for extraction, not development.”
Of the 255,000 Congolese citizens mining for cobalt, 40,000 are children. They are not only exposed to physical threats but environmental ones. Cobalt mining pollutes critical water sources, plus the air and land. It is linked to respiratory illnesses, food insecurity, and violence.
Still, in March, a U.S. court ruled on the case, finding that American companies could not be held liable for child labor in the Congo, even as they helped intensify the prevalence.
Companies operating in the country are “primarily concerned about their own welfare, filling their own pockets. They’re not really concerned about the welfare of the Congolese people,” Carney said earlier this year.
Carney, a former research consultant for the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, has spent years pointing out the link between the Congolese and Black American struggles.
“What we say to people is that in a country that’s so critical to the future of the planet, a country that we’re all connected to through our cellphones and iPads or electric vehicles — even if you’re in California, you’re connected to the Congo,” he said.
“Congolese women have the highest metallic content in the body in the world because they’re digging in the soil to get those minerals,” he added.
Similarly, in the U.S., as poor birth outcomes have been linked to higher exposure to pollutants, pregnant Black women are more likely to live in poor-quality environments compared to white women.
Cobalt accounts for as much as 60 percent of the batteries that drive our lives because the mineral possesses a unique electron configuration that allows the battery to remain stable at higher energy densities. This means cobalt-heavy batteries can hold more charge.
While there has been a push to use alternative minerals in electric batteries, most other options are unstable and unsafe for the user. Some experts have argued that the U.S. should turn its attention to Canada, which is among the top five countries producing cobalt and the only nation in the Western Hemisphere with deposits of all the minerals required to make next-generation electric batteries. But it is a more costly venture that, to this point, has yet to make waves in the U.S.
In the interim, no one knows how many women, men, and children have been killed in the Congolese operations, but the tally, which is likely to be thousands of lives per year, is expected to rise, researchers believe.
In the coming years, it is estimated that more than half of the world’s cobalt will be used just for EVs. The federally subsidized push to increase electric vehicle production by 2030 calls for a 15-fold increase in battery production. Already, the nation’s imports of cobalt increased by 35 percent from 2021 to 2022.
Still, the U.S. has been slow to acknowledge its role.
In a February White House press briefing about the U.S.’ effects and efforts on the environment across the African continent, the Congo and cobalt were never mentioned. And earlier this month, Amos Hochstein, White House senior adviser for energy and investment, encouraged mining minerals in “risky” countries in the name of the clean energy transition.
“We can all live in the capitals and cities around the world and say, ‘I don’t want to do business there.’ But what you are really saying is we’re not going to have an energy transition,” he said. “Because the energy transition is not going to happen if it can only be produced where I live, under my standards.”
The Congo is home to more than 90 times the amount of cobalt reserves found in the U.S., where Native American tribes are being exploited for the resource. (Over two-thirds of America’s cobalt is on Native American land.)
It is one of several movements around the clean energy transition where workers and activists are highlighting how the greening of the world is coming at the expense of Black and Native lives.
Recently, the push for mining in the Congo has reached new heights because of a rift in China-U.S. relations regarding EV production. Earlier this month, the Biden administration issued a 100-percent tariff on Chinese-produced EVs to deter their purchase in the U.S.
Currently, China owns about 80 percent of the legal mines in the Congo, but tens of thousands of Congolese people work in “artisanal” mines outside these facilities, where there are no rules or regulations, and where the U.S. gets much of its cobalt imports.
“Cobalt mining is the slave farm perfected,” wrote Siddharth Kara last year in the award-winning investigative book Cobalt Red: How The Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives. “It is a system of absolute exploitation for absolute profit.”
While it is the world’s richest country in terms of wealth from natural resources, Congo is among the poorest in terms of life outcomes. Of the 201 countries recognized by the World Bank Group, it has the 191st lowest life expectancy.
The exploitation of Black workers in the Congo has contributed to some Black transit activists in the U.S. not fully supporting the transition to electric vehicles, despite the benefits for health and reducing pollution for some Black communities at home. The American Lung Association says 110,000 lives would be saved and 2.7 million childhood asthma attacks avoided by 2050 if Biden’s goals are reached and transportation pollution is lowered.
But today, although EVs do not directly emit fossil fuels, the energy generated to charge an EV mainly comes from polluting fossil fuel power plants, which are disproportionately found in Black communities.
The activists say that moving toward more mass transit options would create actual societal benefits.
“We don’t all live in big cities, but mass transit is still 100 percent the better option,” Height said. “More investment in mass transit options gives us different ways and methods of looking at how we can clean up many of these systems.”
While America’s dependence on cars has grown to the second highest globally, American buses, subways, and light rail lines consistently have lower ridership levels, fewer service hours, and longer waits than those in virtually every comparable country.
It is true, Height acknowledged, that electric buses still rely on cobalt, but investment in mass transit options would dramatically lower the nation’s dependence on the mineral and the need for new infrastructure. Infrastructure, he said, that is not being used. Since 2021, the federal government has doled out nearly $10 billion for public electric vehicle charging infrastructure, for example, but only four states have built stations using the money.
As it is now, EVs are also perpetuating economic inequality. Statistically, most households purchasing EVs earn more than $100,000 per year. The median Black household takes in just $46,000 annually, which could explain why only 2 percent of EV drivers are Black.
Height believes that these discrepancies show the need for other investment options. While the Biden administration has allocated more than $65 billion for electric vehicles, the nation’s biggest climate spending bill allocated just $1 billion for clean heavy-duty vehicles like buses.
The investment, Height said, also “needs to come with a behavioral shift. People need to question: Do you really need a vehicle if you’re going to the same place that your neighbor is going, or the same direction as the people down the street?
“We need to do it before this next individualistic idea of you get an EV, you get an EV, and you get an EV takes root,” he argued.
This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Electric vehicles need cobalt. Congolese miners work in dangerous conditions to get it. on Jun 2, 2024.
This story was originally published by CalMatters.
California’s utilities regulator adopted new rules for community solar projects on Friday, despite warnings from clean energy advocates that the move will actually undercut efforts to expand solar power options for low-income customers.
The state’s biggest utility companies advocated for the new rules.
Community solar projects are generally small-scale, local solar arrays that can serve renters and homeowners who can’t afford to install their own rooftop solar panels. They are one part of the state’s overall strategy to eventually run the power grid entirely by renewable energy.
The California Public Utilities Commission’s 3-1 ruling preserves and expands programs that will allow any ratepayer to subscribe to a pool of projects and receive a 20 percent rate reduction, said Commission President Alice Reynolds. But it also reduces future compensation for solar providers and residents.
The commission calculates the benefits derived from distributed, small-scale solar power projects, which provide a “service” by sending clean energy to the power grid and reducing transmission costs by serving nearby communities. Solar developers are compensated for the value of the benefit their project provides.
The formula adopted this week essentially reduces the value of distributed small-scale renewable energy in the future, providing less of an incentive for new community solar projects to be built.
In the near term, the subsidies and incentives that help promote community solar installation will remain in place, paid for by a recent $250 million grant California received under the federal Solar For All program.
One of the concerns for solar advocates is what happens after that pot of funding runs out and the financial incentive to develop solar evaporates.
“The foundations of a sustainable program should not be built on one-time money,” said Derek Chernow, Western Regional Director for the Coalition for Community Solar Access.
While California has been a leader in promoting solar energy and advocating for an electric grid running carbon-free, the state’s efforts to encourage smaller solar projects have been lackluster. One example of a missed opportunity that critics point to is not requiring community solar projects to have battery storage systems that would allow power to flow after the sun sets.
“We are not done here today, ” Reynolds said, adding the programs can be modified and improved in the future.
With electric bills soaring for many Californians, she also was critical of the impact of “cost shift,” the idea that the subsidies provided to community solar projects are costs borne by all ratepayers. It’s a fundamental fairness argument that the commission has applied in other proceedings, to justify reducing subsidies.
But changing or reducing the subsidies and other incentives to a still-maturing industry, advocates argue, will result in fewer solar installations, ultimately cutting out low-income ratepayers from the benefit of renewable energy. Community access solar programs are supposed to ensure that at least 51 percent of the energy derived from the projects serves disadvantaged customers.
Late last year, the commission overhauled incentives for owners of apartment buildings, schools, and businesses that install solar panels. Those regulations were another in a string of recent decisions the commission has taken to reduce financial incentives for rooftop solar. In late 2022, the commission reduced payments to homeowners who sell excess power from newly installed solar panels on single-family homes.
Advocates have been bemoaning what they say is California’s lagging clean energy leadership and criticizing Governor Gavin Newsom, who delivered a keynote speech at the Vatican Climate Summit last week, for not holding the state’s powerful utilities and oil companies to account.
The commission’s community solar decision was quickly added to the list of what critics say is a concerning pattern of backtracking on critical renewable energy policies.
“The CPUC’s recent series of decisions threatens to unravel California’s clean energy progress,” said the Solar Energy Industries Association in a statement. “It’s past time for Governor Newsom and state leaders to reign in the commission before it inflicts more damage on customers and the state’s clean energy economy.”
As it had in earlier closely-watched decisions, the commission heard from a myriad of organizations, including the solar industry and environmental justice groups, advocating for programs that would expand access to clean energy and reduce power bills.
There was scant public comment during the morning hearing but at least two state legislators voiced their opposition to the proposal. Assemblymember Christopher Ward noted that the updated proposal had only been released this week and decried it as “fatally flawed.”
“This does not reflect the intent of the bill,” Ward, a Democrat from San Diego, told commissioners, referring to legislation he authored that required the commission to review its rules. The unintended result of today’s decision, he said, would be to discourage new projects.
An aide to Senator Josh Becker, a Menlo Park Democrat, read a letter from the lawmaker saying that experts doubt the policies will expand access to clean energy.
In extensive remarks, Commissioner Darcie Houck outlined several concerns about the decision, including her view that it didn’t go far enough to benefit ratepayers in low-income communities. Much of the commissioner’s dissent centered on provisions that she said will disincentive adoption of solar and won’t allow for a “just and equitable energy transition.”
This story was originally published by Grist with the headline California sides with big utilities, trimming incentives for community solar projects on Jun 1, 2024.
There are currently more than 200 coal-fired power plants in operation in the United States, but the country has been scaling back since reaching its coal generation peak in 2011. By the end of 2026, the U.S. is projected to have retired half of its coal capacity.
Coal plants emit toxic pollutants into the air, water and soil, leaving a legacy of contamination that must be cleaned up after their decommission.
But what happens to coal plants after they shut down?
Michigan’s Environmental Law & Policy Center (ELPC) sees retiring coal plants — once viewed as industrial scars on the landscape — as “canvases for the creation of new greenways, parklands, wildlife habitat, and clean energy development,” a press release from ELPC said.
“If you look around Michigan, and you look around many of the other states in the Great Lakes region, there is a large number of coal plants sitting on the shores of the Lakes. And lakefront property is, of course, valuable. If you look at it as a coal plant site — which is how most of us are used to looking at a plant where there’s been a coal plant operating for 40 or 50 or 60 years — it’s sometimes easy to forget that these sites are often right along the lakefront or right along a river, or in some cases, next door to a state or international wildlife refuge,” Howard Learner, president and executive director of ELPC, told EcoWatch.
From 2010 to 2019, 290 coal plants with more than 100 gigawatts (GW) of capacity were closed across the U.S.
“Once these coal plants retire, each of the sites begins a multi-year retirement process that includes decommissioning, remediation, and redevelopment,” the press release said.
Major Michigan utility company Consumers Energy has plans to retire two of its remaining coal plants 15 years ahead of schedule by 2025. Their closure presents a unique opportunity for the repurposing of the industrial brownfields they will leave behind into hubs of renewable energy, community collaboration and environmental solace.
“About 10 years ago, we began to map out where the coal plants are around the Midwest that we thought might be shutting down in the reasonably near future, either because they were very old and using old technology that was being displaced in the market, or the economics were leading to the plant shutting down, or other factors. And we came up with a list of plants from our energy expert side that seemed to be candidates for retirement over the next decade. Then we mapped that out with a natural resources perspective — not an energy perspective — but where are they located, and what added values in terms of outdoor recreational use, beaches for public use and access, wildlife habitat and conservation purposes might be achieved in some of these locations,” Learner told EcoWatch.
With its new Power Plants to Parklands (P2P) initiative, ELPC plans to reinvision the redevelopment portion of the transition from wasteland to sanctuary.
“Historically, coal plants were situated on lakes and rivers because of their reliance on water for cooling systems. As a result, these facilities often occupy marquee waterfront locations, making them prime for public use. However, retired coal plant sites are too often left as a blight in the community. Many are fenced off from the public, as off-limits as prisons,” the press release said.
Since they are already connected to the energy grid, retired coal plants come with the infrastructure needed for clean energy redevelopment.
“All these coal plant sites are, of course, hardwired into the electric grid. They have coal plants that were generating electricity, so they have transmission lines, and nobody has to fight the battle of whether some community likes or opposes transmission lines or some of the battles that are popping up on energy storage or solar projects,” Learner said.
ELPC is collaborating with communities in Michigan, as well as a variety of stakeholders — including environmental groups, municipal governments, businesses and utilities — to turn former coal plants into parklands where there is community support and it is ecologically and financially feasible to do so.
“It’s like repurposing an old railway station for a more modern transportation hub,” ELPC said. “With transmission lines already in place, these sites sidestep the red tape that can stunt the deployment of new clean energy facilities. In addition, these new clean energy plants offer an opportunity to reinvest in the communities formerly supported by the aging coal plants.”
ELPC is currently focused on Michigan sites where coal plants are either closed or scheduled to be shut down in the next three years.
One example is the Daniel E. Karn Power Plant. Owned by Consumers Energy, the plant will be redeveloped to provide over 85 MW of solar — enough to power about 20,000 homes.
“Just think about it. If you’ve had a high voltage transmission line going into the Daniel E. Karn coal plant site — which is over in Essexville, Michigan, on Saginaw Bay — and the coal plant shut down, it’s a great place to develop, as Consumers Energy is doing, almost 100 megawatts of solar energy, because that’s hardwired right into the transmission grid,” Learner told EcoWatch.
Two of the Karn site’s units have been retired and two others will continue operations using oil and natural gas in times of peak demand when needed until 2031.
“The coal plants are shutting down,” Learner said. “But what happens too often is the coal plant gets shut down, the utility puts a fence around it and a couple of security guards, and there it sits. And hopefully the toxic materials get cleaned up, perhaps not, and it’s an old brownfield, it’s an eyesore. That’s the default. This is an opportunity to create real value for the future.”
ELPC is collaborating with the Saginaw Basin Land Conservancy as site planning for decommission begins, engaging members of the community to find out what they would like to see most before coming up with a draft conservation plan.
“As an example of the ecological significance, the Karn Power Plant sits on the Saginaw Bay of Lake Huron, a critical area for migratory birds. The bay and its surrounding wetlands provide essential habitat for over 1,000 species, making it an essential stopover point along the Central Flyway of North America,” ELPC said.
Two other projects ELPC is currently working on are the Trenton Channel Power Plant — a 220 MW energy storage facility owned by DTE Energy — and the J.H. Campbell coal plant.
“The Trenton Channel coal plant, which is about 20 miles south of Detroit, is immediately adjacent to the Detroit International Wildlife Refuge. The Campbell coal plant, which is in West Olive, Michigan, sits right along the Lake Michigan shoreline and the Pigeon River corridor. These are all plants that have significant parkland value and potential, outdoor recreation use potential and wildlife habitat protection opportunities,” Learner told EcoWatch.
Another benefit of reusing retiring coal plant sites is that it helps maintain and can increase local tax revenue that gets lost by retiring coal plants.
“Consumers Energy wants to develop the largest battery energy storage facility in the country at the Campbell Coal Plant site. That will be a lot of property tax revenues. At the Karn coal plant site, they’re putting in 85 megawatts of solar. To give you a perspective, that’s about 250,000 solar panels. Again, that will be property tax revenues,” Learner said.
The P2P initiative imagines the repurposed sites as public green spaces where residents can enjoy a “sense of place” and connect with the healing power of nature unblemished by fossil fuels’ destructive impacts.
“As the curtain falls on the era of coal plants in Michigan and the U.S., ELPC’s Power Plants to Parklands project isn’t just about repurposing retired coal plant sites; it offers an opportunity for utilities, stakeholders, and communities to collaborate in shaping a more sustainable and prosperous future for the region,” ELPC said. “ELPC’s P2P initiative aspires to be a model for the nation — a blueprint for communities navigating the closure of coal plants.”
The post Power Plants to Parklands Is Turning Michigan’s Retired Coal Plants Into Community Hubs of Solace, Wildlife and Solar Energy appeared first on EcoWatch.
Following multiple scientific studies that have revealed that carbon offsets are not as reliable as once thought, the market value of carbon offsets has dropped by around 61% when compared to its near-peak value in 2022, a new report has found.
In early 2023, a major investigative report by The Guardian, Die Zeit and SourceMaterial found that the vast majority of forest carbon offset programs are actually “phantom credits” that don’t help remove any emissions from the atmosphere. A 2022 study that analyzed forest-based carbon offsets in California for a decade found no climate benefits from the offset programs in that time period. Yet another study, published in March 2023, found that many carbon offsetting programs weren’t using scientific best practices to calculate carbon credits, leading to over-estimates of the benefits of these programs.
Now, a report by the nonprofit Ecosystem Marketplace found that the voluntary carbon market (VCM) value has declined 61%, from $1.9 billion in 2022 to around $723 million in 2023. The carbon offset market value had peaked around 2021, when the value reached over $2 billion.
Since the peak, the value has decreased by about 56% year-over-year, Ecosystem Marketplace found.
Experts noted that to make carbon offsetting work, there will need to be more reliability and action from the carbon credit programs.
“If the VCM hopes to increase its mitigation potential and the value it provides to ecosystems and communities, especially those hosting [The Nature Conservancy] projects, it is imperative that the credit supply shows its integrity by shifting towards methodologies that use the best available science and social safeguards,” Maximiliano Bernal Temores, carbon markets assistant, Impact Finance & Markets at The Nature Conservancy, said in a press release.
“Crediting standards and project developers must incorporate best-science practices like dynamic baselines and remote sensing to ensure the VCM, especially nature-based credits, meets buyer expectations,” Temores added.
The once most popular type of credit, REDD+, had the biggest losses in 2023. The REDD+ stands for “reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries” and is based on a United Nations framework.
But in 2023, researchers discovered that several REDD+ carbon credit projects in Peru, Colombia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania, Zambia and Cambodia did little to curb deforestation, and these projects had a much smaller impact on emissions reductions than they claimed, Forests News reported.
“The media scrutiny revealing that many projects issuing Redd+ credits to the voluntary carbon market have sold more credits than justified is important,” said Julia Jones, a professor at Bangor University and a co-author in one of the studies cited by the joint carbon credit investigation by The Guardian, Die Zeit and SourceMaterial. “However, I am deeply concerned that some of the recent coverage of the issue gives the impression that the very idea of tackling climate change by slowing tropical deforestation is a scam — this is not true and the idea could harm forests.”
The investigations on carbon credits and the recent report revealing the downfall of their market value highlight a need for change in the industry to help raise money for truly beneficial projects.
“Dramatically more finance is urgently needed to stop the ongoing loss of forests and the vital services they provide — a reformed voluntary carbon market could play a key role in providing that finance,” Jones told The Guardian.
This week, the Biden administration announced support for reforms to carbon credits, promoting “High-Integrity Voluntary Carbon Markets” and noting that projects must “represent real decarbonization” and avoid doing environmental harm.
However, it will also be critical for the world to take action to reduce emissions outside of relying on carbon credits, which critics have warned could be used by the wealthy to continue polluting.
The post Value of Carbon Offsets Market Has Dropped 61% Since 2022, Report Finds appeared first on EcoWatch.
Today’s quote is from Senator Gaylord Nelson, co-founder of Earth Day: “The ultimate test of…
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Activists pushing San Diego to take over the city’s investor-owned utility aren’t letting last year’s defeat of a similar effort in Maine deter their goal of establishing a nonprofit power company. They recently submitted petitions bearing more than 30,000 signatures from residents who want the City Council to let voters decide the matter this fall.
Advocates say a municipal takeover of San Diego Gas & Electric would deliver cheaper rates and a faster, more affordable, and more equitable transition to clean energy. Still, the measure faces long odds from skeptical council members who have twice rejected similar proposals.
The campaign is the first public power ballot initiative since 70 percent of voters in Maine rejected a proposal to take over the state’s two largest utilities. A group called Power San Diego delivered several cardboard boxes filled with petitions to the San Diego city registrar’s office on May 14. If just over 24,000 of the signatures on those documents are deemed valid, the Council will have to decide whether to put the question to voters in the next election.
What’s happening in Southern California reflects growing frustration with the high rates and lackluster service investor-owned utilities often provide — and a desire to accelerate the green transition. Similar campaigns are afoot in Rochester, New York and San Francisco, and Empire State lawmakers recently introduced a bill to buy out Central Hudson Gas & Electric and create a public power authority.
“Across the country, people are talking about public ownership of energy,” Sarahana Shrestha, a New York state assembly member who co-sponsored the bill, told Grist. “If we want a just transition — taking care of workers, and making sure that it’s affordable and brings benefits back into communities — there’s no effective way of doing that while you’re still answering to shareholders.”
San Diego residents pay some of the nation’s highest electricity rates, and by one estimate, more than a quarter of customers are behind on their payments. (The utility has attributed its high rates to the cost of everything from wildfire prevention to building transmission lines and other clean energy infrastructure.) Takeover advocates say the move would save residents 20 percent on their utility bills because a nonprofit model eliminates the need to provide shareholders with a return. It estimates the cost at $3.5 billion, citing a study commissioned by the city last year.
That analysis found that the utility’s 700,000 customers who live within the city of San Diego could save 13 to 14 percent annually if the city bought the utility’s grid assets for $2 billion and created a municipal utility. The math is less favorable if the cost of the buyout goes up, however; at a price of $6 billion, ratepayers could face additional costs of $60 million over the first decade but see long-term savings after 20 years.
San Diego Gas & Electric vehemently opposes the effort and has backed the political action committee Responsible Energy San Diego to block it. The organization calls itself “a coalition of diverse San Diego leaders” fighting “a reckless ballot initiative to force a government takeover of the energy grid.” The utility has contributed well over $700,000 to the committee, according to records on the San Diego Ethics Commission website.
That’s more than twice what Power San Diego has raised and reflects a dynamic in which political action committees supported by Maine’s two investor-owned utilities received 34 times more money than public power advocates. Activists there say that allowed the utilities to finance a robust campaign of advertising and misinformation to defeat the referendum.
San Diego Gas & Electric has hired Concentric Energy Advisors, the same consultants who helped defeat the effort in Maine. The company’s study commissioned by the San Diego utility estimated the cost of a public takeover of the grid at $9.3 billion.
Matt Awbrey of Responsible Energy San Diego told Grist the city should address other priorities like affordable housing rather than a proposal “to create a new government-run utility that has no plan, budget, or verifiable cost estimates.” He said the cost of the takeover likely would bring “higher taxes, higher electric bills, and/or cuts to essential city services we all depend on.”
Power San Diego intended to gather 80,000 signatures by July, which would have placed the proposal on November’s ballot. But it lacked the funding for such an effort and decided to seek 30,000 signatures, or roughly 3 percent of registered voters. That would require the City Council to vote on whether to put the matter to voters.
Dorrie Bruggeman, senior campaign coordinator for Power San Diego, doesn’t expect the council to do that; it already has rejected such a proposal on two occasions, with council members calling for greater detail on costs and projected revenues. Council President Sean Elo-Rivera is among those with reservations.
“I have no love for corporate monopolies reaching into the pockets of everyday working people,” he told the local news outlet La Jolla Light. “But this is a very complex and important issue and I don’t think this is baked enough to go to the voters.”
Regardless of any qualms the council may have, Bill Powers, chair of Power San Diego, said his organization has prompted an important discussion within the community and sparked voter engagement on the issue. The next step is getting policymakers behind the idea.
“If we can get a couple of council members that are open to public power, if we can get a mayor who is open to public power, which we’ve had in the past, then the movement isn’t dependent on the endpoint of a ballot initiative,” Powers said.
Such campaigns are gaining momentum elsewhere. Public power advocates in Rochester, New York, want the city to evaluate the costs and benefits of a municipal utility. In San Francisco, city officials are currently working with the California Public Utilities Commission to determine how to set a fair price for Pacific Gas & Electric’s distribution grid, in the hopes of creating a citywide public power system.
On May 17, New York Assemblymember Shrestha and State Senator Michelle Hinchey introduced a bill to create the Hudson Valley Power Authority, a public power entity that would buy out Central Hudson Gas & Electric. The utility has drawn criticism for its high rates and a string of billing failures since 2021. If the measure passes, the Hudson Valley Power Authority would seek to lower rates, improve service, and hasten the green transition while protecting labor rights.
Joe Jenkins, Central Hudson’s director of media relations, told Grist the proposed takeover would involve “significant hidden costs, loss of jobs, and loss of tax revenue for towns and schools,” adding that rates for municipal utilities in New York are nearly 9 percent more expensive than those of investor-owned utilities.
Shrestha said the legislation reflects her constituents’ growing interest in public power. Her office has hosted seven town halls this past year to discuss energy democracy. “People are so fed up with getting bills that are inconsistent and late,” she said. “People are really excited about learning how we can actually get public power done.”
Correction: This story misstated the number of customers who could save 13 to 14 percent annually if the city bought the utility’s grid assets.
This story was originally published by Grist with the headline San Diego ponders a bid to take over its for-profit energy utility on May 31, 2024.
International climate negotiations have long been haunted by a broken promise. In the wake of collapsed negotiations at the United Nations climate conference in Copenhagen in 2009, wealthy nations, led by the United States, pledged to provide developing countries with $100 billion in climate-related aid annually by 2020. The money was meant in part to ease tensions between the rich countries that had contributed the most to climate change historically and the poorer nations that disproportionately suffer the effects of a warming planet. But rich countries fell short of the target in both 2020 and 2021, deepening mistrust and stymying progress during the annual United Nations climate conferences, which are known by the abbreviation COP.
A new report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD, confirms what the international organization began to suspect just before last year’s COP28: that wealthy nations finally surpassed the $100 billion goal in 2022. And while they were two years late delivering on their promise, rich countries partially compensated for their earlier shortfalls, contributing nearly $116 billion in climate aid to developing countries in 2022, according to the latest data available. That additional funding helps fill the roughly $27 billion gap resulting from rich countries’ failure to meet the $100 billion threshold in each of the two years prior.
“If you underachieved in the first two years, overachieving in the rest of the period is a good way to make up for that, to make amends,” said Joe Thwaites, a climate finance expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council, a U.S.-based environmental nonprofit.
Even $100 billion, however, is far lower than the developing world’s estimated need. United Nations-backed research projects that developing countries (excluding China) will need an eye-popping $2.4 trillion per year by 2030 to transition away from fossil fuels and adapt to climate change.
Serious questions also remain about the quality and accounting of the existing funding. According to the OECD report, more than two-thirds of the public finance in 2022 was provided in the form of loans rather than no-strings-attached grants. That means developing countries are required to pay the money back, often with interest at market rates. A recent Reuters investigation also found that some aid providers required recipients to work with companies based in donor countries, meaning that much of the aid money ultimately found its way back to wealthy nations.
Such findings are likely to inform talks next week, as climate negotiators meet in Bonn, Germany, in preparation for COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, at the end of the year. Negotiators need to agree on a new collective goal for climate aid to developing countries this year. So far, different countries have submitted a range of proposals, with some nations floating $1 trillion annually as an appropriate number. Wealthy countries also want to expand their ranks so that some relatively rich countries that are technically classified as “developing,” like the oil-rich states of the Persian Gulf, can contribute funds toward the goal. Historically, only countries that the United Nations designated as “developed” in the 1990s have been on the hook.
The new OECD report’s findings may be advantageous to wealthy nations as they negotiate these thorny issues, according to Thwaites. “Developed countries were not necessarily arguing from a position of strength or moral high ground, having failed to meet the $100 billion on time,” he said. If countries continue to provide a similar level of funding for the next few years, they could make up for the shortfall. “Making up for 2020 and 2021, meeting the goal in those two years, could help rebuild a bit of trust,” Thwaites added.
The OECD report found that funding from all types of sources — multilateral development banks, the private sector, and public finance from governments — grew across the board in 2022. The increase in private-sector funding was particularly notable, jumping by more than 50 percent to a total of $21.9 billion.
The report indicated specific progress on funding for adaptation measures like sea walls and disaster-resilient infrastructure, an oft-overlooked area of climate finance. In 2021, countries pledged to double adaptation finance from the $19 billion provided in 2019 to $38 billion by 2025. According to the OECD report, adaptation funding had already risen to $32.4 billion one year after the pledge.
As in past years, loans continued to make up the majority of funding. While developing countries have called on wealthy nations to move away from loans as the primary form of aid, all parties seem to agree that loans can be appropriate in some circumstances. For projects that generate revenue — such as investments in renewable energy — loans tend not to have a detrimental effect because they pay for themselves. But for measures that don’t generate revenue — in particular, adaptation measures like sea walls — loans can trap countries in cycles of debt. As a result, the call for increasing grant-based funding has grown louder in recent years.
“A lot of countries are in debt distress,” said Thwaites. “And if they take on more loans for adaptation, where it doesn’t necessarily generate a return on the investment, that’s a challenge.”
Editor’s note: The Natural Resources Defense Council is an advertiser with Grist. Advertisers have no role in Grist’s editorial decisions.
This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Better late than never: Wealthy nations finally meet $100 billion climate aid goal on May 31, 2024.
Georgia Governor Brian Kemp called for more new nuclear energy at an event Wednesday celebrating the first new nuclear reactors built in the U.S. in decades, at Plant Vogtle near Augusta, Georgia. The construction of those reactors, known as Vogtle Units 3 and 4, cost more than twice its original budget and ended years behind schedule.
“Today, we celebrate the end of that project,” Kemp told the crowd of state officials and utility executives. “And now, let’s start planning for Vogtle Five.”
That could be a tough sell to Georgians who have seen their bills go up multiple times to pay for the new reactors and for shareholders of the power plant’s largest owner, who had to absorb some of the costs. Originally billed as the dawn of a new nuclear era and priced at $14 billion, the Plant Vogtle project was plagued by repeated delays and ultimately cost an estimated total of more than $31 billion.
When lead contractor Westinghouse filed for bankruptcy in 2017, prompting South Carolina to abandon its own nuclear project, Vogtle became the only new nuclear construction in the country. It still is.
“If building more nuclear were a good idea, other states would be jumping on the bandwagon now,” said Liz Coyle, executive director of the consumer advocacy group Georgia Watch. “The fact that they’re not, I think, speaks volumes.”
Coyle said her group is preparing to fight any proposal for another reactor.
For their part, the elected officials and utility executives at Wednesday’s event spoke of Plant Vogtle as a success story.
“Vogtle 3 and 4 don’t just represent an incredible economic development asset for our state and … a milestone for our entire country,” Kemp said. “They also stand as physical examples of something that I remind myself of every day: Tough times don’t last. Tough people do.”
Triumphal arrangements of the national anthem, “God Bless America,” and “Georgia On My Mind” backed by a gospel choir bookended the celebratory speeches. Attendees could snack on a sheet cake model of the power plant rendered in fondant.
Speakers touted Plant Vogtle as a win for clean energy, since it can produce enough electricity to power a million homes and businesses without the greenhouse gas emissions produced by coal or gas, according to Georgia Power, which owns the largest stake in the new reactors. That carbon-free energy is key to attracting new businesses to the state, Kemp and others said.
All five members of the Georgia Public Service Commission, or PSC — which oversees Georgia Power’s planning and rates, including the Vogtle project — addressed the crowd.
“I just hope that we keep it up. We really should,” said commissioner Tricia Pridemore. “If we want to continue clean energy for our nation, it’s gonna take more than four.”
In December, the PSC approved a deal that hikes Georgia Power customers’ rates now that Vogtle Unit 4 is online.
After the Wednesday event, commissioner Tim Echols said he supports more nuclear power in Georgia, but said a further Vogtle expansion would need to come with protections against runaway costs and other problems that plagued the last project.
“I really need some protection against a bankruptcy,” he said. “I just can’t do it on the same basis again.”
Echols suggested a federal “backstop” and a mechanism to ensure large customers like factories and data centers would pay for the bulk of nuclear construction.
Under current Georgia law, a further expansion of Plant Vogtle would need to be financed differently than the project that just wrapped up, Coyle said. In 2018, state lawmakers approved a sunset provision for the state law that had allowed Georgia Power to pass Vogtle’s financing costs on to customers during construction. Barring another change, that would mean Southern Company and its shareholders would shoulder those costs.
Coyle said she’ll be urging lawmakers to keep it that way.
“Georgians are struggling, really, really struggling already to pay their power bills,” she said. “I hope we don’t have to go down this path again.”
On Friday, U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm and national climate advisor Ali Zaidi are visiting Vogtle for another event at the power plant. According to the Department of Energy, they plan to meet with local officials, as well as industry and labor leaders.
This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Georgia governor calls for even more nuclear power despite budget woes on May 31, 2024.
Crows are highly intelligent, social birds found on every continent other than South America and Antarctica.
In a new study, researchers from the Institute of Neurobiology at Germany’s University of Tübingen have found that crows are able to learn to produce a specific number of calls, showing advance planning.
How many calls they will make can be predicted from the first vocalization in a sequence, a press release from University of Tübingen said.
“Producing a specific number of vocalizations with purpose requires a sophisticated combination of numerical abilities and vocal control,” the researchers wrote in the study. “We show that crows can flexibly produce variable numbers of one to four vocalizations in response to arbitrary cues associated with numerical values. The acoustic features of the first vocalization of a sequence were predictive of the total number of vocalizations, indicating a planning process. Moreover, the acoustic features of vocal units predicted their order in the sequence and could be used to read out counting errors during vocal production.”
Carrion crows are known for their impressive learning ability, which includes being able to count.
“In addition, they have very good vocal control. They can control precisely whether they want to emit a call or not,” said Andreas Nieder, a professor of animal physiology at University of Tübingen, in the press release.
The research team conducted behavioral experiments to see if three carrion crows could combine their ability to count with vocal control.
The corvids were given the task of producing from one to four calls that appropriately corresponded with specific sounds or an array of Arabic numerals, followed by pecking an enter key.
“All three birds succeeded in this. They were able to count their calls in sequence,” Nieder said in the press release.
The crows displayed a relatively long response time between when they were presented with the stimulus and their first call, which became longer as more calls were added. The delay’s length was not affected by the type of stimulus.
“This indicates that, from the information presented to them, the crows form an abstract numerical concept which they use to plan their vocalizations before emitting the calls,” Nieder explained. “Using the acoustic properties of the first call in a numerical sequence we could predict how many calls the crow would make.”
Some errors were detected in the birds’ calls.
“Counting errors, such as one call too many or one too few, arose through the bird losing track of the calls already made or still to be produced,” Nieder said. “We are also able to read out these types of errors from the acoustic properties of the individual calls.”
Being able to produce a deliberately chosen number of calls requires a sophisticated combination of vocal control and numerical competence.
“Our results show that humans are not the only ones who can do this. In principle it also opens up sophisticated communication to the crows,” Nieder said.
The study, “Crows ‘count’ the number of self-generated vocalizations,” was published in the journal Science.
The post Highly Intelligent Crows Can Plan How Many Calls to Make, Study Shows appeared first on EcoWatch.
