[Biofuel] Energy Department projects safely and permanently store 10 million metric tons of carbon dioxide | Government Security News
http://www.gsnmagazine.com/article/44420/energy_department_projects_safely_and_permanently [In a number of CCS projects, the CO2 is utilized to enhance oil recovery from mature wells. Referring to the single largest project (by CO2 volume captured): The CO2, in compressed form, is then delivered by pipeline to enhanced oil recovery projects in eastern Texas. So, at least some of these are in fact not CCS achievements, but enhanced oil recovery (EOR) projects. More taxpayer-funded corporate welfare for the oil and gas industry. There is nothing permanent about carbon storage used in EOR projects.] Energy Department projects safely and permanently store 10 million metric tons of carbon dioxide Washington, D.C., April 22 – The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced that a group of carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects supported by the Department have safely captured 10 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) – the equivalent of removing more than 2 million passenger vehicles from the nation’s roads for one year. This milestone builds on the Obama administration’s goals of providing clean energy, supporting American jobs, and reducing emissions of carbon pollution, the agency says. Rapid commercial development and deployment of clean coal technologies, particularly CCS, will help position the United States as a leader in the clean energy race. “The U.S. is taking the lead in showing the world CCS can work. We have made the largest government investment in carbon capture and storage of any nation, and these investments are being matched by private capital,” said Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz. “We are showing that CCS is working now, and that it is indispensable to the DOE’s commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and tackle climate change.” CCS is the separation and capture of CO2 from power plant and industrial emissions. The captured CO2 is then injected and stored in deep underground geologic formations. In a number of CCS projects, the CO2 is utilized to enhance oil recovery from mature wells. CCS technologies encourage sustainable economic growth by enabling industry to continue operations while emitting fewer greenhouse gases. It also opens the door to practical and beneficial options for reusing the captured CO2. For instance, when CO2 is injected into an oil reservoir in a process called enhanced oil recovery, it can help boost crude oil production. One DOE supported project alone has now captured nearly 2 million metric tons of CO2. Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. in Port Arthur, Texas, is demonstrating a state-of-the-art system to capture carbon emissions from two steam methane reformers used to produce hydrogen. Air Products retrofitted its steam methane reformers with an advanced system that separates CO2 from the process gas stream. The CO2, in compressed form, is then delivered by pipeline to enhanced oil recovery projects in eastern Texas. The projects contributing to the 10 million tons captured milestone are part of DOE’s Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership (RCSP) Initiative and the Industrial Carbon Capture and Storage (ICCS) Major Demonstrations programs. The RCSP Initiative consists of seven partnerships focused on determining the best regional approaches for storing CO2 in geologic formations. The Partnerships include more than 400 organizations spanning 43 states and four Canadian provinces, and form the core of a nationwide network to identify optimal technologies, geologic carbon storage sites, regulatory options and infrastructure requirements to ensure the safe storage of CO2 and facilitate the commercial deployment of CCS. The ICCS program – representing a $1.4 billion investment under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act – is a step forward in the effort to reduce CO2 emissions from industrial plants. The program has helped industry demonstrate the CCS technologies that can be readily replicated and commercially deployed in industrial facilities. ___ Sustainablelorgbiofuel mailing list Sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org http://lists.eruditium.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel
[Biofuel] Canada's GHG emissions on steady upward trend, says report - Canadian Manufacturing
http://www.canadianmanufacturing.com/supply-chain/canadas-ghg-emissions-on-steady-upward-trend-says-report-147244/ [In a stunning act of chutzpah, the Canadian federal Environment Minister tried to deflect their abject failure on GHG emissions in general and in producing long-promised regulation for the oil and gas sector in particular by implying they have missed the UN reporting deadline (March 31st) due to lack of required and requested input from the provinces. Droll, as the Prime Minister has had sufficient provincial GHG emissions data to present concrete numbers while taking credit for provincial work (e.g., Ontario's shut-down of coal-fired electricity generation) which actually has reduced GHG emissions when wriggling through conversations internationally on Canada's abysmal record on climate change (philosophical and results).] Canada’s GHG emissions on steady upward trend, says report An Environment Canada report to the UN confirms that rising emissions from the oil and gas sector are driving up Canada's overall carbon footprint OTTAWA—The latest emissions inventory from Environment Canada shows the country’s overall greenhouse gas output climbed 1.5 per cent between 2012 and 2013, continuing a slow, but steady, upward trend since the global recession of 2009. The report, prepared by Environment Canada and submitted annually to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, shows 726 megatonnes of emissions in 2013, still three per cent below Canada’s output in 2005. However, under the international Copenhagen Accord signed in 2009, Canada committed to reduce its emissions by 17 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020 _ and the trend is now firmly heading the wrong way. A new, post-2020 international emissions regime is supposed to be negotiated at a UN conference later this year in Paris. The federal government has not yet offered its bid on a post-2020 reduction target while it consults the provinces. The United States announced last month it plans to cut emissions 26 per cent by 2025. The latest Environment Canada report confirms that rising emissions from the oil and gas sector are driving up Canada’s overall carbon footprint, while Ontario’s decision to phase out coal-fired electricity generation is credited as the “determinant factor” in steeply falling emissions from the public electricity and heat production sector. Since 1990, emissions from Canada’s “mining and upstream oil and gas production” have climbed 129 per cent, while total production of crude oil and natural gas has increased 79 per cent. The report notes that “per-barrel GHG emissions from oil and gas production have been rising, due to an increase in the complexity of techniques used to produce conventional oil and the increasing proportion of synthetic crude oil produced from the oil sands.” However Canada’s per-capita emissions have been declining. Quebec’s overall emissions in 2013 were down 8.4 per cent compared with 2005, while B.C.’s were down 2.6 per cent. In contrast, Saskatchewan’s emissions showed a 7.6 per cent increase over that period. Alberta’s emissions amounted to 267 megatonnes in 2013, more than Ontario (171 Mt) and Quebec (83 Mt) combined, according to the report. The April 17 report did not include percentage increases for Alberta or decreases for Ontario, nor did it provide the data tables to determine those proportions. All data in the report was also revised upwards following new reporting guidelines adopted by the UN in 2013, making year-to-year comparisons difficult in the absence of the complete revised data set. == http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/canadian-physicians-group-blames-coal-power-for-edmonton-s-poor-air-quality-1.3032529 [Reducing GHG emissions generally brings other benefits, too. video in on-line article] Canadian physicians group blames coal power for Edmonton's poor air quality Physicians group finds troubling trend in Edmonton after studying a decade's worth of air quality data CBC News Posted: Apr 14, 2015 12:00 PM MT A group of physicians is cautioning that Edmonton's air quality is worse than that of other larger centres such as Toronto, a fact they blame in part on coal-fired electrical generating plants. The Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment has examined a decade's worth of air quality data, which group member Dr. Joe Vipond says show a troubling trend in Edmonton. Although only about one-fifth the size of greater Toronto in terms of population, Edmonton has significantly higher levels of fine particulate matter in the air, the group's findings suggest. At a time when most Canadian cities are reducing dependence on coal-fired electrical generation, Edmonton's rose 13 per cent last year, Calgary-based Vipond told CBC news. This fine particulate matter has been dropping steadily over the
[Biofuel] The haunting of Vancouver's toxic crude spill | rabble.ca
http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/views-expressed/2015/04/haunting-vancouvers-toxic-crude-spill The haunting of Vancouver's toxic crude spill By Mary Lovell | April 23, 2015 These sentences about Vancouver toxic crude spill begin with I, but this story is about all of us. It is about the voices raised to save this coast, and continued dissolution with government. February 19, 2013 Vancouver Coast Salish Territories-Kitsilano Coast Guard closes, despite community outcry to the federal government, deep criticism from municipal and federal governments. Vancouver, the busiest port in the country is left under-resourced. April 8, 2015, 5:00 p.m. The sun is shining and my roommate and I are out for a run. It's his birthday. I hadn't run for a long time, my lungs and legs were burning, exhausted. Jogging along False Creek, in the unseasonable warmth of the sun, I can feel the rhythm and the strain of strength. We stop, short on breath, to watch a sea lion and build towers out of rocks, talking about how beautiful and surreal our city is. We talk about how little fresh air there is, and how we want to run along trails instead of asphalt. We talk about how busy our running route is, and that we've literally seen thousands of people out playing, brought out by the sun. We admire a sea lion in the water, and teams of paddlers, hearing the splash of paddles led by Pull! Pull! being called across the water. We toy with the idea of skinny-dipping in False Creek, but both agree the water is likely too toxic, that we shouldn't swim -- even though we want to. At the time, I did not realize that this would become a new reality for all of the beaches that I love on this coast. I did not realize, that at this very moment, 5:00 p.m., a grain tanker was leaking vast amounts toxic crude into the waters of the Salish Sea. I could not have realized, because no one was told. The Province and the Canadian Federal Governments hear about the spill at 5:00 p.m. There was no press release. The City was not notified. April 9, 2015 8:00 a.m. I wake up to news that there is an oil spill in English Bay. I call a friend, she's crying, anxious about all the life on our coast and says she has no idea how big the spill is, or what is being done to clean it up. I agree to meet her on the beach. Walking to the shore, I see environmental activists standing and looking over the water. One walks me to the rocks to show the way in which oil has covered the rocks, and at first I can't see it. On the sand, it's hard to see. Scraping my foot through the sand I realize that there is a thick layer of black oil just under the surface of the light sand. Once you see it, you see it everywhere. I talk to Dr. Peter Ross, a famous scientist laid off by the Canadian federal government as he takes samples of the oil with the Vancouver Aquarium. I feel a headache forming, and start to feel brutally nauseous. My friend Yassie and I agree that we should get off the beach, we feel strange. Waves of emotion register as I walk between the rocks and see that there are sticky globs of oil all over them, in lines where the water had reached. Audrey from the Musqueam Nation is on the shore, and we offer cedar to heal the water. This moment, holding cedar and praying for the first time to heal the coast from this spill, is when it all sinks in. The crumbling feeling of understanding that no one is cleaning this up. That no one will be able to take this spill back, and that this coast and these creatures will be poisoned. April 9, 2015 I return to the beach and stumble upon one of the most surreal scenes I had yet seen in my young life. People, people everywhere, unaware that there had been a spill. Summer weather upon us, hundreds were on the beach, running along the seawall. My roommates and I interview the public, asking them if they heard that there was an oil spill. Most that we waved down said that they hadn't, others say that they had heard of it, but weren't sure where it was. Kids, dogs, people laying in the sand, playing in the water. No signs, no tape, no evidence that there is a spill other than a splitting headache. No evidence of a spill other than shiny stinky globules of oil coating the rocks. People in shorts and sandals scrubbing at the oil covering everything. Distraught at the lack of attention that the government has had towards this spill, these civilians have taken cleaning up the spill into their own hands. The city dropped off gloves (permeable by chemicals) and a bin with which to dispose of rags. A park ranger comes up and asks where people are putting the waste, and the community responds with outrage that they are the ones on the beach, telling him he needs to get a professional crew. The sun is setting as we talk to those cleaning, they complain of being covered in oil, in feeling it burn their lungs and noses. Heading home, we research into the night, I
[Biofuel] Five Years After The BP Oil Spill, Gulf Coast Residents Say “BP Hasn’t Made Things Right” | DeSmogBlog
http://www.desmogblog.com/2015/04/21/five-years-after-bp-oil-spill-gulf-coast-residents-say-bp-hasn-t-made-things-right [video, links and images in on-line article] Five Years After The BP Oil Spill, Gulf Coast Residents Say “BP Hasn’t Made Things Right” By Julie Dermansky • Tuesday, April 21, 2015 - 21:31 If you ask Dean Blanchard, the largest shrimp buyer and wholesaler in the region surrounding Grand Isle, Louisiana, things “went from paradise to hell” in the five years following the BP oil disaster. But BP's advertisements insist the company is making things right. A BP report on the State of the Gulf five years after the spill claims there is no lasting damage to the ecosystem. Behind the industry public relations spin, many coastal residents, including Blanchard, have seen their livelihoods destroyed and their health comprised. “Things continue to get worse,” Blanchard said. On April 9, tar balls were readily found every few feet along the beaches of Grand Island and nearby Elmer's Island. Blanchard says there is a cleanup crew still around, but he never sees them picking anything up. “Everyone knows that the claim BP has made the Gulf whole is just a bunch of bullshit,” Kindra Arnesen, resident of Venice, LA, told DeSmogBlog. “If they had tried as hard to make the Gulf whole as they tried to spin the truth, maybe we would be on our way to recovery.” Blanchard concurs, quipping that “BP stands for British Pinocchio.” Blanchard and Arnesen have spoken out about the injustice they and their communities have faced since the early days of the largest oil spill in American history. Five years after the Deepwater Horizon platform blew up, taking the lives of 11 men and causing a yet to be determined amount of environmental damage, neither of them believes the region will ever be the same. “I have been to a funeral now every month since July,” Arnesen told DeSmogBlog. “Everyone around me is sick.” She is tired of her children suffering from rashes and headaches, and she wonders how much longer her husband, a fisherman who worked as an oil spill cleanup worker, can go on due to constant illnesses. Friends who have left the area tell her their children's health improved soon after. Arnesen wants to move her family away, but she can't afford to. Her house has been on the market since 2012, and the bulk of her business claim against BP is held up in court, leaving her finances in shambles and the idea of relocating an impossible dream. “Everyone around me is dying,” Blanchard said. “The Coast Guard can be bought off. It is a very sad situation. Everything you believe America to be, it is not.” Referring to Corexit, the dispersant that BP dumped on the spill, Blanchard added, “I thought I paid taxes for the government to protect me, not to try to kill me. I never thought they'd let them spray poison all over us.” Blanchard's sale of shrimp this year is down 75% and fish sales are off 90%. As for getting restitution for his business losses from BP, she isn’t optimistic. “Five years after the spill and I still don't have a court date,” he said. “There is no such thing as a speedy trial when you are fighting an oil company.” Arnesen received some money from the BP claims process, but the bulk of her family’s business loss claim has been under investigation for the last year and a half. ”How much time should it take to review 55 documents?” she asks. Many think BP is delaying payment to try to wear people down or, in some cases, outlive them. In March, on the day BP released its glowing report on the state of the Gulf, Blanchard's brother Greg took a camera crew to East Grand Terre, a barrier island five miles off the coast of Grand Isle, where a BP cleanup crew was removing a large tar mat. Had Blanchard not spotted the cleanup effort the day before, news of the tar mat likely would have gone unreported. WWL-TV’s cameraman filmed the cleanup effort. From the time the cleanup began until March 17, 2,200 pounds of weathered oil and sand were removed, according to the Coast Guard. He also filmed a mother dolphin pushing a dead calf around in Barataria Bay, in the waters off East Grand Terre. The dolphin population in Barataria Bay was the focus of a peer-reviewed study that is part of the ongoing Deepwater Horizon Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA). The study showed live dolphins in the bay had health problems consistent with exposure to petroleum products. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration also reported that dolphins have experienced a greatly increased mortality rate along the Gulf Coast since the oil spill. But BP issued a statement claiming the dolphin population was already experiencing a high mortality rate in the months before the spill, and there is no definitive proof the company is responsible for the higher rate, it claims. BP Vice President Geoff Morrell shifted the blame for the
[Biofuel] Australia Again Wages War on Its Own People
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/30387-australia-again-wages-war-on-its-own-people Australia Again Wages War on Its Own People Thursday, 23 April 2015 00:00 By John Pilger, Truthout | News Analysis Australia has again declared war on its Indigenous people, reminiscent of the brutality that brought universal condemnation on apartheid South Africa. Aboriginal people are to be driven from homelands where their communities have lived for thousands of years. In Western Australia, where mining companies make billion-dollar profits exploiting Aboriginal land, the state government says it can no longer afford to support the homelands. Vulnerable populations, already denied the basic services most Australians take for granted, are on notice of dispossession without consultation, and eviction at gunpoint. Yet again, Aboriginal leaders have warned of a new generation of displaced people and cultural genocide. Genocide is a word Australians hate to hear. Genocide happens in other countries, not the lucky society that per capita is the second richest on earth. When act of genocide was used in the 1997 landmark report Bringing Them Home, which revealed that thousands of Indigenous children had been stolen from their communities by White institutions and systematically abused, a campaign of denial was launched by a far-right clique around the then Prime Minister John Howard. It included those who called themselves the Galatians Group, then Quadrant, then the Bennelong Society; the Murdoch press was their voice. The Stolen Generation was exaggerated, they said, if it had happened at all. Colonial Australia was a benign place; there were no massacres. The First Australians were victims of their own cultural inferiority, or they were noble savages. Suitable euphemisms were deployed. The government of the current prime minister, Tony Abbott, a conservative zealot, has revived this assault on a people who represent Australia's singular uniqueness. Soon after coming to office, Abbott's government cut $534 million in indigenous social programs, including $160 million from the indigenous health budget and $13.4 million from indigenous legal aid. In the 2014 report Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage Key Indicators, the devastation is clear. The number of Aboriginal people hospitalized for self-harm has leapt, as have suicides among those as young as 11. The indicators show a people impoverished, traumatized and abandoned. Read the classic expose of apartheid South Africa, The Discarded People by Cosmas Desmond, who told me he could write a similar account of Australia. Having insulted Indigenous Australians by declaring (at a G20 breakfast for David Cameron) that there was nothing but bush before the White man, Abbott announced that his government would no longer honor the longstanding commitment to Aboriginal homelands. He sneered, It's not the job of the taxpayers to subsidize lifestyle choices. The weapon used by Abbott and his redneck state and territorial counterparts is dispossession by abuse and propaganda, coercion and blackmail, such as his demand for a 99-year leasehold of Indigenous land in the Northern Territory in return for basic services: a land grab in all but name. The minister for Indigenous affairs, Nigel Scullion, refutes this, claiming, this is about communities and what communities want. In fact, there has been no real consultation, only the co-option of a few. Both conservative and Labor governments have already withdrawn the national jobs program, CDEP, from the homelands, ending opportunities for employment, and prohibited investment in infrastructure: housing, generators and sanitation. The saving is peanuts. The reason is an extreme doctrine that evokes the punitive campaigns of the early 20th century chief protector of Aborigines, such as the fanatic A.O. Neville who decreed that the First Australians assimilate to extinction. Influenced by the same eugenics movement that inspired the Nazis, Queensland's protection acts were a model for South African apartheid. Today, the same dogma and racism are threaded through anthropology, politics, the bureaucracy and the media. We are civilised, they are not, wrote the acclaimed Australian historian Russel Ward two generations ago. The spirit is unchanged. Having reported on Aboriginal communities since the 1960s, I have watched a seasonal routine whereby the Australian elite interrupts its normal mistreatment and neglect of the people of the First Nations, and attacks them outright. This happens when an election approaches or a prime minister's ratings are low. Driving people into the fringe slums of economic hub towns satisfies the social engineering urges of racists. The last frontal attack was in 2007 when Prime Minister John Howard sent the army into Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory to rescue children who, said his minister for Aboriginal affairs, Mal
[Biofuel] At Least 116 Environmental Defenders Were Murdered Last Year, Mostly in Latin America
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/30395-at-least-116-environmental-defenders-were-murdered-last-year-mostly-in-latin-america [video in on-line article] At Least 116 Environmental Defenders Were Murdered Last Year, Mostly in Latin America Thursday, 23 April 2015 00:00 By Amy Goodman and Juan González, Democracy Now! | Video Interview As we continue to mark Earth Day, we look at a new report that finds killings of environmental activists on the rise, with indigenous communities hardest hit. According to Global Witness, at least 116 environmentalists were killed last year - more than two a week. Three-quarters of the deaths occurred in Central and South America. Just recently, three indigenous Tolupán leaders were gunned down during an anti-mining protest in northern Honduras, which has become the most dangerous country for environmental activists. We speak to Billy Kyte, campaigner for Global Witness and author of their new report, How Many More? TRANSCRIPT: This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form. JUAN GONZÁLEZ: As we continue to mark Earth Day, we end today's show with a new report that finds at least two people working to save the environment were killed each week in 2014. In total, the group Global Witness documented the murders of at least 116 environmental activists last year. Three-quarters of them were killed in Central and South America. AMY GOODMAN: The report is called How Many More? It looks in detail at an activist who stood up to a mining project in one of the deadliest countries and survived. Her name is Berta Cáceres, and she is another winner of this year's Goldman Environmental Prize. This is Berta Cáceres describing how she helped organize indigenous communities in Honduras to resist a hydro dam on the Gualcarque River because it could destroy their water supply. BERTA CÁCERES: [translated] In more than 150 indigenous assemblies, our community decided that it did not want that hydroelectric dam. NARRATOR: Berta filed complaints with the Honduran government and organized peaceful protests in the nation's capital. As her visibility increased, she became a target for the government. BERTA CÁCERES: [translated] We denounced this dam and were threatened with smear campaigns, imprisonment and murder. But nobody heard our voices, until we set up a roadblock to take back control of our territory. NARRATOR: For well over a year, the Lenca maintained the roadblock, withstanding harassment and violent attacks. Tragically, Rio Blanco community leader Tomás Garcia was shot by the Honduran military at a peaceful protest. BERTA CÁCERES: [translated] Seeing this man murdered, the community became indignant, forcing a confrontation. The company was told that they had to get out. PROTESTER: [translated] We have 500 people here, and we are Rio Blanco comrades. We will defend Rio Banco, and we will not let them pass. BERTA CÁCERES: [translated] And that is how Sinohydro left Rio Blanco. But it cost us in blood. AMY GOODMAN: Honduran activist Berta Cáceres, who won the 2015 Goldman Prize, as well. For more, we're joined by Billy Kyte, campaigner for Global Witness, author of their new report, How Many More? As it went to press, three more environmental and land activists were killed in Latin America in the space of three days. Billy, welcome to Democracy Now! Lay out for us this report and what you have found. BILLY KYTE: Sure. So we found last year that over 116 people, that we know about, were killed defending their rights to the environment and land. A shocking 40 percent of those victims were indigenous communities. So we're seeing more and more the competition for natural resources intensifying and having very disastrous effects. JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And why are so many in Central and South America being killed? BILLY KYTE: Well, there's a long history of social conflicts and social movements in Central and South America. There's also - it's a very resource-rich region. And many marginalized groups - for instance, indigenous peoples - are being targeted for the fact their lands are very rich in commodities, which are wanted by companies and political and economic interests. It's also an area where civil society is very strong, which has - it's a double-edged sword. One, it means they're more exposed to violence and conflict around the defense of the environments and land. But also it means that they are better at monitoring these issues. So, although it is a global problem, we certainly see that Central and South America is where it's been hardest hit. JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, talk about the three indigenous Tolupán leaders who were gunned down during an anti-mining protest in northern Honduras. They had received death threats warning them to stop their attempts to protect the environment. BILLY KYTE: So these were indigenous leaders who stood up against illegal
[Biofuel] New UK nuclear plants under threat as 'serious anomaly' with model found in France - Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11546271/New-UK-nuclear-plants-under-threat-as-serious-anomaly-with-model-found-in-France.html [The EPR was one of the leading lights in the 'new generation' of fission reactors touted by the industry as solving the inherent problems of old style reactors. Apparently it introduces new problems as well. images in on-line article] New UK nuclear plants under threat as 'serious anomaly' with model found in France Very serious anomaly found in reactor vessel in France's Flamanville EPR nuclear plant, the same model Britain plans to use for two new plants at Hinkley Point By Henry Samuel, Paris 6:55PM BST 17 Apr 2015 A €9 billion (£6.5bn) new-generation French nuclear power plant – the same model sold to Britain – may have to be scrapped due to a faulty steel reactor vessel at risk of splitting. It was supposed to be France's atomic energy showcase abroad, but the European Pressurised Reactor, or EPR, is threatening to turn into a nuclear nightmare with an astronomical price tag. Designed to be the safest reactors in the world and among the most energy-efficient, the EPR has suffered huge delays in models under construction in France, Finland and China. This week, Areva informed the French nuclear regulator that very serious anomalies had been detected in the reactor vessel steel of an EPR plant under construction in Flamanville, northern France, causing lower than expected mechanical toughness values. Pierre-Franck Chevet, president of France's nuclear safety authority (ASN), told Le Parisien the anomalies were in the base and lid of the vessel, which is an absolutely crucial component of the nuclear reactor on which no risk of breakage can be taken. The vessel houses the plant's nuclear fuel and confines its radioactivity. The plant was already running five years later and costs have tripled. French state-owned Areva is contracted to provide two of its EPRs to Hinkley Point in Somerset station, a development the European Commission estimates will cost £24.5 billion. EDF, the majority French state-owned energy group, is in the final phase of negotiations with the British government on building the two plants in Britain, which on February it said would be possible in the next few months. Mr Chevet confirmed that the same production process as for Flamanville had been used on reactor vessels destined for the British-based plants, along with two in China and one in Calvert Cliffs, Maryland, in America. He said while it was not impossible to remove the Flamanville vessel, the works there were very advanced as it had been placed in a concrete well. If the ASN considers the vessel too risky, EDF will either have to abandon construction or build a replacement vessel, which will be very significant in terms of costs and time as it takes three years to put together. Errors have been made, he said, adding that France risked losing its nuclear expertise as the last nuclear plant built in the country dates back 15 years. If the weakness of the vessel is confirmed, I wouldn't hold out much hope for EPR's survival, a former nuclear safety official told Le Parisien. Yannick Rousselet of Greenpeace insisted the latest problem was coup de grace for EPR. EDF and Areva declined to comment, but the Elysée Palace remained upbeat. The results of more precise tests are expected in October. In the meantime, the work on Flamanville continues. ___ Sustainablelorgbiofuel mailing list Sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org http://lists.eruditium.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel
[Biofuel] Opinion: English Bay confirms Canada’s not ready for a major oil spill
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Opinion+English+confirms+Canada+ready+major+spill/10992252/story.html [image in on-line article] Opinion: English Bay confirms Canada’s not ready for a major oil spill Response lacking: Coast guard’s claim 80 per cent was recovered is ludicrous By Harry Wruck, Special to the Sun April 21, 2015 In the wake of the toxic fuel spill in English Bay two weeks ago, officials at all levels of government were playing the blame game and pointing fingers over a not-so-world-class spill response plan. But beneath all that posturing and righteous indignation remains one simple fact: Canada — from its spill response teams to its legislative framework — is not ready to handle a major spill. I spent decades as a senior general counsel at the Department of Justice, where I prosecuted both criminal and civil oil spill cases. My work on the Nestucca oil spill — which spilled 874,000 litres of oil off the coast of Oregon, polluted the beaches of Vancouver Island and killed 35,000 migratory birds — made me intimately aware of how even a moderate-sized spill can impact people and the environment for years after the fact. Compared to the Exxon Valdez spill (more than 40 million litres spilled) or even the Nestucca spill, the English Bay spill was small. Still, Canada bungled its response, proving that its emergency protocols are ill-equipped to handle a spill of any size. This is not a big surprise: While much has been made of recent cuts to the coast guard, we cannot overlook the fact that Canada made the foolhardy decision in the early 1990s to sell off its oil spill cleanup equipment (at the time thought to be the best in the world) and leave emergency cleanup to the private sector. It is easy to take issue with the coast guard’s sluggish, wholly inadequate response to the spill, but I’m particularly troubled by its claim that it was able to recover 80 per cent of what was spilled. Such a claim is, quite frankly, ludicrous. In most instances, recovering 10 or 15 per cent of any spill is considered a success. This is because it is impossible to determine with any precision how much oil is released during a spill: It can dissipate into the water, sink to the ocean floor, wash up on beaches, or escape into the air. Even the coast guard admits it is likely more than the 2,700 litres of fuel first reported actually spilled into English Bay. And if you don’t know how much oil has been released, it is impossible to clean it all up. The coast guard also appeared to be misinformed when it stated that it would recoup the full costs of cleaning up the spill — what it fails to appreciate is that this is much easier said than done. In dealing with recouping costs and seeking environmental damages, a number of complex legal questions arise: Were the costs incurred reasonable and necessary? How do you quantify impact on wildlife or ecosystems with no market value? What happens when an endangered species is destroyed? Unfortunately, these are all questions Canadian law is not equipped to effectively and efficiently address. Canadian politicians like to claim our environmental laws and regulations are world-class, but this is simply not true. Whether we are looking at improving drinking water standards, regulating greenhouse gas emissions or prosecuting polluters, the laws and regulations that are supposed to protect Canadians and the environment are increasingly falling behind those of other industrialized nations. I now work at Ecojustice, Canada’s only national environmental law charity, where we have been involved in review processes for both Enbridge’s Northern Gateway and Kinder Morgan’s proposed Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. The latter would see a seven-fold increase in tanker traffic through Burrard Inlet. Over and over we have challenged the companies’ safety records and Canada’s emergency response plans. Again and again, they tell us that Canadians have nothing to worry about. After what happened in English Bay, how can we trust them? The English Bay spill was relatively small, it was a big wake-up call: We are not prepared to deal with a major oil spill. And until the tanker-sized holes in Canada’s spill response plan and legislative framework are addressed, we cannot allow even a limited expansion of tanker traffic off our coasts. Harry Wruck is a lawyer at Ecojustice and served as a senior general counsel with the Department of Justice. ___ Sustainablelorgbiofuel mailing list Sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org http://lists.eruditium.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel
[Biofuel] Exxon Mobil to Pay $5 Million for Arkansas Spill | Al Jazeera America
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/4/22/exxon-mobil-to-pay-5-million-for-arkansas-spill.html [links in on-line article] Exxon Mobil firms to pay $5 million for Arkansas oil spill Two Exxon subsidiaries fined for 2013 rupture of Pegasus oil pipeline that spilled 134,000 gallons of heavy crude oil April 22, 2015 10:30AM ET The Justice Department said Wednesday that two subsidiaries of Exxon Mobil have agreed to pay almost $5 million in penalties for a 2013 oil spill in a central Arkansas community. As part of a consent decree set to be filed in a Little Rock federal court Wednesday, the companies would pay about $3.2 million in federal civil penalties in addition to addressing pipeline safety issues and oil-response capacity. They would pay $1 million in state civil penalties, $600,000 for a project to improve water quality at Lake Conway and $280,000 for the state's legal costs, according to the Justice Department. The Pegasus pipeline ruptured in March 2013, spilling more than 134,000 gallons of heavy Canadian crude oil into housing subdivision in the town of Mayflower, located about 25 miles from the capital city of Little Rock. The oil, which was being carried from Illinois to Texas, contaminated dozens of homes, forcing residents to evacuate. It also flowed into a creek, local wetlands and a cove of Lake Conway. The lawsuit said the Pegasus pipeline was buried less than a meter below the ground in Mayflower. “Oil spills like this one in Mayflower, Arkansas have real and lasting impacts on clean water for communities,” Cynthia Giles, assistant administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, said in a statement. “Companies need to take the necessary precautions to make sure oil is transported safely and responsibly.” The ruptured segment of the pipeline has not been used since the spill and can’t be reinstated until Exxon adheres to all the corrective actions set out by the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. Assistant Attorney Gen. John Cruden noted that Exxon Mobil doesn't admit liability in agreeing to the measures. ___ Sustainablelorgbiofuel mailing list Sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org http://lists.eruditium.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel
[Biofuel] France’s Total to Convert Refinery to Biodiesel | Domestic Fuel
http://domesticfuel.com/2015/04/20/frances-total-to-convert-refinery-to-biodiesel/ France’s Total to Convert Refinery to Biodiesel Posted on April 20, 2015 by John Davis Archives Post navigation ← Previous Next → France’s Total to Convert Refinery to Biodiesel Posted on April 20, 2015 by John Davis totalFrance’s Total is converting its petroleum processor in La Mède to make biodiesel. This news release says the $216 million conversion will make the facility France’s first biorefinery and will stop refinering petroleum by the end of 2016. “There are three possible responses to the crisis in the European refining industry. The first is to throw in the towel. The second is to do nothing and perish. The third is to innovate and adapt to meet shifting demand trends. The central focus of Total’s plan for our French refining business is to realign our operations and products to changing markets. The plan that we are presenting today offers sustainable solutions for the Donges and La Mède refineries. It gives both facilities a future and strengthens Total’s refining base in France,” commented Patrick Pouyanné, Chief Executive Officer of Total. “As was the case for the project to secure the future of the Carling plant in eastern France, the master words for the plan’s deployment are: anticipation and consensus. Total will implement this industrial transformation without layoffs or imposed geographical transfers for non-exempt employees.” Total officials say the move is a response to industry and market trends, as European demand for petroleum products has declined 15 percent since 2008, shrinking outlets for the continent’s refining industry. ___ Sustainablelorgbiofuel mailing list Sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org http://lists.eruditium.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel
[Biofuel] Oklahoma Recognizes Role of Drilling in Earthquakes - NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/22/us/oklahoma-acknowledges-wastewater-from-oil-and-gas-wells-as-major-cause-of-quakes.html [image and links in on-line article] Oklahoma Recognizes Role of Drilling in Earthquakes By MICHAEL WINESAPRIL 21, 2015 Abandoning years of official skepticism, Oklahoma’s government on Tuesday embraced a scientific consensus that earthquakes rocking the state are largely caused by the underground disposal of billions of barrels of wastewater from oil and gas wells. The state’s energy and environment cabinet introduced a website detailing the evidence behind that conclusion Tuesday, including links to expert studies of Oklahoma’s quakes. The site includes an interactive map that plots not only earthquake locations, but also the sites of more than 3,000 active wastewater-injection wells. The website coincided with a statement by the state-run Oklahoma Geological Survey that it “considers it very likely” that wastewater wells are causing the majority of the state’s earthquakes. The statement noted that the most intense seismic activity “is occurring over a large area, about 15 percent of the area of Oklahoma, that has experienced significant increase in wastewater disposal volumes over the last several years.” The statement and the website’s acknowledgment amount to a turnabout for a state government that has long played down the connection between earthquakes and an oil and gas industry that is Oklahoma’s economic linchpin. As recently as last fall, Gov. Mary Fallin, a Republican, indicated that suggestions of a relationship between oil and gas activity and seismicity were speculation, and that more study was needed. In a news release issued Tuesday, Ms. Fallin called the Geological Survey’s endorsement of that relationship significant, and said the state was dealing with the problem. “Oklahoma state agencies already are taking action to address this issue and protect homeowners,” she said in a statement. Tuesday’s actions met a mixed response from the oil and gas industry and the governor’s critics. The Oklahoma Oil and Gas Association disputed the Geological Survey’s conclusions, saying in a statement that further study of the state’s quakes remained necessary. “There may be a link between earthquakes and disposal wells,” the group’s president, Chad Warmington, said in the statement, “but we — industry, regulators, researchers, lawmakers or state residents — still don’t know enough about how wastewater injection impacts Oklahoma’s underground faults.” Nor is there any evidence that halting wastewater injection would slow or stop the earthquakes, he said. One of the most prominent advocates of stronger action on the earthquake issue, State Representative Cory Williams, a Democrat, said he had been pleasantly surprised by the change in what he called the state’s “head in the sand” approach to the quake problem. But Mr. Williams, from earthquake-rattled Stillwater, criticized officials for failing to announce further steps to actually curtail the tremors. Separately, he called on Tuesday for the state to halt wastewater disposal in a 16-county section of central and north-central Oklahoma that the Geological Survey has identified as posing the highest seismic risk. “I want a moratorium and then an action plan,” he said. “The only way to protect the public is to say, ‘We’re done for now.’ ” Oklahoma oil and gas regulators have taken steps to ensure that newly drilled disposal wells do not create seismic risks. But they say they have no authority to impose a moratorium, and only limited powers to address the existing wells that are behind the increase in tremors. Neither the governor nor the Legislature has pushed to increase their powers. Ms. Fallin has also approved a directive from state regulators that Oklahoma insurance agents take courses in earthquake coverage. But few residents had coverage before the quakes began escalating in 2010, and policies have become increasingly restrictive as the pace of tremors has quickened. Some homeowners with significant damage have filed lawsuits seeking to recover repair costs from oil and gas operators. In past decades, Oklahomans experienced only about one and a half earthquakes exceeding magnitude 3.0 in an average year. But since a boom in oil and gas exploration began in the mid-2000s, that number has mushroomed. The state recorded 585 quakes of 3.0 or greater last year, more than any state except Alaska, and is on course to register more than 900 such tremors this year. Most of the quakes result in little more than cracked plaster and driveways, but residents in quake zones say the cumulative damage — to their property and to their nerves — is far greater. Larger quakes have also occurred. A series of shocks in 2011 exceeding magnitude 5.0 caused millions of dollars in damage. Some seismologists have warned that the state is risking larger and
Re: [Biofuel] Oklahoma Recognizes Role of Drilling in Earthquakes - NYTimes.com
I think the last sentence here is the most telling part -- it may be irreversible. He is probably saying this as a reason to not stop the disposal wells, but I think it serves better as a reason why we never should start. Once you do... who knows how long before the earthquakes stop. 100 years? 10,000 years? 100,000 years? “There may be a link between earthquakes and disposal wells,” the group’s president, Chad Warmington, said in the statement, “but we — industry, regulators, researchers, lawmakers or state residents — still don’t know enough about how wastewater injection impacts Oklahoma’s underground faults.” Nor is there any evidence that halting wastewater injection would slow or stop the earthquakes, he said. ___ Sustainablelorgbiofuel mailing list Sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org http://lists.eruditium.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel
[Biofuel] Green Energy Job Growth Outpaces Losses in Coal Industry
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/30360-green-energy-job-growth-outpaces-losses-in-coal-industry [links in on-line article] Green Energy Job Growth Outpaces Losses in Coal Industry Wednesday, 22 April 2015 00:00 By Sean Cockerham, McClatchy DC | Report Washington - Far more jobs have been created in wind and solar in recent years than lost in the collapse of the coal industry, and renewable energy is poised for record growth in the United States this year. I started this company in 2009 and I have seen tremendous growth since then, said John Billingsley, CEO of Tri-Global Energy in Dallas. Billingsley built his business on wind energy, which generated more than 10 percent of the electricity in Texas last year. He said he is hiring more workers to expand into solar power as well. Researchers at Duke University, using data from renewable energy trade associations, estimate in a new study published in the journal Energy Policy that more than 79,000 direct and spinoff jobs were created from wind and solar electricity generation between 2008 and 2012. That compares with an estimate of about 49,530 coal industry job losses, according to the study. While natural gas was the biggest winner in creating jobs for electricity generation, with almost 95,000 jobs created in that time, it's clear renewable energy has been on the rise in the United States. The capacity growth in wind was amazing, and the growth in solar has been absolutely phenomenal, said Lincoln Pratson, professor of earth and ocean sciences at Duke's Nicholas School of the Environment. Wind power created 9,000 jobs in Texas in 2014, according to the American Wind Energy Association, and there are 7,500 megawatts of wind projects under construction in Texas, more than all other states combined. California is the solar king and is expected to account for more than half the solar construction this year. But the region hardest hit by the decline of the coal industry, Appalachia, is seeing few green jobs created. In West Virginia and Eastern Kentucky, where a lot of the job losses have occurred, it is very rugged terrain, these are not easy places to set up wind and solar facilities, they are heavily forested, Pratson said. State laws also helped drive the growth outside of Appalachia. Pratson said. Twenty-nine states specify a percentage of renewable electricity that utilities should meet, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, and Kentucky and West Virginia are not among them. States with incentives have more growth, said Drew Hearer, a Duke University research analyst who co-authored the study. The Southeast is incentive-free, and there is almost no development of green energy there compared to other regions. Government incentives are under fire, though. The Texas Senate passed a bill that would end wind power incentives if the state House agrees. And the green boom could come to an end in 2017 when federal tax breaks are set to expire for wind and diminish for solar power, said William Nelson, the head of North American analysis for Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Bloomberg New Energy Finance expects 18.5 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity built nationwide this year, beating the record set in 2012 of 17.1 gigawatts, as companies rush to complete work before the tax breaks stop. Congress has always extended the wind incentives in the past, but opposition to the tax breaks has been growing. I hear from our wind analysts that they truly believe this could potentially be the end, Nelson said. Billingsley, of Tri-Global Energy in Texas, said he thinks the federal tax credit for wind energy will be extended but phased out in the coming years. In the meantime, he said, his company's wind projects are moving forward, and he's preparing to expand his base of about 25 employees. I expect that in the next two or three years we will probably double or triple our number of employees, he said. ___ Sustainablelorgbiofuel mailing list Sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org http://lists.eruditium.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel
[Biofuel] Earth Day: What BP and TEPCO Don't Want You to Know
http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/earth-day-what-bp-and-tepco-don-t-want-you-to-know [links in on-line article] Wednesday, 22 April 2015 07:22 Earth Day: What BP and TEPCO Don't Want You to Know JACQUELINE MARCUS FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT The Tragic Consequences: BP Five Years Later... On my way home from the market, I happened to tune in to an interview on a program that airs on our NPR station called Making Contact. The topic of discussion was titled BP Five Years Later: Deepwater Horizon and the Cost of Oil... Journalists, scientists and residents were interviewed about how BP’s Deep Horizon, (“Deep” is a reference to offshore deepwater drilling) that exploded into raging flames on April 20th 2010, the largest and most devastating oil catastrophe in history, created a crisis of Biblical proportions. Beneath the Gulf’s seafloor is one of the most dangerous places to drill. BP has done more to establish that fact than any other oil company. The blowout literally transformed an ocean that was teeming with life into a toxic, dead zone. BP is not the only oil company to blame. The oil industry, with the help of their paid-off political officials, has committed egregious crimes of pollution, and irreparable damage with their oil pipes and spills to rich habitats, pelican and turtle sanctuaries, marshes, wetlands and coastal ecosystems since the 1930s. But BP’s blowout was by far the last deadly nail to the Gulf’s coffin. Layers of oil, like a huge bathtub ring, have settled on the seafloor, the size of Rhode Island, with no signs of recovery. This thick blanket of oil has prevented regeneration of life that begins at the most basic level of the Gulf’s ecology, such as plankton—minute plants and animals that are the foundation of the ocean’s food chain. The plankton cannot survive as waters become hypoxic i.e. depleted of oxygen due to microbes digesting oil and methane gas. Once the foundation of the food chain is contaminated, nothing can survive. Truthout and BuzzFlash combat the corporate takeover of everything by bringing you trustworthy, independent news. Join our mission by making a tax-deductible donation now! Truthout’s investigative reporter, Dahr Jamail, has been reporting on the “widespread human crisis” after BP’s explosion, beginning with the financial ripple effects its had on the fishing, shrimp and tourist industries, as well as follow-up reports on the large amounts of chemical dispersant that BP has been dumping in the Gulf called Corexit since 2010 to hide massive oil plumes. It’s no coincidence that chronic illnesses, cancer, birth defects, skin diseases have multiplied in the region since BP’s oil disaster occurred. Corexit does not dissolve the oil; it merely breaks it up into tiny invisible particles. The Gulf might have had a chance to recover had it not been for Corexit. Corexit is illegal to use in many countries because it is absolutely lethal to all forms of life, especially when combined with toxic crude oil. Contrary to BP’s happy-go-lucky advertisements, BP’s Macondo well exploded beneath the earth’s crust. This raises the infamous but plausible question of whether or not the Macondo well was actually sealed. It’s a question that should be investigated. Does anyone with a brain in our corrupt government realize how insane it is to be puncturing holes deep inside the earth’s crust known as “deepwater drilling,” and whether or not oil is still escaping from BP’s Macondo well? In the name of oil profits, the Gulf of Mexico will never be the same again. Five years later, we’re learning that the eleven men who died in that explosion were not the only individuals whose lives were destroyed from the worst oil catastrophe in world. The Gulf is much worse now than it was after the explosion for the reasons I just explained: it smothered the food chain. And when the food chain is gone, the fishing and tourist industries, worth billions of dollars, go down with it. Once upon a time, the Gulf of Mexico was a beautiful clear blue tropical ocean. Now it’s a dark brown oily cesspool. A Perpetual Crisis: Fukushima Four Years Later… Meanwhile, off the Pacific coast, a strange phenomenon is occurring that I wrote about in my last Buzzflash-Truthout commentary. Scientists are mystified by the growing warm water called the “blob” that has radically altered the jet-stream, resulting in erratic weather patterns that could explain why Californians are facing the worst drought in history. The obvious question that has been completely omitted from the research and reports is: Could the tons of radioactive water that TEPCO has been releasing into the Pacific Ocean since 2011 be the primary reason why this so-called mysterious “blob” was recently formed? What I find astonishing is that there were three, possibly four, nuclear cataclysmic meltdowns that happened after Japan was hit by a massive earthquake
Re: [Biofuel] Oklahoma Recognizes Role of Drilling in Earthquakes - NYTimes.com
Actually, my thought was, there is also no evidence that halting wastewater injection won't stop the earthquakes either. So, in the interest of science and general human benefit, we should stop for - say 10 years - and see what happens. If the earthquakes slow or stop (past research in other areas indicates strong probability), then we have a very strong case for saying there is a cause and effect relationship. Darryl On 23/04/2015 9:18 AM, Zeke Yewdall wrote: I think the last sentence here is the most telling part -- it may be irreversible. He is probably saying this as a reason to not stop the disposal wells, but I think it serves better as a reason why we never should start. Once you do... who knows how long before the earthquakes stop. 100 years? 10,000 years? 100,000 years? “There may be a link between earthquakes and disposal wells,” the group’s president, Chad Warmington, said in the statement, “but we — industry, regulators, researchers, lawmakers or state residents — still don’t know enough about how wastewater injection impacts Oklahoma’s underground faults.” Nor is there any evidence that halting wastewater injection would slow or stop the earthquakes, he said. ___ Sustainablelorgbiofuel mailing list Sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org http://lists.eruditium.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel
[Biofuel] Why the FDA Doesn't Really Know What's in Your Food
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/30362-why-the-fda-doesn-t-really-know-what-s-in-your-food [video in on-line article] Why the FDA Doesn't Really Know What's in Your Food Wednesday, 22 April 2015 00:00 By Erin Quinn and Chris Young, The Center for Public Integrity | Report A massive legal loophole means companies can add new ingredients to foods with no government safety review. Rebecca Fattell was enjoying breakfast at a hotel in Berlin last summer when, after a few bites of a roll, her mouth started to itch, her gums started to hurt and before long, hives covered her skin. My face, trunk, arms, legs, Fattell said, they were all beet red. She rushed to the emergency room. Fattell, who is allergic to peanuts, is vigilant about what she eats and had been assured by hotel staff that her breakfast didn't contain any. Hidden in the pastry, however, was lupin flour, which is made from a peanut-related legume that caused her reaction. I'm extremely careful, said the 23-year-old New Yorker. I just had no idea about lupin. Lupin is considered a major food allergen in Europe and must be labeled accordingly on packaged foods. In the United States, where lupin is less commonly used, there is no such requirement, leaving Fattell and others who suffer from peanut allergies vulnerable. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has known about lupin's effects since at least 2008, but has made no move to require companies to identify it as an allergen on products sold in the United States. Lupin is just one of thousands of ingredients companies have added to foods with little to no oversight from the FDA. They've taken advantage of a loophole in a decades-old law that allows them to deem an additive to be generally recognized as safe — or GRAS — without the agency's blessing, or even its knowledge. The loophole is so big that companies can market additives, like lupin, that the FDA has found to pose dangers. Even ingredients the agency has agreed are GRAS are now drawing scrutiny from scientists and consumer groups who dispute their safety. Critics of the system say the biggest concern, however, is that companies regularly introduce new additives without ever informing the FDA. That means people are consuming foods with added flavors, preservatives and other ingredients that are not at all reviewed by regulators for immediate dangers or long-term health effects. People are consuming foods with added flavors, preservatives and other ingredients that are not at all reviewed by regulators for immediate dangers or long-term health effects. 'Life threatening reactions' When George Weston Foods — an Australia-based food manufacturer — sought the FDA's agreement that its lupin flour, protein and fiber were safe to add to breads, pastas and cereal in the United States, regulators feared it could trigger life-threatening reactions in peanut-allergic consumers. The FDA said merely listing lupin on ingredient labels would not be enough warning. The ingredients, the regulators said, failed to meet the standards for general recognition of safety, according to documents obtained by the Natural Resources Defense Council through a Freedom of Information Act request. George Weston withdrew its applications and decided not to sell the additives in the United States, its parent company said in an email to the Center for Public Integrity. Other companies do market them, however. Lupin, also spelled lupine, can be found as an additive in products on supermarket shelves today with no warning for people who suffer from peanut allergies. The companies that make and supply these ingredients never had to seek the FDA's opinion on safety, or even inform the agency that it was including lupin in products sold in the United States. Rather than going through a painstaking FDA-led review process to ensure that their new ingredients are safe, food companies can determine on their own that substances are GRAS. They can then ask the FDA to review their evaluation — if they wish. Or they can take their ingredients straight to market, without ever informing the agency. FDA doesn't know what it doesn't know, said Steve Morris of the Government Accountability Office, which published a report in 2010 that found that FDA's oversight process does not help ensure the safety of all new GRAS determinations. It's really clear that we have no basis to make almost any conclusions about the safety of the current food supply, said Laura MacCleery, an attorney with the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer advocacy group. We don't know what people are eating. 'He was crying … He couldn't breathe' Miles Bengco certainly didn't know what he was eating when he chomped on a Quorn Turk'y Burger while watching a Los Angeles Lakers game with his family in 2013. Shortly after eating the burger, the 11-year-old started having trouble breathing. He started changing
[Biofuel] Exclusive: Gatekeeper of Canada's Energy East pipeline has mixed environmental record | Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/22/us-canada-energyeast-irving-exclusive-idUSKBN0ND0AF20150422 Exclusive: Gatekeeper of Canada's Energy East pipeline has mixed environmental record By Richard Valdmanis and Dave Sherwood (Reuters) - A company pivotal to Canada's most ambitious oil pipeline project has a mixed environmental record of spills and regulatory warnings, according to government documents reviewed by Reuters, a finding likely to bolster activist opposition to the proposal. Family-owned Irving Oil, poised to build and operate the sole Atlantic export terminal for TransCanada's Energy East oil sands pipeline from Alberta, has logged at least 19 accidents classified by regulators as environmental emergencies at its existing facilities in eastern Canada since 2012, including three that drew warnings for delayed reporting. Reuters gained access to New Brunswick Department of Environment incident records through a Right to Information Act request. The lack of comparable data from similar energy companies leaves it unclear how the Irving record compares to the rest of the North American industry. Irving says it performs better on some measures than its peers, and has spent hundreds of millions of dollars upgrading its facilities. Environmental groups campaigning against Energy East say the documents show the company lags behind other operators. How they do in terms of preventing spills and how they manage them when they occur is hugely relevant to the discussion over whether Energy East should go ahead, said Catherine Abreu of the Ecology Action Centre, a non-profit environmental advocacy group that tracks energy facilities in eastern Canada. According to the documents, Irving Oil's 300,000 barrel per day refinery and its associated storage terminals in the industrial city of Saint John, New Brunswick, have had environmental emergencies ranging from petroleum spills as big as 3,000 barrels, to smaller incidents such as refinery emissions of sulfur dioxide exceeding permitted levels. ( timeline of the spills: link.reuters.com/sax54w ) In one case in 2013, New Brunswick's Department of the Environment issued Irving a formal warning for taking more than a full day to report a storage tank leak of about 132 gallons of crude at its Canaport facility on the Bay of Fundy, near the site Irving is planning its terminal for Energy East. In back-to-back accidents a year earlier, Irving was reprimanded by regulators for failing to immediately report a release of toxic sulfur dioxide gas from the refinery, and a spill of crude oil at its rail facility near a residential zone in Saint John. The Department considers both of these incidents environmental emergencies, although environmental emergency reporting procedures were not followed, the regulators wrote in one of the letters reviewed by Reuters. The largest spill during the period occurred in April 2014 when as much as 3,000 barrels poured out of an overfilled Irving storage tank - enough to fill a fuel tanker truck. After that spill, Irving was required to implement new procedures for tank loading, and adjust training for staff. Irving Oil responded to Reuters' questions about the incidents by saying it worked closely with regulators and was committed to safety and environmental performance. It said it had spent more than $300 million on environmental upgrades at its refinery over the past decade and that the plant - Canada's largest at 300,000 barrels per day - was now one of the lowest sulfur dioxide emitters on the continent. Irving also said its existing Canaport marine terminal operations serving the refinery were a model other regions can look to as a benchmark. Abreu said her research into eastern Canadian energy facilities showed otherwise: Irving had over 25 percent more comparable environmental incidents since 2012 than a similarly-sized facility near Quebec City, and as many as six times more than another plant near Montreal. When we talk about the two Quebec refineries together, we then see a much poorer performance by Irving, she said. Reuters has not verified the data cited by Abreu. A Reuters review of spill and air emissions disclosures in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan and in the U.S. state of Delaware showed, however, refineries in those places also recorded fewer comparable incidents. EYES ON WHALES Energy East, billed as an alternative to the long-delayed Keystone XL pipeline, would move some 1.1 million barrels of Alberta crude per day more than 2,800 miles (4,600-km) to coastal New Brunswick, for the first time linking trillions of dollars worth of western Canadian oil with overseas markets. (Click here for a graphic: link.reuters.com/xud22v ) While environmental fears have mainly focused on the risk of pipeline spills, critics have also raised concerns about the safety of storage and shipping. Irving's role would be to build and
[Biofuel] The Chevron Tapes: Secret Videos Reveal Company Hid Pollution in Ecuador
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/30232-the-chevron-tapes-secret-videos-reveal-company-hid-pollution-in-ecuador [videos in on-line article] The Chevron Tapes: Secret Videos Reveal Company Hid Pollution in Ecuador Wednesday, 15 April 2015 00:00 By Kevin Koenig, Amazon Watch | Report and Videos We work for truth, justice and environmental sanity every day. We keep on with the hope that there will be a moment when the evil and corrupt acts that politicians and big business carry out that harm the planet, violate human rights and affect the health of our communities will see the light of day. Today is one of those historic moments. In 2011, a mysterious package arrived at our D.C. office. Beat up, rumpled and with no return address, a staffer avoided opening it fearing it may have been a bomb. We could never have guessed that the contents would instead turn out to be a smoking gun in one of the largest and longest-running environmental cases in the world. In the tradition of whistleblowers like Daniel Ellsberg, whose Pentagon Papers exposed the US secret war in Southeast Asia; Jeffrey Wigand, whose information on big tobacco's use of addictive ingredients exposed and transformed the industry; and Sherron Watkins, whose revelations on Enron's pyramid-scheme accounting led to the collapse of the company and jail time for executives, we are proud to share The Chevron Tapes. In that battered package were dozens of DVDs labeled pre-inspections, with dates and locations we had come to know all too well – Shushufindi, Sacha, Lago Agrio – former Chevron well sites in the rainforest. Inside was a handwritten note: I hope this is useful for you in the trial against Texaco/Chevron! Signed, A friend from Chevron. A trap? A whistleblower? We didn't know, and began to review the videos. What we found will shock you. Because Chevron has finally been proven in its own videos not only to have lied about contamination, but to have hidden evidence it knew would cost lives. It rolls like this: Chevron, which acquired Texaco in 2001, had just been found guilty of one of the worst environmental disasters on the planet in Ecuador's Amazon rainforest. Ordered to pay $9.5 billion to clean up their contamination, Chevron instead fled the country and actually went on to sue the victims – communities – in the US for extortion. During the trial against Chevron in Ecuador between 2003 - 2011, the judge carried out dozens of inspections of former Chevron well sites, where affected communities, the company, and the court all took soil and water samples to test for contamination. The videos – shot by Chevron – document the company and its consultants conducting pre-inspections of the sites so they would know where to take clean samples on the day of the inspection by the judge. As you'll see in the footage, that task proved much harder than Chevron had thought it would be. Employees and consultants are caught on tape frustrated by their inability to find soil samples without oil, and then mocking the contamination. Nice job Dave. Give you one simple task: Don't find petroleum. Who picked the spot Rene? Who told them where to drill, Rene? Oh, so it's my fault? I'm the customer, I'm always right. Yes, this is exactly what it sounds like: big oil caught on video – their own video! – trying to hide contamination. In the excerpts released, Chevron is seen finding its own extensive contamination – in areas the company claimed to have cleaned up in 1998 – then pre-gaming the judicial inspections to defraud the court. I was at many of the judicial inspections with our team from Amazon Watch, and we witnessed numerous other Chevron efforts to fool the court and throw the case. We watched Chevron take soil samples from illogical places – upstream from waste pits, never down gradient from potential contamination sources. We saw employees, consultants and security intimidate indigenous and campesino witnesses who were coming face to face for the first time with the people who poisoned them. We were there when Chevron, staying at a local military base, colluded with its hospitable hosts and produced a phony military report citing a security risk that successfully canceled the first judicial inspection of a major well site in the territory of the Cofán, an indigenous group that bore the brunt of Texaco's arrival in the 1960s. As the videos blatantly demonstrate, Chevron's effort to hide contamination and get clean samples proved challenging. While Chevron never submitted the test results from these pre-inspections, its samples from the actual inspections show stratospheric levels of contamination, which ultimately led to the guilty verdict against the company anyway. Also on the tapes are interviews with local communities. Chevron obviously searched to find people who either didn't have knowledge of its toxic legacy, or who would put the blame on
[Biofuel] Propel Renewable Diesel: Usable By Any Vehicle, Going Beyond 'Biodiesel'
http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1097856_propel-renewable-diesel-usable-by-any-vehicle-going-beyond-biodiesel Propel Renewable Diesel: Usable By Any Vehicle, Going Beyond 'Biodiesel' By John Voelcker Apr 17, 2015 Fuels produced using plant-based materials can offer a promising way to reduce the carbon emitted by road vehicles. That's because their plant feedstocks absorb carbon dioxide from the air, bringing them far closer to a carbon-neutral footprint than any fuel refined from crude oil. But for diesel-powered vehicles, the term biodiesel is used loosely and imprecisely--and often covers anything from plant-derived fuels to burning used deep-frier grease in your converted old Mercedes. Chemically, renewable diesel is a hydrocarbon and from the engine's standpoint, there is no difference. Most manufacturers view it as identical as well. It's compatible with all modern and older Diesel engines. If anything, it may help them run better because it has a higher cetane level. That differentiates it from other types of biodiesel, which have different chemical makeup and viscosity levels--and are consequently limited to 5 percent of the fuel used in modern diesel passenger vehicles. Exceeding that blend level, especially in more recent diesels with the highest-pressure fuel injectors, can interfere with how the engine runs. It can also give carmakers a reason to void the powertrain warranty if something goes wrong. But running a full tank of renewable diesel--or 20 tanksfuls--through a brand-new German or U.S. diesel vehicle with high-pressure injectors remains fully warranty-compliant. The state of California considers renewable diesel to be the same fuel as the permitted blends of conventional diesel fuel. Diesel HPR is designated as ASTM D-975, the standard for all ultra-low sulfur diesel fuel in the U.S., Propel said in its announcement, and [it] is recognized as 'CARB diesel' by the California Air Resources Board. That means there's no blend limit, unlike biodiesel, and it can be mixed into standard diesel with no concerns. The fuel sold by Propel is a 98-perent blend of Neste Oil’s NEXBTL fuel, refined from renewable biomass. The scale of the rollout is larger than a mere trial: 18 stations throughout Northern California. You can expect to hear more about renewable diesel fuel as states work to lower the carbon content of their fuel. Just don't call it biodiesel. ___ Sustainablelorgbiofuel mailing list Sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org http://lists.eruditium.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel
[Biofuel] Fracking and earthquakes: Exploring the connection | CBCNews.ca Mobile
http://www.cbc.ca/m/news/technology/topstories/fracking-and-earthquakes-exploring-the-connection-1.3030910 [images in on-line article] Fracking and earthquakes: Exploring the connection B.C. commission draws link between fracking and 231 seismic events in province Apr 17, 2015 4:26 PM ET Terry Reith, Briar Stewart, CBC News May Mickelow had just settled into her shift as night auditor at the Foxwood Inn in Fox Creek, Alta., when she felt the rumble. You didn't hear anything, but you could feel the earth move underneath your feet quite strongly, actually, said Mickelow. I felt dizzy, as if I was suddenly on uneven footing. Some hotel guests descended to the main floor, asking Mickelow if she had felt the shaking. She had been through earthquakes before, but not here. She'd experienced them while living on Vancouver Island, which is prone to quakes. But Fox Creek had never felt anything like the magnitude 4.4 tremor that hit the night of Jan. 22. The town of Fox Creek owes its existence to the oil and gas industry. It sits atop the Duvernay Shale Basin, a massive underground rock formation containing a wealth of oil and natural gas. While the link between earthquakes and fracking remains a sensitive topic in energy industry circles, there is a growing body of science on the subject. Just weeks before the Fox Creek quake, British Columbia's oil and gas commission drew a definitive link between fracking and 231 seismic events in the northeast of the province, at a natural gas field known as the Montney Trend. Honn Kao, a research scientist with the Geological Survey of Canada in Victoria, B.C., has no doubt that human activities triggered the earthquakes. The key issue is how big is the induced earthquake and when is the biggest induced earthquake to happen. I think that is the remaining question, said Kao, who is among a group of scientists leading research into industry-induced tremors. Science links fracking and earthquakes Situated on the main highway linking Edmonton and Grande Prairie, Fox Creek is an industrial town filled with branch plants for energy companies and hotels, such as the Foxwood Inn, that cater to those who travel to work at the oil and gas sites that dot the landscape. In the days after the quake, Mickelow was surprised by the muted reaction to the shaking. I was quite shocked that nobody seemed to be discussing it or seemed to be upset about it, she said. I think most people, from what I gather, are afraid for their jobs, which is understandable, but I don't quite understand why people aren't voicing their concern. In regions like northeastern B.C. and the foothills of Alberta, there is so much fracking going on that it's difficult, if not impossible, to pinpoint which project caused a quake. That's why research is key, notes Kao, adding there are substantial public safety and economic issues at play. You don't want to take the public safety solely and ignore the economic benefit, he says, but on the other hand, it is certainly wrong if you want to take the economic benefit totally as your priority and ignore public safety. While industry is still reluctant to publicly discuss the issue, some executives are acknowledging the link. Among them is Michael Binnion, CEO of Calgary-based Questerre Energy, which is fracking in the Montney Trend. He explained that fracking is intended to create disturbances underground in order to release gas from shale formations. The whole idea is that we are trying to induce a seismic event, and it would be a pretty poor frack job that didn't accomplish that, he said. But sometimes there are unintended consequences. Are we somehow triggering bigger seismic events than what we intend to? I think really that's been more what the discussion is, Binnion notes. Are we doing that, if we're doing that, how often are we doing it if we're doing it, and how big is it? Those are questions regulators in B.C. and Alberta are trying to sort out. What causes quakes Seismologist Ryan Schultz has been watching the increasing number of tremors on monitors at his office at the Alberta Geological Survey. He says earthquakes happen when fracking or the deep well disposal of wastewater intersect with naturally occurring fault lines. You have a pre-existing fault that's already in the ground. They may not know about it, because faults are quite difficult to detect. He explains that fault lines deep underground may be ready to slip when human activity gives them the nudge. The result is an earthquake. Essentially, just adding this pressure into the fault hydraulically opens it, and makes it more likely to slip on that. The size of the existing fault determines the scale of the earthquake. New regulations One month after the Fox Creek quake, Alberta's Energy Regulator brought in new rules for fracking in the Duvernay zone. It calls on industry to assess the risk of causing
[Biofuel] Bioglycerol and Its Use in the Construction Industry
http://www.decodedscience.com/bioglycerol-use-construction-industry/53790 Bioglycerol and Its Use in the Construction Industry April 17, 2015 by Clara Piccirillo, PhD Bioglycerol, or crude glycerol, is impure glycerol obtained as a by-product in the biodiesel industry. Researchers now show that it is possible to employ bioglycerol as a multipurpose grinding additive for the manufacture of cement, with better performance than pure glycerol. Cements with bioglycerol are produced with lower energy consumption and the finished concrete structures have significantly better mechanical properties and corrosion resistance. How will this new discovery impact the environment – and the construction industry? The Impact on the Environment of the Construction Industry The construction industry has a huge impact on the environment. Considering the use of natural resources, for instance, data indicate that almost a quarter of the raw materials extracted from the lithosphere are employed in construction. The manufacture of cement is one of the most environmentally impacting of mankind’s activities. The cement fabrication process requires heating the cement components (i.e. limestone, clay, sand, etc.) at no less than 1600 oC for the “clinker” mixture to be formed. Further energy is then required to grind the clinker into a fine powder, and for the cooling process. Overall, the calcination and grinding processes account for 80% of energy consumption, while power for the cooler accounts for the remaining 20%. Reducing Construction’s Impact To try to reduce the construction industry’s impact on the environment, researchers have been trying to modify the fabrication process; the challenge is to make the process more sustainable without compromising the quality of the cements. This is especially important for higher grade cements used for advanced construction. A way to obtain good quality cement using less energy is the use of grinding additives; these are generally organic molecules which favor the grinding process – i.e. the formation of small micrometric particles from the clinker. This, in turn, leads to a decrease in the energy required in the process. Examples of Cement Grinding Additives (CGAs) include triethanolamine, diethylene glycol and glycerol. What is Bioglycerol? Glycerol is a polyalcohol – you can see its formula in the figure on the side. Scientists are well aware of its potential as a CGA. However, using glycerol in the concrete construction industry has historically been restricted due to the high price of the pure substance. In 2005, however, some Italians researchers had the idea to use bioglycerol, or crude glycerol, and could see the potential of this approach. Both ‘bioglycerol’ and ‘crude glycerol’ are terms that refer to glycerol obtained as a by-product of biodiesel production. Now some scientists from National Research Council of Palermo (Italy), who were involved in the early work on bioglycerol, published a review paper on this topic. Their research was conducted in cooperation with the Universities of Milan (Italy) and Panama. They published their research in Biofuel, Bioproducts and Biorefining in April 2015. Bioglycerol: An Excellent Grinder Decoded Science spoke to professor Mario Pagliaro, leading scientist in the study. Dr. Pagliaro tells us: “Bioglycerol is a most valuable compound for the concrete construction industry, exactly for the same reason which makes it unusable in pharmaceutical or personal care applications, namely that it is not pure. Residues of soap as well as of α-tocopherol from the biodiesel production, lead to excellent mechanical, anticorrosive properties and to better performance as a CGA than both pure glycerol and oil-derived additives. Reduction in power consumption in the grinding process is up to 10% when compared to oil-derived additives, while concrete finished structures are more than 10% stronger than identical structures obtained with no added bioglycerol. Finally, the stability of the antioxidant polyphenol contained in brown bioglycerol ensures prolonged anticorrosive properties. These are properties which can have a huge impact if considered on new huge concrete structures, such as the enlarged Panama’s Channel, dams, bridges, airport pavements and highways.” Bioglycerol’s Other Qualities Bioglycerol addition also decreases the adhesion of the cements to molds and forms; this means that it is easier to remove the cured cement from the molds frequently employed during construction, without creating surface imperfections. Conventionally, construction companies use highly polluting spent diesel fuel or spent mineral oils as form releasing agents, a practice that has recently been forbidden in the US leading to the introduction of much more expensive lubricant formulations. Crude Glycerol Has Great Potential “These data clearly show the potential of bioglycerol as a
