Preview Newsletter
PM ACC 8/19/2016
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(ACC Blog) Silicones Help Athletes Perform in Rio
Aug 19, 2016 | American Chemistry Matters
By American Chemistry
We celebrate the hard work and talent of the world’s best athletes as they compete in over 300 events in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. But these competitors don’t just rely on their coaches and supporters to reach their goals. High-performance sports equipment help athletes... -
(ACC Mentioned) Commodity Resin Prices Go on July Vacation
Aug 19, 2016 | Plastics News
By Frank Esposito
The lazy, hazy days of summer took effect in July, as North American prices for all commodity resins were flat — with the notable exception of polypropylene. -
(ACC Mentioned) PG&E Corporation (NYSE:PCG) & Honeywell International (NYSE:HON) Stocks Under Review
Aug 19, 2016 | Money News
By Money News Staff
On Thursday, Shares of PG&E Corporation (NYSE:PCG) gained 2.34% to $65.17. The share price is trading in a range of $63.50 – $65.18. -
(ACC Mentioned) 'Devil Is in the Details' as EPA Implements TSCA Reform
Aug 19, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Colby Bermel
Months after Congress approved a long-awaited overhaul to the nation's chemical safety law for the first time in four decades, industry representatives and environmentalists still are arguing over sticking points. -
California's Chemical Prioritization Could Be Model For EPA TSCA Reform
Aug 19, 2016 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
California regulators and science advisors are urging EPA to look to that state's Safer Consumer Products (SCP) program as a model when crafting a rule under the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) for implementing revisions to the way... -
Senate Press Gallery Declared Safe After Asbestos Concern
Aug 19, 2016 | Mesothelioma.com
By Jillian Duff
...Coincidentally, the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO) is currently preparing for the 10th Congressional Staff Luncheon Briefing for the Senate—“TSCA Implementation: Prioritizing Asbestos to Protect Public Health and the Environment."... -
7th Circuit Allows Asbestos Conviction Reconsideration
Aug 19, 2016 | Inside EPA
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit has reversed a district court ruling to allow a man convicted of violating the Clean Air Act by improperly removing and disposing of insulation containing regulated asbestos to seek a new trial. -
Echa Round-Up
Aug 19, 2016 | Chemical Watch
Echa is consulting on harmonised classification and labelling (CLH) proposals for the substances: -
The Worst May Be Over, But NatGas Recovery Will Be Slow, Sometimes Painful
Aug 19, 2016 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Leticia Gonzales
While it seems the natural gas and oil industry is convinced that the worst is over and markets are on their way to a comeback, the only certainty is that the road to recovery is going to be a long, bumpy one. -
Bipartisan Quartet of Ex-Interior Officials Backs BLM's Fracking Rule
Aug 19, 2016 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Elana Schor
A quartet of former Interior Department officials, including a Bureau of Land Management director from the George W. Bush administration, today backed the agency in its legal battle to enforce its embattled standards for fracking on public lands. -
The Enormous Scale of All the Energy That We Never Used
Aug 19, 2016 | Washington Post
By Chris Mooney
It’s not easy working in the energy efficiency world — that wonky sphere focused on tweaking homes and appliances to get us to use less energy, and so, contribute less to climate change. -
Why Renewables Alone Cannot Meet Our Energy Needs
Aug 19, 2016 | The Hill - Contributors Blog
By Ryan Yonk and Arthur Wardle
When Germany met all but 0.3 gigawatts (GWs) of its peak energy demand for a few hours using renewables this May, the excitement generated a lot of headlines. The headlines missed key details, though — during that time, Germany's fossil fuel plants were still producing 7.7 GWs. -
EPA Finalizes Flexible Framework for Voluntary Oil & Gas Methane Program
Aug 19, 2016 | Inside EPA
By Bridget DiCosmo
EPA has quietly finalized a framework for its voluntary oil and gas industry methane emissions reduction program that industry says could provide more flexibility in meeting the effort and encourage more companies to participate, as it allows firms to choose how... -
'Shadow Brokers' Put Spotlight on Murky NSA Practice
Aug 19, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Blake Sobczak
On Saturday, an online figure known only as the "Shadow Brokers" posted a trove of world-class hacking tools said to have been stolen three years ago from the U.S. National Security Agency. -
Mass. Ruling Dampens New England Pipeline Projects
Aug 19, 2016 | E&E Greemwire
By Amanda Reilly
A decision this week in Massachusetts' highest court could have a big impact on the ability of energy companies to build pipelines throughout New England. -
Exxon Mobil Fraud Inquiry Said to Focus More on Future Than Past
Aug 19, 2016 | New York Times
By John Schwartz
For more than a year, much of the public scrutiny of Exxon Mobil was captured by the #Exxonknew hashtag — shorthand for revelations about decades-old research on climate change conducted by the company while it funded...
Industry and Association News
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Environment News
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(ACC Blog) Silicones Help Athletes Perform in Rio
Aug 19, 2016 | American Chemistry Matters
By American Chemistry
We celebrate the hard work and talent of the world’s best athletes as they compete in over 300 events in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. But these competitors don’t just rely on their coaches and supporters to reach their goals. High-performance sports equipment help athletes compete more effectively and safely.
Silicones, in particular, play a key supporting role in many sporting events.
If you follow swimming competition, you may have noticed that many swimmers wear two swim caps. Silicone swim caps are worn as the top cap, and former U.S. women’s Olympic assistant coach Dave Saloexplained to Yahoo News why: “The outer silicone cap better maintains the shape and does not wrinkle as much [as the inner latex cap], thereby causing less drag.” This helps swimmers encounter less resistance when moving through the water, giving them a slight performance edge.
Synchronized swimmers also rely on silicones to enhance their performances. Many competitors use makeup to clearly convey their expressions to the judges, and since they’re competing in water, waterproof makeup is crucial. Silicones are key ingredients in specialized waterproof makeup, helping swimmers’ makeup stay in place throughout all the splashing and underwater diving their routines entail.
Silicones aren’t limited to the pool—many of America’s runners are sporting specialized silicone body tape designed to cut aerodynamic drag, or wind resistance. Silicones are also used in track and field competitors’ specialized sunglasses. Flexible silicone nosepieces and back bands help eyewear fit comfortably and securely, while a ventilated silicone brow-bar reduces fogging.
High-performance silicones are used in mouth guards, cycling equipment, safety helmets, water bottles, and fabrics. In fact, silicones are so prevalent in sports equipment, it’s difficult to list all their uses in Rio. The unique properties of these highly specialized materials can help any athlete, from weekend cyclists to the fastest runners in the world, stay safe and perform their best.
https://blog.americanchemistry.com/2016/08/silicones-help-athletes-perform-in-rio/
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(ACC Mentioned) Commodity Resin Prices Go on July Vacation
Aug 19, 2016 | Plastics News
By Frank Esposito
The lazy, hazy days of summer took effect in July, as North American prices for all commodity resins were flat — with the notable exception of polypropylene.
Continued pressure from imported material sent PP prices down another penny per pound in July. The 1-cent drop in July marks the fifth straight monthly decrease. Regional PP prices had fallen 4 cents in June. The total five month decline has totaled 10 cents per pound, although buyers have seen these decreases come through in varying increments at different times.
Growing supplies of PP imported from outside of North America have caused domestic suppliers to drop their prices to meet competitive situations.
“We are still feeling the effects of imports and the fact that domestic producers have not cut [production] rates,” market analyst Scott Newell said. “Inventories dropped in June, but overall levels are up 170 million pounds since the beginning of the year, not including import inventories.”
Newell — who is with Resin Technology Inc. in Fort Worth, Texas — added that lower domestic PP prices, especially in the secondary markets, have recently decreased incentives for imports.
The market “has been very difficult to pin down this year, because each supplier is charting their own course,” according to David Barry, a market analyst with PetroChem Wire, a Houston-based consulting firm. “I think most participants now believe that the PP market will reach an equilibrium in August, and that price erosion will be halted.”
Imports found a home in North America as the region’s PP production struggled to keep up with demand in late 2015 and early 2016. This imbalance was partly the result of large amounts of PP production capacity being eliminated when demand fell during the recession.
North American PP demand was up less than 1 percent in the first half of 2016. A drop of almost 11 percent in export sales softened domestic sales growth of 1 percent, according to the Washington-based American Chemistry Council.
Strong North American growth areas for first-half PP sales included injection molded caps and closures (up 4.9 percent) and sheet (up 5.6 percent).
Other resins
Elsewhere, June prices held for July. Regional prices for solid polystyrene had fallen in June, while PVC prices had risen and prices for all grades of polyethylene and PET bottle resin were unchanged.
For solid PS, flat July pricing follows a 2-cent June drop and temporarily halts a bumpy pattern for that material. Prices had been flat in May after increasing by 5 cents in April. The June slip was connected to a 4 percent price decline for benzene feedstock, which is used to make styrene monomer.
On the demand front, North American sales of solid PS fell by 1.5 percent in the first half of 2016, according to ACC. That drop took place even as sales into food packaging/food service grew more than 1 percent and sales into the electrical/electronic market grew almost 6 percent.
Food packaging/food service accounted for almost 65 percent of regional solid PS sales for the first half, with electrical/electronic bringing in a market share of more than 9 percent.
PVC prices were flat in July after strong construction activity had sent prices for that material up an average of 2 cents per pound in June. That marked the third time in four months that regional PVC prices had increased.
On a sales basis, PVC had the best first half of any commodity resin in the region. Sales of the material grew 7.4 percent in the six-month period. Sales of PVC into export markets were up almost 14 percent in the first half, which helped boost domestic sales growth of almost 5 percent.
The domestic PVC market benefited from a rebounding U.S. housing market. That market is on track to record around 1.2 million housing starts this year, which would be up almost 10 percent from 2015. More than 60 percent of domestic PVC sales went into construction markets in the first half.
Sales of PVC into rigid pipe and tubing were up more than 7 percent in the first half, while sales of the material into extruded windows and doors jumped almost 20 percent.
Regional PE prices were flat for the third consecutive month in July after rising an average of 4 cents per pound in April. PE prices stayed the same even though crude oil prices tumbled more than 15 percent from $48 per barrel to less than $40 during the month. Oil is a global price setter for PE, although natural gas is the most common PE feedstock in North America.
U.S./Canadian high density PE sales grew a solid 3.5 percent for the half, as export sales growth of 21 percent magnified domestic sales growth of around 1 percent. Among large domestic end markets, sales of HDPE into sheet were up more than 4 percent, while sales of the material into injection molded pails were up more than 6 percent.
“We generally expected domestic growth to be in line with U.S. GDP growth, which was 1 percent,” an executive with one HDPE maker said of first-half results. “Organic growth clearly has been conservative, but our customers seem healthy, especially in the packaging space.”
First-half sales for low and linear low density PE were not as uplifting. Regional sales of LDPE were up less than 1 percent, while LLDPE sales were flat.
LDPE sales grew almost 2 percent in the domestic market, but that rate was weakened by a 2.5 percent drop in export sales. LDPE sales into shrink film in the domestic market grew just over 3 percent for the half.
In the LLDPE market, sales into both the domestic and export sectors essentially were flat in the first half. Domestic LLDPE sales into food packaging film and shrink/stretch film showed signs of strength, growing 4 percent and almost 5 percent, respectively.
North American PET bottle resin prices also were flat for a third straight month in July. Prices for the material haven’t moved since climbing 2 cents per pound in April. The PET market now is moving out of its high-demand summer period, when warmer weather improves seasonal demand for bottled water and carbonated soft drinks.
Lower demand, in turn, could make it more difficult for PET makers to push through additional price hikes.
http://www.plasticsnews.com/article/20160819/NEWS/160819787/commodity-resin-prices-go-on-july-vacation
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(ACC Mentioned) PG&E Corporation (NYSE:PCG) & Honeywell International (NYSE:HON) Stocks Under Review
Aug 19, 2016 | Money News
By Money News Staff
On Thursday, Shares of PG&E Corporation (NYSE:PCG) gained 2.34% to $65.17. The share price is trading in a range of $63.50 – $65.18. The stock exchanged hands with 3.71 Million shares contrast to its average daily volume of 2.74 Million shares.
Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) has successfully passed a comprehensive gas safety audit and has been certified to the chemical industry’s RC14001® administration system standard. The audit reviewed numerous end-to-end safety processes at the company, eventually approving PG&E as the first utility to secure the certification.
RC14001 was developed as a standard issued through the American Chemistry Council for process safety; community communications; product safety; occupational safety, health, environmental and security practices against which it can be evaluated and certified by a third party. The standard embodies the industry’s Responsible Care® Guiding Principles. PG&E adopted this standard to build upon its comprehensive safety administration program.
PG&E Corporation (NYSE:PCG)’s values for SMA20, SMA50 and SMA200 are 1.84%, 2.54% and 13.86%, respectively.
Shares of Honeywell International Inc. (NYSE:HON) inclined 0.07% to $115.86.
Honeywell (HON) UOP declared that it is introducing an expanded portfolio of new hydrotreating catalysts used to remove impurities and contaminants from petroleum and other refining feedstocks to produce cleaner-burning gasoline and diesel that meets new global emissions regulations.
The addition of a range of hydrotreating catalysts expands Honeywell UOP’s line of catalysts, which are used to produce transportation fuels and petrochemicals.
Hydrotreating is a critical step in the refining process where hydrogen and proprietary catalysts are used to pre-treat petroleum and other products to remove sulfur, nitrogen, metals and other contaminants before conversion into transportation fuels. Hydrotreating assists produce cleaner-burning gasoline and diesel that meets increasingly stringent global fuel regulations, counting Euro-V, China-V, and in India, BS-VI – all of which specify sulfur content of less than 10 parts per million in transportation fuels.
The stock’s price moved up its 200-day moving average of $112.71. The stock is presently trading down its SMA-50 of $116.88.
The share price of Honeywell International Inc. (NYSE:HON) surged 9.22% for the year. Year to Date, the current share price of the stock is above 11.87%. The company holds earnings per share of 6.32 for the twelve months.
http://www.newsismoney.com/2016/08/19/pge-corporation-nysepcg-honeywell-international-nysehon-stocks-under-review/
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(ACC Mentioned) 'Devil Is in the Details' as EPA Implements TSCA Reform
Aug 19, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Colby Bermel
Months after Congress approved a long-awaited overhaul to the nation's chemical safety law for the first time in four decades, industry representatives and environmentalists still are arguing over sticking points.
Chief among them: the definition of "best available science."
The latest fight comes as U.S. EPA works to implement the changes to the Toxic Substances Control Act that Congress approved and President Obama signed into law earlier this summer.
At the agency's first public meeting last week on how it will determine which chemicals pose risks to human health and the environment, dozens of stakeholders urged EPA to use the best available science when implementing the law.
"I think that everybody agrees that there ought to be good science, the best available science," Steve Owens, who from 2009 through 2011 served as assistant administrator of the agency's Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, told Greenwire. "But the devil is in the details. What do people really mean by that?"
The seemingly straightforward principle is one of three outlined in the reform legislation passed this summer; the other two are use of "supporting studies conducted in accordance with sound and objective scientific practices" and basing decisions on the "weight of the scientific evidence."
But "best available science" has emerged as the toughest sticking point as both industry and environmentalists vie for EPA to implement the chemical safety reforms on their terms.
"Because there are no data requirements for new chemicals, we over the many years in EPA have developed numerous computational approaches, which are used quite extensively," Tala Henry, director of the Risk Assessment Division of EPA's Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics, said last week.
"So you have all of this information; how am I going to assess and integrate what's available?" she continued. "Seems simplistic, but again, it can be quite a diversity; there's not this one-stop shop of information gathering."
Owens, who is now a principal at Squire Patton Boggs, characterized industry's concept of best available science as a "measuring stick" that evaluates studies by strict standards. Environmentalists, on the other hand, see best available science as more of a "wider net," accommodating newer, developing research, he said.
"Not all studies and information are necessarily of the same weight and significance," Sarah Brozena, a senior director at the American Chemistry Council, said in an interview. "Basically, it means EPA has to weigh the quality of the information before they make their decision; you don't just count the number of studies that say 'X versus Y.' You weigh the quality of that information."
But environmentalists don't see it that way.
"I don't think it's a term that needs a definition as much as a term that directs EPA to ensure that it's not falling behind on new developments in the field," said Richard Denison, lead senior scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund.
"When it comes to all the science policy-type issues that are in the bill, or set up in the bill, a rule is not the place to deal with those," he continued. "Those science questions are under active debate; they're much broader than TSCA, and they're going to change over time. So trying to put them in a rule, to us, doesn't make sense because that rule would have to be changed all the time."
Denison recommended that individual guidance documents be drafted for every chemical EPA regulates. While cumbersome, it allows for public comment from all stakeholders. He said if the TSCA reform law were to define best available science, that could set a dangerous precedent that could carry over to other agencies and limit the scope of other safety protections.
Owens said the newer science supported by environmentalists tends to show adverse consequences to chemical exposure. And while Derek Swick, the American Petroleum Institute's manager of regulatory and scientific affairs, recognizes the need for EPA to be flexible in risk evaluation, he wrote in his public testimony that "the mere presence of a chemical in humans or the environment ... should not be equated with harm or risk."
"My biggest concern that I walked away with was the fact that EPA's likely going to rely on a number of guidance documents to frame how the agency will conduct its risk evaluations, as opposed to being more specific in its rulemaking," Swick told Greenwire.
'This is the stuff that lawsuits are made of'
One of the remote testifiers at the meetings last week was Timothy Malloy, an environmental law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. The faculty director of the school's Sustainable Technology and Policy Program, Malloy offered a vivid analogy supporting both sides of the best available science debate.
"Suppose I want to go surfing after this meeting. I know that there's a small risk of a shark attack at Ventura Beach. But given my preferences, it's reasonable for me to take on that risk," he said by telephone. "But if I discover another beach nearby that is identical in all respects to Ventura Beach, with the exception that it has a substantially lower risk of shark attack, surfing at Ventura Beach may now be unreasonable."
"The point here," Malloy said, "is that reasonableness ... and the availability of meaningfully safer substitutes affects that determination."
While first voicing support for the inclusion of as much scientific data as possible in evaluating risk, he added there has to be an overall structure.
"In a regulatory setting, it's extremely important to establish standards to be used in determining whether a risk is reasonable or unreasonable," Malloy said. "It's important from a civic perspective to ensure the legitimacy, consistency and objectivity of the decisionmaking process."
Owens, the former EPA chemicals office head, would prefer a compromise approach.
"This is the stuff that lawsuits are made of, but it's also very important that the agency walks the middle line and figures out where they can do the best job with the best information available to them," he said.
Stakeholders expect EPA over the next few months will send a draft of its risk evaluation process rule to the Office of Management and Budget and other agencies. After review, the proposed rule could see a December publication in the Federal Register.
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2016/08/19/stories/1060041824
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California's Chemical Prioritization Could Be Model For EPA TSCA Reform
Aug 19, 2016 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
California regulators and science advisors are urging EPA to look to that state's Safer Consumer Products (SCP) program as a model when crafting a rule under the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) for implementing revisions to the way the agency will prioritize existing chemicals for assessment.
Two Californians who spoke at an Aug. 10 EPA public hearing to provide comment on how the agency should craft the rule required by the TSCA reform law encouraged it to look beyond its own programs for examples on how to implement the directive and specifically pointed to the SCP program.
The TSCA reform law sets a June 22, 2017, deadline for EPA to finalize rules on how it will prioritize chemicals for evaluation and also how it will perform those evaluations.
"In California, we developed a regulation on hazard traits that are included in our safer products regulation for priority setting purposes," Gina Solomon, deputy secretary for science and health of California EPA said at the hearing. "We'll submit that so you are aware of it, but it defines a much broader universe of hazard traits than are in the [EPA] work plan."
EPA's Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics (OPPT) in 2011 began setting up a program it called the TSCA work plan program, intended to help the agency take more rigorous action on existing chemicals while awaiting congressional reform of the original 1976 TSCA and also to prepare staff for the kinds of risk assessment and management decision-making they would have to undertake with new authorities anticipated in the reformed law.
The new law appears to cast the work plan program as a kind of bridge between the original and the revamped TSCA, allowing EPA to base TSCA rules on completed assessments performed as part of the work plan program. The statute also directs EPA to select its first chemicals for evaluation under the new program from the list of chemicals that EPA prioritized for assessment as part of the work plan program.
Solomon said EPA's work plan program is a "really thoughtful, excellent piece of work, and is a very solid foundation for the next step and the criteria very closely parallel the criteria in the statute." But she noted that EPA will have to consider two new issues as it drafts the prioritization rule: how to handle cutoffs and chemicals prioritized as low for risk evaluation.
Solomon explained that as the program operates, "the cutoffs you've used will only work for a certain period of time and then you'll run out of chemicals that meet those criteria," and the rule will need to address how the poundage cutoff and hazard information should move with time.
Similarly, she noted that eventually the program will evaluate low priority chemicals, and so EPA will need either to communicate clearly that chemicals are not low priority forever, or "if they are, then the bars will have to be a lot higher."
Prioritization Process
Kelly Moran, co-chairman of the California Green Ribbon Science Panel, joined Solomon in urging OPPT officials to look beyond the work plan for background in setting up the new program. "I agree and reiterate Dr. Solomon's recommendation that EPA could learn a great deal from California's experience developing its prioritization process," Moran said.
The advisory panel that Moran co-chairs was established by California's 2008 green chemistry law, for the purpose of advising California's Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) on the SCP policy and implementing the program. Moran said that the panel played an important role in developing the SCP program.
Moran recommended EPA create a similar panel to help provide clarity for the agency that stakeholder input may not. "The science advisory panel was the only group that was at least somewhat, though not fully, separated from stakeholder interest," Moran said. "And that created a really important opportunity for a kind of dialogue that wasn't available with the stakeholder forums for DTSC."
Moran added that if the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which governs most EPA advisory boards, precludes the creation of such a panel, she recommends that EPA consider other ways to get expert, non-stakeholder advice. One approach she suggested would be for EPA to form an expert advisory group of federal employees from multiple agencies.
Moran also encouraged OPPT leaders to consider some issues that she said became apparent as California was setting up its regulatory program: collaborate with other EPA offices in determining the prioritization process; take steps to avoid unfortunate substitution situations; avoid strict ranking systems that may be overly prescriptive; and consider both severe and less severe but more widespread effects.
California's SCP program, considered a model for national chemicals management reform when its underlying legislation passed the state legislature in 2008, requires manufacturers to study whether replacing chemicals of concern with alternatives is feasible. DTSC also has the authority to ban certain chemicals found in products.
State agencies took five years to implement the law, AB 1879, three years more than allotted by the California legislature. A major part of that program was developing a process for prioritizing chemicals for alternatives assessment. The chemicals on the list, first released for review in 2013, exhibit a hazard trait and/or environmental or toxicological endpoint.
DTSC staff compiled the list -- as EPA staff did with the work plan program -- by reviewing existing lists of chemicals of concern compared to its prioritization criteria, according to the DTSC website.
Among the sources are California's Proposition 65 program, which requires that products known to California to cause cancer or reproductive toxicity be labeled; chemicals identified by EPA's Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) program as carcinogens or neurotoxicants; chemicals identified by the European Union's chemicals agency as carcinogens, reproductive toxicants or mutagens; and chemicals identified by Washington State's Department of Ecology as persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic.
http://insideepa.com/daily-news/californias-chemical-prioritization-could-be-model-epa-tsca-reform
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Senate Press Gallery Declared Safe After Asbestos Concern
Aug 19, 2016 | Mesothelioma.com
By Jillian Duff
Asbestos concerns caused the Senate press gallery and nearby rooms in the U.S. Capitol to be cleared earlier this month, but tests have declared the air safe now.
“Workers had discovered a broken air duct above the press gallery on the Capitol’s third floor,” said officials from the Architect of the Capitol’s office. This caused a “potential release” during the asbestos abatement work.
The air was shut off, the duct was repaired, and an independent, certified industrial hygienist was hired to collect and analyze air samples. Officials do not know exactly when the duct broke. Apparently the Senate chamber was not affected.
Coincidentally, the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO) is currently preparing for the 10th Congressional Staff Luncheon Briefing for the Senate—“TSCA Implementation: Prioritizing Asbestos to Protect Public Health and the Environment.”
The briefing will take place on September 13 and discuss the Frank Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act and how the EPA should have asbestos on its ten high-risk chemicals for prioritization list when it’s released in the next few months.
Some of the speakers include Linda Reinstein, Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization President/CEO/Co-Founder; Daniel Rosenberg, National Resources Defense Council; Mike Mattmuller, Mesothelioma Patient; Brent Kynoch, Executive Director, Environmental Information Association (EIA); Andy Igrejas, Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families (SCHF); Matt Catlin, American Public Health Association (APHA); and Barry Castleman, ScD.
Asbestos is still not banned in the U.S., but a number of laws, in addition to the recently passed Frank Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, exist on the federal and state levels. They determine how companies can manufacture, use, and dispose of asbestos.
These laws and regulations are in place to protect everyone from the deadly effects of asbestos exposure, including mesothelioma cancer. Mesothelioma is a rare, aggressive form of cancer that develops in the lining of the lungs, abdomen, or heart. It has no known cure and a very poor prognosis.
When diagnosed with mesothelioma, the outcome is usually very poor as it’s typically discovered at a late stage of development. But there’s still hope for survival. For example, Heather Von St. James is a 10-year mesothelioma survivor who became an advocate for banning asbestos.
http://www.mesothelioma.com/news/2016/08/senate-press-gallery-declared-safe-after-asbestos-concern.htm
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7th Circuit Allows Asbestos Conviction Reconsideration
Aug 19, 2016 | Inside EPA
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit has reversed a district court ruling to allow a man convicted of violating the Clean Air Act by improperly removing and disposing of insulation containing regulated asbestos to seek a new trial.
“Because the district court improperly required [Duane L.] O’Malley to bring pieces of his evidence in a separate action, we vacate the ruling and direct the district court to allow him to proceed under Rule 33. We express no opinion on the underlying merits of O’Malley’s motion,” the 7th Circuit says in an Aug. 17 ruling in U.S. v. O'Malleythat references numerous previous 7th Circuit rulings on the issue of when motions can be brought under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure Rule 33(b)(1).
The U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois sentenced O'Malley to serve 10 years in prison for removing asbestos-containing insulation without a proper license while replacing a sprinkler system in a building that the building's owner knew contained asbestos, and then dumping garbage bags full of insulation in an abandoned farmhouse, a store dumpster and a field near a vacant house after an asbestos-abatement company refused to accept the insulation.
O'Malley then filed what he labeled as a motion under Rule 33(b)(1) for a new trial based on newly discovered evidence that he says establishes that he did not “knowingly” deal with regulated asbestos.
The “district court concluded that O’Malley’s submission contains constitutional theories that, the court reasoned, are incompatible with Rule 33 and cognizable only under 28 U.S.C. § 2255,” the ruling says.
But the 7th Circuit says “the entirety of O’Malley’s submission falls within the scope of Rule 33(b)(1) even if his theories overlap with § 2255, and that the district court should have respected his choice between these available means of relief. We thus vacate the district court’s decision and remand for further proceedings.”
http://insideepa.com/news-briefs/7th-circuit-allows-asbestos-conviction-reconsideration
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Aug 19, 2016 | Chemical Watch
CLH consultations
Echa is consulting on harmonised classification and labelling (CLH) proposals for the substances:
· diisohexyl phthalate;
· nickel (II) sulfide; and
· phenyl bis(2,4,6-trimethylbenzoyl)-phosphine oxide.
The deadline for comment for all three is 30 September.
Guidance
The agency has released an updated version of part D of its Guidance on information requirements and chemical safety assessment (IR&CSA). The section deals with the framework for exposure assessment.
https://chemicalwatch.com/49168/echa-round-up
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The Worst May Be Over, But NatGas Recovery Will Be Slow, Sometimes Painful
Aug 19, 2016 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Leticia Gonzales
While it seems the natural gas and oil industry is convinced that the worst is over and markets are on their way to a comeback, the only certainty is that the road to recovery is going to be a long, bumpy one.
“The main reason natural gas producers, in particular, think the market has hit a bottom is that all the reduction in rig activity is finally catching up to the market,” said NGI’s Patrick Rau, director of strategy and research.
High-grading, drilling longer laterals and reducing the drilled but uncompleted (DUC) inventory will only go so far. Eventually, the impact from the severe decline in drilling will become evident, especially when so many of the rigs that have been laid down are horizontal, Rau said.
“Horizontal wells tend to have hyperbolic decline, meaning so much production occurs in the first few years of the well. If you don't keep drilling those, the industry misses out on that initial surge of production, which is starting to be reflected in production numbers,” he said.
For example, several Appalachia operators noted on their 2Q16 conference calls that it takes 50-55 rigs to keep combined Utica and Marcellus production flat at current levels. The industry only has 35 rigs or so working in those plays today.
“We can only sustain that pace for so long without production being negatively impacted,” Rau said.
To understand where natural gas production is heading for the remainder of 2016 and into 2017, it’s important to look at where it has been.
Lower 48 natural gas production bottomed out at around 69 Bcf/d in July, when maintenance issues temporarily curtailed production in some areas.
For the entire month of July, Genscape, an energy data and intelligence provider, shows production averaging 71.7 Bcf/d.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) shows Lower 48 production averaging 73.87 Bcf/d between April and July 2015 and 74.12 Bcf/d when August is included.
Meanwhile, production estimates by NATGAS Billboard, a report by RBN Energy and IAF Advisors, show an average of 72.0 Bcf/d from April 1, 2015, to Aug. 16, 2015, and 72.5 Bcf/d from April 1, 2016, to Aug. 16, 2016.
It’s important to note the discrepancies that often occur when estimating production as data from the EIA can change frequently throughout the year as states report their data.
“Initial data on the production side can be off by a significant amount and can be revised. Even the reports the EIA gets from the state are very preliminary,” said Genscape’s Eric Fell, senior natural gas analyst.
If you’re surprised to hear producers discussing plans to increase production when output has largely kept pace with year-ago levels, you’re not alone.
“I think people thought production would continue to fall harder and faster than what’s actually occurred. So to hear producers talk about resuming production is pretty surprising,” said Ryan Duman, senior research analyst at Wood Mackenzie.
But with the impact of substantial cuts to drilling becoming apparent, concerns of a storage overhang at the end of the 2016 injection season easing, Mexican and liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports growing and other demand drivers strengthening, it appears the stars are aligning for a natural gas recovery.
“Give producers half a reason, and they’ll jump on it,” Fell said. “But, there is truth to the growing demand story. Along with the production declines we’re seeing, we also have structural demand growth.”
Indeed, the EIA reported a withdrawal from storage inventories for the week ending July 29, only the third time since 1994 that a withdrawal has been reported for the June-August time period (see Daily GPI, Aug. 8). The 6 Bcf pull, driven by record power burn, trimmed the storage surplus to 13.4% above year-ago levels and 16.4% above the five-year average.
Meanwhile, Genscape, with its North American data and analytics center based in Louisville, KY, shows Mexican exports accounted for more than 5% of total U.S. marketed gas in both June and July, a number expected to continue growing due to increasing demand from Mexico's electric power sector and flat natural gas production in that country.
Gross pipeline exports are expected to increase by 0.7 Bcf/d this year and by 0.1 Bcf/d next year to an average of 5.7 Bcf/d, according to the EIA.
LNG exports continue to grow as well.
The EIA projects LNG gross exports will increase to an average of 0.5 Bcf/d in 2016, with the startup of Cheniere Energy's Sabine Pass LNG liquefaction plant in Louisiana, which sent out its first cargo in February (see Daily GPI, Feb. 24). In 2017, the export level is expected to reach 1.3 Bcf/d as Sabine Pass ramps up its capacity. This is in anticipation of Train 1 and Train 2 running near capacity, which will mean over 1 Bcf/d in equivalent LNG produced, Genscape projects.
Genscape recently reported that three LNG ships (Sestao Knutsen (2.93 Bcf), Clean Ocean (3.35 Bcf) and Maran Gas Sparta (3.5 Bcf)) all lifted cargoes from Sabine beginning Aug. 3, amounting to nearly 10 Bcf in LNG exports.
The improving fundamentals landscape has been supportive to prices. After averaging just $2.61 in 2015, the 2017 strip is averaging a hair above $3, although recent weakness in the futures curve put the brakes on the calendar year’s run at the year-to-date high of $3.22 during the first week of August.
“Prices have appreciated quite a bit this year, but they haven’t been sustained long enough and they’re not to a level where everyone is comfortable enough to jump back in,” Duman said.
Knowing the volatility that gas markets can bring, producers are implementing a cautious approach to increasing their activity, Duman said, ramping up activity with “low-hanging fruit,” like DUCs and drilling in areas like the Northeast where breakeven costs are sub-$3 and other areas like the Haynesville where infrastructure is already in place.
To be sure, the Northeast has continued to grow production even in the face of weak gas prices and a large storage surplus heading into summer.
Reported initial production rates and other factors suggest the breakeven gas price for many dry Marcellus producers is only about $2.50. For many wet Marcellus/Utica producers, the break-even is even lower at about $2 thanks to supplemental returns on natural gas liquids (NGL) and, in some cases, condensates, according to RBN Energy.
In some cases, the effective natural gas breakeven price gets all the way to zero, with producers achieving breakeven returns from the sale of NGLs and condensates, the energy analytics/consulting company said. With such low break-even costs, it’s not surprising production in the region continues to grow.
Between Aug. 8 and Aug. 12, Appalachian gas production averaged 19.59 Bcf/d, up from the year-ago 30-day average of 17.50 Bcf/d, according to Genscape. Interestingly, the region is on pace to being the only region in the Lower 48 that is expected to post year-over-year gains.
And now producers like Cabot, Southwestern and Rice are increasing their activity by increasing rig counts and manpower, and reinvesting money saved in the region (see Shale Daily, Aug. 9; July 29;July 22). In its second-quarter earnings call, Cabot said it was adding a second completion crew in its Marcellus asset based on“continued efficiency gains, lower service costs and our improved outlook for natural gas price realizations.”
"Cabot is the lowest cost producer in Northeast Pennsylvania and generates rates of return over 100% under current price expectations, so we plan to opportunistically increase our market share during 2017 as we await the in-service of our new infrastructure projects beginning in late-2017,” Cabot CEO Dan O. Dinges said.
Cabot owns 850,000 Dth/d on Williams’ Atlantic Sunrise natural gas pipeline project, which would expand capacity on the Transcontinental pipeline (see Daily GPI, May 6).
Meanwhile, Southwestern is in the process of re-initiating drilling and completion activity in each of its operating areas and plans to make incremental capital investments of up to $500 million from its July equity offering. Approximately $375 million of this incremental capital is expected to be invested before the end of 2016.
As part of this plan, Southwestern reinitiated drilling with its first rig in northeast Appalachia at the end of July and intends to increase its company-wide rig count to five by the end of the third quarter. These five rigs are expected to be comprised of two in northeast Appalachia, two in southwest Appalachia and one in Fayetteville. Additionally, it expects to complete approximately 90 to 100 wells in the second half of 2016, which includes new wells drilled and a portion of the DUCs inventory.
But Erika Coombs, a senior analyst at energy consultant BTU Analytics, warned production in the Northeast could be tempered by long-haul transportation options, or a lack thereof. “Infrastructure will continue to play a crucial role in the Northeast, and delays/cancellations will have far-reaching impacts in the rest of the market,” Coombs said.
Perhaps one of the more colorful examples of this is Williams’ Constitution Pipeline. The 124-mile, 30-inch diameter pipeline would transport Marcellus gas produced in northeast Pennsylvania to Schoharie County, NY, where it would connect with two existing interstate pipelines: Iroquois Gas Transmission and Tennessee Gas Pipeline. It would provide 650,000 Dth/d of takeaway capacity.
The saga of the Constitution Pipeline, dogged by environmentally-inspired state and local obstacles, has lasted more than four years. The project had an original in-service date of March 2015, but the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has approved the company’s request for an extension, with completion now expected in the second half of 2017. This will allow the pipeline to comply with directives from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to protect wildlife along the pipeline's route (seeShale Daily, March 10).
While Northeast operators are most directly affected by uncertainty on the infrastructure front, Henry Hub pricing would also be affected if demand grows along the Gulf Coast, while supplies from the Northeast remain flat, Coombs said. “These concerns would also play into a decision to diversify away from a Northeast pure play, as we saw with Range Resources’ acquisition of Memorial Resource Development in the Cotton Valley,” she said.
Labor shortages could also throw a wrench into the natural gas recovery, as many oil and gas workers who were laid off when prices slumped have since moved on to other, more stable industries. “To attract those people back would require a good amount of incentive for them to return to rigs, which would require even higher prices,” Coombs said.
With the drilling efficiencies that have been gained, however, there is no longer a need to return to the amount of rigs the industry saw at the peak, so the need for all those workers no longer exists, she said.
“These thoughts were echoed in Halliburton’s recent earnings call when the CEO, Dave Lesar, said, ‘…900 [rigs] is the new 2,000,’” Coombs advised.
For 2017, Lakewood, CO-based BTU Analytics is projecting flat year-over-year production. “In the Northeast, we expect gross gas year-over-year increases about 2.5 Bcf/d, while outside the Northeast, declines of about 2.7 Bcf/d,” Coombs said.
Meanwhile, balance sheets will be of the utmost priority for producers looking to ramp up activity next year, as this will help to dictate an operator’s willingness and ability to participate in the recovery.
“The recovery will likely be slow in developing because operators are still very much focused on shoring up their balance sheets and spending within their cash flows, and they aren't likely to go hog wild changing their previously established and limited 2016 capex budgets,” NGI’s Rau said.
Already, service companies are talking about increasing their costs and, along with access to capital, this could make for slow progress on the production front.
“We expect service costs and prices to increase, however it will be a bumpy road, which will require producers and service companies to try to work together to maintain production,” Coombs said. On average, producers are talking about seeing service costs increase 20-30%, she said.
Wood Mackenzie’s Duman agreed that while producers know service costs are set to rise, there appears to be consensus in the market that prices will not return to the high levels seen in 2014, before the gas market began its decline.
He warned, however, that should commodity prices sustain $3 (natural gas) and $55 (oil) come the 2017-2018 timeframe, the industry could see a more significant increase in costs as operators gain confidence to further ramp up drilling activity. Wood Mackenzie projects dry gas production to exit 2016 at about 73 Bcf/d and exit 2017 at 77.6 Bcf/d.
With labor shortages, limited capex and rising costs, there undoubtedly will be producers who opt to take a “wait and see” approach with respect to natural gas prices, Rau said.
“Look at what's happening in the crude side of things. As soon as prices approached $50/bbl, operators began adding rigs and announced plans to add even more,” Rau said. They then watched crude prices drop again. Crude settled at around $45/b on Aug. 12.
Meanwhile, the current 2017 natural gas strip is just above $3.
“That no doubt will cause some producers to lock in some hedges, but what happens to that strip when natural gas operators come creeping out of the woodwork and start adding more gas focused rigs?” Rau said.
Since the U.S. oil rig count bottomed at 316 on May 27, it has rebounded to 381 as of Aug. 5. Yet U.S. natural gas rigs have fallen from 87 to 81 during that time, Rau noted. “The gas-focused rig count will rebound eventually, and if it happens quickly, it could create some doubt about 2017 prices,” he said.
Indeed, with a backlog of DUCs still being worked through, one has to question the impact the amped up activity will have on gas prices. But Coombs said while the backlog could indeed put a ceiling on how much prices will rise, that production is expected to be exhausted in the first half of the year, therefore providing uplift to prices.
And while the surge in the U.S. crude rig count has caused worry about a global supply glut thanks to OPEC going full throttle on production, U.S. natural gas remains isolated from similar concerns, Rau said.
“U.S. natural gas prices still aren't as impacted by production around the world just yet,” Rau said. “U.S. production should continue to decline for the rest of 2016, and that sets the market up pretty well for 2017, assuming we don't have an extremely mild winter.”
As always, weather is the real wild card in the natural gas recovery.
Back in April, natural gas storage inventories were starting out the injection season at a nearly 1 Tcf surplus over year-ago levels after the warmest winter on record. Fears in the industry mounted regarding the storage overhang, and whether storage facilities would be able to cope with the abundance of gas hitting the market.
But thanks to La Nina, this summer has turned out to be one of the hottest on record, driving up natural gas power burn to record levels…and keeping storage inventories in check. While most in the industry had pegged storage inventories exiting the injection season at more than 4 Tcf, many now are calling for end-of-season stocks to fall closer to 3.9 Tcf.
Looking ahead, weather could prove favorable for the natural gas market yet again if conditions turn chilly quickly.
“Temperature-adjusted demand has been very strong and if that incremental demand sustains on a per-degree basis and we get a cold winter, the storage scenario could get pretty bullish pretty quickly next year,” said RBN’s Sheetal Nasta, energy analyst. “So it’s possible the demand side will keep a floor under prices.”
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/107467-the-worst-may-be-over-but-natgas-recovery-will-be-slow-sometimes-painful
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Bipartisan Quartet of Ex-Interior Officials Backs BLM's Fracking Rule
Aug 19, 2016 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Elana Schor
A quartet of former Interior Department officials, including a Bureau of Land Management director from the George W. Bush administration, today backed the agency in its legal battle to enforce its embattled standards for fracking on public lands.
In a brief filed with the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, James Caswell, who helmed BLM from 2007 to 2009 — was joined by David Hayes, former deputy secretary at Interior under President Barack Obama; Michael Dombeck, an acting BLM director during the Clinton administration; and Lynn Scarlett, who was named deputy Interior secretary by Bush.
The four ex-officials urged the appeals court to throw out a June decision by District Judge Scott Skavdahl, who invalidated BLM's fracking rule and said authority to regulate the oil and gas extraction tactic was restricted by the 2005 energy law and the Safe Drinking Water Act.
But SDWA "specifically states that Congress did not intend through that Act to limit or repeal any of the Department’s authority," the ex-Interior officials noted, "including authority 'to prevent groundwater contamination under the Mineral Leasing Act.'"
Interior, they added, has "broad discretion" to safeguard public lands via regulations like the fracking proposal that was finalized last year before it was challenged in court.
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard
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The Enormous Scale of All the Energy That We Never Used
Aug 19, 2016 | Washington Post
By Chris Mooney
It’s not easy working in the energy efficiency world — that wonky sphere focused on tweaking homes and appliances to get us to use less energy, and so, contribute less to climate change.
It’s a place where you see constant successes — Obama’s administration has put in place dozens of new standards to make products more energy efficient — but can’t ever seem to get much credit for them. After all, who notices the energy that they never use? Who is acutely conscious of doing more with less?
Energy efficiency takes a huge number of forms, ranging from weatherizing a house to upping the fuel efficiency of vehicles. A new report by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, a prominent nonprofit that both researches and promotes energy efficiency, makes the case that it has truly been transformative, and in a way that is quantifiable, over the past several decades.
Take, for instance, economic growth: Since 1980, the report finds, GDP in this country has grown 149 percent. And it has long been assumed that energy use, and economic productivity, increase in tandem. But the report finds that only went from using 78 to 98 quads (short for a quadrillion BTUs, or British thermal units) of energy annually between 1980 and 2014. The percentage increase — 26 percent — is vastly smaller.
The report calculates that after adjusting for other factors, such as structural changes in the economy as it moved from manufacturing towards more dependence on services, we are basically seeing 58 quads of annual energy savings attributable to more efficiency — an enormous amount.
Relatedly, the research also asserts that since about the year 1995, we have seen what is sometimes called a “decoupling” between the growth of GDP and that of electricity usage in the country:
Such a decoupling occurred, the argument goes, not only because of the same structural changes mentioned above, but also due to less demand for energy amidst economic expansion.
Finally, the document calculates that energy efficiency, if considered an electricity “resource,” is the third largest in the country, after coal and natural gas — meaning that it is bigger than nuclear power. The justification for this calculation is that if energy had not been conserved, the U.S. would need dramatically more electricity generation capacity — hundreds of power plants.
“In 2015, we estimate that US electricity savings from efficiency is about the same as the amount of electricity needed to power Canada and Mexico combined,” said Patrick Kiker, ACEEE’s spokesman.
And if you take the total electricity saved between 1990 and 2015 in the U.S., adds ACEEE’s Maggie Molina, who directs the group’s program on utilities, state and local policy, then it adds up to a third of all the globe’s electricity generation in a year.
So is energy efficiency really this powerful?
The Post asked several experts to comment critically on the report. And the general gist is that while there are some pitfalls in these types of analyses, and it is possible to overplay things, they agreed about the overall effectiveness of energy efficiency.
One, Charles Goldman of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, cautioned that “in some cases, the report tends to use sources that are often based on ACEEE research – rather than other more conservative sources.”
Still, Goldman continued, “the policies that are enunciated — appliance and equipment efficiency standards, building energy codes, utility efficiency programs funded by utility customers, utility regulatory reform — are all solid and well-grounded and are cost-effective if done well. And for that part of the report, I would certainly agree that those policies have served US customers well if they are well-implemented and have the potential to continue producing cost-effective savings going forward to 2030.”
“The overall message of the report is not really controversial, and has been strongly supported by excellent research over the years,” added Jonathan Koomey, a research fellow at the Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance at Stanford University who has published on the decoupling of GDP from electricity consumption in the U.S., also noting that the change began around the mid-1990s. “There is great potential for efficiency and adopting it has multiple benefits, but to capture these benefits requires changes in policies, institutional structures, and human behaviors.”
Koomey said it is very important, however, to separate energy efficiency gains from structural economic changes, which also contributed greatly to a decoupling of GDP and electricity consumption. He said the report had done this for its main findings related to GDP, but there were some figures that “do not appear to treat structural change explicitly.”
ACEEE’s Molina, though, said that different approaches to this type of analysis — one that is “top down,” which looks at the energy intensity of the economy and factors out structural change, and one that is “bottom up,” which sums together all the different gains from energy efficiency programs — yield similar results.
What is most important, though, is the role played by energy efficiency going forward. Assuming President Obama’s Clean Power Plan makes its way through legal challenges and comes into effect, energy efficiency — using less — could be one key way that U.S. states manage to lower their emissions as required by the plan. (Others include shifting to renewables, or shifting from coal to gas or coal to nuclear.)
It’s not just the United States, either. In laying out a scenario to keep the world below 2 degrees of global warming, above pre-industrial levels, by 2050, the International Energy Agency focused on five necessary factors to get there. We’ll need vastly more renewable energy, more nuclear energy, and more carbon capture and storage. We’ll have to switch which fuels we use. But the fifth factor, once again, was doing much more with less.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/08/19/the-enormous-scale-of-all-the-energy-that-we-never-used/?utm_term=.b06a22c8d824
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Why Renewables Alone Cannot Meet Our Energy Needs
Aug 19, 2016 | The Hill - Contributors Blog
By Ryan Yonk and Arthur Wardle
When Germany met all but 0.3 gigawatts (GWs) of its peak energy demand for a few hours using renewables this May, the excitement generated a lot of headlines. The headlines missed key details, though — during that time, Germany's fossil fuel plants were still producing 7.7 GWs. The excess had to be sold to neighboring countries on the cheap.
Since then, Germany has been forced to dial back its renewable subsidies and pay billions to maintain coal generators because, despite the ability to generate lots of power from renewables, meeting power demand when renewables weren't generating quickly became a problem.
Coal, natural gas, nuclear, biomass, geothermal and hydroelectric power are all capable of providing energy 24/7, what energy experts refer to as "base load" energy. Of those, geothermal and hydroelectric are restrained to specific geographical areas, many of which have already been tapped. Biomass is inefficient and only environmentally friendly to a point. Only coal, natural gas, and nuclear provide constant and reliable energy to any significant portion of the United States. Notably missing from this list are solar and wind. As base-load energy sources are phased out in favor of intermittent renewables, grid reliability suffers.
It's clear that solar and wind provide clean and renewable energy when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing. But when the sun is down or the air is still, they sit, not producing much of anything. In those moments, other sources must fill the gap. Without base-load producers, there simply is not enough energy to sufficiently supply the grid at all times of day, no matter how many solar or wind facilities get tacked on.
Traditional base-load providers (coal and nuclear) take a long time to turn on and off. Natural gas, while capable of being built to ramp up quickly, is often built in slower, combined-cycle systems toreduce costs. For this reason, even at peak production for solar and wind, base-load plants are kept running so they are ready to provide energy when the renewables no longer can.
The delicate balance between base load and intermittent generation can be seen in California, where closure of the Diablo Canyon nuclear facility threatens 9 percent of California's energy production. While the stated plan is to replace that capacity with "energy efficiency, renewables and energy storage," that may not be feasible. California is already reliant on huge amounts of solar, enough that they actually had to shut down some solar producers for fear of overloading the gridthis March. Practicality indicates that it is more likely that the lost capacity will be made up withnatural gas generators.
Despite the need for consistent base-load power, coal plants across the country continue to be shuttered due to the mounting regulatory burden they face. Seventy-two GWs of base load coal generation are set to go offline in coming years. (For context, 72 GWs is enough to power "every home in every state west of the Mississippi River, excluding Texas," as the Institute for Energy Research notes.) The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) predicted in 2013 that "insufficient reserves during peak hours could lead to increased risk of entering emergency operating conditions, including the possibility of [...] rotating outages." To make matters worse, even more coal plants have announced shutdowns than NERC assumed when making that prediction.
Keeping a well-functioning grid that provides every American with power on demand requires substantial base-load power capacity. While intermittent renewables like wind and solar can make good supplements, they cannot provide for the energy needs of modern society alone.
Yonk is an assistant research professor at Utah State University. Wardle is a research associate at Strata, a public policy research center in Logan, Utah.
http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/energy-environment/291963-why-renewables-alone-cannot-meet-our-energy-needs
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EPA Finalizes Flexible Framework for Voluntary Oil & Gas Methane Program
Aug 19, 2016 | Inside EPA
By Bridget DiCosmo
EPA has quietly finalized a framework for its voluntary oil and gas industry methane emissions reduction program that industry says could provide more flexibility in meeting the effort and encourage more companies to participate, as it allows firms to choose how they would meet methane reduction targets based on emission rates.
"It's not a one-size-fits-all," one industry source says of EPA's framework for using the existing "ONE Future" partnership in the context of the agency's Methane Challenge program to encourage the sector to cut its emissions of the potent greenhouse gas (GHG). The Methane Challenge program seeks to expand on EPA's Natural Gas STAR voluntary reduction program for methane. The program aims to encourage companies to cut emissions of methane in addition to EPA's recently finalized first-time rule to force methane cuts from new oil and gas sources.
ONE Future is a natural gas industry-led coalition of companies "focused on identifying policy and technical solutions that yield continuous improvement in the management of methane emissions associated with the production, processing, transmission and distribution of natural gas," according to its website.
EPA on its recently updated Methane Challenge website says that companies can use its more-flexible framework for meeting the goals of the voluntary program by taking part in ONE Future.
"The ONE Future Commitment offers Partner companies flexibility in determining the most cost-effective pathway to achieve their respective segment emission rate," according to EPA. The partnership is made up of energy companies who have agreed to segment-specific emissions intensity targets that inform a collective goal of reducing methane emissions associated with the production, processing, transmission and distribution sectors to 1% or less by 2025.
In the framework, EPA says companies will establish specific, interim target emission intensity rates for 2020, in addition to their final emission intensity rate for 2025, deferring to ONE Future for the development, calculation and publication of company- and segment-specific emission intensity rates. EPA also encourages companies to complete their emissions reduction commitments shorter than the established time frame.
Methane Tracking
In a separate technical support document, EPA outlines how it plans to track emission rates for the participating companies, including through its GHG reporting program and a supplemental reporting program for sectors not subject to those rules. EPA also lists the types of data it will seek through either reporting mechanism for a variety of sources; such as for associated gas venting and flaring, EPA plans to seek volume of oil produced, volume of gas sent to sales, actual count of wells venting and flaring and actual methane emissions from venting and flaring.
EPA in the framework declined to finalize a third approach it proposed based on emissions targets. Under the scrapped approach, companies would have reduced their methane emissions by a certain percentage from an agreed company-wide baseline by a future date. But the agency previously said it had some concerns that committing to emissions reductions could be problematic for companies wishing to expand their operations.
Industry sought to steer EPA away from the emissions-based option, while environmentalists favored it over the ONE Future and BMP approaches, saying the option would transparently and clearly achieve actual reductions in emissions levels. "If the goal of the Methane Challenge Program is to be truly ambitious, it should aim to reduce absolute levels of methane emissions, not simply to reduce methane emissions as a share of natural gas production" advocates said previously, saying a strict approach like the third method was necessary.
The industry source says the option of relying in part on ONE Future offers greater flexibility than the best management practice (BMP) framework EPA released in in January, which would aim to drive near-term, widespread implementation of mitigation activities from specific sources of methane.
But a second industry source says the Methane Challenge has received a "lukewarm" response in general, adding that EPA's multiple regulatory initiatives to cut emissions from the sector mean there is less incentive for companies to act voluntarily "in such an unsettled regulatory arena where the voluntary action could be shortly over-ridden by a mandatory requirement." That source adds, "I haven't seen much information on the ONE Future voluntary program that indicates a better situation."
Reducing Emissions
The agency crafted the new framework as part of a package to cut the sector's methane emissions in accordance with the president's goal of reducing the sector's emissions of methane by 40-45 percent by 2025.
Included in the package are new source performance standards that set first-time methane controls for new and modified sources under section 111(b) of the Clean Air Act and an information collection request to gather data on the sector's existing sources, which could inform a future existing source rule under section 111(d) of the air law.
Many in industry have urged EPA to allow participation in the voluntary Methane Challenge as an alternative to strict new emissions standards for existing sources.
Intended as a partnership between EPA and industry, the program offers best practices for companies to cut emissions of methane from specific emissions sources, such as pneumatic controllers and distribution pipeline blowdowns.
The agency opted to scrap its initial 2014 plan for the voluntary program, a proposal known as Gas STAR Gold, after industry complained that it would have been too burdensome and few companies would have participated.
The Methane Challenge plan seeks to provide industry with greater flexibility by scrapping the "Gold" proposal's facility-based framework.
http://insideepa.com/daily-news/epa-finalizes-flexible-framework-voluntary-oil-gas-methane-program
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'Shadow Brokers' Put Spotlight on Murky NSA Practice
Aug 19, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Blake Sobczak
On Saturday, an online figure known only as the "Shadow Brokers" posted a trove of world-class hacking tools said to have been stolen three years ago from the U.S. National Security Agency.
One of the more potent weapons in the cornucopia of computer exploits offers a way to bypass Cisco firewalls commonly installed in North American infrastructure networks. The attack hinges on a newfound flaw in Cisco's Adaptive Security Appliance Software, which the company is now rushing to help customers defend.
The case raises a troubling question: If the NSA knew about the software defect in 2013, why did the agency hide it from Cisco, leaving critical U.S. systems exposed?
Jason Healey, a former White House cyber policy director, said he was "surprised and disappointed" by the NSA's apparent decision to keep the Cisco weakness under wraps.
"If a vulnerability affects U.S. critical infrastructure or imposes a high risk, the government should not keep it," he said in an opinion piece yesterday for The Christian Science Monitor. "That's certainly the case with the Cisco security bug."
The Shadow Brokers' data dump included methods to breach firewalls from other companies, including China's Topsec Network Security Technology Co. Ltd. and the California-based Fortinet Inc.
"Some [industrial control system] vendors, such as GE, Emerson, Leidos (formerly Industrial Defender), deploy these firewalls as part of an ICS cyber security solution," Dale Peterson, founder and CEO of cybersecurity consulting firm Digital Bond, told EnergyWire in an email. "They should, and I imagine will, be issuing bulletins and patches to their customers."
None of the tools in the purported NSA cache explicitly targets grid networks or other critical infrastructure systems. But operators shouldn't brush off the Shadow Brokers' findings, according to Peterson, given that many industrial environments lack strong cyberdefenses beyond a firewall.
"This becomes an important ICS security issue," he said.
Moscow to Fort Meade
Just who are the "Shadow Brokers," exactly?
At the moment, no one knows.
"We find cyber weapons made by creators of stuxnet, duqu, flame," the hacker or hackers proclaimed last Saturday in stilted English, referring to several crippling cyberattacks said to have had U.S. backing.
Over the weekend, the Shadow Brokers launched a Bitcoin auction with a promise to release more top-secret data from their claimed hack of the hackers. (Few bidders have shown interest.)
Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor who exposed sweeping domestic espionage programs at the agency in 2013, took to Twitter to weigh in on the Shadow Brokers' background and motivation.
He suggested the hackers got their 250-megabyte haul from an NSA staging server — such attack servers can be scattered across the world — rather than from Fort Meade itself.
Snowden, who is currently in exile in Russia, also hinted that country's intelligence services may be responsible, citing "circumstantial evidence and conventional wisdom."
"Why did they do it? No one knows, but I suspect this is more diplomacy than intelligence, related to the escalation around the DNC hack," he tweeted, referring to suspected Russian hackers' infiltration of Democratic National Committee networks (EnergyWire, July 27).
But others have speculated that an NSA insider or former employee like Snowden could be the real persona behind "Shadow Brokers," perhaps faking poor English to throw people off.
The NSA and the National Security Council did not respond to requests for comment, but it's all but certain the United States is investigating the high-profile data breach.
EnergyWire could not independently confirm the authenticity of the alleged NSA documents, but former intelligence workers and leading security experts including Nicholas Weaver of the University of California, Berkeley's International Computer Science Institute have pointed out that the data would be all but impossible to fake.
Attack or defend?
The cybersecurity community was hardly shocked to see the NSA apparently coding and deploying its own exploits, as the Shadow Brokers showed. After all, the agency's day-to-day work involves hacking into computers to gather foreign intelligence for U.S. policymakers.
But NSA also has a lesser-known "information assurance" mission, meaning the spy agency must also keep an eye on U.S. defenses.
In the case of the Cisco bug, which was a previously unknown or "zero-day" vulnerability, current guidelines would have seen the NSA run the discovery by White House officials to make sure keeping it secret wouldn't jeopardize U.S. companies.
The White House is supposed to be "biased toward responsibly disclosing the vulnerability," based on a two-year-old blog post from President Obama's cybersecurity coordinator, Michael Daniel, that offers the government's most current thinking on the thorny subject.
"We rely on the Internet and connected systems for much of our daily lives," Daniel wrote. "Our economy would not function without them. Our ability to project power abroad would be crippled if we could not depend on them. For these reasons, disclosing vulnerabilities usually makes sense. We need these systems to be secure as much as, if not more so, than everyone else."
However, Daniel goes on to make the case that NSA needs at least a few zero days it can use like lock picks to hack into high-profile targets for national security purposes.
Keeping too many zero days is a double-edged sword, granting the NSA powerful attack capabilities while running the risk that adversaries will discover the same vulnerabilities and use them against U.S. networks.
As Snowden put it in another tweet, "#NSA left catastrophic flaws in US networks for 3+ years to aid offense, rather than fixing them."
No quick fix
The infamous Stuxnet worm that damaged Iranian nuclear centrifuges in 2010 relied on several zero-day flaws to carry out its intended effect.
But while zero days commonly turn up in industrial control system equipment, they have been exploited at that level only a handful of times.
Yet even when ICS zero days come to light, they can often take months or even years to be patched up, according to a recent report from the cybersecurity firm FireEye.
"Unfortunately, security personnel from manufacturing energy, water and other industries are frequently unaware of their own control system assets, let alone the vulnerabilities that affect them," the report concluded, noting that of nearly 1,600 total ICS-related cyber vulnerabilities the firm uncovered since 2000, 516 were zero days with no fix available at the time of their discovery.
Sean McBride, lead analyst for critical infrastructure for the FireEye Inc. cybersecurity subsidiary iSIGHT Partners, said in an interview earlier this month that he expects the number of control system cybersecurity incidents to grow over the next few years, alongside the number of software flaws reported. "When you see this wave of vulnerabilities being disclosed, maybe your choice is to ignore it — but I think you need to weigh the consequences," he said. "The threat environment is changing, and it's dangerous to ignore it."
http://www.eenews.net/energywire/2016/08/19/stories/1060041819
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Mass. Ruling Dampens New England Pipeline Projects
Aug 19, 2016 | E&E Greemwire
By Amanda Reilly
A decision this week in Massachusetts' highest court could have a big impact on the ability of energy companies to build pipelines throughout New England.
The Wednesday ruling by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court nixed an order that allowed electric distribution companies to charge customers for pipeline construction. In the days after the ruling, both environmental and industry groups said they thought the decision would make it harder to build pipelines to expand natural gas capacity in the region.
"The Supreme Judicial Court's decision will leave New Englanders in the same position they are in now — forced to pay the highest rates for natural gas and electricity in the continental U.S. because of inadequate natural gas pipeline capacity," the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America said in a statement.
The ruling is part of a larger, long-running debate over whether the region needs new infrastructure to supply residents with cheap energy.
Environmentalists disagree that New England needs big pipeline projects to provide an adequate supply of natural gas.
"We hope that this is the end" of proposed pipelines in the region, David Ismay, a staff attorney at the Conservation Law Foundation, said of this week's ruling.
That debate over energy infrastructure was brought into sharp relief with the polar vortex winter of 2013-14, which caused price shocks in the wholesale gas market.
Following the polar vortex, the Department of Public Utilities last year opened a docket at the request of Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker (R) to ask whether it had authority to approve gas contracts by electric distribution companies. Doing so would help pay for potential new gas pipelines.
In October, DPU issued an order approving ratepayer-backed, long-term contracts entered into by electric utilities for natural gas pipeline capacity.
The Conservation Law Foundation brought a challenge against the order, arguing that Massachusetts electricity customers shouldn't be on the hook for paying for natural gas projects that renewable energy may obviate the need for in the next few decades.
Engie Gas & LNG, an importer of liquefied natural gas, brought a separate challenge.
The Massachusetts high court on Wednesday agreed with the challengers that state law governing public utilities never meant for electric companies to get reimbursed for gas contracts. The court also agreed that the order went against a 1997 law that broke up vertical monopolies in the sector.
DPU's order "would undermine the main objectives of the act and reexpose ratepayers to the types of financial risks from which the Legislature sought to protect them," Associate Justice Robert Cordy wrote in the decision.
Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, a Democrat, applauded the ruling and said pipeline developers "will need to find a source of financing other than electric ratepayers' wallets."
Oil and gas trade groups, though, are warning that customers in Massachusetts will have to pay more for electricity after the ruling.
"This decision will not give consumers relief in energy prices, potentially causing them to needlessly spend millions more each year for electricity and natural gas as compared to neighboring states," Massachusetts Petroleum Council Associate Director Beth Treseder said in a statement.
The ruling's effects could be widespread, environmentalists predicted.
While other New England states have approved similar authority for electric distribution companies to enter into natural gas contracts, the decision by Massachusetts — by far the most populated state in New England — is significant for the entire region's future pipeline prospects, according to Ismay.
Massachusetts is like an "anchor tenant at a mall," Ismay said. "You generally need Massachusetts to go forward for financing."
National Grid, which is backing Spectra Energy's proposed Access Northeast pipeline project with Eversource Energy, called the ruling a "disappointing setback."
"We will explore our options for a potential path forward with Access Northeast," the company said in a statement, "and pursue a balanced portfolio of solutions to provide the clean, reliable, and secure energy our customers deserve."
Energy giant Kinder Morgan earlier this year canceled its proposed $3.3 billion natural gas pipeline plan through Massachusetts and New Hampshire.
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2016/08/19/stories/1060041827
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Exxon Mobil Fraud Inquiry Said to Focus More on Future Than Past
Aug 19, 2016 | New York Times
By John Schwartz
For more than a year, much of the public scrutiny of Exxon Mobil was captured by the #Exxonknew hashtag — shorthand for revelations about decades-old research on climate change conducted by the company while it funded groups promoting doubt about climate science.
Articles about that research have energized protests against Exxon Mobil and the fossil fuel industry and had a role in initiating queries by at least five attorneys general, led by Eric T. Schneiderman of New York.
Early on, his office demanded extensive emails, financial records and other documents from the oil company, leaving many observers with the impression that a deeper look into the company’s past was the focus of the investigation.
But in an extensive interview, Mr. Schneiderman said that his investigation was focused less on the distant past than on relatively recent statements by Exxon Mobil related to climate change and what it means for the company’s future.
In other words, the question for Mr. Schneiderman is less what Exxon knew, and more what it predicts.
For example, he said, the investigation is scrutinizing a 2014 report by Exxon Mobil stating that global efforts to address climate change would not mean that it had to leave enormous amounts of oil reserves in the ground as so-called “stranded assets.”
But many scientists have suggested that if the world were to burn even just a portion of the oil in the ground that the industry declares on its books, the planet would heat up to such dangerous levels that “there’s no one left to burn the rest,” Mr. Schneiderman said.
By that logic, the Exxon Mobil will have to leave much of its oil in the ground, which means the company’s valuation of its reserves is off by a significant amount.
“If, collectively, the fossil fuel companies are overstating their assets by trillions of dollars, that’s a big deal,” Mr. Schneiderman said. And if the company’s own internal research shows that Exxon Mobil knows better, he added, “there may be massive securities fraud here.”
Alan Jeffers, a spokesman for Exxon, dismissed the idea that its forecast could be viewed as fraudulent.
“If it turns out to be wrong, that’s not fraud, that’s wrong,” he said. “That’s why we adjust our outlook every year, and that’s why we issue the annual forecast publicly, so people can know the basis of our forecasting.”
The company has said allegations that it secretly developed a definitive understanding of climate change before the rest of the world’s scientists are “preposterous.”
Mr. Schneiderman has praised reports from publications, including Inside Climate News and the Los Angeles Times, that detailed Exxon Mobil’s past research.
And all indications were that his office planned to use its subpoena powers to unearth new documents that might show a disconnect between what the company was saying publicly and what it was saying privately about climate change over several decades.
In the interview, however, Mr. Schneiderman said his focus lay elsewhere. “The older stuff really is just important to establish knowledge and the framework and to look for inconsistencies.”
He called his efforts a straightforward fraud investigation, like many that he and his predecessors have taken on in subjects as wide-ranging as the crash of mortgage-backed securities and Volkswagen’s diesel engine deceptions.
Mr. Schneiderman also mentioned, as an example of questionable public statements by Exxon Mobil, congressional testimony in 2010 by its chief executive, Rex Tillerson, who said that while the company acknowledged that humans were affecting the climate through greenhouse gas emissions to some degree, it was not yet clear “to what extent and therefore what can you do about it.”
Mr. Tillerson added, “There is not a model available today that is competent” for understanding the science and predicting the future.
Mr. Schneiderman disagrees, and cited the industry’s own extensive climate research and the actions it has taken in response, including exploration in the melting Arctic and raising the decks of offshore oil platforms to compensate for rising sea level.
“These guys have the best science for their engineering purposes,” he said. “We’re confident they’re not wasting shareholder dollars to do things that are inconsistent with the science they have internally.”
Since November, when the investigation was first revealed, and as other state attorneys general announced their support, Mr. Schneiderman’s intentions have been questioned and, he said, misconstrued.
Supporters of Exxon Mobil have accused him and his colleagues of using prosecutorial powers to pursue political ends and of trying to squelch the First Amendment rights of the company, its scientists and anyone who agrees with them.
Lamar Smith, a congressman from Texas and chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, accused the attorneys general of “pursuing a political agenda at the expense of scientists’ rights to free speech” and has issued subpoenas demanding internal documents from Mr. Schneiderman and another state attorney general, as well as eight groups that have supported the investigations.
Hans von Spakovsky, a conservative commentator, compared the investigation by the attorneys general to the Spanish Inquisition, and the Daily Caller asked whether Mr. Schneiderman had suggested “jailing global warming skeptics.”
Mr. Schneiderman talks about such accusations with incredulity.
“This is an investigation,” he said. “It is a civil fraud case. No one is being prosecuted — we’re not out to silence dissenting views.” He has said, however, that if criminal actions turn up in the evidence the state gathers, criminal charges could be filed.
When asked about the First Amendment implications of investigating Exxon’s statements, he repeated a sentence he has uttered many times: “The First Amendment doesn’t protect you for fraud.”
He added, “Three-card monte operators can’t say, ‘Hey, I’m just exercising my First Amendment rights!’”
When asked about the focus of Mr. Schneiderman’s investigation, Joel Seligman, an expert in securities law who is the president of the University of Rochester, said that “at some level, this is a plain-vanilla investigation — and there is no guarantee it will lead to a case.”
Exxon Mobil has sued to block subpoenas from Massachusetts and theUnited States Virgin Islands, but the company has provided hundreds of thousands of pages of documents to New York.
If the investigation does turn up the kind of evidence that could lead to a civil case, it is still unclear whether New York or the other states might win, said David M. Uhlmann, a former top federal prosecutor of environmental crime and a professor at the University of Michigan law school.
Until governments impose the kind of regulations that will lead to concrete action to slow or reverse climate change, he said, “We’re going to continue to drill for oil and frack for gas.’’ In that case, he continued, Exxon may “utilize a significant portion of its reserves, which means it may not even be wrong when it states that it expects to utilize its reserves.”
Even if Exxon is wrong in saying that it expects to be able to use all its reserves, “The question is whether they know that they are wrong and are therefore lying to investors,” he added.
The investigation, Mr. Schneiderman said, mirrors an earlier inquiry into a coal giant, Peabody Energy. In 2013, he issued subpoenas for internal documents related to climate change, and found false statements to shareholders and the Securities and Exchange Commission. “Simple stuff like ‘it’s impossible to predict the effect of a carbon tax on the coal market,’ and they paid a consultant a lot of money to predict the effect of a carbon market,” he said.
Peabody signed an agreement pledging to properly disclose the climate riskto its business.
Mr. Schneiderman has also been accused of conspiring with environmental groups, but he said, “People bring information to us all the time. If it’s got merit to it, we follow up on it.”
Groups like the Union of Concerned Scientists have investigated the fossil fuel industry for years, he said, and so “it would be malpractice for us not to meet with people like this.”
The industry’s tactics come “straight out of the tobacco playbook,” he said. “It’s delay, and sowing doubt.”
Mr. Schneiderman has refused to comply with the congressman’s subpoena, stressing the importance of federalism — normally an argument used by conservatives against federal overreach.
When asked for comment, Kristina Baum, a spokeswoman for the Science committee, said that Mr. Smith was unavailable.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/20/science/exxon-mobil-fraud-inquiry-said-to-focus-more-on-future-than-past.html?_r=0
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