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Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now O!
by Frack Check WV: admin 15 Jan '23

15 Jan '23

# [Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now O!](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/15/climate-change-resists-narrativ… yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-o/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/E22C77E5-45BB-4234-9299-CFF865A71F08-234x300.jpg)](… content/uploads/2023/01/E22C77E5-45BB-4234-9299-CFF865A71F08.jpeg) The objections & limitations to technological solutions necessitate human interventions **OBJECTIONS or Limitations to Progress for Tech Solutions!** . . >> From an [Article by Elizabeth Kolbert, New Yorker Magazine](https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/elizabeth-kolbert), November 28, 2022 . . **“SEEKING NETZERO”** . . . **“The gap between wishful thinking and reality is vast. “So observes Vaclav Smil, a professor emeritus at the University of Manitoba.** The observation could apply to almost anything; Smil, who has written more than a dozen books about energy and society, is concerned with the gap between the aspiration to fight climate change and the immense on-the-ground effort entailed in actually doing so. Studies that purport to show how the world could radically reduce or eliminate its carbon emissions by one date or another tend, he argues, to presuppose what they claim to be proving. To arrive at their foregone conclusions, many tech projects are based on a variety of unreliable assumptions — that project renovations can take place very rapidly, or that nonexistent technologies will be deployed at fantastic rates, or that humanity’s ever-growing appetite for energy will suddenly be curbed, or some combination of all three. Smil labels such studies “the academic equivalents of science fiction.” **Everything I have written, from “despair” onward, is vulnerable to Smilian objections.** Consider “flight.” It’s possible that, in a few years, Alias ferrying pallets of cargo will zip between regional airports. It’s also possible that electric passenger planes will one day make short hops, between, say, Boston and Hyannis. But that could be the limit. The world’s best-selling passenger plane, the Boeing 737, can transport some two hundred people coast to coast. To electrify such a "flight would require more than eight hundred tons’ worth of current-generation lithium-ion batteries, or four hundred tons of lithium-ion batteries functioning at their maximum theoretical capacity. To get off the runway, though, a 737 can’t weigh more than eighty tons, passengers and crew included. **A recent paper by researchers at Carnegie Mellon concluded that the demands of larger aircraft lie beyond the “feasibility limits” of known battery technologies.** **Or consider “green concrete.” As promising as CarbiCrete may be, the niche it fills, much like the Alia’s, is a narrow one. Since it has to be cured in chambers filled with concentrated CO2, CarbiCrete can’t be poured at a work site; it can be used only for pre-cast products, such as cinder blocks or patio tiles.** Meanwhile, though the blocks and tiles absorb CO2 as they harden, a great deal of CO2 is released in the process of producing the slag that went into them; globally, the steel industry is responsible for roughly the same number of tons of emissions as the concrete industry — around three billion. **To say that amazing work is being done to combat climate change and to say that almost no progress has been made is not a contradiction; it’s a simple statement of fact.** At the time of the Rio summit, fossil fuels provided roughly eighty per cent of the world’s primary energy. Thirty years later, fossil fuels still provide roughly eighty per cent of the world’s primary energy. In the meantime, total global energy use has increased by almost two- thirds. As Smil puts it, “The inertia of large, complex systems is due to their basic energetic and material demands — as well as the scale of their operations.” #######+++++++#######+++++++####### **See also:** [Tech Can’t Fix It - The New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/10/technology/tech-solutions.html), Shira Ovide, New York Times, October 14, 2022 Climate Change and other big problems won’t be solved by technology alone. Think about some of the big issues that Americans are facing, in no particular order: the coronavirus pandemic, climate change, disagreements over the appropriate role of government, a reckoning over systemic racism, inequality in wealth and health, increases in homicides and other public safety threats and educational and social safety systems that fail many people. Technology didn’t cause these problems, nor should we put too much faith that technology can solve them. I worry that when we vilify or glorify what technology and tech companies do, it makes us lose focus on what’s actually important. Technology is part of the solution, perhaps, but mostly we have to find the answers through collective human will and effective action. URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/15/climate-change-resists- narrative-yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-o/>

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Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now N!
by Frack Check WV: admin 14 Jan '23

14 Jan '23

# [Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now N!](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/14/climate-change-resists-narrativ… yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-n/) [![Professor Sarah Marie Wiebe addresses the Climate Emergency](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/CAAD2B22-275E-48E8-BB8A-9322FA6D2694.jpeg)](https:/… content/uploads/2023/01/CAAD2B22-275E-48E8-BB8A-9322FA6D2694.jpeg)**“N” = Narratives as Spoken or Written Accounts of Connected Events, Now the Climate Change Emergency** [Article by Elizabeth Kolbert, New Yorker Magazine](https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/elizabeth-kolbert), November 28, 2022 **Narratives are socially constructed ‘stories’ that make sense of events,” thereby lending “direction to human action.” So observes a paper published recently in the journal Climatic Change by a team of European researchers.** Climate-change **narratives** , the team notes, typically foreground “doom and gloom.” Often they emphasize risk. If they’re not retailing the latest warming-related disasters (fires, floods, food shortages), they’re predicting a future !lled with even grimmer warming-related disasters (bigger fires, more severe "flooding, famines that threaten entire regions). This approach, the researchers argue, can be counterproductive: “ **Narratives** of fear can become self-fulfilling prophecies.” If people believe that things will only get worse, they feel overwhelmed. If they feel overwhelmed, they’re apt to throw up their hands, thus guaranteeing that things will only get worse. A diet of bad news leads to paralysis, which yields yet more bad news. What’s needed instead, the paper goes on, are **narratives** that “empower people to act.” Such narratives tell a “positive and engaging story.” They “articulate a vision of ‘where we want to go’ ” and outline steps that could be taken to arrive at this metaphorical destination. **Positive stories** can also become self-fulfilling. People who believe in a brighter future are more likely to put in the effort required to achieve it. When they put in that effort, they make discoveries that hasten progress. Along the way, **they build communities** that make positive change possible. Particularly compelling, by the researchers’ account, are “win-win” speech pressing for a “ **global green new deal** ,” Achim Steiner, then the administrator of the U.N.’s Environment Programme, described the “enormous economic, social, and environmental benefits likely to arise from combatting climate change.” One of the key proponents of the Green New Deal in the U.S., Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, of New York, has argued that a crucial step toward building a more just, more environmentally sustainable future is **imagining** what this future would look like. “We can be whatever we have the courage to see,” she has said. “ **Optimism** is a choice,” notes Christiana Figueres, the Costa Rican diplomat who led the effort to get the Paris climate accord approved. “Do you know of any challenge that mankind has had in the history of humankind that was actually successful in its achievement that started out with pessimism, that started out with defeatism?” Figueres asked at a conference a few years ago. “There isn’t one,” she said, answering her own question. #######+++++++#######+++++++####### **See Also:** [**What Does it Mean to Declare a Climate Emergency?**](https://climate.hawaii.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/a_Sarah- Climate-Change-Conference-Lightening-Talk-January-14-2020.pdf) [Why Narratives Matter in the Movement to Address Climate Change](https://climate.hawaii.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/a_Sarah-Clima… Change-Conference-Lightening-Talk-January-14-2020.pdf) Dr. Sarah Marie Wiebe, Department of Political Science | Assistant Professor January 14th 2020 | Hā o ke kai Climate Change Conference East-West Centre, University of Hawaiʻi, Mānoa URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/14/climate-change-resists- narrative-yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-n/>

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Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now M!
by Frack Check WV: admin 13 Jan '23

13 Jan '23

# [Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now M!](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/13/climate-change-resists-narrativ… yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-m/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/E89128C9-A01A-4DAF- BAB3-B2729E2BD587.jpeg)](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/E89128C9-A01A-4DAF-BAB3-B2729E2BD587.jpeg) OMG! Have you seen the most recent Lancet Countdown on the climate — code red! **Math Matters to Climate Crisis ~ Why do small degrees of warming matter?** From an [Article by Seth Borenstein & Dana Beltaji, Associated Press](https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment), November 6, 2022 On a thermometer, a tenth of a degree seems tiny, barely noticeable. But small changes in average temperature can reverberate in a global climate to turn into big disasters as weather gets wilder and more extreme in a warmer world. In 2015, countries around the world agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions to limit global warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) and pursue a goal of curbing warming to 1.5 Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) as part of the Paris Agreement. Two degrees of difference might not be noticeable if you’re gauging the weather outside, but for global average temperatures, these small numbers make a big difference. “Every tenth of a degree matters,” is a phrase that climate scientists around the world keep repeating. The Earth has already warmed at least 1.1 degrees Celsius (2 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times, giving the world around 0.4 degrees Celsius (0.7 Fahrenheit) of more heating before passing the goal and suffering even more catastrophic climate change events, scientists have said. These tenths of a degree are a big deal because the temperatures represent a global average of warming. Some parts of the world, especially land mass and northern latitudes like the Arctic have already warmed more than the 1.1 Celsius average and have far surpassed 1.5 Celsius, according to estimates. It’s helpful to look at temperatures like a bell curve, rather than just the average which doesn’t reveal “hidden extremes,” said Princeton University climate scientist Gabe Vecchi. “On the far end where the bell shape is very narrow, that is telling you the odds of very extreme events,” he said. “If you have a slight shift of the average of the peak of that bell to the warming direction, what that results in is a substantial decrease in the odds of extremely cold temperatures and a substantial increase in the odds of extremely warm temperatures.” It’s a similar picture with sea level rise, where the average obscures how some places are seeing much higher sea level increases than others, he said. Most nations — including the world’s two largest emitters, the U.S. and China — aren’t on track to limit warming to 1.5 Celsius or even 2 Celsius, according to scientists and experts who track global action on climate change, despite promises to cut their emissions to “net zero”. If temperatures increase by about 2 more degrees Celsius by the end of the century, the world will experience five times the floods, storms, drought and heat waves, according to estimates by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “All bets are off” when it comes to how climate systems will respond to more warming, warned Brown University climate scientist Kim Cobb. The threat of some irreversible changes and feedback loops that amplify warming, such as the thawing of permafrost that traps massive amounts of greenhouse gas, could trigger even more heating. “It’s just staggering to think about how many people will be under immediate threat of climate-related extremes in a two degree world,” Cobb said. >>> Follow Associated Press (AP) climate and environment coverage at <https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment> #######+++++++#######+++++++####### [**The 2022 Global Report of the Lancet Countdown**](https://www.lancetcountdown.org/2022-report/) The health of people around the world is at the mercy of a persistent fossil fuel addiction. People around the world are increasingly feeling the impact of climate change on their health and wellbeing and these compounding crises are amplifying those harms. Yet governments and companies in both high- and low-income countries continue to prioritise fossil fuel interests. This year’s report launches as countries and health systems grapple with the health, social and economic implications of climate change, which now compound the impacts of the the global energy crisis, and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Our 2022 Report tracks the relationship between health and climate change across five key domains and 43 indicators, revealing that the world is at a critical juncture. While a renewed overreliance on fossil fuels could lock in a fatally warmer future with exacerbated health impacts, a health-centred, low-carbon response offers a renewed opportunity to deliver a future in which world populations can not only survive, but thrive. URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/13/climate-change-resists- narrative-yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-m/>

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Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now L!
by Frack Check WV: admin 12 Jan '23

12 Jan '23

# [Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now L!](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/12/climate-change-resists-narrativ… yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-l/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/DF1587F0-5A0D-4228-9A79-F72DF124718B-300x300.png)](… content/uploads/2023/01/DF1587F0-5A0D-4228-9A79-F72DF124718B.png) African and Asian countries should leapfrog to renewable energy **“L” is for Leapfrogging! India is Overdue to Leap Forward!** >> From an [Article on Climate Change by Elizabeth Kolbert, New Yorker Magazine](https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/elizabeth-kolbert), Nov. 28, 2022 In 1947, the year India gained its independence, telephones were a rarity in the nation; there were fewer than a hundred thousand in the entire country. In the decades that followed, they remained scarce; as late as 1989, India had just four million phones for eight hundred and fifty million people. Three- quarters of rural villages lacked any phone connection at all; the official wait time for a line was almost four years, and, when one was finally installed, service was often dismal. Then, practically all at once, phones were ringing everywhere. In 1994, the country auctioned off its first round of cellular licenses. The auction process was deemed “a mess”; nevertheless, cell service exploded. By 2010, six hundred million Indians were subscribers. (The country’s 2011 census revealed that more households had phones than had toilets.) In 2015, cell subscriptions hit a billion. **India effectively skipped fixed-line phones and went straight to wireless, a process that’s become known as leapfrogging.** **Today, India is home to 1.4 billion people. They consume a thousand watts per person, less than one-tenth of what Americans use. Were India to follow the fossil-fuel-slicked development path pursued by China, Europe, and the U.S., the result would be planetary disaster. Yet asking India to forgo prosperity on the ground that prosperous nations have already consumed too much is obviously impossible.** Fewer than half of all households in the country own a refrigerator. Only one in ten owns a computer. And, even though temperatures in Delhi reached a hundred and twenty-one degrees this past spring, just one in four has air- conditioning. **Leapfrogging represents a way — maybe the best way, maybe the only way — out of this dilemma. India is sun-drenched. Instead of building out a grid that relies on coal and natural gas, it could shift to one that relies on solar power and iron-air batteries.** Most Indians have never owned a car, so the country could skip over gas- guzzlers and go straight to E.V.s. Ditto for flying. The vast majority of Indians have never been on a plane; the first one they board could be an electric aircraft like the Alice. The same holds true even for stoves. More than five hundred million people in India still cook with wood or dung; instead of transitioning through gas, they could jump straight to induction. In other words, electrify everything! “India is in a unique position to pioneer a new model for low-carbon, inclusive growth,” the International Energy Agency recently declared. And what goes for India, the I.E.A. noted, also goes for “a whole group of energy- hungry developing economies.” India “hasn’t contributed much to the climate problem,” Ashish Gulagi, a researcher at Finland’s Lappeenranta University of Technology, told me. “But it can contribute to the solution.” #######+++++++#######+++++++####### **[Light Pollution ~ National Geographic Society](https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/light-pollution), World Wide Web, January 2023** **People all over the world are living under the nighttime glow of artificial light, and it is causing big problems for humans, wildlife, and the environment. There is a global movement to reduce light pollution, and everyone can help.** <https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/light-pollution> URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/12/climate-change-resists- narrative-yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-l/>

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Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now K!
by Frack Check WV: admin 11 Jan '23

11 Jan '23

# [Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now K!](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/11/climate-change-resists-narrativ… yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-k/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/03C1535E-D2CF-4034-A3D6-4ABDD9A4693F-300x249.png)](… content/uploads/2023/01/03C1535E-D2CF-4034-A3D6-4ABDD9A4693F.png) KEELING CURVE ~ Carbon dioxide has increased worldwide from 315 ppm in 1958 to over 420 ppm in just 64 years **[The Keeling Curve on the National Geographic Society Website](https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/keeling-curve)** The Keeling Curve is a graph that represents the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in Earth’s atmosphere since 1958. The Keeling Curve is named after its creator, Dr. Charles David Keeling (1928 to 2005). Keeling began studying atmospheric carbon dioxide in 1956 by taking air samples and measuring the amount of CO2 they contained. Over time he noticed a pattern. The air samples taken at night contained a higher concentration of CO2 compared to samples taken during the day. He drew on his understanding of photosynthesis and plant respiration to explain this observation: Plants take in CO2 during the day to photosynthesize—or make food for themselves—but at night, they release CO2. By studying his measurements over the course of a few years, Keeling also noticed a larger seasonal pattern. He discovered CO2 levels are highest in the spring, when decomposing plant matter releases CO2 into the air, and are lowest in autumn when plants stop taking in CO2 for photosynthesis. Keeling was able to establish a permanent residence at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawai'i, United States, to continue his research. At Mauna Loa, he discovered global atmospheric CO2 levels were rising nearly every year. By analyzing the CO2 in his samples, Keeling was able to attribute this rise to the use of fossil fuels. Since its creation, the Keeling Curve has served as a visual representation of Keeling’s data, which scientists have continued to collect since his death in 2005. #######+++++++#######+++++++####### [**The Keeling Curve Hits 420 PPM, Scripps Institution of Oceanography,**](https://keelingcurve.ucsd.edu/2022/05/31/2114/) May 31, 2022 Levels of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide eclipsed 420 parts per million for the first time in human history in 2021. Scripps Institution of Oceanography updated this animation, which explains the rise of carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere over the past 300 years and the measurement our researchers collect at Hawaii’s Mauna Loa, known as the Keeling Curve. When Scripps Oceanography scientist Charles David Keeling first began taking measurements in 1958, CO2 levels were at 315 parts per million. [Check out more details at Scripps Oceanography:](https://keelingcurve.ucsd.edu/2022/05/31/2114) <https://keelingcurve.ucsd.edu/2022/05/31/2114> URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/11/climate-change-resists- narrative-yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-k/>

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Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now J!
by Frack Check WV: admin 10 Jan '23

10 Jan '23

# [Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now J!](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/10/climate-change-resists-narrativ… yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-j/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/52437564-6989-4BCC-A6CA-76115F87160F.jpeg)](https:/… content/uploads/2023/01/52437564-6989-4BCC-A6CA-76115F87160F.jpeg) Community solar projects provide solar energy directly to individual users. **“J” is for Jobs. Get a Job and Work for Yourself, Your Family & Your Community** >> From an [Article on Climate Change by Elizabeth Kolbert, New Yorker Magazine](https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/elizabeth-kolbert), Nov. 28, 2022 **Jobs, jobs, jobs ~ Six years ago, Beta and Form didn’t exist, and CarbiCrete consisted of four men holding meetings at a Starbucks. Today, more than four hundred people work for Beta, three hundred work for Form, and forty work for CarbiCrete. Ørsted’s operations in North America employ more than six hundred people directly and thousands indirectly, through contracts for components, shipping, and logistical support.** Study after study has concluded that cutting emissions creates jobs. Recently, a Princeton-based team issued a report detailing how the U.S. could reduce its net emissions to zero by 2050. The researchers considered several possible decarbonization “pathways.” Consider the extreme case. The pathway labelled “high electrification” would, they projected over time, eliminate sixty-two thousand (62,000) jobs in the coal industry and four hundred thousand (400,000) in the natural-gas sector. But it was expected to produce nearly eight hundred thousand (800,000) jobs in construction, more than seven hundred thousand (700,000) in the solar industry, and more than a million (1,000,000) in upgrading the grid. **“For too long, we’ve failed to use the most important word when it comes to meeting the climate crisis,” President Biden declared last year. “Jobs, jobs, jobs. For me, when I think climate change, I think jobs.”** #######+++++++#######+++++++####### **See Also:** [West Virginia Looks at Community Solar as Legislative Priority,](https://www.governing.com/next/west-virginia-looks-at-community- solar-as-legislative-priority) Mike Tony, The Charleston Gazette-Mail, November 7, 2022 **(TNS) —West Virginia 's leaders, from Sens. Joe Manchin and Shelley Moore Capito to Gov. Jim Justice and members of the state Public Energy Authority, have a pet phrase for their preferred approach to energy policy: “All of the above.”** **Community solar allows customers to receive solar energy without having to install their own systems, allowing them to benefit from energy generated offsite, and could save residential customers about 10 percent in electricity costs.** URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/10/climate-change-resists- narrative-yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-j/>

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Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now I!
by Frack Check WV: admin 09 Jan '23

09 Jan '23

# [Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now I!](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/09/climate-change-resists-narrativ… yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-i/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/FA4BD6B9-A45E-4A10-A026-A4EADDF7A737-300x168.jpg)](… content/uploads/2023/01/FA4BD6B9-A45E-4A10-A026-A4EADDF7A737.jpeg) WTAP News reports new battery plant for Weirton, WV on 12/26/22 **“I” is for Iron, I is for Imagination and Intention and Innovation!** [Rusty Batteries Could Greatly Improve Grid Energy Storage](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/rusty-batteries-could- greatly-improve-grid-energy-storage/) >> _From an Article by John Fialka, E &E News, December 21, 2022_ A U.S. company is designing a large battery that it says could help decarbonize the nation’s power sector more cheaply than lithium-ion storage systems — and with domestic materials. Iron-air batteries have a “reversible rust” cycle that could store and discharge energy for far longer and at less cost than lithium-ion technology. The concept, known as the “iron-air battery,” has impressed U.S. experts. Unlike current lithium-ion batteries that require expensive materials mostly from other countries such as lithium, cobalt, nickel and graphite, the proposed battery stores electricity using widely available iron metal. It operates on what scientists call the principle of “reversible rusting.” The low cost and high availability of iron could allow iron-air batteries to store electricity for several days during periods of low solar and wind power generation. One such iron-air battery is being designed by Form Energy, a company based in Massachusetts that’s co-run by a former Tesla Inc. official. Although iron-air batteries were first studied in the early 1970s for applications such as electric vehicles, more recent research suggests that it may be a “leading contender” to expand the nation’s future supplies of green electric power for utilities, according to George Crabtree, director of the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research at Argonne National Laboratory. Lithium-ion batteries, which are used in cars and for utility-scale storage, discharge electric power for about four hours. The much larger iron-air battery can store and then discharge power for as long as 100 hours, giving utilities four days of electricity to bridge renewable power gaps that can occur in U.S. grids. Crabtree, a physicist, predicted that the iron-air battery would also help the U.S. decarbonize industrial operations and buttress the Defense Department’s plans to rely more on renewable energy. Crabtree pointed out that while U.S. researchers helped invent the lithium-ion battery in 1970, it took until 1991 to reach the market. Sony Group Corp., a Japanese company, was the first to sell it. After that, companies based in China took the lead, and they continue to dominate the world’s lithium-ion battery market. Form Energy was born in 2017. It emerged from a consolidation of two smaller U.S. energy storage companies, one of which was led by Mateo Jaramillo, a former executive at Tesla. The co-founders shared a vision to reshape the global electric system by creating a new class of low-cost multiday storage batteries. They began testing several different chemistries to make a competitive and domestically produced battery. They landed on the iron-air battery, which includes a slab of iron, a water- based electrolyte and a membrane that feeds a controlled stream of air into the battery. When discharging, the battery breathes in oxygen from the air and converts iron metal to rust. While charging, an electrical current converts the rust back to iron and the battery breathes out oxygen. Since its founding, the company has raised $832 million from investors, including Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures and ArcelorMittal SA, a Luxembourg-based multinational steel company. Since 2021, Form Energy has signed contracts to build battery storage facilities for two utilities. One is Georgia Power Co., the largest subsidiary of Southern Co. The other is Great River Energy, Minnesota’s second-largest electric utility, which supplies power to electric cooperatives. Form Energy is working with ArcelorMittal to develop iron materials that the steel company would supply to Form Energy. The battery company declined to say when it would announce the construction of its first factory, or where it would be. “We’re not talking about that yet,” Jaramillo said in an interview. His company’s executive team includes Yet-Ming Chiang, its chief science officer and a materials expert who teaches at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He holds over 100 U.S. patents. The initial storage battery, about the size of a home washer-and-drier combination, will be too big and heavy for cars, but it could replace lithium- ion batteries for utility-scale storage because it would be one-tenth the cost and its capacity will be much larger, according to Form Energy. Jaramillo graduated from Harvard University with an economics degree and later studied theology at Yale Divinity School. “It probably helped me in more ways than I could articulate,” he said of his religious studies. “It helped me stay grounded about what solutions look like in this world. There is nothing perfect.” Crabtree, of Argonne National Laboratory, says he’s impressed by Form Energy’s accomplishments so far. Compared with the 21-year effort by the U.S. to develop the lithium-ion battery, Form Energy may develop the iron-air battery in less than nine years. “It shows that it is possible to move quickly when it comes to climate change. That’s the critical answer,” Crabtree said. #######+++++++#######+++++++####### **See Also:** [Climate Change from A to Z, Elizabeth Kolbert, The New Yorker Magazine](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/11/28/climate-change-from… to-z), November 28, 2022 URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/09/climate-change-resists- narrative-yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-i/>

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Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now H!
by Frack Check WV: admin 08 Jan '23

08 Jan '23

# [Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now H!](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/08/climate-change-resists-narrativ… yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-h/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/F8B5233F-5224-4B64-ABE2-03F781B0076E-300x165.png)](… content/uploads/2023/01/F8B5233F-5224-4B64-ABE2-03F781B0076E.png) Cambridge Energy Storage Project, a demonstration plant in Minnesota operated by Great River Energy that will use Form Energy’s “iron-air” battery technology. **H is for Hope! Hope for Better Batteries! Hope for the Best!** [From an Article by Elizabeth Kolbert, New Yorker Magazine](https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/elizabeth-kolbert), 11/28/22 “Hope is the pillar that holds up the world,” Pliny the Elder is supposed to have observed. “Hope is the dream of a waking man.” Go looking for hopeful climate stories and they turn up everywhere. Not long ago, I came across one in a defunct wine distributorship, in Somerville, Massachusetts. The cavernous warehouse had been taken over by a company called Form Energy, whose waking dream concerns rust. Rusting usually proceeds in one direction, and the end result is a corroded nail or screw that winds up in the trash. But, as iron oxidizes, it gives up electrons. Therefore, if a current is applied to rust in solution, the process will run in reverse. At Form, the goal is to use this reverse-rusting trick to make a new kind of battery, one so cheap and durable it could power an entire city. Billy Woodford, Form’s chief technology officer, studied material science at M.I.T. “Batteries have cool technical problems,” he told me as we descended into the warehouse turned research lab. The huge room was lined with experimental chambers that resembled glass-fronted refrigerators. Each was labelled, according to an inside joke that I never quite got, with the name of a different Oreo variety, like lemon or s’mores or gluten free. Inside the chambers were collections of some kind of high-tech Tupperware, with wires poking through the lids. The containers, in turn, held plates of iron bathing in liquid. Woodford explained that these were test batteries: “We’ll put in different iron — there’s different versions, depending on whether it’s produced, say, in Texas or Germany — and then different electrolytes.” **_Iron-air batteries’ active components are iron, salt water, and air. They can soak up energy from wind farms, feeding it into the grid when needed. Form Energy 's full-scale batteries will be packaged into modules of fifty, each about the size of a washer and dryer placed side by side. Ten of the modules will be big enough to fill a shipping container. On blustery days, they charge, using an electric current to convert rust into iron. On calm days, the iron rusts and releases electricity into the grid._** The first thirty shipping containers’ worth have been promised to Great River Energy, a Minnesota-based utility that buys a lot of wind power. (See the conceptual plant layout photo above.) Form’s C.E.O., Mateo Jaramillo, studied theology and later became a Tesla executive. While at Tesla, he worked on lithium-ion batteries, which are the sort used in most electric vehicles (and in the Alia), and also, in a slightly different form, in laptops and cell phones. “Lithium-ion is fantastic,” Jaramillo told me. “And yet, if that’s the only tool you have, you still have a really hard time replacing high- capacity coal and natural-gas plants. To replace those, you need something that’s at least an order of magnitude cheaper than lithium-ion.” The materials needed for reversible rusting — air, salt water, and iron — are available in practically limitless quantities. “Besides coal, iron is the most-mined mineral on earth,” Jaramillo said. “So it scales.” #######+++++++#######+++++++####### **[Billionaire-backed ‘Iron-Air’ Battery Maker Picks WV Site for First Factory](https://www.powermag.com/billionaire-backed-iron-air-battery-maker- picks-wv-site-for-first-factory/)** , Darrell Proctor, POWER Magazine, December 23, 2022 A battery manufacturing company with plenty of high-profile financial backing said it has picked a site for its first factory that will build “iron-air” batteries. Form Energy touts its technology as a breakthrough for long- duration storage of solar and wind power. Form, which counts Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, and British tycoon Richard Branson among its supporters, was founded in 2017 by veterans of the energy storage sector. The group said its mission was to create low-cost, multi-day energy storage systems. Company officials have said their iron-air battery can store electricity for as much as 100 hours. They’ve also said the technology will be competitive with electricity produced by traditional power plants. **Form, which is headquartered in Somerville, Massachusetts, on Dec. 22 said it will begin construction of its first factory in Weirton, West Virginia, in 2023. The company expects to begin manufacturing commercial iron-air battery systems the following year. The plant’s cost is estimated at about $760 million, and officials said the project would create 750 jobs. Form completed a $450 million Series E funding round in October.** Incentive Package ~ West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice said his state is providing Form with an incentive package worth as much as $290 million in what he called asset-based, performance financing for the factory’s construction. The package includes $75 million for land purchase and building construction in Weirton. Justice said he will work with state lawmakers and the federal government to obtain an additional $215 million. Mateo Jaramillo, Form’s CEO and co-founder, said Weirton was chosen from among more than 500 possible locations for the company’s manufacturing plant. He called Weirton “a historic steel community that sits on a river and has the rich heritage and know-how to make great things out of iron.” Jaramillo, who headed Tesla’s energy-storage business before leaving in 2016, said his company expects “to be generating meaningful revenue in 2025.” URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/08/climate-change-resists- narrative-yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-h/>

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Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now G!
by Frack Check WV: admin 07 Jan '23

07 Jan '23

# [Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now G!](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/07/climate-change-resists-narrativ… yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-g/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/8C8E6D5D-9049-480B-8BB6-807489E3B070-300x155.png)](… content/uploads/2023/01/8C8E6D5D-9049-480B-8BB6-807489E3B070.png) CarbiCrete building blocks made from slag (cement substitute) **Green Concrete ~ Gee! Cement Substitute Without Releasing Carbon Dioxide!** Article by [Elizabeth Kolbert, New Yorker Magazine](https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/elizabeth-kolbert), 11/28/22 “We are doing freeze-and-thaw tests here in this lab,” Mehrdad Mahoutian said. He pried the lid off a plastic container of the sort usually used to store leftovers. Inside was a gray block about the size of a juice box. It was sitting in a half inch or so of ice-fringed water. “This is cement-free concrete,” Mahoutian said, indicating the block. “And this is salt water. For eighteen hours, they go into the freezer. And, for six hours, they get melted, basically.” I managed to find the headquarters of the company named **CarbiCrete** , in an industrial area of Montreal. Mahoutian, one of the company’s founders, was showing me around the R. & D. facility. Every few minutes, he was interrupted by a very loud rumble. “That’s the blocks being made,” he shouted over the din. We passed into a second room, where two test walls of cinder block stood perpendicular to each other. Both were equipped with a shower apparatus made from PVC pipe, which was dripping water. A fan blew the water toward the blocks. Mahoutian explained that one test wall had been constructed with ordinary cinder blocks, the other with a new kind of block fabricated by **CarbiCrete**. The shower arrangement was gauging how the two walls compared in terms of water penetration. “In a few hours, we’ll measure the dampness and do some calculations,” he told me. Concrete represents one of the world’s most obdurate carbon problems. Its key ingredient, Portland cement, is made by grinding up limestone, adding clay, and heating the mixture to more than two thousand degrees. The process demands a lot of energy, which is usually supplied by burning coal. But, more fundamentally, the issue with cement is its chemistry; heating limestone to the point that it transforms into quicklime unavoidably releases CO2. In 2021, some thirty billion tons of concrete were produced worldwide, almost four tons for every single person on the planet. The associated carbon dioxide emissions accounted for roughly eight per cent of the global total— more than aviation and shipping combined. Producing cement-free concrete, or what is sometimes referred to as green concrete, isn’t sexy, but it’s essential. [In place of cement, CarbiCrete makes use of a waste product](https://www.waste360.com/medical-waste/waste-based-cement- alternative-provides-functional-benefits-while-capturing-and) — the slag left over from steel production. It pounds the slag into powder and mixes in crushed rock and water. The resulting slurry, which looks a lot like conventional concrete, can then be molded into blocks or tiles. Gee! C **arbiCrete bills its product, which for the time being is also known as CarbiCrete, not just as carbon-neutral but as carbon-negative.** Mahoutian led me to a row of machines that resembled rice cookers. Each one was attached to a cannister of CO2. Inside the machines, little blocks of damp CarbiCrete were reacting with carbon dioxide; instead of releasing the gas, the blocks were soaking it up. “Please touch,” Mahoutian instructed. The machines were hot. This, he explained, was because the reaction, rather than requiring heat, generated it. For now, CarbiCrete buys its CO2 from a supplier. The plan, though, is eventually to use carbon dioxide that’s been captured at, say, a power plant or a steel mill. “What we are doing basically is killing three birds with one stone,” Mahoutian told me. “We are not using cement. We are permanently capturing CO2. And we’re reducing the need for land!lls.” As I was getting ready to leave, Mahoutian asked if I wanted a CarbiCrete tile or cinder block to bring home with me. I thought for a while and then decided to take both. Gee! URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/07/climate-change-resists- narrative-yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-g/>

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Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now F!
by Frack Check WV: admin 06 Jan '23

06 Jan '23

# [Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now F!](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/06/climate-change-resists-narrativ… yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-f/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/228AB5DF-B26A-4F97-8621-4C897D6087F6-300x120.jpg)](… content/uploads/2023/01/228AB5DF-B26A-4F97-8621-4C897D6087F6.jpeg) (new) Dolls Run Well Pad for Drilling & Fracking in Monongalia County, WV (click on photo to expand) **OMG! Opening Public Lands to Drilling & Fracking Without Restraint!** >>> _Technical Article on[Fracking by Randi Pokladnik](https://ohvec.org/author/randi/), Submitted January 1, 2023_ **The Republican dominated Ohio Senate and House recently passed the Amended HB 507 bill. It now awaits a signature from Gov. DeWine who can veto the bill or allow it to go into law after a ten-day period. The bill was originally intended to address poultry sales and food safety, however, at the last minute an amendment, (134-3853) was added to HB 507 in the Senate. Basically, the amendment will force state agencies to open their land to oil and gas drilling with no exceptions. The amendment creates an atmosphere where citizens are basically locked out of any public review process and refused the ability to make comments on the leasing process. It by-passes any considerations of impacts to the environment and recreation.** Pre-19th century, Ohio was 95 percent forested. Today only 30 percent of forested land remains (8.0 million acres) and only 11 percent is owned by state and local governments. The Ohio State Park system encompasses about 170,000 acres of land and over 31 million visitors come to Ohio parks each year. For many people, both in and out of the state, state parks and forests remain a sanctuary; a place for them to escape their hectic lives and find the peace that nature offers. It also provides a space for recreating, bird watching, fishing, hunting, hiking, canoeing and biking. Additionally, a study by The Ohio State University determined that outdoor recreationalists’ trips bring in $8.1 billion to Ohio’s economy and the sector employs 133,000 workers. **Fracking and all the build-out that this industry requires will dramatically change the landscape of Ohio’s parks and forests.** Who wants to hike through a park with frack pads and fracking infrastructure? Who wants to ingest wild game and fish taken from areas where fracking is occurring? **Since 2005, and the passage of the Energy Policy Act, also known as the Haliburton Loophole, fracking remains virtually unregulated. Who will guarantee that every stage of the process will be conducted in a way so as not to disrupt the state lands that supposedly belong to Ohio’s citizens?** **A[study in West Virginia](https://insideclimatenews.org/news/06022011/natural-gas-drilling- fells-1000-trees-w-va-forest-scientists-say/) showed forest ecosystems are negatively affected by forest clearing, erosion, and road building during fracking.** Vegetation death was also noted after frack fluids were sprayed on the surrounding trees. [Peer reviewed studies show that watersheds surrounding frack well pads test positive for the radioactive substances found in frack waste water, which consists of fracturing fluid and salts, heavy metals, hydrocarbons, and radioactive material accumulated from natural underground sources.](https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1890/13032… **[Fracking well pads and infrastructure will require clearing areas (cutting trees and vegetation).](https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1890/1…) This will require areas of anywhere from four to twenty-five acres.** Not only will this fragment the forest it will cause other effects that to date are still not clearly understood or studied. [This includes additional fragmentation that could affect plant reproduction](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16913941/). Fracking can also introduce and encourage the [spread of invasive species](https://www.digitaljournal.com/world/shale-gas-development-promote… spread-of-invasive-plant-species/article/498352) via the gravel delivered to build pads and roads, and in mud on the tires and undercarriages of trucks traveling those roads. Traffic in the region will increase tremendously, becoming a maintenance burden on roads, and also a hazard to local citizens and visitors. [Each well drilled requires approximately 592 one-way trips](https://studylib.net/doc/7349071/known-and-potential-impacts), with a truck that carries between 80-100,000 lbs. The traffic from the development of one well is equivalent to 3.4 million car trips. **The process of high-pressure hydraulic fracking necessitates the use of 4-6 million gallons of water per well. This surface water will no doubt be withdrawn from the local streams, resulting in harm to aquatic organisms.[Fracking fluids contain chemical additives, e.g. friction reducers, biocides and surfactants, many of which are known carcinogens and endocrine disruptors.](https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.1289/ehp.1409535) Very little is known about the potential effects of the chemicals, metals, organics or other contaminants once they enter terrestrial or aquatic food webs.** **Climate change, the elephant in the room, is being exacerbated by our reliance on fossil fuels.** [Fracking operations release fugitive methane emissions and are much higher than the industry reports. Methane gas is about 86 times as potent as carbon dioxide in magnifying heat related to climate change.](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/fracking-bo… tied-to-methane-spike-in-earths-atmosphere) The aesthetic beauty as well as biodiversity of the forest will be impacted by allowing fossil fuel companies to frack the landscape. Once again, Ohio’s politicians place the interests of the oil and gas industry ahead of Ohio’s citizens. In a word, “fracking”! >>> Randi Pokladnik is a Scientist residing at Tappan Lake, Uhrichsville, Ohio 44683. She was born and raised in Ohio. She earned an associate degree in Environmental Engineering, a BA in Chemistry, MA and PhD in Environmental Studies. She is certified in hazardous materials regulations and holds a teaching license in science and math. URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/06/climate-change-resists- narrative-yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-f/>

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Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now E!
by Frack Check WV: admin 05 Jan '23

05 Jan '23

# [Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now E!](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/05/climate-change-resists-narrativ… yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-e/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/BF8873F0-D479-44FD- BEC8-655D8FF442E3.jpeg)](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/BF8873F0-D479-44FD-BEC8-655D8FF442E3.jpeg) Since 2016, the U. S. has added over 35,000 MW of off-shore wind turbine capacity **Electrify Everything ~ Let’s try again, this time with feeling** . [Article by Elizabeth Kolbert, New Yorker Magazine](https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/elizabeth-kolbert), November 28, 2022 **BIWF2 is a wind turbine that sticks up out of the Atlantic Ocean** , about fifteen miles off the coast of Rhode Island. **It’s six hundred feet tall, which is higher than the Washington Monument, and its blades are more than two hundred feet long.** I’m on a boat designed to transport crews to offshore wind farms. The captain maneuvers right up to the metal stanchions that hold the turbine in place, so the blades are rotating directly overhead. They make a fantastic whooshing sound that builds and fades, builds and fades. The effect is at once thrilling and terrifying, as if some gigantic bird were trying to land on the deck. “Ah,” everyone on board exclaims as another blade descends. **BIWF2 has one neighbor half a nautical mile to the north and three more neighbors to the south. Together the turbines make up Block Island Wind Farm, America’s first offshore wind operation. A dozen more wind projects are currently planned off the East Coast, from Massachusetts to North Carolina.** The turbines that will be erected in these projects will make BIWF2 look puny. Staring up at the blades, I am looking into the future — or at least a future —and it’s inspiring. BIWF2 is a symbol of what can be accomplished when people put their minds to it. In 1992, the year of the Earth Summit, the world had exactly one offshore wind farm, called Vindeby. Situated off the Danish island of Lolland, it consisted of eleven turbines, which, collectively, produced less power than BIWF2 does today. Now there are scores of offshore farms, most of them in European and Chinese waters. The largest, known as Hornsea 2, is in the North Sea, off the English coast; it comprises a hundred and sixty-five turbines, each so massive that a single sweep of its blades can power a household for a day. Block Island Wind Farm and Hornsea 2 are owned by the same company, which used to be known as Danish Oil and Natural Gas, or dong, but recently— and for obvious reasons — changed its name, to Ørsted. (It also owned Vindeby, which was decommissioned in 2017.) **As more turbines have gone up, costs have plunged; just in the past decade, the price of offshore wind energy has declined by half.** **Onshore wind has grown even faster, and its cost, too, has plummeted. In many parts of the world, it’s now cheaper to put up turbines than it is to operate an existing power plant that burns natural gas. In places with a lot of wind, such as Denmark, Ireland, and western Oklahoma, there’s sometimes so much power pouring into the grid that producers have to pay to get rid of it.** **The price of solar power, meanwhile, has declined even more spectacularly. Since 2010, it’s dropped by more than eighty per cent. According to the International Energy Agency, solar power now offers “some of the lowest-cost electricity ever seen.”** The rapidly falling price of renewables makes it possible to imagine a not too distant future in which the U.S., indeed the world, generates all its electricity emissions-free. Already there are brief periods — on the order of minutes —when California can produce enough electricity from renewables to meet its demand. In Denmark, this happens for entire windy days. (It occurred two days in a row this past May.) **And, once it’s possible to imagine a carbon-free grid, all sorts of other opportunities open up. Substitute electric motors for internal-combustion engines and cars, too, can run emissions-free. The same goes for trucks and buses, ferries and forklifts. Plug them in! Tear out boilers and replace them with heat pumps! Swap gas ranges for induction stoves! Electrify as much as possible. _Ideally, electrify everything._** e! URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/05/climate-change-resists- narrative-yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-e/>

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Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now D!
by Frack Check WV: admin 04 Jan '23

04 Jan '23

# [Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now D!](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/04/climate-change-resists-narrativ… yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-d/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/716EB733-FCE2-4469-B45F-1DB2672F48BB.jpeg)](https:/… content/uploads/2023/01/716EB733-FCE2-4469-B45F-1DB2672F48BB.jpeg) Polar vortex brings despair to most of the continental United States **“D” for Despair ~ The Climate Change “Despair” in Winter Storm Elliott** Technical Article by Randi Pokladnik, Submitted January 1, 2023 **Some will use the recent cold weather event to claim climate change is not real and the planet isn’t warming. But, when one looks at the actual science behind these “Arctic bomb cyclones” and the record-breaking Winter Storm Elliott, it is obvious that climate change has played a significant role.** This Christmas 2022, many of us might have felt like we were enacting the 2004 movie “ **The Day After Tomorrow** ”. The movie is loosely based on a theory called “ **abrupt climate change** ”. [The ocean’s thermohaline conveyor normally circulates ocean water around the planet.](https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA469325.pdf) Cold, salty ocean water sinks and pulls warmer fresh surface water in to replace the sinking water. This sets up a deep-sea current that circulates water round the planet. If the belt shuts down, the northern hemisphere abruptly cools while the southern hemisphere warms. [Paleoclimate records from Greenland ice cores show that the conveyor belt shut down near the end of the last ice age.](https://news.illinois.edu/view/6367/207427) The ocean circulation stops when higher water temperatures and the addition of more freshwater cause the salinity and density of seawater to drop. A warming planet and melting freshwater could trigger another shut-down of the belt, throwing North America and Europe into frigid cold temperatures for hundreds of years. While most scientists agree that what happened in the movie (overnight change) will never occur, USA citizens witnessed some dramatic weather changes in matter of hours. Denver, Colorado experienced a temperature drop of 70 degrees in an 18-hour period. Winter Storm Elliott affected over two-thirds of our population and almost every state except the South Western area. There were record setting winds and cold temperatures in our region, blizzard conditions in the plain states and feet of snow in the New England area; even Florida broke some records for cold temperatures. Meteorologists say this storm will be a once in a generation storm. **So what caused Winter Storm Elliott?** The [northern polar vortex](https://www.ecowatch.com/polar-vortex-explained-2650399482.html) played a major role in the crushing cold that blanketed the North American continent. There are two polar vortices on our planet, one which spins around the North Pole and the other spins around the South Pole. [We are dealing with the northern vortex which was first described in an article published in 1853.](https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Living_Age.html?hl=de&id=Df… Normally, low-pressure cold air circulates counterclockwise and inward towards the North Pole. The polar jet stream (high-altitude high-speed wind currents) helps hold the vortex in place, much like an old-fashioned girdle held our bulges in place. However, a weakened polar jet stream causes tiny breaks in the “girdle” and allows the cold vortex to seep out of its circular orbit dipping southward. It is like someone opening the refrigerator door and the cold air seeps through your house. [It is thought that climate change is causing a destabilization of the polar jet stream](https://www.ecowatch.com/winter-storm-elliott-climate- crisis.html). Scientists say that the Arctic region is warming faster than any other area on the globe, on average four times faster in the past forty years. As the polar air warms, the temperature differences between that air and mid- latitude air lessens. This causes a “wobble” in the jet stream, or weakening of the “girdle”, allowing the cold air to advance south. **This year’s[2022 Arctic Report Card](https://www.noaa.gov/news- release/human-caused-climate-change-fuels-warmer-wetter-stormier-arctic), authored by 147 experts from 11 nations, tells the disturbing story of the effects of climate change on the Arctic. Some of the changes include: shrinking sea ice, warming atmospheric temperatures, and shorter periods of snow cover. These could all play a role in more frequent polar air intrusions into our region.** So far at least fifty deaths have been attributed to the storm, with at least twenty-seven in New York State. More than 8,305 flights were cancelled and millions of people spent Christmas day without power. The economic impact “will likely be in the billions.” Scientists have been warning us that the time frame for mitigating climate change is quickly closing. [The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said in their 2022 report](https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/), “The dangers of climate change are mounting so rapidly that they could soon overwhelm the ability of both nature and humanity to adapt, creating a harrowing future in which floods, fires and famine displace millions, species disappear and the planet is irreversibly damaged.” **Winter Storm Elliott proved to be an example of how we humans cannot successfully adapt to abrupt changes in our weather, even though we have access to advance technology. As climate changes occur more often and at a faster rate, we find that adapting to these changes will become that much harder and more expensive. Even more alarming is the fact that many of the species we share the planet with will not be able to adapt but will instead succumb to extinction.** >>> Randi Pokladnik is a Scientist residing at Tappan Lake, Uhrichsville, Ohio 44683. She was born and raised in Ohio. She earned an associate degree in Environmental Engineering, a BA in Chemistry, MA and PhD in Environmental Studies. She is certified in hazardous materials regulations and holds a teaching license in science and math. URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/04/climate-change-resists- narrative-yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-d/>

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Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now C!
by Frack Check WV: admin 03 Jan '23

03 Jan '23

# [Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now C!](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/03/climate-change-resists-narrativ… yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-c/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/A7D64FD5-0896-406D-9BF5-02AA417F9248.jpeg)](https:/… content/uploads/2023/01/A7D64FD5-0896-406D-9BF5-02AA417F9248.jpeg) Rational analysis favors a “carbon tax” called a “dividend” **“C” for Capitalism & Climate Change** [Article by Elizabeth Kolbert, New Yorker Magazine](https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/elizabeth-kolbert), November 28, 2022 **What’s the matter here? Why has so little progress been made on climate change, even as the dangers have become ever more apparent?** According to one school of thought, the problem has to do with incentives. There’s a great deal of money to be made selling fossil fuels — just in the first quarter of 2022, twenty-five of the world’s largest oil-and-gas producers announced profits of close to a hundred billion dollars — and still more money to be made by burning fossil fuels to make stuff to sell, from sunglasses to steel girders. **Meanwhile, the costs of climate change can be fobbed off on someone else. To use the technical term, they are a “negative externality.” In the words of the Stern Review, a report commissioned by the British government in 2005, climate change “is the greatest and widest-ranging market failure ever seen.”** **By this account, the obvious solution is to realign the incentives — to internalize the externalities. If the cost of the damage caused by a ton of CO2 was borne by the business (or individual) responsible for emitting that ton, then the business (or individual) would be motivated to cut back.** **“A carbon tax offers the most cost-effective lever to reduce carbon emissions at the scale and speed that is necessary,” a 2019 statement signed by thirty-five hundred economists, including twenty-eight Nobel Prize winners, declared. Such a tax would move “the invisible hand of the marketplace to steer economic actors towards a low-carbon future.”** **According to a second school of thought, the trouble runs a whole lot deeper. Our political system is dominated by corporate money in general and fossil-fuel money in particular.** (Last year, the oil-and-gas industry reportedly spent a hundred and twenty million dollars lobbying Washington, and it probably spent a great deal more via front groups.) **It’s therefore naïve to imagine that policies that cut into fossil-fuel profits will be enacted. And even if they were, they wouldn’t solve the essential problem, which is that the “invisible hand” always grasps for more.** If it’s not more oil, it will be more lithium to build batteries, and if it’s not more lithium it will be more cobalt, mined from the bottom of the sea. **“When it comes to global warming, we know that the real problem is not just fossil fuels — it is the logic of endless growth that is built into our economic system,” Jason Hickel, an economic anthropologist at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, has written.** **[Climate change can’t be dealt with using the tools of capitalism](https://youtu.be/Jdaxehd0cF0), because it is a product of capitalism. It can be dealt with only by throwing off capitalism in favor of something else — a system aimed not at growth but at “degrowth.”** “The difficult truth is that, to prevent climate and ecological catastrophe, we need to level down” is how the British environmental writer George Monbiot recently put it. **A third line of thought — perhaps too bleak and unpopular to be called a school — is that, if big change is hard, bigger change is even harder. How are we going to build a whole new economic system if we can’t even enact a carbon tax?** #######+++++++#######+++++++####### **See Also:** [Naomi Klein - This Changes Everything](https://youtu.be/Jdaxehd0cF0), Bioneers, November 5, 2014 Climate change as more than an “issue.” It’s a civilizational wake-up call delivered in the language of fires, floods, storms and droughts. It demands that we challenge the dominant economic policies of deregulated capitalism and endless resource extraction. Climate change is also the most powerful weapon in the fight for equality and social justice, and real solutions are emerging from the rubble of our failing systems. URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/03/climate-change-resists- narrative-yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-c/>

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Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now B!
by Frack Check WV: admin 02 Jan '23

02 Jan '23

# [Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now B!](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/02/climate-change-resists-narrativ… yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-b/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/C89CC715-C6AF-4B3B-A498-37780F390D56.jpeg)](https:/… content/uploads/2023/01/C89CC715-C6AF-4B3B-A498-37780F390D56.jpeg) Greta Thunberg brings much needed logic and truth to bear overall! **Greta Thunberg Says Most Climate Talk is “Blah, Blah, Blah”** [Article by Elizabeth Kolbert, New Yorker Magazine](https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/elizabeth-kolbert), November 28, 2022 **On September 28, 2021, at the Youth4Climate conference, held in Milan, Greta Thunberg took the stage. Sitting near her was the city’s mayor, Giuseppe Sala, wearing a mask. Thunberg, who is five feet tall, could barely be seen over the lectern. She had removed her mask and was smiling.** **“Climate change is not only a threat, it is above all an opportunity to create a healthier, greener, and cleaner planet which will bene!t all of us,” she began. “We must seize this opportunity—we can achieve a win-win in both ecological conservation and high-quality development. . . . We need to walk the talk; if we do this together, we can do this. “When I say ‘climate change,’ what do you think of ?” she went on. “I think of jobs — green jobs.” This received a round of applause. “We must find a smooth transition towards a low-carbon economy,” Thunberg said. “There is no Planet B. There is no Planet Blah—blah, blah, blah; blah, blah, blah.” Her listeners, including Sala, started to realize that they’d been had. The applause died down. “Build Back Better—blah, blah, blah,” Thunberg continued. “Green economy—blah, blah, blah. “Net zero by 2050—blah, blah, blah. “Net zero—blah, blah, blah. “Climate neutral—blah, blah, blah.** **“This is all we hear from our so-called leaders: words — words that sound great, but so far have led to no action,” Thunberg said. “Of course we need constructive dialogue, but they’ve now had thirty years of blah, blah, blah, and where has that led us?”** **Five countries are responsible for over half of all historical CO2 emissions, namely United States, China, Russia, Germany and the United Kingdom. About a hundred and ninety countries are responsible for the other half.** **It was thirty years ago that the world’s “so-called leaders” gathered in Rio de Janeiro for the so-called Earth Summit.** Everyone agreed that radical change was needed. To avert disaster, global CO2 emissions, which were then running at around twenty-two billion metric tons a year, would have to be reduced, eventually almost to zero. How this would happen, no one really knew. **Still, the goal of preventing “dangerous” warming was enshrined in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which President George H. W. Bush cheerfully signed.** “Some find the challenges ahead overwhelming,” Bush said. “I believe that their pessimism is unfounded.” **A follow-up “conference of the parties,” or COP, took place in Kyoto in 1997.** By then, annual global emissions had risen to twenty-four billion tons. After much back-and-forth, it was agreed that something had to be done. **This Kyoto Protocol, an addendum to the Framework Convention, laid out specific emissions-reduction targets for countries to meet.** **“I am both determined and optimistic that we can succeed,” Vice President Al Gore told the diplomats gathered in Japan.** **After Kyoto, global emissions kept on rising, only faster. By 2009, they’d climbed to thirty-two billion tons a year. That fall, President Barack Obama "flew to Copenhagen for yet another conference of the parties — COP-15. “I believe that we can act boldly, and decisively, in the face of this common threat,” he declared.** **By 2015, emissions had increased to thirty-five billion tons a year. At that year’s COP No. 21 — held in Paris, it was decided that, at last, really and truly, it was time to get serious.** “The decisions you make here will reverberate down through the ages,” the United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, told the delegates. Nevertheless, emissions continued to rise. **In the past thirty years, humans have added as much CO2 to the atmosphere as they did in the previous thirty thousand.** **At some point during all the “blah, blah, blah”-ing — it’s hard to say when, exactly — climate change ceased to be a prospective problem and became a clear and present one. Since Rio, the Arctic ice cap has shrunk by two-fifths. Greenland has shed some four trillion metric tons of ice, and mountain glaciers have lost six trillion tons. Heat waves are now hotter, droughts deeper, and storms more intense. In some parts of the world, the wildfire season never ends.** **One conclusion to draw from this pattern is that the world isn’t going to avoid “dangerous” warming. Global leaders will continue to gather at COPs — this year’s, in Sharm el-Sheikh, just concluded — and to speak loftily about “net zero” and “a low-carbon economy.” But nothing will change, and, as a result, everything will change. There will be large-scale crop failures. The Greenland ice sheet will start to collapse — it may already be collapsing — and, owing to sea-level rise in some places and desertifcation in others, large swaths of the globe will become uninhabitable.** **This conclusion is not, however, the one that Thunberg chose to draw when she spoke at the Youth4Climate conference. “Right now we are still very much speeding in the wrong direction,” she told the crowd in Milan. “But, of course, we can still turn this around — it is entirely possible.** **“The leaders like to say, ‘We can do this,’ ” Greta went on. “They obviously don’t mean it, but we do — we can do this. I’m absolutely convinced that we can.” Or, as Thunberg herself might put it, Blah, blah, blah.** URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/02/climate-change-resists- narrative-yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-b/>

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Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails … A to Z!
by Frack Check WV: admin 01 Jan '23

01 Jan '23

# [Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails … A to Z!](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/01/climate-change-resists-narrativ… yet-the-alphabet-prevails-%e2%80%a6-a-to-z/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2022/12/2E3D52ED-741D-4A83-BAF5-6BB5D2B0F075.jpeg)](https:/… content/uploads/2022/12/2E3D52ED-741D-4A83-BAF5-6BB5D2B0F075.jpeg) Svante August Arrhenius, Swedish (1859 – 1927), foresaw climate change. **“A is for Arrhenius”** . [Article by Elizabeth Kolbert, New Yorker Magazine](https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/elizabeth-kolbert), November 28, 2022 Svante Arrhenius was, by nature, an optimist. He believed that science should — and could — be accessible to all. In 1891, he got his !rst teaching job, at an experimental university in Stockholm called the Högskola. That same year, he founded the Stockholm Physics Society, which met every other Saturday evening. For a fee of one Swedish crown, anyone could join. Among the society’s earliest members was a Högskola student named Sofia Rudbeck, who was described by a contemporary as both “an excellent chemist” and “a ravishing beauty.” Arrhenius began writing her poetry, and soon the two wed. Physics Society meetings consisted of lectures on the latest scientific developments, many delivered by Arrhenius himself, followed by discussions that often lasted well into the night. The topics ranged widely, from aeronautics to volcanology. The society devoted several sessions to considering the instruments that would be needed by Salomon August Andrée, another early member of the group, who had decided to try to reach the North Pole via balloon. (Whatever the quality of his instruments, Andrée’s voyage would result in his death and the death of his two companions.) A question that particularly interested the Physics Society was the origin of the ice ages. All over Sweden lay signs of the glaciers that had, for vast stretches of time, buried the country: rocks with parallel scrapings; strange, sinuous piles of gravel; huge boulders that had been transported far from their source. But what had caused the great ice sheets to descend, carrying all before them? And then what had caused them to retreat, allowing the rivers to "ow once again and the forests to return? In 1893, the society debated various theories that had been proposed, including one linking the ice ages to slight variations in the Earth’s orbit. The following year, Arrhenius came up with a different—and, he thought, better—idea: carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide, he knew, had curious heat-trapping properties. In the atmosphere, it allowed visible light to pass through, but it absorbed the longer-wave radiation that the Earth was constantly emitting to space. What if, Arrhenius speculated, the amount of CO2 in the air had varied? Could that explain the glaciers’ ebb and flow? The math involved in testing this theory went far beyond what was possible at the time. Arrhenius didn’t have a calculator, let alone a computer. He lacked crucial information about which wavelengths, exactly, CO2 absorbs. The climate system, meanwhile, is immensely complicated, with feedback loops nestled within feedback loops. Arrhenius, who would later win a Nobel Prize for an unrelated discovery, plunged ahead anyway. On Christmas Eve, 1894, he began constructing a climate model — the world’s first. He assembled temperature data from around the globe and made ingenious use of a set of measurements that had been taken a decade earlier by an American astronomer, Samuel Pierpont Langley. (Langley had invented a device — a bolometer — for gauging infrared radiation, and had used it to determine the temperature of the moon.) Arrhenius performed thousands of computations —perhaps tens of thousands — and often labored over this task for fourteen hours a day. He was still calculating away as his marriage fell apart. In September of 1895, Rudbeck moved out. In November, without having seen Arrhenius again, she gave birth to their son. The following month, Arrhenius finished his work. “I should certainly not have undertaken these tedious calculations if an extraordinary interest had not been connected with them,” he wrote. Arrhenius believed that he had unravelled the mystery of the ice ages, a riddle that had “hitherto proved most difficult to interpret.” He was at least partly right: ice ages are the product of a complex interplay of forces, including wobbles in the Earth’s orbit and changes in atmospheric CO2. His model turned out to have another use as well. All across Europe and North America, coal was being shovelled into furnaces that were bellowing out carbon dioxide. By thickening the atmospheric blanket that warmed the Earth, humans must, Arrhenius reasoned, be altering the climate. He calculated that, if the amount of carbon dioxide in the air were to double, then global temperatures would rise between three and four degrees Celsius. A few quadrillion computations later, vastly more advanced climate models predict that doubling CO2 will push temperatures up between 2.5 and four degrees Celsius, meaning that Arrhenius’s pen-and-paper estimate was, to an uncanny degree, on target. Arrhenius thought that the future he had conjured would be delightful. “Our descendants,” he predicted, would live happier lives “under a warmer sky.” The prospect was, in any event, distant; doubling atmospheric CO2 would, he reckoned, take humanity three thousand years. It’s easy now to poke fun at Arrhenius for his sunniness. The doubling threshold could be reached within decades, and the results are apt to be disastrous. But who among us is any different? Here we all are, watching things fall apart. And yet, deep down, we don’t believe it. URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/01/climate-change-resists- narrative-yet-the-alphabet-prevails-%e2%80%a6-a-to-z/>

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Lanzarote Declaration, MICRO 2022 ~ UNITED NATIONS Treaty on Plastic Pollution
by Frack Check WV: admin 31 Dec '22

31 Dec '22

# [Lanzarote Declaration, MICRO 2022 ~ UNITED NATIONS Treaty on Plastic Pollution](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2022/12/31/lanzarote-declaration- micro-2022-united-nations-treaty-on-plastic-pollution/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2022/12/470999FE-F077-431F-8024-9D55AA66100D-300x204.png)](… content/uploads/2022/12/470999FE-F077-431F-8024-9D55AA66100D.png) Intense study and planning underway for UN treaty on plastic pollution **Welcome to MICRO 2022** >>> [Organized & Presented by UNESCO](https://micro2022.sciencesconf.org/), November 18, 2022 **We are deeply thankful to All MICRO 2022 Speakers, Chairpersons and All Participants, for the intense week we spent, rooted in an Open Science context, Under the Patronage of the the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, sharing the evolving research on plastic pollution from macro to nano, with a core focus on microplastics.** You can find the [Full Programme HERE.](https://www.micro.infini.fr/prog.html) This year, 40 Local Nodes hosted the Chairpersons facilitating an intense week of 500 online presentations, and Friday Nov. 18th’s collective effort to synthesize these intense days into the [Lanzarote Declaration, MICRO 2022 for the UN Treaty on Plastic Pollution.](https://zenodo.org/record/7359316) **Focusing on what We, the MICRO community, think is important for the UN Plastics Treaty, and where We want the research to go from here, this is Our collective effort for the UN Treaty on Plastic Pollution.** Nice to see the [2022 Lanzarote Declaration](https://zenodo.org/record/7359316) begin to circulate, while we start preparing the way towards the in-person **MICRO 2024 : Human edition**. _Very best wishes from Lanzarote, >>> MICRO 2022 Scientific and Organizing Committee_. URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2022/12/31/lanzarote-declaration- micro-2022-united-nations-treaty-on-plastic-pollution/>

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Nordstream 2 Operator Approaches Bankruptcy for Third Time in Germany
by Frack Check WV: admin 30 Dec '22

30 Dec '22

# [Nordstream 2 Operator Approaches Bankruptcy for Third Time in Germany](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2022/12/30/nordstream-2-operator- approaches-bankruptcy-for-third-time-in-germany/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2022/12/8416517C-22AC-4D28-8831-78F7048CB1002-289x300.png)]… content/uploads/2022/12/8416517C-22AC-4D28-8831-78F7048CB1002.png) After these pipelines were shutdown, three deliberate explosions occurred **Nord Stream 2 Construction Company Approaches Bankruptcy For A Third Time** From an Article by Irina Slav, Oilprice.com, December 29, 2022 The company responsible for the construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline received a six-month stay of bankruptcy, shielding it from creditors, the AP reported, noting the stay will last from January 2023 to June the same year. The gas pipeline, which doubled the capacity of its twin pipeline Nord Stream 1 to 110 billion cubic meters, was among the first targets of sanction action from Europe against Russia, even before its invasion of Ukraine. Two days before Russian troops entered eastern Ukraine, Germany’s government said it would not certify Nord Stream 2, meaning the billion-dollar piece of infrastructure could not be put into operation. The announcement came following Moscow’s official recognition of two eastern Ukrainian regions, Donetsk and Luhansk, as independent. The United States also imposed sanctions on Swiss-based Nord Stream 2 AG, a day before the invasion began. Soon after, reports emerged that the company was considering filing for insolvency after it let all its employees go following the sanctions announced by Washington. A bankruptcy procedure eventually began but was suspended by a court in Zug, Switzerland, where the company is registered. The first loan repayment moratorium was granted for the period until September 2022, which was then extended until January 2023, Russia’s TASS reported in early September. This is the third, and longest, extension that Nord Stream 2 AG has received from the Swiss court to protect it from its creditors. The same-name pipeline, meanwhile, suffered damage in an act of sabotage on the twin pipelines last summer, which put an end to all gas deliveries via the Nord Stream system. According to Gazprom, damage on the Nord Stream 2 is smaller than on its sister pipeline and it can be repaired. The investigation of the blasts failed to name the perpetrator of the sabotage. #######+++++++#######+++++++####### **SEE ALSO:** [Sweden finds explosive traces at Nord Stream blast sites, confirms sabotage](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/18/nord- stream-sweden-explosives-sabotage/), Emily Rauhala and Ellen Francis, Washington Post, November 18, 2022 URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2022/12/30/nordstream-2-operator- approaches-bankruptcy-for-third-time-in-germany/>

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GEO~ENGINEERING: The Earth Does Her Own Natural Engineering!
by Frack Check WV: admin 30 Dec '22

30 Dec '22

# [GEO~ENGINEERING: The Earth Does Her Own Natural Engineering!](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2022/12/29/geoengineering-the- earth-does-her-own-natural-engineering/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2022/12/EBB1972F-4D97-4E4D-8C18-C0F75947A73E.jpeg)](https:/… content/uploads/2022/12/EBB1972F-4D97-4E4D-8C18-C0F75947A73E.jpeg) Geoengineering creates a false sense mankind can manipulate nature **Can Geoengineering Fix the Climate? ~ Hundreds of scientists say not so fast!** From an [Article by Oliver Milman, The UK Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/dec/25/can- controversial-geoengineering-fix-climate-crisis), December 25, 2022 **Proposed geoengineering methods include pumping salt water into clouds to make them more reflective of sunlight, or to place ice particles in clouds to stop them from trapping heat.** As global heating escalates, the US government has set out a plan to further study the controversial and seemingly sci-fi notion of deflecting the sun’s rays before they hit Earth. But a growing group of scientists denounces any steps towards what is known as solar geoengineering. The Biden administration is developing a controversial solar geoengineering research plan to the dismay of many experts. **The White House has set into motion a five-year outline for research into “climate interventions”. Those include methods such as sending a phalanx of planes to spray reflective particles into the upper reaches of the atmosphere, in order to block incoming sunlight from adding to rising temperatures.** **The work is required by Congress. It is “not new research, but a report that highlights some of the key knowledge gaps and recommendations of priority topics for relevant research”, said a spokesperson for the White House’s office of science and technology policy, adding Joe Biden’s administration wants “effective and responsible CO2 removal” as well as deep cuts to greenhouse gas emissions.** Several American researchers, somewhat reluctantly, want to explore options to tinker with the climate system to help restrain runaway global heating, even as they acknowledge many of the knock-on risks aren’t fully known. “Until recently, I thought it was too risky, but slow progress on cutting emissions has increased motivation to understand techniques at the margins like solar geoengineering,” said Chris Field, who chaired a National Academies of Sciences report last year that recommended at least $100m being spent researching the issue. “I don’t think we should deploy it yet and there are still a ton of concerns, but we need to better understand it,” Field said. “Climate change is causing widespread impacts, it’s costing lives and wrecking economies. We are in a tough position; we are running out of time, so it’s important we know more.” **Previous attempts at running experiments for what is known as solar radiation management (SRM) have faced staunch opposition. Last year, an exploratory flight in Sweden of a high-altitude SRM balloon, led by Harvard University researchers, was halted after objections by environmentalists and Indigenous leaders.** **But at least one US startup is now hoping to leap ahead with solar geoengineering. Make Sunsets, backed by two venture capital funds, launched in October. It claims to have already run two internal test flights for its plan to inject sulphur via balloons into the stratosphere, more than 20km above the Earth’s surface.** The venture, named after the deep red sunsets that would occur if particles were seeded into the stratosphere, says its “shiny clouds” will “prevent catastrophic global warming” and help save millions of lives. “Any human- caused release of carbon dioxide is geoengineering,” it argues on its website, which asks people to buy “cooling credits” to fund its work. “We screwed up the atmosphere, and now we have a moral obligation to fix things!” **Edward Parson, an expert in environmental law at University of California, Los Angeles, says Make Sunsets’ claims that it could return the world to its pre-industrial temperature for just $50bn a year are “absurd”. He explains that most researchers are wary of deploying what they consider to be a desperate, last-ditch option.** But Parson says the risks in researching solar geoengineering have been overblown and that the US “is probably the bold leader on this. It would be a big step forward if we have a research program.” “In my opinion, the probability that a nation makes a serious effort on solar geoengineering over the next 30 years is about 90%,” he adds. “As impacts get much worse and if mitigation doesn’t massively increase, I judge it quite likely that some major nation considers its citizens are suffering climate harms that are intolerable.” This prospect horrifies opponents of solar geoengineering. An open letter signed by more than 380 scientists demands a global non-use agreement for SRM; it also says that growing calls for research in this area are a “cause for alarm”, due to an unknown set of ramifications that will have varying consequences in different parts of the world and could scramble “weather patterns, agriculture and the provision of basic needs of food and water”. Frank Biermann, an expert in global governance at Utrecht University, said he’s also disturbed that solar geoengineering will create a sort of moral hazard where governments ease off efforts to cut emissions and fossil fuel companies use it as cover to continue business as usual. Planet-heating emissions are expected to hit a record high this year, even though they must halve this decade if the world is to avoid dangerous levels of global heating. This debate threatens to derail current climate policies. It’s a huge risk. “I would say the majority of scientists believe this is a crazy idea for a variety of reasons,” said Biermann, who thinks the US is an outlier because of its own large per-capita emissions and inconsistent adherence to global agreements. “Soon, everyone who is dependent on coal, oil and gas will jump on the solar engineering bandwagon and say, ‘we can continue for 40 years with fossil fuels’ now. This debate threatens to derail current climate policies. It’s a huge risk.” Biermann likens research on blocking sunlight to the satirical movie Don’t Look Up, in which researchers who warn of a catastrophic incoming meteoroid are sidelined in favor of an outlandish plan to deal with it. “The only way to find out whether this works is to do it to the whole planet for several years,” he said. “I mean will 8 billion people sit there in our living rooms having our last meal waiting and hoping that elite western universities got it right, that the Americans will not mess it up?” There isn’t any international governance around solar geoengineering for now. Critics fret that unilateral action to alter the climate could spark conflict if one part of the world benefits, while another suffers knock-on droughts or floods. Also, the addition of aerosols would have to be continuous to maintain the cooling – any disruption, either intentional or otherwise, would cause a sort of “termination shock”, where bottled up warming would be unleashed in a disastrously rapid jolt. “Termination shock terrifies me,” said Lili Fuhr, a climate and energy expert at the Center for International Environmental Law. “This is just a gigantic gamble with the systems that sustain life on Earth. It could be weaponized, it could be misused – imagine if, say, India and Pakistan disagreed over one of them doing this. “We need to do more than just emissions cuts and I wish we had a magical fix to this, but this doesn’t turn bad ideas into good ones,” Fuhr adds. The idea of recalibrating the world’s climate to deal with heat-trapping emissions isn’t new. A group of scientific advisers to Lyndon Johnson cautioned the US president about global heating in 1965, musing that “deliberately bringing about countervailing climatic changes therefore need to be thoroughly explored”. Calls for intervention have grown in recent years as countries continue to dawdle over emissions cuts and as an internationally agreed limit of 1.5C of global heating over pre-industrial times looms into view. There are several types of proposed geoengineering, such as pumping a mist of salt water into clouds to make them more reflective of sunlight, or to place ice particles in high-altitude clouds to stop them trapping so much of the heat that bounces off Earth. The most high-profile method, though, is firing a reflective substance such as sulphur or chalk dust from nozzles into the stratosphere, where the particles would then circulate around the world and start deflecting the sun’s rays. David Keith, professor of applied physics and of public policy at Harvard, estimates that around 2m tons of sulphur a year, injected via a fleet of about 100 high-flying aircraft, would cool the planet by around 1C, around the amount it has heated up since the Industrial Revolution. All of this would cost several billion dollars a year according to an estimate, and provide a relatively quick drop in temperatures. Keith argues it is more compelling than various carbon capture technologies that can take a long time and involve complex, expensive infrastructure. “Pretending that climate change can be solved with emissions cuts alone is a dangerous fantasy,” Keith has stated. The basic physics of doing this is well understood, Parson said, likening it to the huge eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991, an event that expelled nearly 20m tons of sulphur dioxide into the stratosphere and caused global temperatures to drop temporarily by about 0.5C. “Most people didn’t notice that and there have been studies since that give us confidence it can be done,” said Parson. “We don’t know how it should be done, yet, and the environmental aspects and the governance remain concerns. It would be reckless to just start deploying this now but we have lost so many easy paths to limit the harms of climate change that we only face worse options.” Spraying sulphur into the skylight of the Earth could deplete the ozone layer, some have suggested, and perhaps make the sky a milky white color. Other effects on regional weather are more uncertain, to the extent one recent novel based on the topic, The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson, depicted India embarking upon solar geoengineering to save itself from deadly heatwaves while another, Termination Shock by Neal Stephenson, conversely had India sabotaging a sulphur deployment system in Texas because it interfered with its monsoon. **The debate over how much we should meddle with the climate is likely to intensify as the fallout from global heating worsens. For now, opponents won’t back down. To Biermann, solar geoengineering should be considered by governments as being akin to landmines or biological weapons and blacklisted internationally.** “This is just another one on this list,” he said. “People talk about the freedom of research, but you don’t have the freedom to sit in your back yard and develop a chemical bomb.” URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2022/12/29/geoengineering-the-earth-does- her-own-natural-engineering/>

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West Va. Center on Budget & Policy ~ 10th ANNUAL BUDGET BREAKFAST (1/20/23)
by Frack Check WV: admin 28 Dec '22

28 Dec '22

# [West Va. Center on Budget & Policy ~ 10th ANNUAL BUDGET BREAKFAST (1/20/23)](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2022/12/28/west-va-center-on-budget- policy-10th-annual-budget-breakfast-12023/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2022/12/8A4B2CD5-95C7-4E67-8199-F11685F039FA-214x300.png)](… content/uploads/2022/12/8A4B2CD5-95C7-4E67-8199-F11685F039FA.png) Open budgeting and open spending are realistic goals … **Join the WVCBP at Our 10th Annual Budget Breakfast!** As the 2023 legislative session approaches, the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy staff would like to invite you to join us at our [10th annual Budget Breakfast,](https://wvpolicy.org/2023-budget-breakfast/) taking place on January 20, 2023. Each year, the WVCBP holds this event to provide analysis of the Governor's proposed budget. You'll hear from our executive director, Kelly Allen, our senior policy analyst, Sean O'Leary, and [our chosen keynote speaker](https://www.cbpp.org/about/our-staff/michael-leachman). **Please find further event details below.** [You can register for the event here.](http://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/event?oeidk=a07ejfr1u… **WHAT: WVCBP 's 10th Annual Budget Breakfast** **WHEN: January 20, 2023.** Breakfast will be available starting at 7:30am. The WVCBP’s analysis of the Governor’s 2024 proposed budget will begin at 8am, followed by keynote speaker presentation and time for Q&A. **WHERE: Charleston Marriott Town Center** (200 Lee Street East, Charleston, WV 25301) **WHO** : · Kelly Allen, WVCBP executive director · Sean O'Leary, WVCBP senior policy analyst · Keynote Speaker: Michael Leachman, Vice President for State Fiscal Policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities **PLEASE NOTE:** The cost of a single standard ticket is $50, but if you take advantage of our Early Bird Special (available to all who register by 12/31/22), you will receive $10 off. We appreciate your ongoing support of the WVCBP and we hope you can join us at this upcoming event! #######+++++++#######+++++++####### **SEE ALSO:** [Are tax cuts coming as West Virginia’s budget surplus grows?](https://www.wboy.com/news/west-virginia/are-tax-cuts-coming-as-west- virginias-budget-surplus-grows/) ~ Mark Curtis, WBOY News 12, December 6, 2022 CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WOWK) — West Virginia continues to see record budget surpluses. The question now is how should that money be spent or returned. This is a big change from six and seven years ago when West Virginia’s budget deficits were about $500 million. So far this fiscal year, West Virginia has collected a record-high of $453 million in coal and natural gas severance taxes. At the same time, personal income tax collections from all workers are up 15% over last year and consumer sales taxes from people buying things are up $86 million over last year. URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2022/12/28/west-va-center-on-budget- policy-10th-annual-budget-breakfast-12023/>

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Significant EARTHQUAKE Shakes Oil & Gas Region of Texas AGAIN
by Frack Check WV: admin 27 Dec '22

27 Dec '22

# [Significant EARTHQUAKE Shakes Oil & Gas Region of Texas AGAIN](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2022/12/27/significant-earthquake-shake… oil-gas-region-of-texas-again/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2022/12/853C9D1F-00C8-44DD-9182-4043FAFD75A6.jpeg)](https:/… content/uploads/2022/12/853C9D1F-00C8-44DD-9182-4043FAFD75A6.jpeg) The leading explanation involves the high pressure injection of residual brines from fracking operations **Magnitude 5.4 earthquake latest in a series of seismic events to shake Texas** From an [Article by Andrew Wulfeck, New York Post](https://nypost.com/2022/12/24/magnitude-5-4-earthquake-latest-in-a- series-of-seismic-events-to-shake-texas/), 12/24/22 Nearly a month after a magnitude-5.4 earthquake rocked parts of the Lone Star State, residents were again caught off guard Friday evening by another magnitude-5.5 quake centered near the town of Midland. The United States Geological Survey reported the quake took place about 3 miles under the rural Texas terrain, but the shaking was reported over a wide area that stretched from New Mexico through the heart of Texas. Seismologists said small earthquakes are not uncommon in Texas, but larger events are rare. Many of the quakes are linked to oil fracking and the reinjection of fluids underground. “The area is known for oil and gas production, so that will research. We’re sure people are going to be looking at the number of wastewater injection sites in the region,” a USGS seismologist said. November’s 5.4-magnitude, which occurred about 100 miles away from the epicenter of Friday’s quake, caused the state’s oil and gas regulators to propose tougher temporary restrictions on oil and gas production to help limit seismic activity. Seismologists said it was still too early to determine whether the most recent quake is linked to wastewater injection. Still, researchers will be working around the clock to determine the cause. There were no initial reports of significant damage around the quake’s epicenter or in other regions of Texas. If the magnitude is not adjusted downward, the quake will rank as one of the strongest to impact the region. According to USGS records, a magnitude-6.0 earthquake that shook the town of Valentine in 1931 holds the record for being the largest to impact the state. #######+++++++#######++++++++ **MORE THAN YOU WANT TO KNOW, LESS WELL EXPLAINED:** [To ease looming West Texas water shortage, oil companies have begun recycling fracking wastewater](https://www.texastribune.org/2022/12/19/texas-permian-basin- fracking-oil-wastewater-recycling/), Dylan Baddour, Inside Climate News, The Texas Tribune, December 19, 2022 Oil and gas companies are increasingly reusing “produced water” as West Texas aquifers are being depleted and the practice of injecting wastewater into disposal wells triggers more earthquakes. URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2022/12/27/significant-earthquake-shakes- oil-gas-region-of-texas-again/>

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Let’s Examine the Impact of Plastic Use and Reduce Plastic Waste ~ Rethink, Redesign & Reform
by Frack Check WV: Diana Gooding 26 Dec '22

26 Dec '22

# [Let’s Examine the Impact of Plastic Use and Reduce Plastic Waste ~ Rethink, Redesign & Reform](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2022/12/26/let%e2%80%99s-examine-the- impact-of-plastic-use-and-reduce-plastic-waste-rethink-redesign-reform/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2022/12/C9005252-835A-4BD9-B89D-2C271F4EB2BD-300x150.jpg)](… content/uploads/2022/12/C9005252-835A-4BD9-B89D-2C271F4EB2BD.jpeg) Pete Myres, PhD, testifies before Congressional Committee **WATCH: Pete Myers addresses US Senate committee on the dangers of plastic** From the [Staff, Environmental Health News (EHN)](https://www.ehn.org/plastic- pollution-regulations-2658964356.html), 12/19/22 Environmental Health Sciences founder and chief scientist was one of four witnesses testifying for the U.S. Senate Committee on the Environment & Public Works. Plastic is overwhelming our planet and this pollution is spurring developmental and reproductive problems in people — but there are ways we can reduce this harmful waste. That was the message Environmental Health Sciences founder and chief scientist Dr. Pete Myers brought to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Environment & Public Works last week. Myers testified along with three others — former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Regional Administrator and current Beyond Plastics president Judith Enck, CEO of the Plastics Industry Association Matt Seaholm and co-founder and president of Nexus Circular Eric Hartz — at the hearing, “ **[Examining the Impact of Plastic Use and Identifying Solutions for Reducing Plastic Waste](https://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2022/12/examining-the- impact-of-plastic-use-and-identifying-solutions-for-reducing-plastic- waste)**.” **Read Myers ' full testimony here:** [Pete Myers testimony.pdf](https://roar- assets-auto.rbl.ms/files/48995/Pete%20Myers%20testimony.pdf) “Plastic cannot be considered ‘safe’ until it is thoroughly tested,” Myers said in his testimony. “And no plastic has ever been thoroughly tested using the tools of modern, 21st century medical science.” Myers is a leading voice linking plastic to harmful chemicals that can block, mimic, increase or decrease our body’s hormones. The compounds, often added to plastics as additives, are dubbed endocrine-disrupting chemicals and include bisphenol-A (BPA), phthalates, fluorinated compounds and others. Properly functioning hormones are vital for our health, and exposure to these chemicals is linked to a host of health problems including cardiovascular disease, obesity and diabetes, impaired brain development and reproductive issues, among others. Myers has spoken extensively about how the rate of plastic production increases the prevalence of these toxics in our environment and bodies. Myers has also worked to chart a healthier future, championing a new set of “3 R’s” — rethink, redesign and reform — to replace the old reduce, reuse and recycle messaging. Myers co-founded the Sudoc company, which aims to reduce and replace harmful chemicals in many different types of products. The company won the On the Rise category of Fast Company’s 2022 World Changing Ideas Awards. [Watch the entire hearing here.](https://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2022/12/examining-the- impact-of-plastic-use-and-identifying-solutions-for-reducing-plastic-waste) **About EHS** : Environmental Health Sciences, which publishes EHN.org, is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news and science organization dedicated to driving good science into public policy and public discussion on our environment and health, including climate change. The organization, founded in 2002, has helped drive science-based changes to policy that led to a moratorium on PBDE flame retardants by several states, a ban on the plastic additive BPA in children’s products by the federal government, and science-based chemical reform in Europe. **Contacts** : Douglas Fischer, Executive Director, dfischer(a)ehsciences.org Angela Marie Hutchinson, Engagement Director, angela(a)ehsciences.org URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2022/12/26/let%e2%80%99s-examine-the- impact-of-plastic-use-and-reduce-plastic-waste-rethink-redesign-reform/>

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MAY OUR EARTH BE BETTER, BECAUSE WE MAKE IT SO!
by Frack Check WV: Diana Gooding 25 Dec '22

25 Dec '22

# [MAY OUR EARTH BE BETTER, BECAUSE WE MAKE IT SO!](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2022/12/25/may-our-earth-be-better-becaus… we-make-it-so/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2022/12/F9B35D1F-890E-489D-8842-7C57ADB39D03.jpeg)](https:/… content/uploads/2022/12/F9B35D1F-890E-489D-8842-7C57ADB39D03.jpeg) So much to learn and to understand and to integrate **The “World Peace Diet” Continues Promotion Since 1980** From [Dr. Will Tuttle, Speaker, Author, Traveler, and Spiritual Leader](http://www.worldpeacediet.com/), 12/25/22 **Dear friends** , we have just finished the first month of our **Benevolent Revolution Tour** – 18 beautiful events promoting kindness, freedom, and spiritual health, while crossing from California through AZ, NM, and TX. We greet you now from south Florida. We will be here for a couple of months, offering events through Hippocrates and other venues, and returning in March to California on a slightly more northerly route. Deep thanks to the many caring and creative fellow advocates making this all possible, with whom we are honored to be working, contributing, and learning. >>> May the spirit of Love, Truth and Freedom radiate the living light of awakening - Into our hearts and into the hearts of our fellow humans, Sparking insight and compassion for animals, our Earth, and each other. >>> May the deceptive narratives of exploitation be exposed for all to see. >>> May the beckoning doorway of a vegan world of respect for all living beings draw us ever onward and upward. >>> May we live and embody our commitment to respect the sovereignty of individual beings, and never comply with injustice, oppression, and deceit. >>> May we go forth and multiply the season’s message of peace, harmony, joy, and liberation for all! _That 's it for now - With love and appreciation, **Will & Madeleine** Dr. Will Tuttle, 21373 Highway 175, Middletown CA 95461 USA_ P.S. ~ [Here's a new Interview with Chef AJ](https://youtu.be/cTMPwracDx4) - **Enjoy!!** URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2022/12/25/may-our-earth-be-better-because- we-make-it-so/>

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Energy Discovery, Education, Learning & Technology Accelerator (DELTA) Lab Ramps Up in Virginia
by Frack Check WV: admin 24 Dec '22

24 Dec '22

# [Energy Discovery, Education, Learning & Technology Accelerator (DELTA) Lab Ramps Up in Virginia](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2022/12/24/energy- discovery-education-learning-technology-accelerator-delta-lab-ramps-up-in- virginia/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2022/12/1F6AD0BD-C187-428A-ADC2-312AF3F77A55-300x196.jpg)](… content/uploads/2022/12/1F6AD0BD-C187-428A-ADC2-312AF3F77A55.jpeg) Residual surface mine site in southwest Virginia **Energy innovation lab eyes new types of economic development for previously mined lands** From an [Article by Charlie Paullin, Virginia Mercury](https://www.virginiamercury.com/2022/12/22/energy-innovation-lab- eyes-new-types-of-economic-development-for-previously-mined-lands/), 12/22/22 Southwest Virginia’s efforts to reclaim its status as a U.S. energy capital intensified with the announcement this fall of a new energy technology testbed initiative. **The Energy Discovery, Education, Learning & Technology Accelerator, or DELTA, Lab began earlier this year with its first location in Wise County.** As the name suggests, the lab is a way for researchers to test innovative energy technologies as emerging electricity generation sources and storage become more prevalent. But the lab isn’t just getting creative with technology. It’s also experimenting with new ways to develop previously mined lands that are different from traditional economic development projects using public industrial sites and prevent them from remaining vacant. Backers see the DELTA Lab as a way to generate economic activity in a region that has struggled economically as coal use declines. **“The role of the lab is as a broker connecting energy companies and prospects, assisting with siting what location is best,” said Will Payne, managing partner of Coalfield Strategies, an economic development consultancy that is one of several organizations involved in the effort.** The lab has also earned the endorsement of the **Virginia Economic Development Partnership** , which has been vocal about the state’s lack of “business ready” sites, a designation meaning that land is immediately ready to be built on. If a site isn’t business ready, breaking ground can take months because of the need to conduct environmental studies to mitigate soil damage or deal with past contamination. “Previously mined lands can require significant work for new development,” VEDP President and CEO Jason El Koubi said. “This seems to be an innovative and effective position to advance clean energy on land that was previously contaminated.” Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin has also pushed for greater commitments to site readiness. In a budget proposal unveiled last week, he requested an extra $450 million for site development, to be added to a previous $150 million included in this year’s budget. **The DELTA Lab** ~ The inspiration for DELTA Lab is derived from what Germany has done to redevelop mine sites, said Payne, although that country’s efforts have been located more near population centers. In Southwest Virginia, the lab is envisioned as a network of testbed sites that will be located on lands without any plans for buildings, eliminating another need of traditional economic site development. Instead of the traditional “bench” modeling conducted by universities to develop technologies, the testbed sites will provide power companies a chance to see how their ideas play out in real time. Companies will be able to experiment with their technologies in certain topography types and will have access to the robust power and water sources that are already available at previously mined sites. By creating new sites for this kind of experimentation, local governments will also be able to keep their main industrial parks free for more traditional development. “We’re capturing a moment right now” by capitalizing on incentives for new energy generation technologies in the Virginia Clean Economy Act, Payne said. He said he’s not aware of a similar testbed initiative in the country. “We’ve got to be very intentional and careful with how we do this,” said Will Clear, deputy director of the Virginia Department of Energy. “Energy is a natural fit for what we’re really doing. We’ve got the workforce. We’ve got the infrastructure.” Announced in October, DELTA Lab’s first initiative will be Project Innovation, a test site located on property owned by the Cumberland Forest Limited Partnership and managed by the Nature Conservancy. Project Innovation will hone in on four key areas of research: electricity generation, with a focus on renewables; “geoenergy,” or energy from the earth such as geothermal, “eco- friendly coal” or natural gas; energy delivery systems; and options for reusing renewable energy components and the remains of the fossil fuel industry. **The second concept is Project Oasis, in which data centers will be cooled using water from pools that have collected on previously mined properties. One underground site will provide a consistent 55-degree temperature.** **Third, the lab will host Project Energizer, a small-scale pumped-storage hydroelectric system that generates power by transferring water between reservoirs sited at different elevations in the region’s extremely mountainous terrain. Unlike most hydroelectric plants, Project Energizer will cause minimal land disturbance by using “off-the-shelf” components.** **Currently in the works is another project in Wise County that would connect “islands” of smaller parcels to form a 1,300-acre site**. “Over the next 10 years, I think we can see a dozen locations” that are part of DELTA Lab, Payne said. **VEDP on board** ~ The Virginia Economic Development Partnership is primarily focused on the development of parcels that are 250 acres or larger. As sites get larger and require more work to get up to snuff, their availability shrinks. According to VEDP’s site search tool, 44 of 901 total sites available for business development in Virginia are 250 or more acres. Youngkin has said the lack of business-ready sites has lost Virginia 55,000 jobs and $124 billion in capital investments to surrounding states since 2016 “We have to do so much more,” Youngkin said at the Virginia Economic Summit and Forum on International Trade. El Koubi said efforts like DELTA Lab to repurpose previously mined sites “would complement much of what” VEDP is doing elsewhere in the state. The partnership has a business-ready site program that provides grants to localities to develop parcels of lands that are 100 acres or more. But for the Allegheny Highlands and Southwest Virginia region, the program provides funds for similar projects of 50 acres or less. VEDP says it has helped create 200 jobs in the region since 2021 but Moody’s forecasts project the area will lose almost 1,200 jobs by the end of 2027. Projects with a similar scope to those of DELTA Lab can make a difference in the vitality of the region, El Koubi said. “A handful of projects like this each year could position rural regions to consistently create jobs on a net basis for their citizens,” he said. URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2022/12/24/energy-discovery-education- learning-technology-accelerator-delta-lab-ramps-up-in-virginia/>

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Russian UPU Gas Pipeline to Europe Explodes
by Frack Check WV: Duane Nichols 23 Dec '22

23 Dec '22

# [Russian UPU Gas Pipeline to Europe Explodes](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2022/12/23/russian-upu-gas-pipeline-… europe-explodes/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2022/12/48FFC5A2-584E-41FF-B7F9-02DFDBD00DD8.jpeg)](https:/… content/uploads/2022/12/48FFC5A2-584E-41FF-B7F9-02DFDBD00DD8.jpeg) Three different Russian natural gas pipelines explode in three days **Russian Gas Pipeline to Europe Incurs Accidental Explosion** From the [Article by Cristen Jaynes, EcoWatch News](https://www.ecowatch.com/russia-gas-pipeline-explosion-europe.html), December 21, 2022 Three repair workers were killed yesterday when a section of the Urengoy- Pomary-Uzhhorod natural gas pipeline in western Russia exploded. One driver was also suffering from shock, Reuters reported. The pipeline transports gas from Siberia to central Europe via Ukraine and is currently the primary gas export route from Russia to Europe. Local officials said the gas flare had been extinguished and supplies rerouted. “The damaged section of the gas pipeline was promptly localised. Gas is being transported to consumers in full through parallel gas pipelines,” said Russian gas company Gazprom Transgaz Nizhny Novgorod in a statement, as reported by Reuters. Governor of Russia’s Republic of Chuvashia Oleg Nikolayev said it wasn’t apparent how long the pipeline repairs would take following the explosion, The Associated Press reported. Built in the 1980s, the Urengoy-Pomary-Uzhhorod pipeline has become the primary route for gas from Russia to Europe since the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines exploded beneath the Baltic Sea in September. Nord Stream 1 supplied Germany with Russian gas until Russia stopped supplies in August, claiming that there were equipment issues. Germany dismissed these claims, saying Russia wanted to sow doubt and increase gas prices. Germany stopped the certification process for Nord Stream 2 just before Russia invaded Ukraine, and the pipeline was never used. Gazprom said it anticipated pumping 1,518.5 million cubic feet of gas to Europe through the Urengoy-Pomary-Uzhhorod pipeline in the day following the explosion — an amount consistent with recent supply, reported Reuters. However, that’s only 5.4 percent of the approximately 5,473.8 billion cubic feet of natural gas Russia supplied to Europe last year, OilPrice.com reported. Europe has been supplementing its supply of natural gas from Russia with imports of liquified natural gas. According to a report from nonprofit Environment America, in the U.S. a gas pipeline incident happens about every 40 hours. Nearly 2,600 incidents involving the release of pipeline gas that were concerning enough to be reported to the federal government occurred between January of 2010 and October of 2021. Of these, 328 caused explosions and fires that killed 122 people and left hundreds injured. The federally reported leaks have caused 26.6 billion cubic feet of methane gas to be spewed into the Earth’s atmosphere, which has the same effect on global warming as the annual emissions of more than 2.4 million cars. Since 2010, the reported gas leaks have resulted in almost $4 billion in costs and damage. “The amount of gas leaking to the environment is far greater than captured in federal leak reporting or emissions estimates from the Environmental Protection Agency,” the report said. #######+++++++#######+++++++####### **See also:** [A huge fire after explosion of Russian gas pipeline in Chuvashia](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXOj7wN0AsQ), TeleTruth Video, YouTube, December 21, 2022 The huge fire broke out after an explosion on a gas pipeline in Vurnarsky region of Chuvashia, Western Russia, local authorities report. Russian Ministry of Emergencies said three people were killed and one injured in an explosion on a natural gas pipeline between Kalinino -Yambakhtino villages. This is the third explosion of Russian gas infrastructure in a matter of days. URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2022/12/23/russian-upu-gas-pipeline-to- europe-explodes/>

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German Renewable Energy Act 2023 to Limit GHG in Electricity Production
by Frack Check WV: Duane Nichols 22 Dec '22

22 Dec '22

# [German Renewable Energy Act 2023 to Limit GHG in Electricity Production](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2022/12/22/german-renewable-energy- act-2023-to-limit-ghg-in-electricity-production/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2022/12/9B9128DA-4239-4099-B3F4-1B0BDBBBBE46-300x154.jpg)](… content/uploads/2022/12/9B9128DA-4239-4099-B3F4-1B0BDBBBBE46.jpeg) Germany planning to maximize alternative energy sources despite recent challenges **EU Approves Germany 's $30 Billion Green Energy Plan** From an [Article by Kenny Stancil, Common Dreams](https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/12/21/eu-approves- germanys-30-billion-green-energy-plan), December 21, 2022 **The European Commission on Wednesday approved the German government 's €28 billion ($29.69 billion) plan to rapidly expand clean energy production. According to Reuters: "The scheme pays a premium to renewable energy producers, on top of the market price they receive for selling their power. Small generators can receive a feed-in-tariff providing a guaranteed price for their electricity."** The **German Renewable Energy Act 2023** , which replaces an existing support measure for green energy, runs until 2026 and is aimed at meeting Germany's goal of generating 80% of its electricity from wind, solar, and other renewable sources by 2030. The European Commission called the policy "necessary and appropriate" to boost the supply of clean energy and slash planet-heating pollution. Officials said that the plan's environmental benefits outweigh its potential negative impacts on competition. "The German Renewable Energy Act 2023 scheme will contribute to further decarbonize electricity production," Margrethe Vestager, the European Union's competition policy chief, said in a statement. Swiftly increasing clean energy production is essential to achieving Germany's objective of reaching net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2045. It is also key to ameliorating potential energy shortages stemming from Russia's decision to cut off most of the gas it sends to Europe amid the war in Ukraine and the E.U.'s recent ban on seaborne crude oil from Russia. **As Reuters reported:** _(1) Berlin 's response to Europe's energy crunch has attracted criticism from some E.U. countries. Concerns focussed on Germany's broader plan to spend up to €200 billion [$212.36 billion] in subsidies to shield consumers and businesses from soaring energy costs—a sum that many other states cannot afford, and which some said would distort competition in the European Union's single market._ _(2) The Commission said Berlin 's renewable state support was limited to the "minimum necessary" and included safeguards to minimize competition distortions. Companies must bid for the aid in government tenders. (3) To avoid compensating companies twice, Germany will also phase out existing support for renewable producers in times of negative power prices by 2027._ **The European Commission 's approval of Germany's new renewable support plan — and a nearly 50% surge in solar installations across the E.U. this year — highlights green progress on the continent. However, it comes after E.U. policymakers — in an attempt to reduce reliance on dirty energy from Russia — moved to expand fossil fuel infrastructure across Europe, with a focus on building capacity to accept higher volumes of “fracked gas” from the United States and other countries.** Soon after Russia invaded Ukraine in late February, progressives urged governments around the globe to treat the war as a catalyst for accelerating clean energy efforts. **As researchers warned earlier this year, scaling up non-Russian fossil fuels will lock in decades of heat-trapping emissions** at a time when the window to slash greenhouse gas pollution and avert the most catastrophic effects of the climate crisis is rapidly closing. While greater quantities of wind and solar power are welcome, a simultaneous increase in **dirty energy consumption** runs counter to the goal of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels — beyond which impacts will grow progressively worse for hundreds of millions of people, particularly those living in impoverished nations who have done the least to cause the crisis. **A desperately needed worldwide clean energy transition remains far behind schedule. Despite overwhelming evidence that extracting and burning more coal, oil, and gas will exacerbate deadly climate chaos, the fossil fuel industry — supported by trillions of dollars in public subsidies each year — has no plans to slow down this decade.** URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2022/12/22/german-renewable-energy- act-2023-to-limit-ghg-in-electricity-production/>

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