Category: Environment

How U.S. Crude Oil Exports Are Hastening the Demise of the Oil Industry

DeSmog

How U.S. Crude Oil Exports Are Hastening the Demise of the Oil Industry

By Justin Mikulka           January 28, 2021 

 

Oil export shipping tanker

When Congress lifted the export ban on U.S. crude oil in December of 2015 to allow for exports beginning in 2016, the oil industry celebrated. However, looking back at the impact of lifting the 40-year-old ban, it appears the move has helped hasten the financial demise of the U.S. oil industry — while also increasing the industry’s huge contribution to climate change.

In many ways, the U.S. oil and gas industry’s demise is self-inflicted. When historians look back upon its declines, lifting the export ban will likely mark a turning point where the industry made a huge bet on the profitability of fracking for oil in the U.S. — and subsequently began to dig its own grave.

“Opening the shale revolution to the world through the export ban lifting helped shift the global oil market psychology from supply scarcity to abundance,” Karim Fawaz, director of research and analysis for energy at IHS Markit, told Bloomberg in early 2021. “It unshackled the U.S. industry to keep growing past its domestic refining limitations.”

Graph: U.S. crude oil exports  Credit: Energy Information Administration

Now, not only is the U.S. shale oil industry failing financially and facing debts it likely can’t repay, but calls are growing for the new Biden administration to reinstate the crude oil export ban — which President Biden could do immediately under a national emergency declaration.

This would effectively put a limit on the U.S. fracking industry — and be a big step in reducing the industry’s contributions to climate change. It would also restrain the industry from simply producing as much oil as fast as possible, something investors have been lobbying for the last several years. That’s because this approach has led to the loss of over $340 billion since 2010. Investors hope imposing fiscal restraint on the U.S. fracking industry will result in companies producing less oil overall but finally producing some profits.

Lifting the crude oil export ban to allow exports beginning in 2016 unleashed the U.S. fracking industry to produce as much oil as possible because it opened access to global markets with a long list of willing buyers of cheap U.S. crude oil.

It was a seismic change for the U.S. oil industry and built on the excitement of what was being called the fracking miracle; investors continued to lend large sums to the industry to produce record amounts of oil, betting on the promise of future profits to pay back the debt.

The profits never materialized despite the record amounts of oil being produced and now it appears that most of the best U.S. shale oil deposits were drained in that effort. The U.S. exported approximately 3.6 billion barrels of crude oil from January 2016 to October 2020. To put that in perspective, that is slightly less than the 4.1 billion barrels that the U.S. is expected to produce in 2021 (estimate based on EIA forecast of 11.1 million barrels per day in 2021).

Lifting the ban increased oil production

In response to the OPEC oil embargo and subsequent gasoline shortage in the U.S. in the early 1970s, the U.S. banned almost all oil exports. Unable to sell U.S. crude oil on world markets before 2016, the U.S. oil industry was limited by how much crude oil could be purchased by U.S. oil refineries. These refineries were running at full capacity and could not process another few million barrels of oil per day that frackers wanted to produce and sell. This very real limit was about to cause producers to have to restrain U.S. oil production rather than simply trying to get as many barrels of oil out of the ground as fast as possible.

To fix that, the oil industry and commodities brokers that trade oil on global markets successfully lobbied the U.S. Congress to lift the ban.

A big part of the argument lobbyists made was that there was such an abundance of oil to be fracked in the U.S. that it made sense to sell it to the rest of the world. In 2015, for example, Harold Hamm, billionaire founder of Continental Resources, presented a slide at the annual Energy Information Administration (EIA) conference projecting that the U.S. could be producing 20 million barrels per day (mmbpd) of crude oil by 2025 due to the energy abundance fracking had opened up. At the time, U.S. crude oil production was less than half that — just under 10 million barrels per day.

Image: Harold Hamm’s U.S. oil production predictions  Credit: DeSmog

By 2016, with the ban lifted and no domestic refining limitations shackling production, U.S. oil volumes exploded in the years that followed. The industry was producing huge amounts of oil as fast as it could — and losing huge sums of money in the process, likely hastening the industry’s currently unfolding financial collapse.

The misinformation behind the export ban’s reversal

The successful lifting of the ban was largely the result of a well-coordinated effort by the U.S. oil and gas industry — along with its partners in academia and various industry-funded think tanks — to mislead the public and government about the industry’s true motivations for lifting the crude oil export ban.

The industry’s campaign was on full display in 2014 at a conference hosted by a new academic energy strategy group, the Center on Global Energy Policy (CGEP), which was launched in April 2013 at Columbia University. New York City’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg spoke at the launch of CGEP where he advocated for fracking and natural gas.

In November 2014, CGEP hosted a Columbia University Energy Symposium. It featured a fireside chat with Marianne Kah, chief economist for ConocoPhillips, who supported lifting the ban.

Kah repeatedly referred to a study done by energy consulting group IHS — which was instrumental in the public relations efforts to reverse the crude export ban. The IHS study touted the benefits of lifting the ban, focusing on potential economic benefits and downplaying any environmental risks. In 2014 Reuters reported that Daniel Yergin of IHS said that lifting the ban would not hurt the global environment because it would not add to total global oil production — a claim that was quickly proven wrong after the ban was lifted.

As DeSmog reported at the time, the study by IHS was “funded by Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and other industry players.”

Over the course of 2015, Columbia’s Center on Global Energy Policy played a leading role in pushing to lift the ban. At the time, CGEP didn’t reveal its funding. But, recently the group published a list of some of its “partners,” including Saudi Aramco, Exxon, and Kah’s former employer, ConocoPhillips. (Kah now works at CGEP.)

CGEP’s work helped to support the industry’s misleading arguments that lifting the crude oil export ban would be good for Americans. At the time, CGEP and oil industry leaders like Hamm were making claims that the move would benefit U.S. foreign policy and help meet climate goals while expanding oil production. In addition, in July 2015 Hamm testified before Congress that lifting the ban would not result in U.S. oil being sold to the biggest growth market in the world, China, a concern for national security reasons. Reassurances like his that U.S. oil would only be sold to strategic allies was a big part of the argument for lifting the crude oil export ban.

Another of the main arguments industry consultants were making at the time for lifting the ban was that its removal was unlikely to have much of an impact on U.S. oil production. This claim was meant to deflect arguments from environmental groups such as the Sierra Club that lifting the ban would be bad for the climate (something that has proven to be true, especially when accounting for the U.S. fracking industry’s methane pollution).

In January 2015, Jason Bordoff, head of CGEP, co-authored a report, which stated that lifting the ban would likely only increase U.S. oil production from 0 to 1.2 million barrels per day by 2025.

This projection turned out to be a gross underestimate. Crude exports peaked in 2020 at approximately 4 million barrels per day.

The result, however, highlights the economic consequences of short-term thinking. As DeSmog previously reported, these coordinated misinformation campaigns led to a massive expansion of U.S. fracking. But, despite the much-hyped U.S. “fracking miracle,” the U.S. oil and gas industry is now coming to terms with years of losses and falling asset values, which have dealt the industry a serious financial blow.

Unlimited demand for cheap oil

Lifting the U.S. crude oil export ban effectively gave U.S. oil producers access to unlimited demand for its products. Any oil produced would be purchased by foreign buyers who especially liked the cheap oil prices, prices that were below what it cost the U.S. oil companies to produce the oil — resulting in large losses for oil producers.

In November 2020, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released an analysis of the impact of lifting the crude oil export ban, noting the big increase in U.S. fracked oil production — 3.5 million barrels per day — since the ban was removed.

“According to EIA data,” the GAO wrote, “total production of U.S. crude oil rose by roughly one-third, from approximately 9.3 million barrels per day just before the repeal of the ban in December 2015 to about 12.8 million barrels per day in December 2019.”

And nearly all of that additional oil is exported — the increase in production cited by the GAO translated into the export of an average of three million barrels per day of crude oil in 2019.

This rush to produce, however, helped hastened the demise of the U.S. oil industry, a fall which was brought on by the fracking boom. Lifting the ban encouraged shale drillers to produce more and more oil, even when they were losing money on every barrel drilled. This blistering pace of drilling through the best acreage in shale fields quickly revealed that industry promises of abundance were, in fact, hollow — heady projections made to investors were likely based on estimates of oil reserves that simply are not there.

The result is that the industry has now lost $342 billion since 2010, the best oil reserves have been fracked, and even industry insiders are saying the U.S. fracking boom has peaked.

In April 2020, Scott Sheffield, CEO of shale oil producer Pioneer Natural Resources, summed up what the fracking revolution — driven in part by the export ban’s reversal — has done to the U.S. oil and gas industry. “It has been an economic disaster, especially the last 10 years,” Sheffield said in testimony before Texas’s oil regulators. “Nobody wants to give us capital because we have all destroyed capital and created economic waste.”

“Perhaps no two groups have gained from the export of America’s shale boom more than producers of U.S. oil and the giant commodities merchants who trade it,” Bloomberg reported in January.

While it is true that commodity merchants have been one of the main beneficiaries of the ban’s lifting, it isn’t quite accurate to say that producers of U.S. oil have gained as well; the executives of those companies reaped the benefits while the companies themselves actually lost money. In October 2020, the Wall Street Journal highlighted this reality with an article headlined, “Shale Companies Had Lousy Returns. Their CEOs Got Paid Anyway.”

And contrary to industry promises, China was the biggest buyer of U.S. oil for much of 2020, and the group that now manages the most exports of U.S. oil is Trafigura — a Singapore-based company currently accused of bribery aimed at influencing the global oil trading market. Trafigura has a partnership to export U.S. oil with Kah’s old employer ConocoPhillips.

The time is right to reinstate the export ban

In recent years, investors have been begging the shale industry to curb oil production itself, now that U.S. crude oil can be exported to the world. Investors hope that by limiting production, U.S. oil producers will focus instead on profitability instead of simply producing the most oil possible.

However, it took a global pandemic and U.S. oil prices going negative in 2020 to slow industry production. Meanwhile, despite all of that, exports have remained strong throughout the pandemic, only dropping in early 2021. One reason is that analysts at JP Morgan have recently downgraded forecasts for Chinese oil consumption with expectations that the pandemic will depress oil demand in China for longer than initially expected.

Reinstating the crude oil export ban would be bad for China and other countries that want access to as much cheap U.S. crude as possible. But it would be very good for the climate — a top priority of the Biden administration. While campaigning for president in 2020, Biden even made a qualified statement about banning fossil fuel exports.

The Biden administration also has directed the government to pause new drilling leases on federal lands, which, unsurprisingly, has provoked strong reactions, along with inflated job loss numbers, from the U.S. oil and gas industry. Similarly, should the administration propose reinstating the crude oil export ban, industry groups undoubtedly would make even more predictions of catastrophe.

While such a move would likely mean the U.S. would never again see the record levels of crude oil production that led to exporting 4 million barrels of oil a day, it also would likely force the U.S. fracking industry to learn how to produce oil at a profit — something it has not done in the past decade.

The energy world has changed dramatically since 2014 when the U.S. oil industry began lobbying to lift the crude oil export ban. The arguments made back then no longer apply — and most didn’t make sense even at the time.

While there are many reasons that the U.S. should be discussing banning exports of U.S. crude oil, the most immediate positive impact would be to address greenhouse gas emissions and tackle the climate emergency. As UN scientists have pointed out, the world doesn’t have any extra time to spare.

Main Image: VLCC Kyrakatingo seen alongside Tranmere North Oil Jetty having just been made fully fast after arrival from Houston, Texas with a part cargo of light crude oil.  Credit: Darren Hillman, CC BY–ND 2.0

Goodbye, gas heat? Proposals in Washington state seek to phase out fossil fuel heating in buildings

OPB – Science & Environment

Goodbye, gas heat? Proposals in Washington state seek to phase out fossil fuel heating in buildings

By Tom Banse (Northwest News Network)       January 26, 2021

 

A long goodbye to natural gas furnaces and water heating — and possibly other gas appliances — could begin with action by the Washington Legislature this winter. Separately, the Seattle City Council this week begins consideration of a similar proposal to eliminate fossil fuel-based heating in new commercial buildings.

“Buildings are one of our state’s most significant and fastest growing sources of carbon pollution. We must do better — and we can do better,” testified Michael Furze, head of the state energy office, on behalf of Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee.

Natural gas utilities and major business associations spoke against the state legislative proposal during an initial public hearing on Friday. The opponents said they want to preserve consumer choice and questioned whether the Pacific Northwest electric grid could handle a big increase in winter heating load.

In December, Inslee unveiled a package of measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, including this proposal to phase out natural gas for space and water heating. As initially conceived, Washington state would have forbidden use of fossil fuels for heating and hot water in new buildings by 2030. The plan sought to convert existing buildings to electric heat by 2050.

The scope of the measure was revised earlier this month when Inslee’s allies in the state legislature introduced identical proposals in the House and Senate to amend the state energy code. The 2030 date to ban heating with fossil fuels in new construction remains. There is no mandate to convert existing buildings from gas to electric heat, but an expectation that utilities will offer incentives for conversions.

Buildings account for the second biggest share of carbon pollution in Washington, after transportation, largely due to gas furnaces and water heaters such as these.
Buildings account for the second biggest share of carbon pollution in Washington, after transportation, largely due to gas furnaces and water heaters such as these. Tom Banse / NW News Network

“If we don’t start with clean new buildings, we’re going to be bailing water out of a boat while we’re still drilling holes in the bottom of it,” said state Rep. Alex Ramel (D-Bellingham), the prime sponsor in the House. “That’s why we need to accelerate and strengthen our state’s energy code.”

The legislation is silent about use of natural gas for cooking and clothes dryers. In an interview, Ramel said lawmakers want to transition those appliances to clean energy as well. However, the details may be worked out later between natural gas utilities and regulators at the state utilities commission.

During the well-attended virtual public hearing before the state House Environment and Energy Committee, Cascade Natural Gas, Puget Sound Energy and the utility trade group Northwest Gas Association raised objections.

“[This bill] would jeopardize energy reliability, drive up costs to customers and put gas industry employees across Washington out of work,” said Alyn Spector, energy efficiency policy manager for Cascade Natural Gas. “This is not the time to eliminate good paying jobs.”

Business lobbying groups, including the influential Association of Washington Business and the home builders’ Building Industry Association of Washington, also voiced their opposition.

“As we saw this summer in California, we cannot take a healthy grid for granted and losses from even short-lived interruption of power supply can run into the billions,” said Peter Godlewski with AWB. “Shifting consumers and businesses away from natural gas to electricity puts severe pressure on the electric grid as a time when we’re retiring more generating capacity than ever.”

At this juncture it is hard to gauge the prospects for the gas heat phaseout proposal. Inslee, who made combating climate change a central plank of his brief run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, has the benefit of large, supportive Democratic majorities in both chambers of the state legislature. But the capacity of lawmakers to get much done beyond the basics of passing new state budgets and dealing with the coronavirus pandemic while conducting most business virtually remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, an assortment of West Coast cities are tackling carbon pollution from buildings independently. Around 40 climate-conscious California cities and counties have already passed laws or codes to require new buildings to be all-electric.

Later this week, the Seattle City Council begins consideration of an ordinance to ban the use of fossil fuels for heating in new commercial and large apartment buildings. The proposed policy change does not apply to single family homes and duplexes because the city’s energy code that is open for amendment pertains only to commercial buildings. The effective date of Jan. 1, 2022, is much sooner than the state legislature’s proposal in the same vein.

“In Seattle, 35 percent of carbon emissions are from the building sector and they are rising,” Seattle Office of Sustainability and Environment Director Jessica Finn Coven told state legislators in testimony Friday. “Constructing homes and buildings right the first time reduces the likelihood of costly retrofits in the future.”

The Bellingham City Council has also teed up electrification of buildings as part of a broader climate action package. In an email, Bellingham City Council member Michael Lilliquist said the pandemic had slowed down the work, but it is proceeding. He said city staff were running all of the proposed climate measures through a rigorous, multi-step evaluation process.

“We are not yet at the stage to offer specifics that can be incorporated into an ordinance or program,” Lilliquist said.

In Rural Montana, a Hope That Biden Will Reopen the Rails

New York Times

By Jim Robbins                                  January  24, 2021

 

A former train station on Amtrak’s North Coast Hiawatha route, in Deer Lodge, Mont.
Credit…Tailyr Irvine for The New York Times. The North Coast Hiawatha hasn’t run through Montana since 1979. Now cities like Billings, Bozeman, Helena and Missoula are hoping that “Amtrak Joe” will help fund new rail service.

 

DEER LODGE, Mont. — For nearly a century, passenger trains rumbled three times weekly through this broad, grass-rich mountain valley in central Montana, home to more cattle than people, until Amtrak pulled the plug on the North Coast Hiawatha in 1979.

But with a new president known as “Amtrak Joe” and Democratic control of both houses of Congress, a dozen counties across the sparsely populated state are hoping that a return to passenger train service through the cities of Billings, Bozeman, Helena and Missoula, and whistle stops like Deer Lodge in between, is closer than it has been in four decades.

“Residents of the very rural parts of the state have to travel 175 miles to get on a plane or to seek medical services,” said David Strohmaier, a Missoula County commissioner who is one of those behind the newly formed Big Sky Passenger Rail Authority to raise money and lobby for a return to passenger rail in southern Montana. “Rural communities see it as an economic development opportunity but also as a social lifeline for residents who might not have any other means to travel long distances for necessities.”

Making the journey between Chicago and Seattle, the Hiawatha served the largest cities in Montana. Its absence left a gap in a state where cities and services are widely scattered and public transportation is poor to nonexistent, especially for low-income residents.

The Olympian Hiawatha, operated by the Milwaukee Road and a predecessor to the North Coast Hiawatha, cruising through a Montana valley in 1961.
Credit…Courtesy the Milwaukee Road

 

The Empire Builder, a daily Amtrak train reduced to three times a week during the coronavirus pandemic, travels from Chicago to Seattle and Portland, Ore., through northern Montana, serving only small towns in one of the most remote parts of the state.

Defending the current funding for Amtrak’s routes is a constant battle, so the notion of adding new ones is seen as a long shot. It is less so now, some say, because of the new president and Democratic control of both chambers.

President Biden’s infrastructure plan, for example, promises to “spark the second great railroad revolution.”

“Passenger rail is a vital component to America’s transportation network,” the incoming transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, said in a statement to The New York Times. “I believe that the department should promote, help to develop, and fund passenger rail in order to bring America’s railroads into the 21st century.”

Expanding service to new cities “is a tough leap for a lot of people,” said Sean Jeans-Gail, vice president for policy and government affairs for the Rail Passengers Association. “At the same time it feels like the stars are starting to align. We might get an honest-to-God infrastructure bill and that could mean money for expansion.”

The North Coast Hiawatha in Butte, Mont., in 1977. Amtrak canceled the line two years later.
Credit…Frank Florianz

 

Amtrak officials said they were “supporting” the efforts of local officials to expand service. “There are many places around the country that could benefit from restoration of service or new service,” said Marc Magliari, a spokesman for the company.

There has been encouraging news for passenger rail recently, including the recently remodeled Moynihan Train Hall next to Penn Station in New York and the new, next generation of Acela trains due to enter service this year in the Northeast Corridor.

The pandemic, though, has caused financial havoc for Amtrak, as it has for other forms of transportation. Ridership has been down 80 percent. The railroad received $1 billion from the 2020 stimulus.

And the once ambitious plans for high-speed rail in California have been considerably downsized amid soaring cost overruns, which may hurt the cause for expanded rail.

New long-distance service in Montana, if it happened, would not be high speed. Amtrak’s long-distance trains have a top speed of 79 miles per hour, though sections of some routes have requisite safety equipment in place to reach top speeds of 90 miles per hour.

Small communities across the country see economic hope in an Amtrak connection. Northern Montana still has the Empire Builder, which a recent analysis said contributes up to $40 million a year to the small communities it serves. It is the busiest of Amtrak’s long-distance routes and last year carried some 433,000 passengers.

The Empire Builder, a daily Amtrak train reduced to three times a week during the pandemic, travels through northern Montana, serving small towns in a remote part of the state.
Credit…George Rose/Getty Images

 

A ballpark figure for the start-up cost of reinstituting new service along Montana’s southern route, Mr. Jeans-Gail said, is $50 million for better signaling, upgrading track and station improvement.

Nostalgia is no small part of the support for train travel. The history of the last 150 years in the West has been entwined with the railroads, the first mode of transportation to bridge the long distances in trips that took days, rather than weeks or months. They brought a radically different world to a wild and remote land — for good and for ill. Homesteaders, miners, buffalo hunters and others came to develop and plunder a rich landscape and occupy the land.

The railroads were also instrumental in the creation of the national parks and park infrastructure, which their originators saw as destinations for passengers.

The town of Deer Lodge was integral in the early days of railroading in Montana and is steeped in rail history. The Northern Pacific came in the 1880s, and in 1907 the now defunct Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad, known as the Milwaukee Road, located its Rocky Mountain division headquarters here.

“Both of my grandfathers and my father were locomotive engineers on the Milwaukee Road,” said Terry Jennings, who lives in Deer Lodge and is on the board of the Big Sky Passenger Rail Authority. “When the Milwaukee Road pulled out it busted the back of this town financially.”

Terry Jennings and the Big Sky Passenger Rail Authority want to see rail service return to the region.
Credit…Tailyr Irvine for The New York Times

 

Since then the town’s population has dwindled, from nearly 5,000 to less than 3,000, and there is a yearning to recapture some of its railroad past and buttress its tourist economy. Deer Lodge is home to the state prison, and the imposing, castle-like stone territorial prison, retired in 1979, is a tourist attraction. The Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site on the edge of town operates as a cattle ranch did in the 19th century.

Even if rail service returns to the southern route, Deer Lodge might not get service right away, though the train would likely stop nearby. If the railroad does make it here, it would need new infrastructure. The town’s two wood-frame, track-side train stations are now the Depot Church and the Powell County Senior Center.

While some cities in Montana have boomed in recent years, many small towns are in an existential battle. The long distances and sparse population of parts of Montana, sometimes called the Big Empty, make travel difficult and expensive.

Flying from Missoula to Billings, for example, requires flying first to Salt Lake City or Seattle and connecting back; a round-trip flight can cost $500 or more. Bus service is spotty. Spending hours behind a steering wheel is often the only alternative.

New train service would open up secluded parts of the vast state. “There’s a big part of Montana that is virtually untouched, that can only be seen from the railroad,” Mr. Jennings said.

Freight trains now run on the tracks between Missoula and Deer Lodge.
Credit…Tailyr Irvine for The New York Times

 

And with an aging population for whom long-distance driving is becoming more difficult, train service looks increasingly attractive. “My husband’s family lives in Terry, 400 miles east,” said Deer Lodge’s mayor, Diana Solle. “We are in our 70s and it’s a long drive.”

Montana is only one of many places working toward new long-distance train service. There is research and planning underway to provide Amtrak service along Colorado’s Front Range; new service between Mobile, Ala., and New Orleans; and additional service between Chicago and St. Paul, Minn. Virginia is adding tracks to expand high-speed train service between Richmond and Washington, connecting to the Northeast Corridor.

Mr. Strohmaier said Montana officials would like to open new rail service to connect to places like Salt Lake City and Denver, especially for people who cannot afford to fly.

“There are economic and social disparities” in travel, he said. “This is the definition of transportation equity. It would provide a more affordable means of transportation for a larger slice of the public than is currently served.”

The historic train station in Missoula, which could benefit from a re-established commuter line.
Credit…Tailyr Irvine for The New York Times

Scientists Launch ‘Four Steps for Earth’ to Protect Biodiversity

Eco Watch – Biodiversity

Scientists Launch ‘Four Steps for Earth’ to Protect Biodiversity

Olivia Rosane                                 January 25, 2021

Scientists Launch ‘Four Steps for Earth’ to Protect Biodiversity
A dugong, also called a sea cow, swims with golden pilot jacks near Marsa Alam, Egypt, Red Sea. Alexis Rosenfeld / Getty Images.

 

In 2010, world leaders agreed to 20 targets to protect Earth’s biodiversity over the next decade. By 2020, none of them had been met. Now, the question is whether the world can do any better once new targets are set during the meeting of the UN Convention on Biodiversity in Kunming, China later this year.

To help turn the tide, a group of 22 research institutions have come together to develop four steps to protect life on Earth, the Environment Journal reported.

“The upcoming Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) meeting, and adoption of the new Global Biodiversity Framework, represent an opportunity to transform humanity’s relationship with nature,” the researchers wrote in One Earth Friday. “Restoring nature while meeting human needs requires a bold vision, including mainstreaming biodiversity conservation in society.”

By mainstreaming biodiversity, the researchers mean that biodiversity should be considered by everyone who makes decisions about the use of natural resources, not just specialized conservation organizations.

To help with this goal, the researchers, led by the University of Oxford’s Interdisciplinary Centre for Conservation Science, developed a framework they are calling the “4Rs,” according to a University of Oxford press release. The point of the 4Rs is that they can be used by any group or individual, from the national to the local level, that needs to make a decision that will impact species and ecosystems.

The 4Rs are:

  1. Refrain: Avoiding negative impacts on nature.
  2. Reduce: Minimizing the harm caused by any unavoidable impacts.
  3. Restore: Acting to quickly counteract any harm caused to nature.
  4. Renew: Working to improve damaged ecosystems.

“This paper represents a real team effort, with authors from academia, business and government,” lead author and Oxford professor E.J. Milner-Gulland said of the goals in the press release. “We’re excited to launch this idea and hope that it will be useful to many different groups as they work to realise the vision of the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework. It’s a huge challenge, with many different facets, and we hope that Four Steps for the Earth will provide an intuitive and flexible framework for tying all the threads together.”

In the paper, the researchers provided examples of how the framework has been used by groups ranging from the city of London to Indigenous communities. In one example, a fishery in Peru used it to reduce the accidental catching of sea turtles. Goals were set for limiting the number of different species of sea turtle accidentally caught at the local level, and this was connected to regional conservation efforts for the animals.

The researchers also explained how different institutions could use their framework to guide their actions in the future.

“This framework will, hopefully, present a turning point in the way institutions such as Oxford think about their biodiversity impact,” Oxford project coordinator Henry Grub said in the press release. “Our impacts cannot be overlooked because of the positive research we do – rather we hope the ‘4Rs’ will transform efforts to tackle the environmental impacts of the food we eat in canteens, the paper we put in printers, the land we build on, and much more.”

Farmers that use land to protect the environment have more stable incomes than those that focus on intensity

Farmers that use land to protect the environment have more stable incomes than those that focus on intensity

Helena Horton                                  January 21, 2021
This is good news for the new environment-led payments scheme championed by the UK government  - Gareth Fuller/PA Wire
This is good news for the new environment-led payments scheme championed by the UK government – Gareth Fuller/PA Wire

 

Farmers who use land to protect the environment have more stable incomes than those who focus on intensity, a new study has suggested.

Scientists from Rothampsted Research and Reading and Newcastle Universities has found that farmers who grew diverse crops and livestock, and reduced pesticides, receive more consistent year-to-year incomes.

This will be seen as a boost for the government’s plan to phase out the EU land payment scheme and instead pay farmers for looking after their environment.

Researchers said the growers did better when they looked after their land because their farms were more resilient to extreme weather events and disease.

The researchers examined data from the government’s Farm Business Survey for 2333 farms in England and Wales, between 2007-2015, for a range of different farm types.

Using statistical models, the team examined the effect of farming practices and subsidies on the stability of farm income, and their relative importance over the nine-year period.

An increase in direct EU subsidies paid to farmers based on the area farmed was associated with less stable farm income, across most farm types.

Dr Jake Bishop, Lecturer in Crop Science and Production from the University of Reading’s School of Agriculture, Policy & Development said: “Our latest research is interesting as it shows that farms that were adopting environmental management actually benefitted financially from their stewardship. This is encouraging news for farmers as the UK moves to the Environmental Land Management scheme.

“Diversifying outputs and more efficient use of agrochemicals is also associated with environmental and ecological benefits, including for soils and pollinators, these benefits may have translated into more stable farm incomes over the nine years we examined.”

Lead author and PhD student, Caroline Harkness added: “Farmers are facing increasing pressures due to changes in climate, government policy and prices. Instability in farm income can be a real challenge. It was interesting, and encouraging, to find that farms adopting environmentally friendly practices also had more stable incomes.

“Farmers may be benefiting financially from their environmental management, while in contrast an increase in direct payments per hectare was associated with less stable farm income.

“Environmentally friendly farming practices including engaging in agri-environment schemes, diversifying outputs, and reducing the use of chemical inputs such as fertilizer and pesticides, are associated with ecological and environmental benefits and importantly could also increase the stability of farm income.”

Keystone XL Pipeline Canceled. Here’s What It Means for the Future Fight Against Fossil Fuels

Keystone XL Pipeline Canceled. Here’s What It Means for the Future Fight Against Fossil Fuels

By Nick Cunningham                             January 20, 2021

No KXL sign held up at a 2011 rally in front of the White House
Keystone XL protest at the white house in Washington D.C, on November 6, 2011. Credit: Emma Cassidy, via tarsandaction.

 

President Joe Biden, in one of his first actions after entering the White House, signed an executive order Wednesday canceling the permit for the Keystone XL (KXL) pipeline. The move blocks construction of the 1,200-mile pipeline, and puts an end to a saga that has persisted for more than a decade.

The cross-border pipeline would have carried 830,000 barrels per day of Canadian tar sands oil to the Gulf of Mexico, where it would be refined and exported, providing a crucial outlet for landlocked oil from Alberta. But the mundane infrastructure project became a symbol of the broader fight against climate change, sparking a sustained campaign against drilling and fossil fuel infrastructure across the continent.

“We only achieve huge wins like this by speaking out together,” Madonna Thunder Hawk of the Lakota People’s Law Project said in a statement. “Rescinding KXL’s permit is a promising early signal that the new administration is listening to our concerns and will take issues of climate and Indigenous justice seriously. We have to insist that it not stop there.”

The cancelation of Keystone XL cements a legacy of climate activism, a movement that has grown into a powerful force in American politics. The end of the pipeline is also a major victory for the many Native American tribes who have consistently been at the forefront of battles against fossil fuel infrastructure.

At the same time, many more pipelines are under construction or are on the drawing board, having eclipsed Keystone XL long ago in terms of importance to the industry.

In 2015, then-President Barack Obama denied a key permit for the project, citing the need to lead on climate, a move that at the time seemed like the final word on the matter. However, President Donald Trump immediately revived the pipeline proposal when he assumed office in 2017.

Despite the backing of the U.S. government, the pipeline project faced some legal hurdles during the Trump era that delayed construction. President Biden’s executive order issued on January 20 once again puts the project on ice. TC Energy, the pipeline’s sponsor, said it would suspend operations and “consider its options.”

“We applaud President Biden’s swift action to rescind Keystone XL’s improperly obtained permits and stop this disastrous project in its tracks yet again,” David Turnbull, Strategic Communications Director at Oil Change International, said in a statement. “Keystone XL would be a disaster for our climate, a disaster for First Nations communities at the source of the tar sands in Canada, and a disaster for communities across a broad swath of our country along its route.”

The Power of Activism

The fatal blow to Keystone XL is a major victory for a coalition of opponents who have fought the fossil fuel project for well over a decade. The fight defined a new era for the environmental movement.

In the early Obama years, national environmental groups placed a lot of faith in legislative efforts at the federal level without building power at the grassroots — a strategy then symbolized by the failed cap-and-trade bill in 2009. In the wake of that defeat, and with the legislative route cut off after Republicans swept the House of Representatives in 2010, the Obama administration turned to executive action. One of those key moves included introducing in 2014 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan to regulate climate emissions from power plants, though its implementation was eventually blocked by the U.S. Supreme Court as the plan was ensnared in legal challenges.

At that point, environmental groups took the climate fight to the grassroots level. And instead of looking at market-based solutions like cap-and-trade, they turned to a “keep it in the ground” strategy, focusing on blocking new supplies of oil, gas, and coal, as well as fossil fuel infrastructure.

And the science supports activists’ calls to keep fossil fuels in the ground. The United Nations says that governments need to wind down fossil fuel production at a rate of six percent per year over the next decade in order to have a shot at meeting a 1.5-degree Celsius warming target and avoiding catastrophic climate impacts.

This anti-fossil fuel development push, however, was not embraced universally by all environmental groups, and conflicted with President Obama’s “all of the above” mantra when it came to the types of energy actions and solutions he would pursue, but the keep-it-in-the-ground strategy became increasingly mainstream for activists in the second Obama term and into the Trump era.

Amid this rising grassroots action to stop the Keystone XL pipeline came an increasing awareness and recognition on behalf of environmental groups of the importance of Indigenous Rights and concepts related to environmental justice, broadening the narrow focus on greenhouse gases that had characterized many prior efforts.

This awareness, however, did not always come easily. “It has always been a challenge for folks to understand the strategic value of an Indigenous Rights framework when it comes to protecting land and water,” Dallas Goldtooth, an organizer with the Indigenous Environment Network, told DeSmog via email.

Indeed, Indigenous peoples have been at the forefront of pipeline resistance since the earliest days of Keystone XL. Goldtooth pointed out that the fight against Keystone XL began with First Nations Dene families in Northern Alberta who lived close to toxic tar sands operations.

And the campaign against the Dakota Access pipeline in 2016 was led by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe along with other Indigenous peoples and, to a lesser extent, non-Native allies. Today, some of the largest campaigns against pipelines are also led by Indigenous peoples, including opposition to Line 3, the Trans Mountain Expansion, and the Coastal GasLink pipeline.

More Projects in the Pipeline

But while the defeat of Keystone XL is historically momentous, it raises questions about other routes for Canadian tar sands. After sitting on the drawing board for years, Canada’s oil industry has already turned to alternative pipelines, such as Enbridge’s Line 3 replacement through Minnesota and, even more importantly, the Trans Mountain Expansion from Alberta to British Columbia.

“With Line 3 and TMX [Trans Mountain Expansion], Alberta has sufficient capacity to get its oil to market,” Werner Antweiler, a business professor at the University of British Columbia, told DeSmog.

In fact, scrapping Keystone XL arguably makes these other projects more urgent. “For the federal government of Canada, which has a vested interest in the commercial success of TMX, the cancelation of the KXL project may ultimately be good news because it ensures that there is sufficient demand for TMX capacity,” Antweiler said. “This means it is more likely now that TMX will become commercially viable and can be sold back to private investors profitably after construction is complete.”

This at a time when Keystone XL proved to be an expensive gamble. In 2019, Alberta invested $1.1 billion in Keystone XL in order to add momentum to the controversial project, funding its first year of construction. Now the province may end up selling the vast quantities of pipe for scrap, while also hoping to obtain damages from the United States.

Others are less convinced that the cancelation of one project is a boon to another. Even the Trans Mountain Expansion faces uncertainties in a world of energy transition. “Looking back a century ago, as one-by-one carriage manufacturers shut down as car manufacturers expanded production, prospects for the remaining carriage manufacturers didn’t improve,” Tom Green, a Climate Solutions Policy Analyst at the David Suzuki Foundation, told DeSmog.

“Canada can take its cue from Biden: recognize the costly Trans Mountain pipeline isn’t needed or viable, it doesn’t fit with our climate commitments, and instead of throwing ever more money into a pit, government should invest those funds in the energy system of the future,” he said.

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to include a statement from Oil Change International.

U.S. and Canada underestimating climate risk from abandoned oil and gas wells: study

U.S. and Canada underestimating climate risk from abandoned oil and gas wells: study

Nichola Groom                      January 20, 2021

FILE PHOTO: An abandoned natural gas well stands on the property of Hanson Rower in Salyersville

 

(Reuters) – Methane leaking out of the more than 4 million abandoned oil and gas wells in the United States and Canada is a far greater contributor to climate change than government estimates suggest, researchers from McGill University said on Wednesday.

Canada has underestimated methane emissions from its abandoned wells by as much as 150%, while official U.S. estimates are about 20% below actual levels, the study, published in Environmental Science and Technology, found.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Environment and Climate Change Canada did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the study.

More than a century of oil and gas drilling has left behind millions of abandoned wells around the globe, posing a serious threat https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-drilling-abandoned-specialreport/special-report-millions-of-abandoned-oil-wells-are-leaking-methane-a-climate-menace-idUSKBN23N1NL to the climate that governments are only starting to understand, according to a Reuters special report last year.

Methane has more than 80 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide in its first 20 years in the atmosphere.

In 2019, methane emissions from abandoned wells were included for the first time in U.S. and Canadian greenhouse gas inventories submitted to the United Nations.

But the McGill study found there are about 500,000 wells in the United States that are undocumented along with about 60,000 in Canada. It also found that the EPA and ECCC had come up with emissions estimates that were far too low – a conclusion the researchers said was based on their own analysis of emissions levels from different types of abandoned wells in seven U.S. states and two Canadian provinces.

Emissions measurements were also not available from major oil and gas-producing states and provinces like Texas and Alberta, adding to uncertainty around the official data, the study said.

The study was co-authored by McGill professor Mary Kang, who in 2014 was the first to measure methane emissions from old drilling sites in Pennsylvania.

(Reporting by Nichola Groom; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

Biden to yank Keystone XL permit on first day of presidency

Biden to yank Keystone XL permit on first day of presidency

Lauren Gardner and Ben Lefebvre                     January 17, 2021
The Keystone XL Pipeline: Everything You Need To Know | NRDC

President-elect Joe Biden will rescind the cross-border permit for TC Energy’s Keystone XL pipeline on his first day in office, three sources confirm to POLITICO.

The move is billed as one of Biden’s Day One climate change actions, according to a presentation circulating among Washington trade groups and lobbyists, a portion of which was seen by POLITICO. The decision was not included in incoming chief of staff Ron Klain’s Saturday memo outlining Biden’s planned executive actions during the first days of his presidency.

Two lobbyists confirmed that Biden plans to yank the project’s permit on Inauguration Day, a development first reported by CBC News. It’s the latest development in a decade-long fight over the controversial pipeline and solidifies a campaign promise the Canadian government had hoped was negotiable.

“The only question has always been whether labor can stave off the death sentence,” said one oil and gas lobbyist who requested anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak to the press. “And they never had a chance.”

A Biden transition spokesperson declined to comment.

Canada’s ambassador to Washington Kirsten Hillman would not confirm reports. “The Government of Canada continues to support the Keystone XL project,” she said in a statement to POLITICO on Sunday evening. “Keystone XL fits within Canada’s climate plan. It will also contribute to U.S. energy security and economic competitiveness.”

Rescinding Keystone XL would negate one of President Donald Trump’s own first actions in office and kill a project that had become a political totem in the fight between climate activists and the oil industry. Despite many analysts saying the boom in U.S. shale oil made new sources of Canadian crude less important, TC Energy has fought years of legal challenges against it obtaining the needed state permits that would all it to build the pipeline.

The reaction: TC Energy announced Sunday that Keystone XL would achieve net-zero emissions across operations once it begins running in 2023. A spokesperson didn’t respond to a request for comment on Biden’s executive order plans.

Environmentalists applauded the decision. “President-elect Biden is showing courage and empathy to the farmers, ranchers and tribal nations who have dealt with an ongoing threat that disrupted their lives for over a decade,” said Jane Kleeb, founder of Bold Nebraska, a grassroots group focused on scuttling the project.

Canada-U.S. relations: TC Energy first proposed the $8 billion pipeline in 2008, saying the 1,200-mile project was crucial to deliver crude from Western Canada to refineries in the Midwest. The Obama administration in 2015 denied a cross-border permit for the pipeline, however, saying the oil it would deliver would exacerbate climate change.

Keystone XL was one of the few issues on which Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau agreed. The Liberal government had planned to continue to advocate for the pipeline.

During a congratulatory call with Biden on November 9th, Trudeau told the incoming president he looked forward to joining forces to fight climate change while co-operating on energy projects like the Keystone XL.

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney bet Biden would not cancel a project already under construction when he announced in March that his government had taken a $1.1 billion stake in Keystone XL. Preliminary construction started last fall in Montana, Nebraska and South Dakota.

The provincial government openly mulled a legal intervention last year into a court case that had put pipeline construction on hold and reportedly hired American lobbyists to make its case in Washington.

Stef Feldman, a policy director for Biden’s campaign, told POLITICO in May that the Democrat would “proudly stand in the Roosevelt Room again as President and stop it for good.”

What’s next: In a statement Sunday night, Kenney vowed to work with TC Energy “to use all legal avenues available to protect” Alberta’s interest in the pipeline.

Bitter Cold Means Chaos as Global Energy Systems Show Strain

Bitter Cold Means Chaos as Global Energy Systems Show Strain

Rachel Morison                           January 15, 2021

In Asia, extreme cold prompted record-high power demand and a scramble for natural gas to keep the lights on in China, Japan and South Korea. In Sweden, a utility is paying for hotels for its customers after heavy snow brought down sections of the power grid cutting supplies while French households were advised to delay doing their laundry to save energy.

The extreme, widespread cold took markets by surprise. The spikes in energy demand during the bitter winter, coupled with weak wind generation, power plant closures and liquefied natural gas tanker delays highlighted the shortcomings of global energy systems in weather conditions that are only set to get more volatile.

There could be more to come. A relatively rare weather phenomenon with the potential to disrupt the polar vortex — the winds that usually keep cold air contained in the far north — is threatening to send an Arctic blast across North America, Europe and Asia from late January.

“The distortion of the polar vortex appears to be prolonging the severe winter conditions in some northerly areas and potentially Europe,” said David Thomas, independent adviser and former head of LNG at Vitol Group. “It may not be over just yet. Several companies are feeling the pain and the elevated power prices must be hurting large consumers.”

The extreme conditions left some energy traders and utilities flat-footed, sending prices for electricity, fuel and vessels to record highs.

In Asia, LNG spot rates jumped 18-fold from last year’s lows and helped send European gas prices to a 12-year peak. Britain’s national grid was forced to issue numerous appeals for generators to increase output as low wind generation coincided with the cold snap and pushed wholesale electricity prices for peak periods to more than 1,000 pounds ($1,367) a megawatt hour.

European gas markets like the U.K. and Spain, which don’t have large amounts of gas storage, and are more dependent on the “incredibly tight global LNG market are more exposed if below normal temperatures are sustained,” said James Huckstepp, manager for EMEA gas analytics at S&P Global Platts.

Lights Out

China is struggling to keep the lights on after some of the lowest temperatures since 1966 boosted domestic demand just as manufacturing ramped up after the pandemic. Ice is also wreaking havoc on grid infrastructure, while the frigid weather disrupted transport and delayed LNG tankers at Qingdao.

Big industrial users are first in line to have electricity supplies cut, followed by commercial buildings, in order to keep supply safe for residential consumers.

Meanwhile in Japan, its utilities have asked consumers to conserve electricity, and the government has ordered independent producers to boost output to maximum capacity.

Tohoku Electric Power Co. bought several cargoes of low-sulfur fuel oil for oil-fired power plants that are utilized only when gas-fed facilities have been maximized. Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has begun speaking to refiners and urged them to help supply local utilities with LSFO supplies.

Wrap Up Warm

Earlier this week, the French grid operator issued a red alert for high power demand and appealed to households to put on a jumper rather than turn the heating up. Electricite de France SA advised customers to delay doing their laundry while power demand was high.

Parts of northeastern Sweden got the biggest snow dump since 2012, with 60 centimeters in just one day, according to the nation’s Meteorological and Hydrological Institute. The storm overwhelmed grids and has left many thousands of customers without power this week.

EON SE is paying for hotel rooms for Swedish customers as it struggles to restore power supplies that have been down since Jan. 11. Vattenfall AB, the Nordic region’s biggest utility, hired a helicopter to clear snow and ice from power lines, using a long pole to shake snow off cables or a grip claw to lift trees from the line.

In Spain, the government is considering ways to intervene in the electricity market when there are sharp price increases, as happened when demand surged during the cold spell that blanketed Madrid in a rare snowfall. Some consumer bills in the regulated market are linked to wholesale prices that are at the highest in a decade.

With natural gas shortages, power plants in Iran are burning low-grade fuel oils that create toxic smog, or switching off entirely, triggering blackouts.

Pakistan is facing a gas shortage, too, despite running its two LNG terminals at full capacity in January. The Asian nation has cut gas supplies to industries and limited flows to compressed natural gas stations to a few days a week as residential demand more than doubled compared to the summer and was higher than in previous winters.

How cold the rest of the winter gets is likely to be the key driver for whether higher energy prices will be sustained.

Even if temperatures ease, the impact of tighter LNG supplies is likely to be felt into the summer and to feed into other markets. As north Asia, the biggest consumer of LNG, restocks supplies that demand will support price benchmarks throughout 2021. What was expected to be a finely balanced summer just a month ago, is now looking increasingly tight, according to Wood Mackenzie Ltd.

Shocking footage shows Serbian lake completely covered in garbage

Shocking footage shows Serbian lake completely covered in garbage

Isabella O’Malley                       January 12, 2021
Shocking footage shows Serbian lake completely covered in garbage
Shocking footage shows Serbian lake completely covered in garbage

While pollution is an omnipresent issue that is impacting essentially every ecosystem on Earth, the problem is not always visible to the naked eye. However, footage of Serbia’s Potpecko Lake depicts a jarring scene — several thousand cubic metres of plastic containers floating on top of the water.

The footage was first published online on January 4, 2021 and environmental activist, Sinisa Lakovic, says that the extent of the plastic pollution is due to decades of accumulating trash at “unsanitary landfills,” as reported by Reuters. Marko Karadzic, a local resident, described the situation to Reuters as “an ecological disaster.”

Several landfills are located upstream from the lake along the Lim River. Potpecko Lake is connected to the waterbody that the dam at the Višegrad Hydroelectric Power Plant uses, and officials are concerned that it could become clogged with garbage.

Serbia’s Environment Minister, Irena Vujovic, said a clean-up would soon commence and stated that several landfalls that contributed to the pollution in Potpecko Lake have been invited to develop a solution that would have long-term benefits.

AQUATIC POLLUTION, NOT JUST AN OCEAN PROBLEM

Images of ocean animals entangled in plastic pollution are the most common impacts that many people think of when considering how the waste we generate impacts aquatic ecosystems. Given that oceans cover more than 70 per cent of Earth’s surface, it is understandable that the spotlight lands on these marine ecosystems, but some experts say that plastic pollution in freshwater lakes and rivers is a topic that is often neglected in research.

lake pollution Credit: Justin Wilkens via Unsplash
lake pollution Credit: Justin Wilkens via Unsplash.  A discarded beer can in Eagle Lake, Mississippi, USA. Credit: Justin Wilkens via Unsplash

 

A 2019 survey conducted by scientists Martín C. M. Blettler and Karl M. Wantzen reviewed 171 published studies that analyzed animal plastic entanglement and found that over 98 per cent focused solely on oceanic environments. Blettler and Wantzen stated while ocean plastic pollution remains a considerable concern, they emphasize the importance of the limited insight we have about freshwater pollution.

In freshwater environments, researchers have documented an increasing trend of plastic becoming part of birds’ nests, which can reduce the survival rates of both the parents and chicks. Microplastics are also being consumed by fish in growing amounts leading to adverse effects. The researchers say that the effects of plastic pollution in water bodies inland are important to study because the waste that is dumped in lakes and rivers ultimately travels to the oceans.

With files from Reuters