Month: November 2020

Wind and solar now cheaper than natural gas

Wind and solar now cheaper than natural gas

But before you get too excited and decide to cut off your natural gas supply, what hasn’t changed is the unreliability of both solar and wind

Licia Corbella                            Nov 21, 2020

A power-generating wind turbine is reflected in solar panels on March 10, 2010. PHOTO BY REUTERS/THOMAS BOHLEN/FILE.

 

We all remember the disturbing stories coming out of Europe as little as two years ago called the heat or eat phenomenon. The push towards renewable energy contributed to large spikes in electricity costs that seniors and other people on low incomes in the U.K., in particular, were forced to choose between heating their homes or eating.

Even in Ontario, that province’s push under previous provincial governments to bring in more solar and wind power caused prices to rise so much that it helped lead to the defeat of Kathleen Wynne’s provincial Liberal government.

According to a new report from the University of Calgary, however, that era of high-cost renewable energy is over.

The School of Public Policy report on energy and environmental policy trends, Cheap Renewables Have Arrived, has found that solar and wind power prices have plunged so precipitously that they are now less expensive than efficient natural gas plants.

Recent analysis shows that over the past 10 years, wind costs have fallen by 70 per cent and solar by 90 per cent.

“Perhaps more significantly, the levelized cost of wind and solar — a measure which includes cost to construct and operate power plants — has now reached parity with the marginal cost of efficient natural gas plants,” write co-authors Nick Schumacher, Victoria Goodday, Blake Shaffer and Jennifer Winter.

“This suggests building new renewables is now cheaper than operating existing fossil power plants.”

Shaffer, an energy economist and an assistant professor of economics, says the perception for people who aren’t “electricity nerds” is that solar and wind power is a kind of “boutique power” — costly and niche.

“For many people who are thinking back about five years ago, certainly 10 years ago, and hearing about the cost of solar and wind and, you know, runaway electricity prices in Ontario, we still have that in mind because that’s not long ago,” said Shaffer during a Wednesday interview. “But it’s just changed so dramatically that’s no longer the case. Wind and solar is now cheaper than natural gas.”

Now, before you get too excited and decide to cut off your natural gas supply, what hasn’t changed is the unreliability of both solar and wind. Basically, you only get wind power when the wind blows and solar power when the sun shines.

But Shaffer says with more countries committing to net-zero emissions targets — including  Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s announcement on Thursday  that pledged Canada to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 — the push will be on to find ways to store this “zero-emission power” to be used when demand is highest — primarily through batteries, which are currently costly and not so green.

“Despite their low costs, wind and solar still have a long way to go before they are the dominant sources of energy,” states the report.

“In 2018, renewables accounted for only 8.5 per cent of total global energy supply. Despite their small share of supply, renewable energy investment growth — 97 per cent of which is in wind and solar — is outpacing any other energy source at 7.6 per cent per year.”

The report points out that even the International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook 2020 report — which tends to be highly conservative — declared: “Solar is the new king of electricity.”

Shaffer says the rapid decline in the cost of solar panels was caused by the demand for them in Germany, California and other European countries and particularly now that China has taken the lead on production.

“So, the renewables are now the cheapest in terms of producing electricity, but it still doesn’t give us the on-demand power we want. And so just looking at cost alone isn’t fair. We need to figure out how to turn that raw energy into on-demand power.”

Shaffer notes that just recently TransAlta put in a large Tesla battery to store renewable energy and California and South Australia are doing the same.

He anticipates that natural gas will continue to play an important role in electrification to fill in the valleys caused by the intermittent nature of solar and wind for some time to come.

Solar panels atop the Southland Leisure Centre in Calgary in 2014. At the time, it was the city’s largest solar array. PHOTO BY POSTMEDIA ARCHIVES

 

In October, Premier Jason Kenney announced a new strategy for Alberta’s massive 300-year supply of natural gas, including net-zero hydrogen exports, something that Shaffer believes will be in high demand in the world.

Indeed, the hydrogen industry is projected to be worth $2.5 trillion by 2050, according to the Hydrogen Council, a global group of corporate executives encouraging investment in the hydrogen economy.

So, are solar and wind the game-changers that replaces oil and gas?

“No, they’re not,” says Shaffer. “It’s not the same scale. But what it is is it’s a great opportunity to replace a lot of generation to reduce emissions at really low to no cost.”

He says Alberta is “blessed with all of these great energy resources, and it just so happens that we also have some of the best wind resources in Canada. You go down to Pincher Creek, you’ll agree with me. We also have the best solar resources in Canada, us and southern Saskatchewan.”

“There’s nowhere cheaper in Canada to build solar and wind than in Alberta.”

The greening of the electrical grid no longer will force people to choose between heating or eating. It will, hopefully, one day soon be about cleaner air and net-zero greenhouse gas emissions at a reasonable cost.

Alberta sees an energy transition ‘happen before our eyes’

Varcoe: Alberta sees an energy transition ‘happen before our eyes’

Chris Varcoe                                Nov 21, 2020

Chief Allan Adam, Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation. PHOTO BY NICK KENDRICK, GREENPLANET ENERGY ANALYTICS
For the 1,000 residents of Fort Chipewyan, it has already started to arrive.Earlier this week, the community officially announced the completion of a new solar project that will generate up to 25 per cent of its electricity needs.

The northern community isn’t connected to the province’s power grid; the nearest tie-in to Alberta’s electricity system is 150 kilometres away.

Solar energy will help reduce Fort Chipewyan’s reliance on diesel that can only be trucked in on an ice road during the winter.

“Knowing that we have a different option in place of diesel fuel, it’s quite exciting. The opportunities are there for jobs and a cleaner way of heating our community,” Blue Eyes Simpson, vice-president of the Fort Chipewyan Metis Association, said Thursday in an interview.

“We’ve shown the world things like this can happen, even in the smallest of communities.”

The project, a partnership involving ATCO Ltd. and Three Nations Energy (3NE) GP Inc., is noteworthy for a number of reasons. It’s the largest remote off-grid solar generating development in the country.Using solar power will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by cutting local diesel consumption each year by an estimated 800,000 litres.

A fuel truck drives down the winter ice road from Fort McMurray to Fort Chipewyan in Northern Alberta on February 4, 2015. The 200-km temporary road typically opens mid-December and closes mid-March depending on the weather. PHOTO BY RYAN JACKSON/POSTMEDIA

 

The Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation (ACFN), Fort Chipewyan Metis Association and Mikisew Cree First Nation are joint partners in 3NE, which owns the 2,200-kW solar farm located near the community’s airport.

The $7.8-million project, which included funding from the province and Ottawa, will generate about $200,000 to $250,000 annually in revenues, said Jason Schulz, 3NE president and the ACFN’s director of strategic advisory services.

ATCO built a 600-kW solar farm last year that’s adjacent to the larger facility and both developments will feed the company’s 1.5 megawatt-hour battery storage system.

“It really was a way to help the community achieve their climate change goals … and have less trucks rolling diesel into the community,” said Melanie Bayley, ATCO’s senior vice-president.

“This time of year, there is not a lot of sunshine. But come the summer months, there’s a great deal of solar potential there.”

The project also speaks to the ongoing energy evolution and efforts in Alberta to decarbonize.

Several oilsands producers, including Cenovus Energy and Canadian Natural Resources, have set goals to achieve net-zero emissions in three decades.

The cost of renewable energy technology continues to drop. Alberta, with strong wind and solar resources, is attracting outside investment.“We certainly are seeing the energy transition happen before our eyes,” said Bayley.

Earlier this month, a report by International Energy Agency said wind, solar and other renewable sources will make up almost 90 per cent of the global increase in total power capacity this year.

“Solar … and onshore wind are already the cheapest ways of adding new electricity-generating plants in most countries today,” the report stated.

Canada’s first wind-energy instalment, built in 1993, is nestled in the Alberta Rockies overlooking Pincher Creek. PHOTO BY POSTMEDIA ARCHIVE

 

In Alberta, as coal-fired power generation is being phased out, much of it is being replaced by natural gas, which generates fewer emissions and can back up intermittent renewable supply.

A number of renewable energy projects are also moving ahead, including the largest solar development in the country.

The Travers Solar Project, southeast of Calgary in Vulcan County, will generate 465 megawatts (MW) of electricity from 1.5 million solar panels once it’s built.

Construction on the $750-million Travers project, which is being developed by Calgary-based Greengate Power Corp., is expected to start in the first half of next year, said CEO Dan Balaban.

He noted a push by companies to source their electricity needs from clean energy will drive future renewable expansion in Alberta, which has the only deregulated electricity market in Canada.

“The energy discussion has been way too polarized in his country. It’s been framed as oil and gas versus renewables and I really believe it is oil and gas — and renewables,” Balaban said.

“That said, there is an energy transition going on around the globe and … coming out of COVID, it seems like the global appetite for clean energy investment has just accelerated.”Battery storage projects are also starting to lift off in Alberta, with 10 proposed developments being advanced.

The new Windcharger battery storage project being development by TransAlta Corporation is seen near Pincher Creek. The project has been under development this year and will begin operating later this month. PHOTO BY PHOTO COURTESY TRANSALTA CORPORATION

 

Last month, TransAlta began commercial operations on its $14-million WindCharger project northeast of Pincher Creek, Alberta’s first utility-scale lithium-ion battery storage facility.

TD Asset Management announced in October its Greystone Infrastructure Fund has invested in the country’s biggest battery storage development, located in Alberta. It said the first of three 20 MW storage projects will be in service by next month.

There are other signs of changes underway, such as the launch this week of a new clean energy accelerator, training program and venture fund by Calgary-based Avatar Innovations Inc.

Kevin Krausert, former head of Beaver Drilling and now CEO of Avatar Innovations, said the downturn in the oilpatch has caused devastation in the industry.

Yet, the sector remains the economic engine of the province and there are opportunities to use Alberta’s energy expertise to expand in areas such as hydrogen, geothermal or developing emissions-reduction technology.

“It’s always been the story and the history of our industry and province to look at the challenges that face us and find opportunities,” Krausert said Friday.

“I wish I could go back to 2014 as well. It’s easier to solve the challenges in front of us and create opportunity than it is to figure out how to create a time machine.”There’s also another reality to keep in mind: independent forecasts show oil and gas will continue to be a major energy source for decades to come.

Last month, the IEA’s annual energy outlook report said under its base-case scenario, global demand for natural gas will rise by 30 per cent by 2040. Oil consumption is forecast to return to pre-pandemic levels of around 100-million barrels per day in five years and stabilize around 104-million barrels per day in two decades.

For Schulz, the solar project in Fort Chipewyan holds a lesson that is relevant for all Albertans during a period of change. Many forms of energy will be needed moving forward.

“You can still have your traditional fossil fuels because they play a role … but you can also embrace a rapidly evolving economic model presented by renewables,” he said.

“It’s a matter of embracing both.”

Chris Varcoe is a Calgary Herald columnist.

How hyperlocal hydro energy can empower communities

Grist.org

How hyperlocal hydro energy can empower communities

By Grist Creative                             Nov 11, 2020

This article is published in partnership with: Vertue Lab

Water Pipeline Of Hydroelectric Power PlantGetty Images

Growing up in Colombia, Moriel Arango spent nearly every weekend on his father’s sustainable farm, about an hour from their home in the city of Cali. There, in the rural, western region of the country, prolonged power outages were common and reliable electricity could be scarce. Once, a lightning strike blew out a transformer in the middle of the night. This shut off the power to an aerator that supplied oxygen to thousands of red tilapia and cachama he was raising in lakes on the property.

“In these rural areas, you lose power and it’s going to be 48 hours or more,” Arango says. “All his fish are going to die.”

So Arango’s father had to make the hour-long drive during the night to bring a can of diesel to start up the backup generator and get the aerator running again. It’s experiences like these that eventually led Arango to BladeRunner Energy, a renewable energy company based in Bend, Oregon.

“It’s always been a big motivator for me—” he says, “looking at renewable energy, and the idea of getting it into the hands of folks that need it.”

The current moment, for all its upheaval and uncertainty, presents a unique opportunity for making big, systemic change when it comes to energy. BladeRunner, along with InPipe Energy, another Oregon-based startup, think the time is ripe for investing in hyper-local hydropower. Both are VertueLab-supported companies. InPipe captures excess energy flowing through municipal drinking water pipes, while BladeRunner replaces the environmental risk of hydroelectric dams with small, tethered turbines to harvest the energy of flowing water.

These types of small-scale, dispersed energy sources could help put much-needed power into the hands of communities — literally and figuratively.

“Electric utilities are inundated with innovation. Water departments, not as much,” says Gregg Semler, InPipe’s president and CEO. He’s working to change that.

As a city’s water makes its downhill journey from a water tower to the tap, pressure within a pipeline often becomes too high. Pressure-reducing valves situated along the pipeline help maintain a critical balance: Extra force from over-pressurized water can cause costly leaks or major water main breaks.

“Water is invisible. It’s underneath our streets, and we take it for granted when we turn on the tap that it comes out at the right pressure,” Semler says.

InPipe’s technology capitalizes on existing pressure control valves, adding sensors to monitor precise flow and pressure within a pipe. When pressure starts to rise, water is diverted through a small pipe called a bypass, where it spins a series of microturbines before flowing back into the main pipe. The excess pressure is converted into energy, which can then be fed into a city’s electrical grid.

In October, InPipe completed its first partnership with a city, in Hillsborough, Oregon. It’s one of three pilot projects planned across the West. Funded with help from Portland General Electric and Energy Trust of Oregon, InPipe’s technology will help power lights, concession stands, and electric vehicle charging stations at the city’s recreation complex, generating between 185,000 and 200,000 kWh of electricity per year. The clean energy generated will reduce the city’s carbon footprint by more than 162,000 pounds annually—the equivalent of driving a car more than 240,000 miles.

Moving forward, Semler sees InPipe as an avenue for water equity around the country. Water may be our most important resource, but it is delivered via an aging infrastructure — the very pipes that deliver the nation’s water are crumbling and in need of serious repair. There are roughly 240,000 water main breaks a year, according to the American Society Civil of Engineers, resulting in more than 2 trillion gallons of lost drinking water annually.

And while tragedies in cities like Flint, Michigan, and Newark, New Jersey, have made national headlines for exposing dangerously high levels of lead in residents’ pipes, unsafe drinking water still threatens millions of people across the country.

To make the needed fixes and additions to the country’s water system would cost at least $1 trillion, as estimated by the American Water Works Association. Replacing lead service lines alone could cost as much as $50 billion. Semler hopes that monetizing water pressure, reducing leaks and pipe damage, and generating clean energy in the process might incentivize cities to invest in much-needed upgrades.

“We can tap into sources of capital for water departments, and that capital can be used to upgrade their infrastructure,” Semler says. “The benefit is that we produce energy around the clock.”

Moriel Arango, co-founder and CTO of BladeRunner Energy, has long been driven by the idea of energy equity as well. During his childhood in Colombia, he saw firsthand the types of socioeconomic disparities that can prevent communities from thriving: systemic poverty alongside extreme wealth, as well as Indigenous and Afro-Colombian villages displaced by violent drug trafficking and unrest.

“All of those things, they compound and add up to a motivation for me to continue down that path of helping others become empowered,” Arango says. Which is why he joined BladeRunner Energy in 2017.

BladeRunner’s hydrokinetic rotors are tethered to floating generators. They’re designed to float in waterways and provide power for isolated communities in landscapes that aren’t conducive to large-scale renewable energy infrastructure like solar fields, wind turbines, or dams. The company’s current rotors measure 20 inches in diameter, which are best-suited for shallow, fast-moving waters, like a stream. But as testing progresses, Arango would like to scale up to rotors as big as five feet across. These larger rotors could be used to generate power in the deeper, slower currents of a river.

So far, BladeRunner has tested its prototype in canals throughout the Central Oregon Irrigation District, in Tomales Bay, California, and in controlled environments at facilities at the University of California, Berkeley; University of California, Davis; and California State University, Chico. They’re waiting to hear about the status of federal grant money for a collaboration with the University of Alaska Fairbanks over the next several years. The partnership would scale additional testing in rural villages, where diesel generators remain a primary supplier of heat and electricity.

Eventually, Arango envisions his tethered rotors being a complement to microgrids — the hyperlocal, autonomous energy grids that are often used to power rural or especially remote locations. Roughly 12 percent of the world’s microgrid systems operate in Alaska, hence the hope to continue prototype testing there.

In Arango’s view, the benefits of clean energy equity extend beyond environmental sustainability. It’s about giving communities the resources needed to help them reach their potential.

“If we had a world where everybody had general equal access to education and electricity, the next thing you know, you have brilliant minds popping out of everywhere,” he says. “The brilliant minds are already there. It’s just a matter of giving them the opportunity to do something else, as opposed to figuring out how to survive day to day.”

VertueLab is a nonprofit fighting climate change by providing funding and holistic entrepreneurial support to cleantech startups. Through a decade of work they have a proven model that can help accelerate climate solutions that are key to reversing the climate crisis.

Why 2021 Will Be A Banner Year For Renewable Energy In The U.S.

Why 2021 Will Be A Banner Year For Renewable Energy In The U.S.

Editor OilPrice.com                       

A Joe Biden administration is bound to usher in a 180-degree pivot on climate change from the outgoing presidency. But with control of the Senate hanging in the balance with the battle set to go down to the wire in Georgia, Biden’s plan to squeeze $2 trillion from the federal purse to pursue his ambitious Climate Plan could end up severely hamstrung.

But with the global shift to renewable energy in full swing, the American political landscape might not matter that much in the long run.

Indeed, Goldman Sachs has predicted that global capital spending on renewable energy will surpass fossil fuel Capex for the first time ever in 2021.

According to the investment banker, renewable power will reach 25% of the total energy supply capex in 2021, beating out hydrocarbons for the first time ever. According to Goldman’s Carbonomics Report, renewables will reach 25% of the total energy supply capex in 2021, beating out upstream oil and gas investments for the first time in history.

The report says that cleantech has the potential to drive $1-2 trillion per annum in green infrastructure investments and could hit $16 trillion by 2030. This could create 15-20 million jobs worldwide (green infrastructure is 1.5-3.0x more capital- and job-intensive than traditional energy).

Source: Goldman Sachs

Falling cost of capital

Goldman Sachs says a big factor that will help clean energy achieve the remarkable feat is a major bifurcation in cost trends, with renewables recording a big fall in the cost of capital vs. rising costs for fossil fuel investments. According to GS, the weighted average cost of capital (WACC), aka the hurdle rate for renewables, currently clocks in at 3-5% compared to 10-20% for oil and gas investments.

According to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) Renewable energy costs declined rapidly over the past decade, with solar photovoltaics (PV) falling 82% while onshore wind generation costs declined 39%. These trends are expected to continue in the coming years.

Source: IRENA

The situation could not be more different for the fossil fuel sector.

The global oil and gas sector has recorded the biggest Capex cuts in history: Oil and gas companies focused on the North American market have cut capital expenditure by 49% in 2020; Independent Oil Companies (IOCs) by 29% while National Oil Companies have lowered Capex by 24%.

The North American market has been particularly hard hit, with the sector expected to record a staggering $530 billion reduction in capex over the next 5 years. 2020 upstream oil & gas spending is tracking to fall 60% from its 2014 peak.

Source:The Duff & Phelps Capex Cut Tracker

A lot of the ongoing risks in the oil and gas sector are closely related with the growing danger of stranded assets and massive asset writeoffs.

The unprecedented destruction in energy demand has triggered a wave of asset devaluations, with Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE:RDS.A) announcing that it will writedown $22B of its assets while ExxonMobil (NYSEXOM) has warned it might write off $30B.

Those figures could get a lot bigger as the quarters roll on, with nearly a third of their assets worth nearly a trillion dollars doomed to be declared worthless. Indeed, the average oil reserve life has already fallen by 20 years due to stranded assets.

A slew of potential Covid-19 vaccines have improved the oil and gas outlook somewhat by offering hope for a recovery in 2021. However, a lot will still depend on how committed OPEC+ will remain to its production cuts. The coalition held a ministerial committee meeting on Tuesday but failed to reach a formal agreement on quotas even as Saudi Arabia urged members to consider delaying a boost to output by two million barrels per day come January. With the majority of oil producers struggling to balance their budgets amid historically low oil prices, it’s going to become increasingly hard to convince everyone to keep toeing the line.

By Alex Kimani for Oilprice.com

Trump Swiftly Blows Up His 1 Decent Conservation Action

HuffPost

Trump Swiftly Blows Up His 1 Decent Conservation Action

Chris D’Angelo, Environment Reporter         

The Trump administration wasted no time proving what was clear from the get-go: that its support of a major public lands bill was nothing more than pre-election greenwashing for President Donald Trump and two Senate allies.

In August, Trump signed the bipartisan Great American Outdoors Act into law, falsely portraying himself as a conservationist on par with President Theodore Roosevelt. The measure, widely considered the most significant conservation legislation in a generation, allocates $9.5 billion to fix crumbling national park infrastructure and permanently funds the Land and Water Conservation Fund at $900 million per year. The decades-old LWCF uses offshore fossil fuel revenues to establish and protect parks, wildlife refuges, forests and wildlife habitat.

But Trump and his team are longtime foes of the LWCF. The administration tried repeatedly to gut the program’s funding. And days after the 2020 presidential election, which Trump handily lost, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt signed an order that kneecaps LWCF and undermines the new law that Bernhardt previously argued would not have passed without Trump’s “strong and bold action.”

The order, dated Nov. 9, gives state governors and local jurisdictions the power to veto federal land acquisitions made through LWCF. “A written expression of support by both the affected Governor and local county or county government-equivalent (e.g. parish, borough) is required for the acquisition of land, water, or an interest in land or water under the Federal LWCF program,” it reads.

Once the election was done, it was open season on land protection.Aaron Weiss, deputy director, Center for Western Priorities

The move is a parting gift to the anti-federal land movement that has enjoyed extraordinary access to top administration officials but that never convinced the administration to embrace wholesale transfer or sale of public lands. In fact, the requirement in Bernhardt’s order mirrors an amendment that Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) introduced when the Great American Outdoors Act was being debated in Congress, as E&E News highlighted.

Lee strongly opposes federal control of public lands in the West. “Our long-term goal must be the transfer of federal lands to the states,” Lee wrote in a 2018 tweet. William Perry Pendley, the highest-ranking official at Interior’s Bureau of Land Management, shares those extreme views, once writing that the “founding Fathers intended all lands owned by the federal government to be sold.”

Democratic lawmakers, environmentalists and outdoor sporting groups have slammed Trump’s Interior chief for trying to circumvent Congress and restrict how LWCF funds are allocated.

“I urge you to immediately rescind this anti-public land order,” Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), a longtime champion of LWCF, wrote in a letter last week to Bernhardt. “This undercuts what a landowner can do with their own private property, and creates unnecessary, additional levels of bureaucracy that will hamstring future land acquisition through the Land and Water Conservation Fund.”

In a release  announcing Bernhardt’s order, the Interior Department said the action “honors Interior’s commitment to be a good neighbor by giving states and communities a voice in federal land acquisition.”

President Donald Trump signs the the Great American Outdoors Act at the White House on Aug. 4. The public lands law aims to fix crumbling national park infrastructure and permanently fund The Land and Water Conservation Fund.  (Photo: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI via Getty Images)

 

For those paying attention, Trump’s about-face on LWCF felt like little more than a political favor for two Republican senators facing tough bids for reelection in states where protecting public lands is a key issue among voters. Along with showering praise upon himself, Trump credited Sens. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) and Steve Daines (R-Mont.), who both previously voted in favor of slashing LWCF funding and supported Trump’s anti-conservation agenda at nearly every turn.

“This landmark legislation would not have been possible without the incredible leadership and hard work of two outstanding senators, in particular, and two fine people ― Cory Gardner and Steve Daines,” Trump said at a signing ceremony for the Great American Outdoors Act.

On the campaign trail, Daines and Gardner touted their work on the Great American Outdoors Act. Daines ultimately defeated his challenger. Gardner did not.

As soon as the 2020 election was over, Trump’s team took aim at one of its only conservation achievements. First, the departments of Interior and Agriculture missed statutory deadlines for submitting lists of projects to receive LWCF funding. Then came Bernhardt’s order undermining the program altogether.

The Great American Outdoors Act is no doubt a major victory for America’s public lands and for LWCF, which has been plagued by funding shortfalls all of its 50-year history. The administration’s claimed support for it, on the other hand, was “a ruse” and a “bald-faced lie,” Aaron Weiss, deputy director of Colorado-based conservation group Center for Western Priorities, told HuffPost. He expects Bernhardt was always planning to undercut the law, whether or not Trump won a second term.

“Once the election was done, it was open season on land protection,” Weiss said by email, adding that Bernhardt is “going to throw as much sand into the gears as he can on his way out.”

The Interior Department and other federal agencies are rushing to finalize numerous environmental rollbacks before President-elect Joe Biden assumes office. Those include selling oil and gas leases in Alaska’s pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and permanently slashing protections for hundreds of species of migratory birds.

Trump May Need to Be Impeached and Removed Before Inauguration Day

Trump May Need to Be Impeached and Removed Before Inauguration Day

Jack Holmes                                    November 19, 2020
Photo credit: Tasos Katopodis - Getty Images
Photo credit: Tasos Katopodis – Getty Images

 

Now that Donald Trump, the President of the United States, is personally “reaching out” to members of a Michigan election board as part of a larger plot to simply throw out the results of an election he lost by a comfortable margin, maybe we can stop pretending this is just a public tantrum we can allow to burn out until he falls into a fevered nap. That his allies believe the president must be approached like a spoiled toddler is itself an indication of our national decline, and of all the lackeys who’ve worked so hard to make this state of affairs possible. But his campaign is also in court asking a judge to simply nix the election in Pennsylvania and give him the Electoral Votes. This is not just another meltdown to be managed, as we all try to dodge the toys he’s throwing out of the crib. He should be removed from office for crimes against the American republic.

I have said in private for some time that I believe Trump, if he is to actually leave office, may have to be impeached in the lame duck period. It’s often been met with eye-rolls, but there are a number of reasons to believe he simply will not leave willingly, even if it’s useful and necessary to call on him to resign. The first is that he may well face criminal jeopardy in multiple jurisdictions once he loses the immunity protections of the presidency. This guy has been crooked for a long time, and while a staggering number of the people around him have faced prison time, he has yet to see any real consequences. He does not intend to. He also owes a lot of people a lot of money, and it’s not clear he could make good even if he wanted to. (He does not.) Beyond the practical, there is the specter of his towering ego and his crippling fear of humiliation. His impulsive and shameless behavior, often bordering on nihilism, is driven in no small part by a primal urge to avoid paying the piper. It’s worked for him his whole life. This guy never pays his bills—to contractors or to the bank—and nothing ever comes of it. Why should that stop now?

Photo credit: Tasos Katopodis - Getty Images
Photo credit: Tasos Katopodis – Getty Images

 

Some allies have brushed his antics off as a presidential coping mechanism, which again places the American republic in the position of existing to serve one man’s fragile psyche. America First! His aides will occasionally leak some horseshit to the media about how this is about Fighting For His People, as if Donald Trump genuinely engages in altruistic behavior, and as if even that would justify undermining American democracy itself and delegitimizing the coming presidency of Joe Biden.

Which is part of the point: even Trump’s more reluctant allies in the Republican Party are interested in using the lame duck to turn Biden’s entire presidency into the same. Trump’s destructive impulse has been highly useful in that regard: on the foreign-policy front, he is reportedly in the process of setting “so many fires that it will be hard for the Biden administration to put them all out.” He is also hard at work ransacking the federal bureaucracy to prevent Biden doing much of anything at all. Meanwhile, he’s not doing the actual job in any sense. His regime is doing nothing about the pandemic even as it explodes in severity. There will be no relief bill for businesses or local governments.

All of these consequences are pretty much baked in now. Trump’s base will refuse to recognize Biden’s legitimacy as president, having been served a steady stream of disinformation on Facebook and the teevee. He’ll be Birtherized. Along with that damage to the republic, the actual government itself will be thoroughly crippled, and many people will die unnecessarily from COVID-19. But the longer this is allowed to go on, the more Trump himself may believe that he has the backing and support to actually steal the election. After all, his allies have not stood up to him on anything except the prospect of pulling troops out of the Middle East. In his time in the big chair, the president has steamrolled the separation of powers that undergirds our Constitution and faced zero consequences. He has rejected the notion Congress has subpoena power. He has flouted federal court orders. But we’re supposed to believe The Law or The Norms will stop him now? He will do whatever he can get away with, just like he’s always done.

Photo credit: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI - Getty Images
Photo credit: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI – Getty Images

 

There is some chance that, if the Electoral College actually meets and votes as the American public has instructed on December 13—that is, if the 306 votes Biden looks to have won are awarded to him—that Trump will slink away to Mar-a-Lago and stay there through the Inauguration. (The prospect that he will show up on January 20 to graciously engage in a time-honored tradition that reinforces the health of American democracy, and signals allegiance to something greater than himself, seems genuinely absurd.) But how much damage will he do while he still holds the powers of the presidency—which he can wield from anywhere—as he tells himself he has nothing to lose?

In a sane country, he would be nowhere near this position. But in a moderately less sane one, he would be removed from office—via the impeachment power of Congress or the 25th Amendment—before he can do more damage. If the Senate Republicans who would need to convict him were not such craven fools, they might realize they don’t need him anymore, and that if he is swiftly removed—if they repudiate him—he may not turn out to be the zombie kingmaker all have assumed he will be in his political afterlife. He has only risen so far because they have allowed it at every moment.

Another 1 million Americans entered poverty in the last few weeks as coronavirus pandemic drags on

Another 1 million Americans entered poverty in the last few weeks as coronavirus pandemic drags on

Poverty keeps growing  in the U.S. as COVID-19 cases reach record highs, forcing shutdowns, and the last of government support disappears this winter.

In October alone, 1 million more Americans fell below the poverty threshold, a study from the University of Chicago found. A total of 7 million Americans have entered poverty since May, with Black Americans falling into poverty in the greatest numbers.

That number is likely to grow as more relief provisions are set to expire at the end of this year and the chances for more stimulus before the next administration takes hold look grim.

“For a few months you can get by drawing down savings, borrowing from friends, not paying the electricity bills so quickly,” Bruce Meyer, a University of Chicago economist, told Yahoo Money. But “the longer the recession continues and the more people are below the poverty line, the more troubles people are going to face.”

‘This all goes back to structural racism’

Like many of the effects of this pandemic, poverty has affected some communities more than others. Around 3 million of the 7 million who entered poverty since May — or 43% — were Blacks. But Black Americans only make up 13% of the overall U.S. population.

Read more: Here’s what you need to know about unemployment benefits eligibility

“This all goes back to structural racism where there are barriers throughout the economy that limit economic opportunities for Black Americans,” Gbenga Ajilore, a senior economist at the Center for American Progress, a non-profit for public policy research and advocacy, told Yahoo Money. “Many policymakers and economists are talking about how the economy is doing better than what was expected, but that thought process completely ignores the plight of Black Americans.”

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - NOVEMBER 16: A view of a child as she stands in line with her family as Food Bank for New York City distributes turkeys and Thanksgiving fixings with support from Stop & Shop and WBLS' The Steve Harvey Morning Show on November 16, 2020 in New York City. (Photo by Michael Loccisano/Getty Images for Food Bank For New York City)

 

While the overall unemployment rate has fallen to 6.9% from its 14.7% peak in April, the Black unemployment rate is still at 10.8% after reaching 16.8% in May. The overall job market recovery is also slowing down, with an unexpected week-over-week rise  of 742,000 Americans filing for first-time unemployment benefits last week.

Poverty also rose noticeably among children and people with a high school education or less.

“Until there’s a solution to the continued spread of the virus or a vaccine is widely distributed, we’re facing a bad labor market that is not going to solve this problem,” Meyer said.

‘We will see a more pronounced increase in deprivation’

Poverty in the U.S. unexpectedly declined at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, thanks largely to generous government support from the CARES Act. Since then, there has been no second round of checks, the extra $600 in weekly unemployment benefits expired in July, and the extra $300 for jobless workers under the Lost Wages Assistance program expired in September.

An even bigger cliff is coming at the end of the year when the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance and the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation programs are set to expire. That will leave up to 12 million unemployed workers with no benefits at all, according to a report  from the Century Foundation.

(201112) -- NEW YORK, Nov. 12, 2020 (Xinhua) -- People line up outside a food pantry in Brooklyn, New York, United States, on Nov. 12, 2020. The number of initial jobless claims in the United States fell to 709,000 last week, as the labor market continues to recover at a slowing pace, the Labor Department reported on Thursday. (Photo by Michael Nagle/Xinhua) (Xinhua/Michael Nagle/Wang Ying via Getty Images)
People line up outside a food pantry in Brooklyn, New York, United States, on Nov. 12, 2020. (Photo by Xinhua/Michael Nagle/Wang Ying via Getty Images)

 

The combination of a slowly recovering job market and lack of more government relief will likely mean more financial hardships for Americans. While a big increase in poverty may not be immediate because it’s measured as cumulative income over the past year, deprivation will rise sharply while the poverty rate continues to increase slowly, according to Meyer.

“We will see a more pronounced increase in deprivation than poverty,” he said. “But people’s available money to pay for food and rent will drop sharply.”

Denitsa is a writer for Yahoo Finance and Cashay , a new personal finance website. 

Trump asked for options for attacking Iran last week, but held off – source

Reuters – Middle East & Africa

Trump asked for options for attacking Iran last week, but held off – source

By Steve Holland       November 16, 2020

ReutersA view of a damage building after a fire broke out at Iran’s Natanz Nuclear Facility, in Isfahan, Iran, July 2, 2020. Atomic Energy Organization of Iran/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS – 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump, with two months left in office, last week asked for options on attacking Iran’s main nuclear site, but ultimately decided against taking the dramatic step, a U.S. official said on Monday.

Trump made the request during an Oval Office meeting on Thursday with his top national security aides, including Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, new acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller and General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the official said.

Trump, who has refused to concede and is challenging the results of the Nov. 3 presidential election, is to hand over power to Democratic President-elect Joe Biden on Jan. 20.

The official confirmed the account of the meeting in The New York Times, which reported the advisers persuaded Trump not to go ahead with a strike because of the risk of a broader conflict.

“He asked for options. They gave him the scenarios and he ultimately decided not to go forward,” the official said.

Trump has spent all four years of his presidency engaging in an aggressive policy against Iran, withdrawing in 2018 from the Iran nuclear deal negotiated by his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama, and imposing economic sanctions against a wide variety of Iranian targets.

Trump’s request for options came a day after a U.N. watchdog report showed Iran had finished moving a first cascade of advanced centrifuges from an above-ground plant at its main uranium enrichment site to an underground one, in a fresh breach of its 2015 nuclear deal with major powers.

Alireza Miryousefi, spokesman for Iran’s mission to the United Nations in New York, said Iran’s nuclear program is purely for peaceful purposes and civilian use and Trump’s policies have not changed that. “However, Iran has proven to be capable of using its legitimate military might to prevent or respond to any melancholy adventure from any aggressor,” he added.

Iran’s 2.4 tonne stock of low-enriched uranium is now far above the deal’s 202.8 kg limit. It produced 337.5 kg in the quarter, less than the more than 500 kg recorded in the previous two quarters by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

In January, Trump ordered a U.S. drone strike that killed Iranian General Qassem Soleimani at Baghdad’s airport. But he has shied away from broader military conflicts and sought to withdraw U.S. troops from global hotspots in keeping with a promise to stop what he calls “endless wars.”

A strike on Iran’s main nuclear site at Natanz could flare into a regional conflict and pose a serious foreign policy challenge for Biden.

Biden’s transition team, which has not had access to national security intelligence due to the Trump administration’s refusal to begin the transition, declined comment.

Reporting by Steve Holland; Additional reporting by Michael Martina and Michelle Nichols; Editing by Mary Milliken, Cynthia Osterman, Leslie Adler and Lincoln Feast.

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

One Writer’s End of Term List: 10 Things I Now Hate Because of Trump

One Writer’s End of Term List: 10 Things I Now Hate Because of Trump

Nell Scovell                      November 17, 2020

Sorting through old papers, I’ll sometimes come across a note signed by my mother. She’s been dead 15 years and the sight of her signature triggers a rush of emotions. Autographs are more than scratches on paper. They are a legal representation of a person. For 50 years, I’ve viewed signatures on a scale that ranged from “necessary” to “heartwarming.” It never occurred to me that I could hate a signature.

I hate Donald Trump’s signature. I hate it aesthetically with the odd peak at the end that makes it seem like he’s signing his family’s original surname, “Drumpf.” I also hate the cruel bills and executive orders that he has signed to ban Muslims, roll back environmental protections, and protect Confederate monuments.

This anger extends beyond his signature. Trump has taught me to hate things that never seemed worthy of hatred, items like:

1. The number “45.” There are no photos of John F. Kennedy wearing a football jersey with the number 35. Historians and journalist sometimes use Bush 41 and Bush 43 to distinguish the two, but most presidents aren’t recognized by their sequential number. Still, Trump has embraced “45,” putting it on his golf hat and embroidering it on his cuffs. Many elevators skip the “13th floor” because it’s considered bad luck. In the future, we will skip from 44 to 46.

Photo credit: Tasos Katopodis - Getty Images
Photo credit: Tasos Katopodis – Getty Images

 

2: The color orange. Orange still doesn’t rhyme with any words, but it’s now synonymous with Trump whose nicknames include Agent Orange, the Mango Mussolini, the Cheeto in Charge, and Tangerine Jesus. Orange is now off-color forever. Sorry Howard Johnson’s. Sorry Princeton.

3. “Bring Your Daughter to Work Day.” Founded by the Ms. Foundation for Women, this day kicked off in 1993 and used to happen once a year in April. At the White House, every day is “Bring your daughter to work day” thanks to senior adviser and filler-enthusiast Ivanka Trump whose “work” drew eye rolls from world leaders and Christine Lagarde.

Photo credit: Drew Angerer - Getty Images
Photo credit: Drew Angerer – Getty Images

 

4. Words like “sir,” “hoax,” “sad,” and “huge.” How one man could ruin so many monosyllabic words is both sad and huge.

5. Phrases like “When you look at X…” or “When you think about it…” Trump uses these phrases as rhetorical tics, the filler between lies. I now cringe when I hear them. Even cliches that were already disliked—“It is what it is”—I now hate even more.

6. Escalators, stairs and ramps. Trump has issues with between-floor conveyances. He truly can make the most ordinary things seem weird.

Photo credit: Christopher Gregory - Getty Images
Photo credit: Christopher Gregory – Getty Images

 

7. Solar eclipses. I will always associate solar eclipses with Trump so it’s a good thing they don’t occur very often.

8. Mario Kart. In her book Full Disclosure, Stormy Daniels described Trump’s sexual apparatus: “It has a huge mushroom head. Like a toadstool… I lay there, annoyed that I was getting fucked by a guy with Yeti pubes and a dick like the mushroom character in Mario Kart.” If you can hear “Mario Kart” and not envision Trump’s penis, I am jealous.

9. True story: Trump ruined my friend Susie’s vagina. After Trump won in 2016, my friend Susie’s cervix spasmed and required medical attention. Susie wasn’t alone. In an article for The Cut, Emily Gould concludes her story about Gawker with a visit to the gynecologist. Gould explains she first felt pain in the area of her reproductive organs after watching Trump steamroll Hillary Clinton in a debate. The doctor responds, “Yeah, I’m seeing a lot of this lately. Women who haven’t had problems in years coming back in. People have all kinds of different reactions to trauma.”

10. Flushing twice. On the occasions when I have needed to flush a toilet twice, I never thought about it. Now that Trump regularly brings up bathrooms and the need for multiple flushes, I think of him as I watch the waste swirl into the sewer. To be fair, of all the associations, this one makes the most sense.