Climate Change Archives - Page 15 of 17

Regulators poised to allow refinery to increase emissions

January 11, 2016 Webmaster

The Marathon refinery in Detroit is shown Monday, January 4, 2016.

Michigan, USA (AP) — Michigan environmental regulators are poised to allow the Marathon refinery in south-west Detroit to increase emissions of at least eight air pollutants.

The state Department of Environmental Quality said it proposes to approve revised permits for refinery modernisation and expansion that would increase emissions of oxides of nitrogen, carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds, small particulate pollution and sulfuric acid mist.

This, on the heels of the Paris climate talks in December where 195 countries, including the US, agreed to reduce carbon and other greenhouse gas emission with a view to keeping global temperature rise this century well below two degrees Celsius and driving efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

The proposal would increase emissions of sulfur dioxide in an area that the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has designated as being out of compliance with federal air pollution standards, the Detroit Free Press reported, but the agency’s analysis of Marathon’s permit requests notes that the emissions increases all fall within allowable state and federal regulations. The permit requests involve installation of equipment by Marathon to produce lower sulfur gasoline that will meet new EPA standards.

“The project will enable the facility to produce fuels that comply with the EPA regulation by reducing sulfur dioxide emissions from gasoline,” Marathon spokesman Jamal Kheiry said in an e-mail to the Free Press.

Kheiry added that the refinery’s emission levels “will continue to be well below those allowed under its existing permit”. Changes at the facility triggered the DEQ’s permit process.

Four Detroit-area state senators — Coleman Young II, Morris Hood III, Bert Johnson and Vincent Gregory — want the DEQ to reject the permits.

“When we allow our refineries and coal-fired power plants to belch toxic fumes into our neighbourhoods, we set ourselves up for a legacy of poor health and skyrocketing medical bills,” said the lawmakers, all Democrats.

Ray Holland, 60, who has lived in a nearby neighbourhood his whole life, doesn’t like the idea of the proposed changes.

“I think they should leave it like it is — or put more pollution controls on it,” he said of the refinery.

The DEQ plans an information session and public hearing tonight at the River Rouge High School auditorium in nearby River Rouge. The agency plans to consider public comments prior to taking final actions on Marathon’s permit applications.

The Observer

Climate Change Electricity Government News

US Coal Production Falls To Lowest Level In Nearly 30 Years

January 11, 2016 Webmaster

A coal miner works to secure the roof with bolts in an underground coal mine roughly 40-inches-high. Preliminary government figures released Friday show U.S. coal production has fallen to its lowest level in nearly 30 years as cheaper sources of power and stricter environmental regulations reduce demand.

United States (US) coal production has fallen to its lowest level in nearly 30 years as cheaper sources of power and stricter environmental regulations reduce demand, according to preliminary government figures.

A report released last Friday by the US Energy Information Administration estimates that 900 million short tons of coal were produced last year, a drop from about 1 billion short tons in 2014.

That’s the lowest volume since 1986.

The slump has led to bankruptcies and layoffs at mining companies, but the effects have rippled outward, stressing state budgets and forcing layoffs in other sector, such as railroads, which are transporting less coal.

Power plants are increasingly relying on cheaper and cleaner-burning natural gas to provide electricity and comply with regulations aimed at reducing pollution that contributes to climate change.

A sweeping agreement adopted last month in Paris by nearly 200 countries determined to further reduce greenhouse gas emissions is likely to make coal an even less viable choice in the decades ahead.

The Gleaner

Alternative Energy Climate Change Electricity Energy Saving News Solar Energy

Honey Bun To Invest US$250,000 On Solar Project

January 6, 2016 Webmaster

The Kingston-based bakery Honey Bun Limited is planning to spend US$250,000 to invest in its own 100-kilowatt solar-energy system at its factory in Kingston with the objective of increasing efficiency.

The project is expected to save the company, funded and run by the Chong family, up to 30 per cent on its electricity bill. The company’s strategy is to stagger the solar project over five stages with the first completed in December.

“Honey Bun strives to be more efficient while considering the impact we have on our environment. To that end, we aim to reduce our carbon footprint through Jamaica’s natural solar energy,” according to Chief Operating Officer Daniel Chong.

The company started installing solar panels on the roof of the factory since September 2015, Chong said. In the first phase,

24 kilowatts of inter-connected self-consumption photovoltaic power was installed. This will run concurrently with power supplied by the Jamaica Public Service, in order to increase energy output while lowering cost, he added. The precise timeline for the remaining stages remains undetermined.

“This will be concurrent with the expected build-out of factory space for increased output capacity,” Honey Bun said in response to Wednesday Business queries.

The project is expected to lower the $36 million spent in its 2015 financial year ($38.8 million in 2014) on an expense-line item termed rates, taxes, telephone, fuel and electricity.

Honey Bun’s property, plant and equipment, fair valued at $278 million, remains its largest asset which drives the electricity spend. Honey Bun acquired two properties in the company’s financial year ending September 2014. The acquisitions resulted in $145 million worth of additions to its property, plant and equipment during the 2014 financial year.

The company reportedly bought a 20,000-square foot property that joins its existing operations on Retirement Crescent to another piece it bought in October 2014. Its three properties combined are contiguous at numbers 22, 24 and 26 Retirement Crescent. The properties total some 1.3 acres or 57,000 square feet.

Honey Bun earned $69.9 million in profit from $885 million in sales for its September 2015 year end, compared with $22 million the previous year.

The company manufactures and distributes baked products to the local and export markets. It was listed on the junior market of the Jamaica Stock Exchange in June 2011. The profit rise contributed to the company’s stock jumping from $1.71 to $6.18 over 52 weeks.

The Gleaner

Climate Change Government News

Sean Paul Among Reggae Acts To Get Behind Climate Change Messaging

January 4, 2016 Webmaster

Jamaican Grammy Award-winning artiste Sean Paul attends a press conference at the COP21, United Nations Climate Change Conference, in Le Bourget, north of Paris, France, last month.

After lending his talents to the song Love Song to the Earth, Grammy-winning artiste Sean Paul is looking to do more in the effort against climate change.

Addressing a press conference at the recently concluded international climate talks held in Paris, Sean Paul signalled a commitment to gathering and sharing information on the troubling phenomena.

“I was driven here in an electric car and I was inquiring a lot about the car – how much it takes to take care of it and how much it cost [to purchase]. And it was just crazy to me that people go and shop in stores, and in one day they could actually buy that car, which would help reduce a lot of carbon emissions,” said Sean Paul, who was in Paris to perform.

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, including carbon dioxide – primarily the result of human actions, including coal burning and petrol use over the last 100-plus years – fuel global warming, which contributes to the climate impacts currently being experienced in small-island developing states like those of the Caribbean. Such impacts include sea-level rise and an increase in sea-surface temperatures, which stand to jeopardise coastal lives and livelihoods.

FRESH IDEAS

“Just being here is great for fresh ideas that I can bring back to my country. Me being here, seeing that car, having driven in the car, asking the questions and then going back to Jamaica to inquire how I can get cars like that there … .” added Sean Paul, who collaborated with Natasha Bedingfield, Paul McCartney, and others on Love Song to the Earth.

He also indicated that he was prepared to make adjustments in his own lifestyle.

“The less that I can put out in terms of garbage, and so on,” Sean Paul told the media, in reference to materials that are harmful to the environment.

And he is not alone in his resolve to promote information sharing and change in the effort to combat climate change. He is joined by other Caribbean acts, including another Jamaican, Aaron Silk, and Adrian ‘The Doc’ Martinez of Belize.

Both men were themselves in Paris performing under the ‘1.5 to Stay Alive’ campaign run by Panos Caribbean in collaboration with other key regional actors, notably the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre, the Caribbean Development Bank, the Regional Council of Martinique, the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States, and the St Lucia Ministry of Sustainable Development.

The Gleaner

Alternative Energy Climate Change Government News Oil

No cause to celebrate Paris climate agreement

December 22, 2015 Webmaster

Small island states lost out to their larger, more industrialised seniors at COP21.

The results of the climate change conference in Paris (COP21) give no reason for small island states to cheer. The agreement reflects many promises and little action.

The one item of concrete action is merely an undertaking to evaluate carbon emissions every five years — and even that has no teeth.

What is not in the agreement is a firm, legally binding commitment to limit average global temperature increases to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Also, not in the agreement is a legally binding commitment to provide developing countries with the funds needed to adapt to, and mitigate against the effects of climate change.

There isn’t even a commitment to a fund, in the sum of US$100 billion a year, that was frequently touted before the conference began.

Once again, the industrialised nations of the world — the worst polluters — took advantage of the weakness of the smallest countries of the world, which are the least polluters and the biggest victims of climate change.

To their credit, though, through the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), representatives of small states did put up a good showing in Paris. Armed with the latest statistics and bolstered by a structured expert report released by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, they argued for the containment of global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, showing that, at 2 degrees, destruction would be widespread and irreversible. But, in the end, despite all the hoopla, applause and celebration, small states lost.

Representatives of AOSIS countries might have been flattered by a brief visit to them by US President Barack Obama, when he declared: “These nations are not the most populous nations, they don’t have big armies, they have a right to dignity and sense of place.” But, while President Obama was undoubtedly sincere in what he said, he also knew, even as he was saying it, that he could not deliver ratification by the US Congress of any agreement that limited carbon emissions or bound the US legally to warming no higher than 1.5 degrees Celsius.

So, the world has a so-called agreement, still to be ratified by the 196 participating countries, that only expresses an objective to limit global warming to “well below two degrees above pre-industrial levels”. The goal of 1.5 degrees Celsius, as described by Amber Rudd, the British minister for energy and climate change, is merely “aspirational”. In making her statement that the target of 1.5 degrees is aspirational, the minister was sending a clear signal to the British industrial world that driving down carbon emissions from fossil fuels is not an immediate objective and therefore will not affect their business.

In truth, the climate change action plans submitted by 188 countries would lead to a temperature rise as high as 2.7 degrees Celsius. And, if that is not bad enough, the signatories to the Paris agreement are under no legal obligation even to meet that objective; they are legally free to enlarge carbon emissions further. So, no cause for small island states to celebrate over that one, and profound reason for them to worry.

At three degrees, the size of islands will shrink, productive areas will be under water, people will have to move habitats inland and many will be forced to migrate, legally and illegally. We have to hope that all the scientists who predict this scenario are wrong.

On the money side, the developed countries declined to insert into the Paris agreement their often-made oral commitments to transfer funds to poorer countries in order to help them adapt. Yet, all the studies show that even the US$100 billion a year that was promised would not be enough to help developing countries build up a power system quickly or cheaply enough on renewable energy sources rather than coal or oil. Incidentally, even if the US$100 billion a year fund was achieved, access to it by small states in the Caribbean would be long and arduous, particularly if the criterion of “per capita” income continues to be applied as it is now by international financial institutions. The portion available to the Caribbean region would be a small fraction of the total sum.

Some may argue that there are two aspects of the Paris agreement that are beneficial to small states, therefore, attention should be paid to them. The participating countries recognised “the importance of averting, minimising and addressing loss and damage associated with the adverse effects of climate change, including weather events and slow onset events”. But, liability is completely ignored because it was opposed by the polluting industrialised countries. Recognition of a problem is far removed from committing to action to cure it.

Then there is the single binding legal requirement in the agreement. Every country is now required to come back every five years with new targets for reducing their carbon emissions. But there is no sanction if they fail to meet their previous commitment, and no sanction if they simply carry on business as usual.

COP21 in Paris may have been a triumph for some nations, but no self-respecting small island State should claim any satisfaction.

That is why each small State, individually and within the many organisations in which they are members — including AOSIS, the Commonwealth, La Francophonie, the Organization of American States and others — must now redouble their efforts to work on the developed country governments, but also to move beyond them to the conscience of the people of the industrialised world.

This is about survival and development — two defining challenges of this century for small states. It is the work of everyone; governments, businesses and civil society, all are involved and all could be consumed.

Jamaica Observer

Alternative Energy Climate Change Crude Oil Electricity Energy Saving Government News Solar Energy

What Just Happened in Solar Is a Bigger Deal Than Oil Exports

December 21, 2015 Webmaster

The clean-energy boom is about to be transformed. In a surprise move, U.S. lawmakers agreed to extend tax credits for solar and wind for another five years. This will give an unprecedented boost to the industry and change the course of deployment in the U.S.

The extension will add an extra 20 gigawatts of solar power—more than every panel ever installed in the U.S. prior to 2015, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF). The U.S. was already one of the world’s biggest clean-energy investors. This deal is like adding another America of solar power into the mix.

The wind credit will contribute another 19 gigawatts over five years. Combined, the extensions will spur more than $73 billion of investment and supply enough electricity to power 8 million U.S. homes, according to BNEF.

“This is massive,” said Ethan Zindler, head of U.S. policy analysis at BNEF. In the short term, the deal will speed up the shift from fossil fuels more than the global climate deal struck this month in Paris and more than Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan that regulates coal plants, Zindler said.

Data Source: Bloomberg New Energy Finance

This is exactly the sort of bridge the industry needed. The costs of installing wind and solar power have dropped precipitously—by more than 90 percent since the original tax credits took effect—but in most places coal and natural gas are still cheaper than unsubsidized renewables. By the time the new tax credit expires, solar and wind will be the cheapest forms of new electricity in many states across the U.S.

The tax credits, valued at about $25 billion over five years, will drive $38 billion of investment in solar and $35 billion in wind through 2021, according to BNEF. The scale of the new projects will help push costs down further and will stimulate new investment that lasts beyond the extension of the credits.

Few people in the industry expected a five-year extension. Stocks soared. SolarCity, the biggest rooftop installer, surged 34 percent yesterday. SunEdison, the largest renewable-energy developer, climbed 25 percent, and panelmaker SunPower increased 14 percent.

Congress is expected to vote by the end of this week on the tax credits as part of a broader budget deal that also lifts the 40-year-old ban on U.S. oil exports. Oil producers have lobbied for years to lift the ban, but it isn’t likely to significantly affect either consumption of oil or deployment of renewables. Leaders from both parties reached an agreement on the bill late Tuesday.

The 30 percent solar tax credit was set to expire next year and will now extend through 2019 before tapering to 10 percent in 2022. The wind credit had expired at the end of 2014, and the extension will be retroactively applied from the start of 2015 through 2019, declining in value each year.

Wind power has had an especially tumultuous relationship with U.S. lawmakers, who have kept the industry’s credits alive through a disruptive ping-pong game of short-term extensions every year or two. “You open manufacturing plants and then you close them. And then you open them and you close them,” BNEF’s Zindler said. “It’s economically inefficient. This will give them a good five-year line of sight on what the market will look like, and that’s really important.”

Bloomberg

Alternative Energy Climate Change Confrence Electricity Government News Research

No cause to celebrate Paris climate agreement

December 21, 2015 Webmaster

Sir Ronald Saunders

Small island states lost out to their larger, more industralised seniors at COP21.