The Guardian

Houston refineries and plants leak thousands of tons of pollutants

Oliver Milman, Houston, Texas, The Guardian   September 2, 2017

Communities face surging toxic fumes and possible water contamination, as refineries and plants report more than 2,700 tons of extra pollution

Houston’s petrochemical industry has leaked more than 2,700 tons of extra air pollution in connection with Hurricane Harvey. Photograph: David J. Phillip/AP

Hurricane Harvey has resulted in Houston’s petrochemical industry leaking thousands of tons of pollutants, with communities living near plants damaged by the storm exposed to soaring levels of toxic fumes and potential water contamination.

Refineries and chemical plants have reported more than 2,700 tons, or 5.4m pounds, of extra air pollution due to direct damage from the hurricane as well as the preventive shutting down of facilities, which causes a spike in released toxins.

On Friday, ozone levels in south-west Houston were nearly three times higher than the national standard, triggering one of Texas’s worst recent smog. Scientists warned that people outside cleaning up in the aftermath of Harvey were vulnerable to the poor air, particularly the elderly, children and those with asthma.

According to an analysis by the Center for Biological Diversity, a cocktail of nearly 1m pounds of particularly harmful substances such as benzene, hexane, sulfur dioxide, butadiene and xylene have been emitted by more than 60 petroleum industry plants operated by ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron and other businesses since the hurricane.

Houston has not met national air quality standards since the introduction of the Clean Air Act in 1970 and the sudden surge in pollution has caused deep concern among public health advocates.

“It’s a really serious public health crisis from the pollution and other impacts people are facing,” said Bakeyah Nelson, executive director of Air Alliance Houston.

“Communities in close proximity to these facilities will get the worst of it, as they get the worst of it on a daily basis. There’s also the acute danger of one of these facilities exploding in neighborhoods where storage tanks are adjacent to people’s back yards. It’s a very real threat and it’s a very precarious situation.”

The released chemicals are linked, through prolonged exposure, to an array of health problems including heightened cancer risk, gastrointestinal ailments, nausea and muscle weakness. Residents living near the sprawling industrial facilities that dominate Houston’s ship channel said they have experienced pungent smells and respiratory issues in the wake of the hurricane.

“It feels like someone has a hand on the crest of your noses and is pushing down on your nose and eyes,” said Bryan Parras, who lives in the East End area of Houston. “You start to get headaches, your eyes start itching, your throat gets scratchy. I noticed it going outside for just a second. And then I realized that the air conditioning was sucking it into the house.”

Parras has worked for the past decade to highlight the pollution issues faced the overwhelmingly Latino and black communities living directly next to Houston’s petrochemical industry. While it is difficult to directly link air pollution in a particular area to a person’s illness, people along the ship channel have reported elevated levels of leukemia, asthma and other ailments.

“I grew up here and I remember being sick all the time,” Parras said. “I’m still pretty fucked up because of where I grew up and live. This hurricane has been devastating for these communities and it’s still playing out because we don’t know the full extent of it yet.

“The Latino community here is full of good people. They do the dirtiest jobs and they don’t ask for much and yet they are over-policed, criminalized and targeted. These people have very little political power and the city knows it. The real disaster is that they are poisoning these communities slowly, 24-7.”

Daniel Cohan, an air pollution expert at Rice University, said the emissions could be even greater than what the companies are reporting to regulators, given the difficulties in ascertaining exactly what has been leaked. Several air quality monitors were also rendered inoperable by the hurricane.

“The emissions could be many times higher,” he said. “A lot of the risks for carcinogens and neurotoxins come following exposure for a long time but the immediate concern is that people in the neighborhoods around the plants, a lot of low-income Hispanic communities, will suffer itchy eyes and throat complaints. The air will be unpleasant to breathe.

“It’s concerning how state policies allow enormous amounts of pollution during shut down and start up periods. I hope the next few days are the worst of it.”

The most spectacular industrial damage so far has taken place at the Arkema chemical plant in Crosby, Texas, where a number of explosions have been reported.

Many other petrochemical facilities have reported lesser but significant damage to their roofs and holding tanks from Harvey, the heaviest rain event in recorded US history. ExxonMobil had to shut down two facilities, with one damaged plant in Baytown releasing more than 12,500lbs of chemicals including benzene and xylene.

Fourteen plants, operated by firms including Shell and Dow Chemical, have also reported wastewater overflows following the hurricane. It’s not yet clear what volume of pollutants has been released, although some scientists are concerned the huge volume of water washing through Houston will carry high levels of toxins.

Along with its enormous petrochemical industry, Harris county, in which Houston sits, has more than a dozen super-fund sites – federally designated toxic areas in need of cleaning up – that may also spread contamination.

The Associated Press reported on Saturday that it had visited five Houston-area super-fund sites and all had been inundated with water.

The US Environmental Protection Agency and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality have said they have about 200 staff members working to monitor wastewater issues and safeguard drinking water.

“Floodwaters may contain many hazards, including bacteria and other disease agents,” the agencies warned in a joint statement. “Precautions should be taken by anyone involved in cleanup activities or any others who may be exposed to floodwaters.

“These precautions include heeding all warnings from local and state authorities regarding boil-water notices, swimming advisories, or other safety advisories.”

Many residents have been alarmed by the toxic impacts of the hurricane but are skeptical that their more chronic pollution problems will be addressed once the floodwaters from Harvey have receded.

Jessica Hultze, a retired woman who lives in Houston’s second ward district, a largely Latino area, said she had noticed a strong smell of gasoline that made her feel uncomfortable.

“This has been bad but it’s not going to get better, it’ll only get worse,” she said. “We all talk about how close we are to the refineries but for us there is no hope, we will die with this poisonous air. There are so many people around here with tubes coming out of their noses.

“I’ve been around for a few years and no one has listened to us. We are just the little people.”

Al Jazeera

NAFTA: How ‘ghost’ unions exploit workers in Mexico

Labor experts hope NAFTA talks will spur action against unions profiting off workers and secure a better deal for them.

by John Holman       September 1, 2017

Mexico City, Mexico – US President Donald Trump is not known to be a defender of the underpaid, under-protected Mexican labor force, but his administration is making noises about the low salaries and lax regulations that workers in Mexico have to put up with.

There is a reason for that. The Trump administration believes low Mexican wages make for unfair competition for their own workforce and lure in companies that instead might have set up in the US. With the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on the negotiating table again after 23 years, the Trump administration, when they are not threatening to pull out of the trade deal, is looking to even up the playing field. The focus on salaries is likely to continue into the second round of re-negotiations taking place in Mexico itself from September 1st to 5th.

But while the US administration’s concerns over Mexican workers’ rights might not be altruistic, they do contain a basic truth. Mexican workers are, on average, the worst paid of the 35 countries in the OECD. Wages have stagnated. According to Mexico’s National Autonomous University (UNAM), the real value of the country’s minimum salary has dropped 60 percent in the past 30 years.

The reasons for that are complex, but labor expert Maria Xelhuantzi Lopez of UNAM university says one issue lies at the center of it all.

“The cause of the low salaries in Mexico is that there aren’t any unions that are regulating the working conditions or the salaries,” she says.

Since the 1980s, a phenomenon has exploded in Mexico – “protectionist” trade unions.

These unions work like this: a national or international company sets up in Mexico, and nine times out of ten, according to Lopez, rather than allowing the workers to actually form their own union, the company hires lawyers to produce a protectionist union.

These unions – which exist only on paper – sign a “collective” contract with the company and becomes the legal representative of the workers.

“They are paper unions – ghosts – because legally they exist, they cover all the legal requisites, but the workers aren’t included in the process,” Lopez says.

“Experts agree that 90 percent of the unions in the country (follow this model),” Lopez says.

It is clear, she says, why these protectionist unions have become so popular with employers. “What they do is to keep salaries low, maintain precarious labor conditions, keep workers rights to the minimum and increase the profits of the company,” she says.

Lopez says they are often formed before workers are even hired and always operate “behind their backs”.

Multinationals and ‘ghost’ unions

International companies coming to Mexico have also learned that setting up a protectionist union is an easy way to guarantee cheap labor, according to labor expert Graciela Bensusan of UNAM university.

“Many multinational companies were complicit in this fraud,” Bensusan says. She adds that some multinationals are opting out of the protectionist model “but others keep using it, like in the auto industry”.

Mexico’s auto industry is a key component of NAFTA and many international market leaders have set up in Mexico.

Leonardo Reyes, 38, works for one of them – the Japanese company Honda in a plant in Salto, a town in western Mexico. He says that when he arrived at the firm 17 years ago a collective contract with a protectionist union was already in place.

“They made me join a union I never saw. What does that union do for the workers? Practically nothing,” he says. “It’s on the side of the company. It takes no notice when we ask for higher salaries and it lessens the benefits we get.”

Reyes says that when he and colleagues tried to form their own union they encountered resistance from the company.

“There were a lot of repercussions for the workers who did this. Some got fired, in my case I was the head of machinery and after I entered the union the coordinators and managers put me on the assembly line,” he says.

With a wage of around $2.25 an hour, Reyes is one of the better paid workers in the factory. He says his lowest paid colleagues on the assembly line earn about $1.20. That is more than double the minimum wage in Mexico but a fraction of the $16 an hour earned by the lowest paid workers who are members of the US United Automobile Workers union.

Honda and the Mexican Auto Industry Association (AMIA) did not respond to multiple emails and phone calls requesting comment.

Mexican workers build cars on an assembly line inside a Volkswagen factory in the southern-central Mexican state of Puebla [Screengrab/Al Jazeera]

Al Jazeera also contacted the Confederation of Mexican Employers (Coparmex) for their perspective on protectionist collective contracts and unions.

“The posture of Coparmex is total respect for the labor law and for the punishment of any abuses,” said Coparmex spokesman Gustavo Almaraz in a phone interview.

Legal challenges

The problem, according to labor experts, is that “ghost” unions, although unfair, are totally legal in Mexico.

This year, the government unveiled legislation that could in some way change that. It looks to regulate the creation, elections and activities of unions in Mexico.

But it has faced resistance, and not just from companies. The biggest alliance of Mexican workers’ unions is the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM). It acts as an umbrella organization for the majority of the country’s unions and is especially powerful in the auto industry.

Labor experts have accused the CTM of taking the side of the companies and going against the very workers it is meant to support, and of having “ghost” unions in its ranks. Labor expert Bensusan of UNAM says: “The CTM’s first position was against raising the minimum salary. That doesn’t happen anywhere else in the world.”

In a press conference this August, CTM leader Carlos Aceves del Olmo was reported as saying that Mexicans earning the same as workers in the US and Canada was a “pipe dream”. Olmo’s office declined a request for comment.

Corrupt union leaders

A lack of transparency is a recurring theme in Mexican unions, even within the minority that are not “ghosts” and which do exist and work on behalf of employees. These unions are usually behemoths, made up of public sector workers. They grew up in a symbiotic relationship with Mexico’s Institutional Revolutionary Party, known as the PRI, which governed the country for more than 70 uninterrupted years until 2000.

There is a name for them, too – “charro”, meaning cowboy.

According to Lopez, the labor expert at UNAM university, the moniker is appropriate for the union leaders, who grow rich off membership fees.

“There’s no transparency. In most cases, the money goes to towards union corruption, to the pockets of the leaders,” she says, adding that this is not their biggest money spinner and that most of it comes from kickbacks.

“More comes from the same companies that the unions are meant to counterbalance. It’s hidden in collective negotiations,” she says. “That’s the piggy bank of the union leaders and the most powerful cases are when the company has given houses or land to the union.”

The leader of the teachers’ union – Elba Esther Gordillo – has become an emblematic case of corruption. Gordillo is connected to three mansions in San Diego in California (one of which was valued at $4.7m and included a Jet Ski and a boat), and in 2008 she handed out 59 Hummers to loyal union subordinates. She was eventually imprisoned in 2013 for racketeering and money laundering.

Oil workers’ leader Carlos Romero Deschamps has also become known for his penchant for luxury yachts and apartments. Various national media outlets reported that he gave his son a Ferrari valued at around $2m. All this on a salary which, last time he allowed it to be known, was around $1,200 a year.

Former Honda employees who claim they were fired after trying to unionize meet in Guadalajara to discuss future strategies for creating a union. The former employees have a weekly radio show on a community radio station to raise awareness about unions [Screengrab/Al Jazeera]

Protection for corrupt union leaders doesn’t come just from the companies that benefit from their tractability, but also from the political class – whilst the leaders make it worth their while. The most famous case of illicit payment from a union to political parties came again from Deschamps’ oil workers’ union. In the presidential campaign of 2000, they illegally supplied more than $120m to the candidate of the ruling PRI.

National debate sparked by Trump

But the long entrenched alliance of union leaders, companies and politicians could now be under threat from outside of the country.

When NAFTA was signed in 1992, agreements over labor rights were placed in a poorly enforced sidebar to the main text. Now the US administration is pushing to bring those sidebar policies into the main NAFTA text, forcing the Mexican government to ensure the “effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining”.

The irony that it’s President Trump, little loved south of the US border, who is pressing for more rights for Mexican workers is not lost on Bensusan.

“The only thing we can thank President Trump for is the fact that he’s making us have a national debate over our economic model,” she says.

For labor experts, despite the US government’s ulterior motives, it still provides hope that the NAFTA re-negotiations might be the spur needed to act against “ghost” unions and get a better deal for the country’s workforce.

Additional reporting by Maria Verza.  Source: Al Jazeera

EcoWatch

Pope, Patriarch Bartholomew: ‘Support the Consensus of the World’ to ‘Heal Our Wounded Creation’

Lorraine Chow    September 1, 2017

Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the head of the Orthodox Christian Church, issued a joint statement to mark the third annual “World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation” on Friday.

The religious leaders appealed to those in positions of power to “hear the cry of the Earth and to attend to the needs of the marginalized.”

“But above all,” they urged, “to respond to the plea of millions and support the consensus of the world for the healing of our wounded creation.”

Francis and Bartholomew, who lead the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics and up to 300 million Orthodox Christians, have both insisted on the preservation of the environment as a moral responsibility.

They wrote in their message that a “moral decay” and “our insatiable desire to manipulate and control the planet’s limited resources, and our greed for limitless profit in markets” is the reason behind the planet’s ecological devastation.

“We are convinced that there can be no sincere and enduring resolution to the challenge of the ecological crisis and climate change unless the response is concerted and collective, unless the responsibility is shared and accountable, unless we give priority to solidarity and service,” their statement concludes.

As Reuters noted, their Sept. 1 statement was not addressed to any political leader in particular but was given three months after President Trump, a climate skeptic who openly disagreed with Francis about the global phenomenon, controversially withdrew the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement, an international accord to avoid dangerous climate change by limiting global temperature rise well below 2°C.

The pontiff also offered words of sympathy to victims of Harvey, which the World Meteorological Organization linked to climate change. Francis said Thursday he was “deeply moved by the tragic loss of life and the immense material devastation that this natural catastrophe has left in its wake.”

Here is Francis and Bartholomew’s World Day of Prayer statement in full:

The story of creation presents us with a panoramic view of the world. Scripture reveals that, “in the beginning”, God intended humanity to cooperate in the preservation and protection of the natural environment. At first, as we read in Genesis, “no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up – for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no one to till the ground” (2:5). The earth was entrusted to us as a sublime gift and legacy, for which all of us share responsibility until, “in the end”, all things in heaven and on earth will be restored in Christ (cf. Eph 1:10). Our human dignity and welfare are deeply connected to our care for the whole of creation.

However, “in the meantime”, the history of the world presents a very different context. It reveals a morally decaying scenario where our attitude and behavior towards creation obscures our calling as God’s co-operators. Our propensity to interrupt the world’s delicate and balanced ecosystems, our insatiable desire to manipulate and control the planet’s limited resources, and our greed for limitless profit in markets – all these have alienated us from the original purpose of creation. We no longer respect nature as a shared gift; instead, we regard it as a private possession. We no longer associate with nature in order to sustain it; instead, we lord over it to support our own constructs.

The consequences of this alternative worldview are tragic and lasting. The human environment and the natural environment are deteriorating together, and this deterioration of the planet weighs upon the most vulnerable of its people. The impact of climate change affects, first and foremost, those who live in poverty in every corner of the globe. Our obligation to use the earth’s goods responsibly implies the recognition of and respect for all people and all living creatures. The urgent call and challenge to care for creation are an invitation for all of humanity to work towards sustainable and integral development.

Therefore, united by the same concern for God’s creation and acknowledging the earth as a shared good, we fervently invite all people of goodwill to dedicate a time of prayer for the environment on 1 September. On this occasion, we wish to offer thanks to the loving Creator for the noble gift of creation and to pledge commitment to its care and preservation for the sake of future generations. After all, we know that we labor in vain if the Lord is not by our side (cf. Ps 126-127), if prayer is not at the centre of our reflection and celebration. Indeed, an objective of our prayer is to change the way we perceive the world in order to change the way we relate to the world. The goal of our promise is to be courageous in embracing greater simplicity and solidarity in our lives.

We urgently appeal to those in positions of social and economic, as well as political and cultural, responsibility to hear the cry of the earth and to attend to the needs of the marginalized, but above all to respond to the plea of millions and support the consensus of the world for the healing of our wounded creation. We are convinced that there can be no sincere and enduring resolution to the challenge of the ecological crisis and climate change unless the response is concerted and collective, unless the responsibility is shared and accountable, unless we give priority to solidarity and service.

The Guardian

Harvey shines a spotlight on a high-risk area of chemical plants in Texas

Long before the storm dropped barrels of rain over one of the world’s largest industrial corridors, the area was rife with potentially dangerous chemicals

Aerial footage shows flood-ravaged Texas chemical plant – video

Tom Dart in Houston and Jessica Glenza in New York   Sept 1, 2017

It was 2 am Texas time on Thursday when the Arkema chemical plant in Crosby caught fire and exploded. Flooded by Hurricane Harvey’s torrential rains, the plant lost power and refrigeration, and soon thereafter lost control of highly flammable organic peroxides it produces for use in paints and polystyrenes. The explosion cast a 30ft plume of toxic smoke over an evacuated Crosby.

But the explosion of Arkema, as dramatic as it was, is hardly the only source of chemicals potentially dangerous to Texans.

“Houston would be the largest hub of petrochemical and refining production capacity in all of North and South America,” said Trey Hamblet, the vice-president of global research for chemical processing at Industrial Info Resources Inc, a company that tracks chemical manufacturing worldwide.

Plants that handle hazardous chemicals line the Houston ship channel.   Toxic hazard plants-yellow       Superfund site-red

The Texas-Louisiana border is home to a melange of 840 petrochemical, refining and power plants operated by some of the world’s largest companies, according to Industrial Info. Valero, ExxonMobil and Shell Oil all operate plants here. The area is arguably one of the largest industrial corridors on earth.

Most shut down safely before and during the storm, but the contamination they cast over the area existed long before Harvey dropped barrels of rain over the low-lying area.

“In many ways Harvey is unprecedented – with the level of rain – but the difference is we had all of the information,” said Charise Johnson, a researcher for the Union of Concerned Scientists who has worked with neighborhoods in Houston that are surrounded by the same chemical plants. “We had it all. We knew how to prepare the communities. We knew how to prepare infrastructure. But that didn’t happen.”

Neighborhoods like Manchester, on Houston’s east side, reportedly stank of gas for days after the storm without explanation. Many assumed it was because a tank spilled an “unspecified” amount of its 6.3m gallon capacity.

Tightly framed by bayous, freeways and a huge refinery, Manchester has notoriously bad air quality, even by Houston’s standards. Several residents there said they did not flood and added that the air quality on Thursday was not noticeably worse than normal.

A fire burns at the flooded plant of French chemical maker Arkema in Crosby, Texas on Thursday. Photograph: Adrees Latif/Reuters

But the Texas commission on environmental quality received dozens of reports of compromised infrastructure in Harvey’s wake.

The second largest oil refinery in the country, a Baytown facility belonging to ExxonMobil, had a roof collapse and released pollutants into the air. Shell reported similar incidents due to heavy rains. Two tanks holding crude oil burst into flames near a wildlife preserve outside of Port Arthur after lightning struck the Karbuhn Oil Co.

About 20 miles east of Manchester along the Texas Independence Highway, where storage tanks are decorated with murals of the Battle of San Jacinto, there was a faint acrid smell in Baytown, a city of over 75,000 people.

Waiting for his order at the Taqueria Margarita taco truck, Marco Paz, a 21-year-old student, said that for the first time, some members of his family “were having trouble breathing and [getting] headaches” that lasted about two days at the height of the flooding.

Nearby, in the almost-deserted Town Square park, Canaan McKiernan strummed his guitar while his friend, Toby Smith, played with a wooden catch-ball toy.

“The chemical plants are… a mile or two away and the whole time during the hurricane you could see the flames [flaring] from way far, even in the rain; but it’s not the only time it does that, it does that kind of regularly,” McKiernan said. “I’ve lived here my whole life so you get used to it.”

Smith, 17, recently moved back to the area and said the air quality is “horrible”, especially given the heat and humidity of south Texas. “I feel like sometimes it just gets like harder to breathe, especially if you’re running or exercising sometimes. It’s just like, I’m more out of breath than I was up in Indiana,” he said.

“There are so many people in this town that work for them,” McKiernan, a 19-year-old student, said. “Unfortunately in the state that we live in and the area we live in it’s kind of a necessary evil. I mean, if Exxon wasn’t there then this whole town would be shit.”

Environmental worries did not stop when Harvey’s record-breaking rains abated.

“Our biggest concern is now that the flood water has receded is the flood water carried… a number of chemicals in the homes,” said Yvette Arellano, a researcher for Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services, better known as “Tejas”. “Our major priority we’re focusing on [is] cleanup.”

“We don’t even know what the complex mixtures are at this point,” said Garrett Sansom, an environmental scientist at Texas A&M University, who works in Manchester. “They’ve been dealing with areas of poor environmental conditions with the air and standing water, with heavy metals, polycyclic hydrocarbons,” he said, mentioning chemicals that come off of burnt materials.

For example, within one mile of Manchester, there are 11 generators of hazardous waste, nine major air polluters, eight storm water discharge facilities and four factories that treat, store or dispose of hazardous waste, according to one of Samson’s studies.

Tests of surface water in the area found the heavy metal barium in every sample. Arsenic, barium, chromium, lead and mercury were found in water two blocks from a public park.

In another study, the Union of Concerned Scientists found significantly higher cancer risks and respiratory hazards in Manchester than in other areas of Houston. Yet another study found benzene, a known carcinogen, belching out of pipelines below the ship channel near Manchester.

However, where water might have carried chemicals and metals since the neighborhood was inundated is unclear. Sansom is bringing his team to Manchester to collect samples on Friday afternoon.

“It’s usually a pretty complex mixture of chemicals that were already present in the environment and sewage and wildlife, like snakes,” said Samson about flood waters.
Others, like Johnson, hoped the loss of life and property might bring something else – hope.

“Doing environmental work in a place like Texas – where officials deny climate change is even happening – is extremely difficult. It’s a tough road, and they’ve been fighting this fight for a long time,” she said. “All I hope now is after this tragedy maybe people will start to listen, maybe they’ll take action”.

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Bloomberg Technology

Tesla Starts Production of Solar Cells in Buffalo

Dee Ann Durbin, Associated Press    August 31, 2017

 Tesla solar roof    Source: Tesla

Detroit (AP) — Tesla Inc. is starting production of the cells for its solar roof tiles at its factory in Buffalo, New York.

The company has already begun installing its solar roofs, which look like regular roofs but are made of glass tiles. But until now, it has been making them on a small scale near its vehicle factory in Fremont, California.

Tesla’s Chief Technical Officer, JB Straubel, says the company now has several hundred workers and machinery installed in its 1.2 million-square-foot factory in Buffalo.

“By the end of this year we will have the ramp-up of solar roof modules started in a substantial way,” Straubel told The Associated Press Thursday. “This is an interim milestone that we’re pretty proud of.”

The Buffalo plant was originally begun by Silevo, a solar panel startup, on the site of an old steel mill. Solar panel maker SolarCity Corp. bought Silevo in 2014. Then Tesla acquired SolarCity for around $2 billion late last year. SolarCity was run by cousins of Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who sat on SolarCity’s board.

“This factory, and the opportunity to build solar modules and cells in the U.S., was part of why this project made sense,” Straubel said.

Tesla’s partner, Panasonic Corp., will make the photovoltaic cells, which look similar to computer chips. Tesla workers will combine the cells into modules that fit into the roof tiles. The tiles will eventually be made in Buffalo as well, along with more traditional solar panels. Panasonic is also working with Tesla at its Gigafactory battery plant in Nevada.

Straubel says Tesla eventually hopes to reach 2 gigawatts of cell production annually at the Buffalo plant. That’s higher than its initial target of 1 gigawatt by 2019. Straubel said Tesla has been working on making the factory more efficient.

One gigawatt is equivalent to the annual output of a large nuclear or coal-fired power plant, Straubel said, “so it’s like we’re eliminating one of those every single year.”

Straubel wouldn’t say how many customers have ordered solar roof tiles, but said demand is strong and it will take Tesla through the end of next year to meet its current orders. Both he and Musk have had the tiles installed on their roofs.

Tesla shares were up less than 1 percent to $355.65 in afternoon trading.

Popular Mechanics

Florida Energy Company Abandons Nuclear Power Plant in Favor of Solar Farms

The announcement could be another nail in the coffin for American nuclear power.

Getty Micha Pawlitzki

By Avery Thompson        August 31, 2017

Nuclear power is not doing well in the United States. Recently, nuclear reactor manufacturer Westinghouse declared bankruptcy, and nuclear plants under construction in South Carolina and Georgia that were planning to use Westinghouse reactors now have uncertain futures. Just this Tuesday, Duke Energy Florida announced it is ending its nuclear plant project and replacing it with solar farms.

Duke Energy’s project, the Levy nuclear plant, was first proposed in 2008, but quickly ran into problems and was postponed. Duke Energy spent the next few years running analyses and doing preparatory work, but construction never moved forward. After Westinghouse declared bankruptcy, the project became untenable and Duke Energy decided to switch gears.

Instead, the company is planning to build a 700 megawatt solar plant over the next 4 years. This won’t completely replace the proposed 2.2 gigawatt Levy plant, but it will benefit from the fact that there are fewer regulatory hoops to jump through for solar power as opposed to nuclear. Duke Energy, which is planning on pumping $6 billion into new solar panels, storage batteries, and grid infrastructure, could also conceivably build addition solar plants after the first one is complete.

The announcement from Duke Energy comes after years of decline in American nuclear power. Old nuclear plants built in the 1960s and 70s are being phased out, and newer plants are proving too expensive to build, often bogged down by stringent regulations. Nuclear plants are large and complex, so they almost always suffer from cost and time overruns. It’s cheaper and easier for utilities to instead focus on natural gas or renewables.

This is a shame, because nuclear power has many unique advantages that would otherwise make it a great power source. Nuclear is cleaner than natural gas and more stable than renewables, so it has the best aspects of both without the downsides. Cheaper nuclear power could provide an alternative to dirty fossil fuels or expensive, intermittent solar and wind power.

While there are some plans to try to build cheaper, more efficient nuclear reactors, those plans are years or decades from completion, assuming they’re completed at all. The truth is that while nuclear might be a great source of energy in theory, it’s has proven too difficult to implement on a large scale in practice. Cheap, clean nuclear power is a wonderful dream, but as the now-extinct Levy project suggests, that’s all it is: a dream.

Source: Ars Technica

BBC News   Highlands & Islands

Tidal turbines in firth ‘set world record’ for production

From Highlands & Islands       August 31, 2017

Image copyright Atlantis Resources Image caption Dozens of turbines could eventually be installed in the Inner Sound of the Pentland Firth

Two turbines in the Pentland Firth set a world record for monthly production from a tidal stream power station, according to the project’s developer.

Atlantis said its MeyGen scheme in the Inner Sound of the firth off the Caithness coast produced 700 MWh of electricity.

The company said this was enough power for 2,000 homes.

The initial phase of the renewable energy project will involve three turbines.

Atlantis said there had been “minor delays” in receiving upgraded components for the third turbine, but hoped the device would be reinstalled at the site next month.

‘Most powerful’

David Taaffe, director of project delivery at MeyGen, said: “The production performance from the installed turbines on the MeyGen project has been very good.

“August proved to be a world-record month, providing enough energy to power 2,000 Scottish homes from just two turbines.”

Atlantis hopes to expand the project to have dozens of turbines.

Hannah Smith, policy manager at industry body Scottish Renewables, said the world record was the latest in a series of milestones for the MeyGen project.

She said: “The tides that flow through the Pentland Firth are some of the most powerful anywhere on earth and harnessing them has meant using machines and skills which have never before been tested on a commercial scale.

“This latest record is just one in a long line for the MeyGen project, which is leading the world in tidal energy deployment.”

Energy Minister Paul Wheelhouse said: “It’s great to see Scotland’s world-leading marine energy sector continuing to make headlines.

“Phase 1A of the MeyGen tidal project, built with financial support from the Scottish government, has surpassed expectations.

“Two turbines alone produced enough energy during August to power around 2,000 homes – believed to be a world record for a tidal power station.”

ThinkProgress

Scott Pruitt is leaving a toxic trail at EPA after only 6 months on the job

EPA chief faces “unprecedented scrutiny” for “doing unprecedented things.”

Mark Hand         August 31, 2017

“Pruitt is under unprecedented investigation or scrutiny because he is doing unprecedented things,” a Sierra Club official said. CREDIT: AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt was sworn into office only six months ago but is already attracting widespread scrutiny for alleged misuse of agency funds, potential violation of a lobbying law, and holding secret meetings with officials from the industries his agency is tasked with regulating.

Upon arrival at the agency, the new EPA administrator pledged a back-to-basics philosophy. That shift in agency priorities, however, appears to be geared toward raising the profile of Pruitt at the expense of cleaner air and water for Americans.

As attorney general of Oklahoma, Pruitt made a name for himself by suing the EPA, claiming the Obama administration had gone too far in asserting federal power. As EPA administrator, Pruitt has found himself the target of lawsuits and legal scrutiny for various types of alleged misconduct.

“The growing number of investigations, inquiries and controversies swirling around Administrator Pruitt should come as no surprise,” Environmental Working Group President Ken Cook said in an email to ThinkProgress. “Just like his boss, President Trump, this is what happens when you hand someone a job they’re exquisitely unfit to do.”

Democratic House members wrote a letter to Pruitt on Wednesday raising concerns over a “lack of transparency” at the agency. The letter was signed by House Energy and Commerce Committee ranking member Frank Pallone (D-NJ), House Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee ranking member Diana DeGette (D-CO), and House Environment Subcommittee ranking member Paul Tonko (D-NY).

“We are troubled by reports that the agency continues to operate with complete disregard for transparency by discontinuing the long-standing practice of posting the calendars of agency leadership online, taking down agency websites, and halting certain data collections from polluters,” the lawmakers wrote.

The EPA reportedly halted data collection of oil and gas company emissions and closed more than 1,900 agency webpages, the lawmakers said. Employee movement with the agency’s headquarters building is severely restricted, with employees requiring escorts. Employees also are told not to take notes in meetings or carry their cellphones, they said.

“Taken together, these actions suggest a troubling pattern of secrecy and distrust at EPA, which serves to undermine the agency’s mission of protecting human health and the environment,” the House members stated.

EPA employees “feel like there’s been a hostile takeover and the guy in charge is treating them like enemies,” Christopher Sellers, an expert in environmental history at Stony Brook University, told the New York Times.

Other energy- and environment-related department and agency heads in the Trump administration have received criticism for their lack of transparency. During his review of national monuments across the country, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke was called out for not holding a single public meeting.

The Department of the Interior’s Office of the Inspector General also has launched a “preliminary investigation” over reports that Zinke threatened to pull funding from Alaskan energy projects if Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Dan Sullivan (R-AK) did not vote in support of President Donald Trump’s health care proposal. However, the list of official complaints against Pruitt far outnumber those against Zinke.

Soon after heading to Washington to lead the EPA, Pruitt found himself under investigation by officials in his home state. The Oklahoma Bar Association opened up an inquiry in March into Pruitt’s testimony at his Senate confirmation hearing regarding his use of personal email to conduct official business as Oklahoma attorney general.

Last month, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) sent a letter and filed documents with the Oklahoma Bar Association related to another complaint filed against Pruitt. The documents included new records suggesting Pruitt’s former office “stonewalled” senators during his confirmation process before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, the senator’s office said.

Pruitt’s behavior “initially stymied our Committee’s ability to adequately discharge our advice and consent responsibilities and presently stymie its ability to conduct effective oversight of Mr. Pruitt and EPA,” the senator wrote. Whitehouse submitted the documents to supplement a complaint filed by the Center for Biological Diversity and Kristen van de Biezenbos, a former professor at the University of Oklahoma College of Law who now teaches law at the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada.

In the spring, the EPA also received complaints that Pruitt had violated its Scientific Integrity Policy by stating that carbon dioxide is not a “primary contributor to global warming,” a position commonly heard from climate science deniers — and from fossil fuel interests, two groups that frequently overlap. Pruitt met with members of these groups as Oklahoma attorney general and has kept an open door policy for them as EPA administrator.

The agency’s Office of the Science Adviser ultimately cleared Pruitt of the charges brought by the Sierra Club, which said it had received a letter from the office explaining its decision. The letter effectively lets Pruitt off the hook for deceiving the American public regularly in high-profile contexts, Elena Saxonhouse, a senior attorney for the Sierra Club, said in an August 3 statement.

“If EPA’s current scientific integrity policy and review process is truly not strong enough to make clear that Pruitt’s denial of climate science is unacceptable for the head of EPA, then that’s simply evidence that the policy must be strengthened,” Saxonhouse said.

Largely owing to the secrecy surrounding the major changes occurring at the agency, the EPA, in June and July, received more than 2,000 Freedom of Information of Act requests for details about the inner workings of the agency and Pruitt’s daily activities, according to the New York Times.

President Barack Obama’s first EPA administrator, Lisa Jackson, was the target of a congressional investigation for using private and secret email addresses — including one account under the alias Richard Windsor — to conduct official business. Scientists at the agency also complained about political minders sitting in on their interviews with reporters and needing clearance before speaking with the news media.

The tenure of Gina McCarthy, who succeeded Jackson as EPA administrator in March 2013, was free of high-profile ethical controversies and scandals.

“Pruitt is under unprecedented investigation or scrutiny because he is doing unprecedented things,” Jonathan Levenshus, senior campaign representative with the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign, told ThinkProgress. “He is damaging the expectations of transparency and accountability that we expect from our leaders and our government.”

“He is damaging the expectations of transparency and accountability that we expect from our leaders and our government.”

With McCarthy and Jackson, they were scrutinized for their travel and with whom they met. McCarthy traveled frequently to her home in Boston, where her husband lived; however, McCarthy paid for those trips herself while taxpayers paid for Pruitt’s trips to Oklahoma, according to a New York Times report last month.

“It seems to me that there was an openness to it, there was some transparency to it, and there was some accountability to it,” Levenshus said of Obama’s EPA administrators. “And that doesn’t seem to be the case with Pruitt.”

Pruitt is also facing an inquiry by the agency’s inspector general into the frequent trips that he made to Oklahoma on the taxpayer’s dime. Pruitt reportedly traveled to Oklahoma 43 days, or nearly half of all days during March, April, and May 2017, at a cost of more than $15,000. Records indicate Pruitt attended “informational meetings” during his trips to Oklahoma. But those same records also indicate that his trips to the state lasted three to five days, with only one such meeting listed during each of those multi-day trips away from Washington.

Many political observers believe that Pruitt has his eye on the Senate seat currently held by Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK). Inhofe’s term ends in 2020, but the 82-year-old has not indicated whether he will seek another as senator. Sierra Club legislative director Melinda Pierce said Monday that Pruitt “seems to be using these visits to launch his political career.” His chances of winning a Senate seat in the deeply conservative state could be boosted if he could show residents that he was the driving force behind reversing many of the agency’s regulatory policies.

According to Levenshus, Pruitt has visited almost two dozen states since February where he typically meets with Republican officials and does interviews with sympathetic talk radio shows and local Fox News television affiliates.

Since taking over as administrator, Pruitt has met repeatedly with oil and gas executives, coal mining groups, and Big Ag industry representatives. These industries have a long list of regulations they would like the EPA to revoke or weaken, including a rule requiring stricter emissions monitoring, the Clean Power Plan, and the Paris climate agreement, which Trump announced in May that the United States would exit

Last month, a watchdog group sent a letter to the Government Accountability Office accusing Pruitt of misusing federal funds by engaging in “grassroots lobbying” against the Paris climate agreement. In April, he reportedly told the National Mining Association about his opposition to the climate agreement. The American Democracy Legal Fund claims such a pronouncement runs afoul of federal lobbying laws because members of Congress had previously introduced bills pertaining to the Paris deal.

“In his official capacity as EPA administrator, Scott Pruitt publicly denounced the Paris climate accord and sought to defeat pending bills and resolutions before Congress that would have affirmed legislative support for the Paris climate accord,” the group wrote in its letter. “His public and closed-door comments represent a misuse of appropriated funds in violation of the Anti-deficiency Act.”

As with most of his trips, Pruitt’s recent visit to North Dakota was off-limits to the public and the press. When two local reporters traveled to the University of North Dakota, a public university, prior to the start of an event on campus, an EPA spokesperson threatened to call police if they did not leave the grounds. Campus police later showed up and told the reporters they could not be at the building because it was private property. The building was not private property and is owned by the University of North Dakota.

Unlike previous EPA administrators, Pruitt also has asked for a protective detail that is on duty 24 hours a day, seven days a week, rather than the door-to-door security provided to previous EPA leaders. Such protective details are typically reserved for those in national security positions or persons in the constitutional line of succession, such as the Secretary of State, Speaker of the House, and the Secretary of Defense.

“What is he trying to hide from the public? I think he doesn’t want the public to know the truth about who he’s meeting and what he’s discussing with them,” Levenshus said. “His entire career, he has put the agenda of corporate polluters before the health of communities and children and families. And now it has caught up to him. And there are a lot of people who are very concerned about his position and what he is doing as the administrator of the EPA.”

TriplePundit

Hurricane Harvey Demonstrates Critical Value of ‘Big Government’

by Leon Kaye, Climate & Environment          August 30th, 2017

Texas Army National Guard soldiers move through flooded Houston streets on August 28

Walmart’s during and after Hurricane Katrina have long been described as one of the few bright spots during that agonizing relief effort, as well as a transformative event for the world’s largest retailer.

Another outcome apparent after Katrina is that federal government agencies, and the presidents ultimately responsible for leading them, have been far more proactive when disasters strike, as they have wanted to avoid following in George W. Bush’s footsteps. Fair or not, that administration came across as ham-fisted long after Katrina slammed into Louisiana and neighboring Gulf states. As a result, it is doubtful there will be any room for a company to shine through in Houston as Walmart did 12 years ago – though Walmart itself has been updating stockholders about what the company is doing to support Hurricane Harvey recovery across Texas.

While companies have a critical part in assisting relief efforts with their supplies, staff and facilities, Harvey reminds us of the role that “big government” has in preparing, notifying and helping citizens during this time of need. Many of these agencies, from NASA to NOAA to the EPA, have come under scrutiny – or more accurately, attack – in recent years for their various roles in researching climate change, boosting environmental protection efforts, or both.

The timing is also prescient considering the sniping that is already underway between Texas Senator Ted Cruz and his critics. Cruz obviously supports aid efforts for his home state, yet he voted against federal Hurricane Sandy relief packages during his first year in office. He claims he voted against the $50 billion Sandy relief bill because it was loaded with “pork” but that claim has been proven untrue by many. Cruz even got a rebuke from New York’s Peter King, a Republican representative from Long Island.

And as Cruz announces how and where Texans can receive state and federal assistance, we at 3p thought we would point out the role “big government” has in warning, protecting and helping citizens during catastrophes such as Harvey. As the recent viper pit of a debate over healthcare has proven, many of us are against government in any form – until we need it or there is a risk a program will be taken away from us, even if what is available is imperfect.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

This scientific agency tucked under the Department of Commerce’s wing gauges the conditions of both the world’s oceans and atmosphere. Its tasks (despite ongoing distractions) include developing technologies and systems that can help scientists understand tornadoes, hurricanes and the health of coastal ecosystems. Currently it forecasts Harvey’s strength and issues advisories. Divisions such as the National Hurricane Center provide data to anyone who needs it, from local meteorologists updating local viewers and listeners, to insurance companies and utilities trying to price their services and products based on weather variability.

NASA

While NOAA gives us the view of climate events from land, sea, as well as the air immediately hovering over us, NASA (an independent agency, designed in part to stay free of politics like the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Reserve), manages and operates the tools that can help us observe what is going on from space. NASA’s satellites and its partnership with the International Space Station provide real-time data and images that can be harnessed by the agency’s friends monitoring the situation on the ground. Measuring and predicting those sudden shifts in wind, or estimations of upcoming rainfall gleaned from several days of satellite data, are among the ways in which NASA contributes to monitoring Harvey’s constantly shifting patterns.

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

Even under Scott Pruitt, the EPA offered to take a leadership role as Harvey eventually dissipates. Houston is known to have more than its fair share of energy and petrochemical companies. Assessments of the greater Houston region’s 300 water systems, the securing of Superfund sites and fuel waivers allowing for emergency supplies of gasoline are among the tools that the EPA’s regional office in Dallas has at hand if needed. EPA employees may have already been called to action by the time of this writing. Two ExxonMobil refineries have reportedly suffered damage and released hazardous chemicals already and more damage is likely to come to light as waters subside.

Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)

Estimates of the costs resulting from Harvey are all over the map, from $30 billion to even $100 billion. Bloomberg has concluded Katrina’s damages amounted to $160 billion. Insurance companies will pick up some of that price tag; FEMA, which faces a budget cut of as much as 9 percent in recent proposals, will in-part contribute to the costs of clean-up and recovery. Since the late 1970s, the agency’s mandate is to send staff to coordinate with overwhelmed state and local officials as they cope with natural and made-made disasters. And that list is long, from the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake in California to the horrific 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Experts from FEMA work with local officials on recovery efforts. The agency also helps fund infrastructure repair and directs citizens to resources for low-interest loans (a program currently struggling due to a mounting deficit) so they can rebuild homes and businesses. Day in and day out, FEMA also provides online and live training for disaster preparedness.

These agencies are just a few of the moving parts that manage recovery when disaster strikes.

Image credit: DVIDS

Based in Fresno, California, Leon Kaye is a business writer and strategic communications specialist. He has also been featured in The Guardian, Sustainable Brands and Clean Technica. When he has time, he shares his thoughts on his own site, GreenGoPost.com.