Preview Newsletter
ACC PM 11/06/18
-
(ACC Mentioned) Carbon & Hydrogen-Rich Plastics Have High Energy Potential, Can Be Turned Into Fuels Via Gasification [Study]
Jun 11, 2018 | Inquisitr
By Damir Mujezinovic
According to a report by the World Economic Forum, published in January 2016, by 2050 there could be more plastic than fishes in the ocean. Nearly everyone, everywhere, every day comes into contact with plastics. -
(ACC Mentioned) Canadian Plastics and Chemistry Industries Set Ambitious Recycling Targets
Jun 11, 2018 | Canadian Plastics
The Canadian Plastics Industry Association (CPIA) and the Chemistry Industry Association of Canada (CIAC) have partnered to establish some ambitious recycling targets designed to re-use, recycle, or recover 100 per cent of plastics packaging by 2040. -
NGO Report Urges Fashion Brands to Join Collaborative Initiatives
Jun 11, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Tammy Lovell
A fashion industry sustainability report has called on brands to join collaborative initiatives to help them get started on eliminating hazardous chemicals. -
Democratic Lawmaker Challenges Pruitt on EPA Public Records
Jun 11, 2018 | AP (In The New York Times, The Washington Post)
Environmental Protection Agency emails show that Administrator Scott Pruitt's top aides were told to review public records releases under the Freedom of Information Act. -
House Democrat accuses Scott Pruitt of Delaying Public-Records Requests by Answering Obama-Era Ones First
Jun 11, 2018 | The Washington Post
By Dino Grandoni
Three former aides to Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt confirmed to congressional investigators that the EPA delayed producing emails and other government documents sought by members of the public through public-records requests by choosing instead to respond to old petitions made during the Obama administration first. -
Replacing Methylene Chloride in Paint Strippers
Jun 11, 2018 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Britt E. Erickson
In early May, three mothers traveled to Washington, D.C., to urge members of Congress and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to ban the use of methylene chloride in paint and coating removers. -
US NGOs Press for Release of PFAS Tox Profile
Jun 11, 2018 | Chemical Watch
A coalition of more than fifty public interest organisations is calling for the release of a "suppressed" assessment of perfluorinated chemicals (PFASs) from the US’s Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR). -
Massachusetts Introduces Firefighting Foam Take-Back Initiative
Jun 11, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Leigh Stringer
Massachusetts has launched an initiative aiming to help fire rescue departments dispose of legacy firefighting foams containing perfluorinated compounds. -
NGOs Attack Echa’s ‘Limited’ Microplastics Restriction Proposal
Jun 11, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Clelia Oziel
A group of NGOs has criticised Echa for "unduly limiting" the scope of a restriction proposal on microplastics by hearing industry concerns before taking the scientific opinion of its committees. -
Global LNG Trade Rises Alongside U.S. Production
Jun 11, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By Katherine Blunt
Global trade of liquefied natural gas saw record growth last year amid a boom in U.S. energy production that allowed Houston's Cheniere Energy to ramp up exports to meet growing demand in Asia and elsewhere. -
Global Oil Demand Could Leave Gaping Hole: Fuel for Thought
Jun 11, 2018 | Platts
By Paul Hickin
Global oil demand growth was a much heralded sidekick to supply cuts that rebalanced the market in record time. -
The Apparently Never-Ending Permian Blowout
Jun 11, 2018 | Bloomberg (In The Washington Post)
By Liam Denning
Energy dominance carries its own backlash, it turns out. Ground zero is the Permian basin in west Texas, where oil production has run ahead of pipeline capacity to get it to market, forcing some U.S. barrels to price at wide discounts. -
U.S. Wants to Sell More LNG to China. It's Not That Simple
Jun 11, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Nathanial Gronewold
Trade negotiations between the United States and China will likely benefit U.S. exporters of liquefied natural gas, but that's not guaranteed, experts are cautioning. -
Trump's EPA Turns to Less Punitive Responses to Pollution
Jun 11, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Mike Soraghan
Trump administration officials at EPA are changing the agency's top enforcement program into a "compliance initiative" that will emphasize less punitive responses to pollution by companies. -
Texas Considers Reversal of Historic Limits on Flaring
Jun 11, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Mike Lee
Oil and gas regulators in Texas may decide in the next few months whether to allow producers to flare more natural gas from well sites in the Permian Basin, to help relieve a glut caused by a lack of pipelines. -
Opinion: Action Needed to Keep Manufacturing on Move in Ohio
Jun 11, 2018 | CantonRep
By Ryan Augsburger
One of every eight jobs in Ohio is in manufacturing. -
Senate Will Vote on Landmark Measure to Price Carbon
Jun 11, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Benjamin Storrow
The Massachusetts Senate is set to vote on a carbon pricing proposal Thursday. -
Trump Admin Asks Court for More Time on Ozone
Jun 11, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
The Trump administration, seeking to tamp down unrest among Republican state allies, has asked a federal court to give it until August to plot a next move on EPA's contested 2015 ground-level ozone standard. -
Second Suit Over EPA's Delay of Utility ELG Faces Familiar Hurdles
Jun 11, 2018 | Inside EPA
A second lawsuit filed by environmentalists over EPA's partial delay of the Obama-era Clean Water Act (CWA) power plant effluent rule faces familiar hurdles that led to a loss in the first such case, with EPA and utilities reviving claims that the suit must be combined with a separate pending challenge to the merits of the water rule. -
SeaWorld, Ikea and Royal Caribbean are Getting Rid of Plastic Straws and Bags
Jun 11, 2018 | The Washington Post
By Darryl Fears
Less than two weeks after a pilot whale died off Thailand with 80 plastic bags in its stomach, three major companies — SeaWorld, Ikea and Royal Caribbean — have vowed to remove plastic straws and bags from their properties.
Industry and Association News
LCSA News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Transportation and Infrastructure News
Environment News
-
Jun 11, 2018 | Inquisitr
By Damir Mujezinovic
According to a report by the World Economic Forum, published in January 2016, by 2050 there could be more plastic than fishes in the ocean. Nearly everyone, everywhere, every day comes into contact with plastics.
Apart from having potentially disastrous effects on the environment, 95 percent of plastic packaging material value, or $80–120 billion annually, is lost to the economy, and over 30 percent plastic packaging escapes collection systems, the same report states.
Why is this happening, what can we do about it, and why aren’t we using technology that can effectively recycle, convert to valuable products, and extract the energy from plastic?
Those are some of the questions the Earth Engineering Center (EEC|CCNY) at the Grove School of Engineering of the City College of New York has attempted to answer in a new study titled, “The Effects of Non-recycled Plastic (NRP) on Gasification: A Quantitative Assessment,” published by by the American Chemistry Council.
Authored by y Marco J. Castaldi, Professor of chemical engineering Director of Earth System Science and Environmental Engineering and Director of the EEC|CCNY, and Demetra Tsiamis Associate Director of the EEC|CCNY, the study, the authors claim, shows that the plastic we’re disposing is, in fact, a resource we can use.
The effects of increasing the NPR percentage were measured at Enerkem, a Canadian energy company, in collaboration with the City of Edmonton.
According to Castaldi and Tsiamis, adding Non-recycled Plastic (NPR) to gasification – a chemical recycling technology capable of transforming waste materials into fuels – adds economic value, and preserves the environment, by reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and the amount of waste byproduct up to 76 percent.
The scientists wrote the following.
“This study measures the effects of increasing the percentage of non-recycled plastics (NRP) in the feedstock for the Enerkem gasification to methanol process. Gasification transforms materials, including post-recycled municipal solid waste (MSW), into a useable gaseous product called synthesis gas (syngas). The syngas is comprised of hydrogen (H2) and carbon monoxide (CO). Subsequently, it can be combusted to produce electricity and heat or converted into basic chemicals and fuels such as methanol and ethanol.”
The gassification process, Castaldi and Tsiamis found, improved along with the increase of plastics in feedstock. This resulted in up to 80 percent increase in syngas energy content (but with only a 2 percent increase in energy inputs), up to 42 percent more methanol production, a decrease of ash to landfill by up to 76 percent, a 28 percent improvement in thermal efficiency, and a net displacement of 21, 000 tons of CO2.
In a press release, supplied to Phys.org, Castaldi said that this study shows that there is “tremendous potential to use technologies like gasification to convert these materials into fuels, chemicals, and other products.”
These findings, the researchers wrote, clearly demonstrate that adding NRP to the gaification process would, not only improve its efficiency, but also increase the output of valuable products, while at the same time reducing the overall environmental footprint.
https://www.inquisitr.com/4936975/carbon-hydrogen-rich-plastics-have-high-energy-potential-can-be-turned-into-fuels-via-gasification-study/
-
(ACC Mentioned) Canadian Plastics and Chemistry Industries Set Ambitious Recycling Targets
Jun 11, 2018 | Canadian Plastics
The Canadian Plastics Industry Association (CPIA) and the Chemistry Industry Association of Canada (CIAC) have partnered to establish some ambitious recycling targets designed to re-use, recycle, or recover 100 per cent of plastics packaging by 2040.
“Plastics innovations are essential to increase living standards and improve overall sustainability via new products that design out waste, reduce food waste, support resource efficiency, conserve water and natural resources and reduce emissions,” said Carol Hochu, president and CEO of Toronto-based CPIA. “But it is a waste of precious resources for plastics to be used once and then landfilled.”
The two associations have also set what they call an “aggressive interim goal” of 100 per cent of plastics packaging being recyclable or recoverable by 2030.
“Achieving these goals will require significant investment across the value chain in new and upgraded infrastructure and improved packaging design,” the CPIA said. “Success will also require widespread public participation in recycling and recovery programs along with changes to littering behaviour.”
“Industry has a role to play in designing materials and applications for greater recovery, reuse and recyclability, but addressing the issue of plastic waste will require actions from society as a whole and from all of us as individuals,” said Bob Masterson, president and CEO of CIAC. “Our members are committed to doing their part, working with governments and others, to significantly improve the recycling and recovery of post-use plastics packaging to complement existing innovations. Supports for investments in new innovations such as chemical recycling will be essential to achieving these goals.”
These two targets put the Canadian plastics industry in line with PlasticsEurope and the American Chemistry Council, who recently announced similar ambitions.
https://www.canplastics.com/canplastics/canadian-plastics-and-chemistry-industries-set-ambitious-recycling-targets/1003448337/
-
NGO Report Urges Fashion Brands to Join Collaborative Initiatives
Jun 11, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Tammy Lovell
A fashion industry sustainability report has called on brands to join collaborative initiatives to help them get started on eliminating hazardous chemicals.
Global Fashion Agenda - a sustainability initiative run by the Danish Fashion Institute - published Pulse of the Fashion Industry 2018 report last month, to give an in-depth assessment of the fashion industry's environmental and social performance.
The report says that "many fashion brands have not extended their [sustainability] efforts to include the processing stage where chemicals are used."
Morten Lehmann, chief security officer for the GFA, told Chemical Watch that many companies "are still in the beginning phase" of eliminating hazardous chemicals. And they are searching for programmes and tools that enable them to produce more sustainably.
"Since the processing stage within the value chain is a very complex and fragmented one, many brands face difficulties in getting started. Hence, we advise brands to join collaborative initiatives to profit from existing knowledge and experiences as taking action alone might be an overwhelming task," he said.
The report outlines several projects and certification schemes aimed at reducing the use of hazardous chemicals, including:Clean by Design; Save programme; Zero Discharge of Hazardous Chemicals (ZDHC);Gateaway;Bluesign; OEKO-Tex Standard 100; and Greenpeace Detox.
"We also highly encourage brands to invest in research and new technologies to scale existing solutions up and to uncover new possibilities for current challenges," Mr Lehmann added.
GFA collaborates with a group of strategic partners, including Kering, H&M, Target and the Sustainable Apparel Coalition, on setting a common agenda for industry efforts on sustainability in fashion.Greenpeace criticism
But Kirsten Brodde of the NGO Greenpeace's Detox campaign criticised the report for focusing on technological solutions rather than ways to reduce the overall volume of textile production.
"While we welcome the intention of the fashion industry to clean up their act and shift towards more sustainable modes of production, the new Pulse of the Fashion Industry report does not give enough room and attention to these important topics, but stays within the dominant frame of further economic growth, with a focus on techno-fix solutions," she told Chemical Watch.
The Greenpeace Detox campaign aims to eliminate 11 groups of chemicals of concern used in the fashion industry by 2020.
Last year, Greenpeace warned about the industry's use of large quantities of polyester and its contribution to pollution of the oceans with microplastic fibres.
Its Fashion at the Crossroads report called for a slow down of its plans for expansion, which it says is based on using nearly double the 2015 quantities of polyester by 2030 – increasing the annual amount to 76m tonnes.
https://chemicalwatch.com/67541/ngo-report-urges-fashion-brands-to-join-collaborative-initiatives
-
Democratic Lawmaker Challenges Pruitt on EPA Public Records
Jun 11, 2018 | AP (In The New York Times, The Washington Post)
Environmental Protection Agency emails show that Administrator Scott Pruitt's top aides were told to review public records releases under the Freedom of Information Act.
The emails from EPA Chief of Staff Ryan Jackson and a top legal counsel lay out a system for Pruitt's political appointees to review any FOIA record releases. Jackson calls it a "centralization pilot project."
House Oversight Committee Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland writes in a letter to Pruitt on Monday that he is concerned the administrator is avoiding releasing public records. EPA spokespeople did not immediately return a request for comment.
Pruitt is dealing with a series of ongoing federal investigations regarding alleged ethical misconduct. Several of the allegations came to light through EPA documents released under the federal open records law.
https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/06/11/us/politics/ap-us-epa-pruitt.html
-
Jun 11, 2018 | The Washington Post
By Dino Grandoni
Three former aides to Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt confirmed to congressional investigators that the EPA delayed producing emails and other government documents sought by members of the public through public-records requests by choosing instead to respond to old petitions made during the Obama administration first.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2018/06/11/house-democrat-accuses-scott-pruitt-of-delaying-public-records-requests-by-answering-obama-era-ones-first/?utm_term=.a0103bdb9a31
-
Replacing Methylene Chloride in Paint Strippers
Jun 11, 2018 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Britt E. Erickson
In early May, three mothers traveled to Washington, D.C., to urge members of Congress and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to ban the use of methylene chloride in paint and coating removers. Each of the women had a son who died from exposure to methylene chloride in paint-stripping products purchased at home improvement stores.
After meeting with the families, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said the agency will finalize a rule to limit commercial sales of methylene chloride soon. But what exactly that means and when it will happen is anyone’s guess. If EPA does ban the use of methylene chloride in paint removers, then what alternatives are available to consumers? C&EN visited several home improvement stores to find out and test how well some of the alternatives perform. We also talked with experts about new formulations currently under development.
A ban of some uses of methylene chloride-based paint removers is likely. In 2014, EPA reportedthat workers exposed to such products have an increased risk of cancer, as well as neurological and liver problems. At the time, EPA also concluded that consumers who use methylene chloride-based strippers face an increased risk of short-term neurological effects.Credit:C&ENTest strip
EPA is likely to ban methylene chloride, CH2Cl2, in consumer paint strippers. See how products made with and without it perform on cabinet doors with many layers of assorted paint types.EPA proposed a ban on methylene chloride in paint and coating removal products during the final days of the Obama administration in early 2017. The Obama-era proposal would have banned both methylene chloride, also called dichloromethane, and N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP), a chemical widely used as an alternative to methylene chloride, in paint strippers. EPA declared in 2015 that NMP poses reproductive risks to pregnant women and women of childbearing age. But late last year the agency put bans of both chemicals on hold.
EPA’s recent announcement that it is moving forward with a methylene chloride rule doesn’t indicate whether the agency will also finalize the ban on NMP in paint strippers.MYRIAD PAINT REMOVERS
Numerous stripping products are sold in U.S. home improvement stores. Here’s a sampling of what is inside some of those products and how a few of them performed during a test conducted by C&EN. Note: Not all products were tested by C&EN.
That leaves consumers wondering about their alternatives. Other than methylene chloride-based formulations, which are typically mixed with about 20% methanol, U.S. consumers can currently find paint removers that contain a mixture of NMP and benzyl alcohol, or NMP and dibasic esters such as dimethyl adipate or dimethyl glutarate. Stripping products are also available without NMP. Those products typically contain mixtures of dibasic esters and can include benzyl alcohol.
C&EN tested a few products on old wooden cabinet doors covered with multiple layers of paint, including lead-based paint, to find out how well the alternatives to methylene chloride perform. Each product was allowed to react with the paint for 30 minutes. A methylene chloride-based formulation was the only one that exposed any wood on the cabinet door, but it left a layer of lead-based paint behind. Mixtures of dibasic esters, both with and without NMP, removed several layers of paint but not as many as the methylene chloride-based product. A mixture of NMP and benzyl alcohol did not remove the top layer of paint within 30 minutes, although the product label recommended a longer reaction time.
This simple experiment confirms what experts are telling C&EN. “Paint removers with methylene chloride work really well, in 20 minutes or less, for most multilayer applications,” says Greg Morose, research manager of the Toxics Use Reduction Institute (TURI) at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell. Alternative paint removers that don’t contain methylene chloride, such as those with NMP, dibasic esters, and benzyl alcohol, “work much, much less effectively for multilayer applications,” Morose notes. It takes six to 12 hours for those products to work, he says.
Morose is managing a project at TURI that aims to commercialize alternative products that perform as well as methylene chloride-based strippers without the safety risks. The team has developed two formulations that Morose says perform as well as methylene chloride as a general-purpose paint stripper. The formulations contain methyl acetate, dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), and either thiophene or 1,3-dioxolane.
Although the formulations are not yet commercially available, Morose says the team is in discussions with several manufacturers. They filed a patent application for the technology in 2016.
“The university can’t produce this on its own. We need industry partners that manufacture paint strippers to take this to market,” Morose says. He is optimistic that the formulations will be commercialized soon. Manufacturers are testing the products in their own labs and are confirming they are equivalent to methylene chloride-based strippers, he says.
To be effective at stripping multiple layers of paint, products need to be able to dissolve a wide variety of polymers. “Paint coatings are just different types of polymers,” Morose explains. Three intermolecular forces control a solvent’s ability to dissolve polymers—dispersion (van der Waals), polarity (dipole moment), and hydrogen bonding. A solvent’s so-called Hansen solubility parameter takes into account all three forces.
“We did a lot of testing to find out the optimal Hansen solubility parameters” to dissolve multiple layers of paint and coatings, Morose says. “If you took any one of the solvents and tried to use it to remove paint, it would be ineffective because the Hansen solubility parameter is not optimized,” he notes. But if you combine solvents in a certain ratio, you can get a more desirable Hansen solubility parameter, he says.
The performance of paint strippers also depends on the ability of the solvents to penetrate through multiple layers. If you can get the solvent down to the substrate, all the layers are removed at once, Morose says. Alternatives to methylene chloride in paint strippers, such as NMP, benzyl alcohol, and dibasic esters, all have large molecular volumes that prevent them from getting through multiple layers, he notes. Those products work one layer at a time. That is why it takes them so long, he says.
Other experts say they would like to see more testing of the formulations developed by TURI. “It is hard to know whether they are effective,” says Katy Wolf, director of the Institute for Research & Technical Assistance, which promotes alternatives to toxic solvents. Wolf also worries about the toxicity of DMSO, which is known to mobilize other chemicals, allowing them to go through skin. The toxicity of thiophene is unknown, she adds.
For most applications, you don’t need a chemical-based paint stripper, Wolf says. Other technologies, such as abrasion, laser stripping, heat treatment, and dry ice paired with crushed recycled glass blasting, can be effective for removing paint from many surfaces, including aircraft panels and boat hulls, she says. Removing paint from wood surfaces, particularly antique furniture, however, is more challenging because you can’t use abrasion, she acknowledges. Wolf recommends using a benzyl alcohol-based stripper for such applications. It takes longer than methylene chloride, but it is less toxic and noncarcinogenic, she notes.
EPA is expected to soon finalize its rule regarding methylene chloride in paint-removing products. It is unclear, however, what will be in that final rule. Small businesses that refinish furniture are likely to be exempt from the rule, as is the Department of Defense.
In the meantime, consumer advocacy and environmental groups are pushing retailers to stop selling paint-removal products that contain methylene chloride. That pressure appears to be working. In late May, home improvement retailer Lowe’s announced it would stop selling paint strippers with methylene chloride and NMP by the end of the year.
“We care deeply about the health and safety of our customers, and great progress is being made in the development of safer and more effective alternatives,” said Mike McDermott, Lowe’s chief customer officer. “As a home improvement leader, we recognize the need for viable paint removal products and remain committed to working closely with suppliers to further innovate in this category.”
The Green Chemistry & Commerce Council (GC3), a coalition of stakeholders that aims to commercialize green chemistry approaches and more sustainable options, welcomes the opportunity to work with Lowe’s and other members on alternatives to methylene chloride in paint strippers.
“Lowe’s announcement provides an important stimulus for green chemistry solutions,” GC3 Director Joel Tickner says.
Environmentalists are encouraged by EPA’s plan to finalize the methylene chloride rule, but they remain skeptical that the agency will follow through with a ban.
At least four people have died from exposure to methylene chloride in paint strippers since January 2017, when EPA proposed to ban such products, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group. “Lowe’s is showing leadership as the first major U.S. retailer to eliminate methylene chloride paint strippers from its stores,” Sujatha Jahagirdar, a policy specialist at NRDC, said in a press release. “It underscores the failure of this EPA to do its job to protect the American public from dangerous toxic chemicals.”
https://cen.acs.org/safety/consumer-safety/Replacing-methylene-chloride-paint-strippers/96/i24
-
US NGOs Press for Release of PFAS Tox Profile
Jun 11, 2018 | Chemical Watch
A coalition of more than fifty public interest organisations is calling for the release of a "suppressed" assessment of perfluorinated chemicals (PFASs) from the US’s Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR).
The request came in a letter to Alex Azar, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which oversees the ATSDR. It comes following weeks of public outrage over news that the toxicological profile’s release has been allegedly slowed.
According to internal EPA documents released under a Freedom of Information Act (Foia) request, the ATSDR assessment will propose safe exposure levels for PFAS chemicals significantly below EPA’s non-enforceable drinking water guidelines. But the publicised EPA emails reflect concern at the "public relations nightmare" that this could have.
The co-signing NGOs – including the Environmental Working Group (EWG), Greenpeace, Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), and Safer States – are urging the HHS to release the report "immediately".
"PFAS chemicals are potent toxicants linked to cancer, liver and thyroid damage, developmental impacts, and numerous other adverse health effects" wrote the groups. "The government should be sharing information about these dangers, not hiding it."
The letter also notes an "absence of meaningful action" from the EPA on the substances. Last month, the agency convened a two-day ‘PFAS summit’ in which it announced plans to take action on contamination by the legacy chemicals PFOA and PFOS, but where it remained largely silent on newer ‘short-chain’ substances.
The public interest groups say that the ATSDR study can provide "vital intelligence" to states seeking to address the risk the substances pose. And it echoes a separate NGO letter, sent to the EPA last month, calling for further data on PFASs to allow states to "keep leading the effort to address this public health crisis".
https://chemicalwatch.com/67587/us-ngos-press-for-release-of-pfas-tox-profile
-
Massachusetts Introduces Firefighting Foam Take-Back Initiative
Jun 11, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Leigh Stringer
Massachusetts has launched an initiative aiming to help fire rescue departments dispose of legacy firefighting foams containing perfluorinated compounds.
The aim of the take-back programme is to remove the risk of the foams impacting water supplies.
According to the state's environmental protection department (MassDEP), pre-2003 versions of the foam use perfluorinated compounds, PFOA and PFOS.
Last month, US EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt pledged to address possible health hazards posed by perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs), with a particular focus on PFOA and PFOS.
PFOS is listed on the UN treaty, the Stockholm Convention on persistent organic pollutants (POPs). The treaty's review panel is currently considering PFOA.
"These compounds have contaminated some groundwater and drinking water sources across the country," a MassDEP statement says.
The take-back programme, it adds, will ensure that these foams are "removed from current stockpiles and neutralised".
MassDEP, in partnership with the Massachusetts Department of Fire Services, is asking all fire departments to conduct an inventory of their stockpiles and notify the agencies by Friday 15 June if they have any of the legacy foam.
The departments will then assign a state-sponsored contractor to handle the disposal.Existing stocks
According to the EPA, the last time PFOS manufacture was reported to the agency was in 2002. It also says that the manufacture and import of PFOA has been phased out in US as part of the agency's Stewardship programme. This was an initiative launched by the EPA in 2006, inviting companies to eliminate the substance from emissions and products by 2015.
However, the agency does say that existing stocks of PFOA might still be used and the substance might be in some imported articles.
MassDEP says that foams are still being made, sold and used with shorter-chain PFASs. Long-chain PFASs – like PFOA and PFOS – may still be manufactured overseas, for example in China.
Manufacturers have "since developed more fluorine-stable foams and fluorine-free aqueous film forming foams (AFFF) that have less of an impact on the environment", the department says.
The state is not considering a ban on all PFASs. However, it is working with the users, such as the fire services, to identify alternatives to short-chain PFAS foams.
In April, Washington became the first US state to ban firefighting foams containing all perfluorinated compounds. Last month 40 NGOs urged states to take the lead on eliminating the use of PFASs, and asked the EPA to give them the resources to support this.
https://chemicalwatch.com/67536/massachusetts-introduces-firefighting-foam-take-back-initiative
-
NGOs Attack Echa’s ‘Limited’ Microplastics Restriction Proposal
Jun 11, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Clelia Oziel
A group of NGOs has criticised Echa for "unduly limiting" the scope of a restriction proposal on microplastics by hearing industry concerns before taking the scientific opinion of its committees.
This "may ultimately make it more difficult" for the European Commission to adopt a restriction "that would be broad enough to adequately control the risk," they said in a letter addressed to Sharon McGuinness, chair of Echa's Management Board.
In January, the Commission asked Echa to prepare a REACH Annex XV restriction dossier on the use of intentionally added microplastic particles to all consumer and professional use products. A consultation on the subject closed on 11 May.
The "long-overdue" restriction proposal, the NGOs said, will exclude "relevant and harmful uses of microplastics" before the Committees for Risk Assessment and Socio-economic Analysis (Rac and Seac) give their opinion.
This, they added, will make it more difficult for the Commission to adopt a restriction – expected in 2020 – that would "truly tackle" the issue of microplastics added to products and their release into the environment.
The NGOs published their letter following a stakeholder workshop in Helsinki on 30-31 May to discuss the outcome of the consultation. Fifty-nine invited participants attended, including representatives from industry, member states, academia and NGOs.‘Exclusion’
The group, which includes ClientEarth, European Environmental Bureau (EEB), Health and Environment Alliance (HEAL) and ChemSec, said the agency "did not show interest" in receiving information from non-industry stakeholders about the hazards and risks of microplastics.
During the call for evidence, they said Echa:lacked the objectivity required by its role in the restriction process; andmisinterpreted the conditions that may justify the addition of derogations to the restriction.
ClientEarth lawyer Alice Bernard said Echa's priority should be to ensure no risks are overlooked or underestimated. "Yet we witnessed a call for evidence with an excessive focus on protecting the interests of the businesses responsible for this microplastic pollution." Echa response
In its reply to the NGO letter, Ms McGuinness said Echa’s scope for the call for evidence was "very wide" and covered all intentionally added microplastics in all uses. A call for evidence, she added, is just "one of the means" by which the agency gathers information when investigating a potential restriction and preparing a restriction report.
Additionally, she said, Echa did ask for information on releases of microplastics to the environment, which it regards as being "important" in assessing risks.
It did this, she added, in an unobjective fashion. "Echa has screened 15,000 scientific articles that could be relevant for this specific restriction," she said. The agency also requested that stakeholders collate additional information "such as ongoing unpublished research" related to the risks of microplastics.‘Simple’ definition
The definition of microplastics has also been under the spotlight with the European Oilfield Speciality Chemicals Association recently expressing concern about Echa’s digression from the Commission’s original definition of a microplastic to a "broader ‘catch-all’" one.
In its comments to Chemical Watch, Echa said it will publish "further thoughts" on its approach to the definition in June, but did say that it is wary of a definition being "too simplistic for the purposes of a REACH restriction in practice".
Once the agency has considered the information gathered from its consultation it will decide if additional specific stakeholder calls for evidence are necessary.
https://chemicalwatch.com/67582/ngos-attack-echas-limited-microplastics-restriction-proposal
-
Global LNG Trade Rises Alongside U.S. Production
Jun 11, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By Katherine Blunt
Global trade of liquefied natural gas saw record growth last year amid a boom in U.S. energy production that allowed Houston's Cheniere Energy to ramp up exports to meet growing demand in Asia and elsewhere.
Trade volumes reached 38.2 billion cubic feet per day, up 10 percent from 2016, the U.S. Department of Energy reported Monday. The U.S. and Australia, another major natural gas producer, accounted for much of the growth, adding a combined 2.7 billion cubic feet per day in LNG exports.
China, now implementing an environmental crackdown on coal producers and other industrial polluters to reduce dangerous smog levels, became the world's second largest importer of LNG behind Japan. Its annual imports skyrocketed more that 40 percent to 39 million tons.
RELATED: China's environmental crackdown opening markets for Houston exportsRecommended Video:Liquefied Natural Gas Produced in Siberia Arrives in Boston
Now Playing: Liquefied Natural Gas Produced in Siberia Arrives in Boston
A tanker carrying Russian liquefied natural gas, or LNG, finally landed in Boston on Sunday, despite US-imposed sanctions against the company operating the Russian facility. The French LNG tanker Gaselys landed after sitting outside Boston Harbour for several days. This shipment of Russian LNG to the US is unprecedented and is considered to be the first Russian LNG imported into the United States.Media: Ruptly TV
Other Asian countries, including South Korea, Pakistan, Taiwan, and Thailand, also added to global demand as they work to address air pollution problems and meet emissions reductions targets under the United Nations climate accord.
The growth in LNG trading comes amid a surge in domestic oil and gas production. Energy companies have unlocked vast reserves of natural gas from shale basins in West Texas and elsewhere, positioning the U.S. to become a dominant player in the global LNG export market.
In 2016, Cheniere Energy became the first U.S. company to export LNG from its Sabine Pass facility in Louisiana. Since then, the company has quickly expanded operations to ship to at least 20 foreign markets.
Cheniere earlier this year capitalized on China's shift to cleaning-burning energy sources when it signed two long-term deals to sell LNG to PetroChina International Co., a subsidiary of China's state-controlled oil and gas giant. Those sale contracts extend through 2043.
RELATED: Gulf Coast LNG poised to dominate global market
The company, anticipating further demand growth, last month decided to build a third LNG processing unit at its second export hub now under construction in Corpus Christi. Once operational, that facility is expected to make the company one of the largest U.S. buyers of natural gas.
Dominion Energy of Richmond, Va., also began exporting LNG from a terminal in Maryland in March. Other U.S. companies are expected to follow later this year, including two Houston firms, Freeport LNG, which will operate a Gulf Coast terminal at Quintana Island, and Kinder Morgan, which is completing an export terminal in Georgia.
Several other companies, including Sempra Energy and Tellurian of Houston, are working on projects expected to start up in the coming years.
https://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/Global-LNG-trade-rises-alongside-U-S-production-12984304.php
-
Global Oil Demand Could Leave Gaping Hole: Fuel for Thought
Jun 11, 2018 | Platts
By Paul Hickin
Global oil demand growth was a much heralded sidekick to supply cuts that rebalanced the market in record time. Now the Saudi Arabia-Russia pronged pact is considering reversing course on its output cut deal, while demand growth shows little sign of letting up.
That risks leaving a hole in the market that the OPEC alliance will struggle to plug.
Oil bulls listening to Jeff Currie, Goldman Sachs’ head of commodity research, at the S&P Global Platts Crude Oil Summit earlier this month would have been rubbing their hands with glee. He stated he was his most bullish in a decade.
“The underlying demand trend is what is dominant here, not the OPEC production cuts. That is secondary,” Currie said.
OPEC and 10 other countries embarked on a plan to remove 1.8 million b/d in late 2016 to wipe out a more than 300 million barrel stock overhang. And that mission has been accomplished well ahead of the deal’s expiry at the end of year, thanks to over-compliance to the cut quotas and a healthy appetite for crude.
It’s an appetite that has been called into question at higher prices. But a look at the forecasts from major institutions such as the IEA, IMF and S&P Global Platts Analytics shows that the consensus is that demand is set to remain robust.
“Demand continues to be healthy on the back of strong economic growth. However, with higher oil prices we are seeing some signs that demand is softening slightly by 100,000-200,000 b/d,” said Chris Midgley, head of Platts Analytics.
“In the short term, price should have a relative small impact on demand. But if commodity prices remain elevated, we could start to see this have a drag on global GDP growth — with signs of concerns in places like Turkey and Brazil for instance — which could have a far greater impact on overall demand growth,” Midgley added.
NEAR-TERM DEMAND ROBUST
Currie downplayed the risks of demand destruction at close to $80/b in the near term at least.
“A lot of people are concerned about higher oil prices and their impact on demand. The evidence really isn’t there,” he said.
Saudi Arabia and Russia have discussed the possibility of raising production quotas as early as the third quarter of this year, but will need to convince the rest of the coalition, not least Iran.
Due to US sanctions kicking in in November, OPEC’s third-largest producer faces losing further market share to a select group able to raise production fairly quickly: namely Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait and Russia.
How much they can raise has been a moot point and would be severely tested going into the summer when Middle East producers need to burn more crude.
While some OPEC watchers aren’t convinced that the group will bring in specific new quotas, it appears the alliance may need to do more than just signal greater flexibility to the deal. That’s irrespective of pressure from heavyweight consumers such as the US and India, which have both voiced their concern over higher prices in recent months.PLAYING CATCH-UP
Talking of speculation around a 1 million b/d increase, Currie said: “The market needs the extra supply. It not only needs it, it’s mandatory. Otherwise you just drive the bus off the cliff.”
“Global demand is 100.5 million b/d and supply is running around 99.5 million b/d. So you got 1 million b/d gap…which means something’s gotta give. Either you’ve got to see a lot higher prices, which is inflationary, or more supply and OPEC is the only one with spare capacity,” Currie added.
And the longer OPEC sits on its hands, the wider the gap becomes as Venezuela output continues to crumble and oil demand races away. Moreover, the metrics that point to a tighter market also lag a couple of months behind, suggesting there is already ground to be made up.
A look at OPEC’s May report also highlights the challenge.
Global demand for OPEC crude will average 32.74 million b/d in 2018, OPEC estimated, down 260,000 b/d from 2017.
That compares with OPEC’s April production of 31.93 million b/d, as estimated by independent secondary sources that OPEC uses to monitor output.
Many in the industry point to US supply and other non-OPEC production such as Brazil and Canada as offsetting the 1.65 million b/d that OPEC forecasts demand will grow by this year. That would suggest OPEC may not need to press the panic button.
However, that omits the fact that a lot of that extra crude comes from US shale which is much lighter and sweeter than much of the OPEC lost barrels that are heavier and sourer. It is not a like-for-like substitute and complicates the rebalancing picture.
“Between now and the end of the business cycle I definitely want to be long oil,” Currie said, pointing to the next 18 months.
If Russia and Saudi Arabia need to convince the rest of the coalition that quotas need to be adjusted when they meet in Vienna on June 22, demand should be top of the list before the cyclic nature produces a more volatile market by itself.
http://blogs.platts.com/2018/06/11/global-oil-demand-leave-gaping-hole/
-
The Apparently Never-Ending Permian Blowout
Jun 11, 2018 | Bloomberg (In The Washington Post)
By Liam Denning
Energy dominance carries its own backlash, it turns out. Ground zero is the Permian basin in west Texas, where oil production has run ahead of pipeline capacity to get it to market, forcing some U.S. barrels to price at wide discounts. Thankfully, new pipelines should fix the problem by early 2020.
Apparently, though, the futures market is less convinced about that last bit.
This looks odd. There is about 3.1 million barrels-a-day of pipeline capacity to take crude oil out of the Permian basin versus production of about 3.3 million a day, according to Bloomberg Intelligence. Hence the problem. By early 2020, though, new pipelines should raise that capacity to around 5 million barrels a day. Even allowing for continued growth in output, that sounds like more than enough to let barrels flow and narrow those spreads.
The first thing to note is that futures are notoriously bad predictors of, well, the future. They’re for hedging, not scrying. And as I wrote here, while the volume of trading in oil futures has shot up in recent years, much of that reflects algos playing the near end of the curve – which has had the effect of pushing some specialist hedge funds out.
In that context, the latest blow-out in spreads between West Texas Intermediate and Brent prices looks a bit suspect. They have blown out far more in the past, such as in 2011. But those dislocations were mostly confined to near-term futures, which makes sense because they were perceived to be temporary ahead of, say, new infrastructure alleviating bottlenecks. Looking at spreads between contracts for one, 12, 24 and 36 months out, variation between the four pairs was wide in those earlier dislocations, with a standard deviation of typically 5 percentage points or more . That isn’t the case now, despite a similar expectation of new pipelines coming, with the standard deviation at less than 1 percentage point.
All of which is to say that those signals from the less-liquid, further reaches of the curve may well be a bit hazy. In which case, long-dated WTI looks underpriced relative to Brent, and the discount post-2019 ought to be more like $4 a barrel, not $8 or $9.
That no-one seems to be diving on that apparently free profit may be because of simple skepticism: After all, construction schedules don’t always run on schedule. Somehow, though, it’s tough to see new pipelines facing many delays in Texas in the middle of a production boom.
More likely, it reflects a mixture of those thin markets and some real potential wrinkles on the logistical side.
For example, while new pipes should alleviate the build-up of oil inland, that won’t solve the problem fully if more bottlenecks emerge at the coast. Peter Pulikkan of Bloomberg Intelligence highlights the risk of oil from the Permian basin and elsewhere inland barreling into storage and loading constraints at ports on the Gulf Coast. Right now, he estimates there’s effective export capacity of about 2 million barrels a day at those ports versus current crude oil exports of about 1.6 million barrels a day. More capacity is being built, including a major expansion at Corpus Christi, and other analysts estimate constraints wouldn’t emerge until exports hit something like 3 million barrels a day or more. Still, this presents a known unknown that could keep spreads wider for longer.
Another debate within the market concerns the battle between the relatively light crude coming from extra Permian production and heavier barrels such as those from Canada. The latter are often preferred by refiners on the Gulf Coast because they are cheaper and, as RBC Capital Markets points out in a recent report, they are now helping to fill the gap left as Venezuela struggles to export its heavier barrels. Moreover, these barrels yield more low-sulfur distillates when run through those refineries, which will be in high demand from 2020 due to tightening emissions standards for ships. While international demand for lighter barrels from the Permian will likely be robust, they could well be competing with heavier ones for space on pipelines to the coast. It’s possible that, as happened last year, barrels unable to reach the coast build up at the Cushing, Oklahoma, hub instead, depressing WTI prices.
The clear lesson of the past few years is that the Gulf Coast’s re-emergence as a major oil-trading hub has caught people out repeatedly, as those almost annual blow-outs in spreads attest. The current episode looks unusually extended. But with constraints set to remain acute for many months yet, and the curve moving with such coordination, betting on reversion is risky. Energy dominance, for the market at least, is very much a work in progress.
In order to normalize for different absolute price levels, I measured the spreads as a percentage of the underlying Brent price; hence the standard deviation is expressed as percentage points.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-apparently-never-ending-permianblowout/2018/06/11/f76480fa-6d7b-11e8-b4d8-eaf78d4c544c_story.html?utm_term=.9333f4e4b13b
-
U.S. Wants to Sell More LNG to China. It's Not That Simple
Jun 11, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Nathanial Gronewold
Trade negotiations between the United States and China will likely benefit U.S. exporters of liquefied natural gas, but that's not guaranteed, experts are cautioning.
Up to now, China, which remains the world's fastest-growing market for LNG, has purchased only a small portion of its LNG from U.S. ports. U.S. energy exporters want to gain market share there, but there is a lot of competition, said Neil Wang, greater China president at Frost & Sullivan.
"China imported LNG mainly from Australia, Qatar, Indonesia and Malaysia, the four countries together accounting for over 80 percent of total import in 2017," Wang said. "Chinese LNG import from the U.S. started in 2016 and only accounted for a tiny portion of its total imports."
The precarious market situation for the United States serves as a consequential backdrop should trade relations between the two nations sour further, with tariffs imposed by both sides. The loss of potential Chinese customers may put the brakes on some proposed U.S. LNG export platforms.
China can also import natural gas from Russia via pipeline, leaving the nation with plenty of alternatives to U.S. natural gas, he added. And though new U.S. LNG projects are coming online and supplies are growing, China's other trading partners are also expanding their own LNG export capabilities.
A report from the research firm Gas Strategies estimated that Australia alone will add nearly 10 million tons of new supply this year, eclipsing the 2017 ramp-up of new U.S. LNG export capacity. Qatar has announced plans to expand its LNG supplies by a further 20 million tons per year by 2024. And Qatar's new LNG exports will be cost-competitive, Gas Strategies analysts wrote.
"This expansion/debottlenecking project will likely be the lowest cost of any planned LNG supply additions globally," the company said in a new report. "While firm details remain limited, the prospect of the Qatari expansion is likely to post a formidable challenge to other new LNG supply projects."Growing need for LNG
China is often playing the role of free-trade champion in diplomatic circles and before the press, but it imposes broad import and investment restrictions and tariffs on U.S. goods that partly explain the massive trade deficit incurred by the United States every year. For example, an energy partnership announced last week may see U.S. technology boost the efficiency of hundreds of Chinese power plants, but the U.S. company involved acknowledges that the actual systems will likely be built in China unless the Beijing government eases trade barriers (Energywire, June 8).
Though China has not promised broad reforms to its export-centered economic system, the nation has vaguely pledged to increase its purchases of U.S. goods, mostly raw commodities and energy. Boosting its purchases of U.S. LNG is seen as one measure that may appease U.S. trade negotiators.
Frost and Sullivan's research predicts that China's LNG needs will expand by a compound annual growth rate of 20 percent from 2017 to 2020. Demand growth will mainly come from fuel-switching by power companies, as China favors natural gas over coal in an effort to improve that country's notoriously bad air pollution. Last winter saw spiking LNG demand as regional and local governments pressed for gas to be used instead of coal for heating homes.
A 20 percent annual rate actually represents a slowing of demand growth, as China is believed to have expanded its LNG consumption by some 40 percent per year from 2015 to 2017, a figure that includes last winter's unusual demand spike.
Wen Wang, a Beijing-based analyst for Wood Mackenzie, said Chinese LNG demand was expected to quiet some as summer approaches, but that hasn't happened. Three terminals account for most of the growth in LNG imports. The port at Tianjin has about doubled its intake capacity. The two other ports are in warmer parts of the country where winter heating isn't a concern, she said, a sign that the end users are new industrial gas consumers and power plants.
"It did come out higher than our expectations," she said. "Honestly, for the past few months, the actual numbers were always a bit higher than our forecast. It's very likely that 2018 LNG demand will be higher than 50 million tons."
There have been no policy measures taken by local governments that help to explain the summer rise in LNG imports, she said, nor do market forces explain the uptick. "Coal is always going to be more economical compared to gas," she said.Political move
Wang at Wood Mackenzie added that most of the incremental growth in China's LNG imports has been coming from Qatar and Australia, and not the United States. That could change in the coming months as trade talks between Washington, D.C., and Beijing continue. But customers in China may still prefer to purchase LNG cargoes from the traditional sellers rather than cargoes originating in the Gulf of Mexico, meaning that Chinese companies would be expanding their purchases of U.S. LNG mainly for political reasons, should they choose to do so.
"We've heard that there are some top-down measures basically for the [national oil companies] to seriously look into U.S. projects," she noted. "One of the most challenging factors for a U.S. LNG project is that it's not economical compared to the other LNG projects in, for example, Qatar or Australia.
"U.S. projects are not really that competitive, so for Chinese buyers, the price is still No. 1 in their considerations, but if there is pressure from the government that they have to buy more U.S. volumes, then I wouldn't be surprised," she added.
If trade concessions by China open new opportunities for U.S. LNG exporters, then exacerbating trade frictions can close them in turn.
There are new signs that manufacturing in China may be slowing some. An index tracking manufacturing activity fell slightly from March to April. Analysts with Macmillan Jones in Taipei, Taiwan, said the lower reading, "which reflected a drop in export orders, fueled concerns over an anticipated slowdown in China's economy as policymakers try to deal with debt risks and growing tensions over trade with the United States."
Weaker manufacturing activity in China could lower the rate at which the country consumes new LNG supplies, whether coming from the United States or other nations.
Tariffs imposed by the United States could hit U.S. LNG exports more directly, warned Wang at Frost & Sullivan.
"New tariffs on China's exports to the U.S. may affect adversely on the construction of LNG terminals in the U.S., and in turn the U.S. export of LNG to China," he said. "Decision for construction of LNG terminals usually relies on secured long-term contracts, and the absence of Chinese customers due to concerns over the Sino-U.S. trade war will delay the construction plans."
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/06/11/stories/1060084025
-
Trump's EPA Turns to Less Punitive Responses to Pollution
Jun 11, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Mike Soraghan
Trump administration officials at EPA are changing the agency's top enforcement program into a "compliance initiative" that will emphasize less punitive responses to pollution by companies.
The plan is to give state governments more authority in setting priorities for enforcement programs, according to a memo obtained by E&E News. Officials also want to remove from the priority-setting process considerations about consistency and using penalties to maintain a "level playing field" for companies.
The changes have sparked fear among some inside the agency that the administration wants to substantially weaken enforcement. Eric Schaeffer, former director of civil enforcement at EPA, said the agency might wind up backing away from big national pollution problems.
"I'm worried we might end up with priorities that are not really national-level priorities," said Schaeffer, now director of the Environmental Integrity Project. "There's national corporate stuff that only EPA can do."
The oil and gas industry has bitterly complained about some of the enforcement campaigns launched after the Obama administration made "energy extraction" an enforcement priority.
Susan Bodine. EPA
According to the memo obtained by E&E News, the agency's "National Enforcement Initiatives" would become "National Compliance Initiatives," or "NCIs." The agency is planning to kick off a state engagement process this summer and have final strategies developed by the fall of 2019.
EPA uses National Enforcement Initiatives to set priorities for the agency's enforcement work. Managers are expected to devote a certain portion of their money and resources to inspections of targeted industries. When enforcement staffers do inspections, they note on their report whether it is part of a national initiative.
The plan is being shepherded by the agency's enforcement chief, Assistant Administrator Susan Bodine. E&E sent an email to Bodine on Friday asking about the changes to the program. An EPA spokesman responded with a statement: "The process for developing national priorities for the 2020-2022 cycle will begin shortly and will be informed by discussions with states."
Internally, officials are saying they think the changes will increase compliance and reduce the time it takes to get violations corrected after they're found.
"While enforcement cases have been the most visible tool used in the past, the NCIs will use, as appropriate, an integrated strategy that incorporates other tools, such as compliance advisories, voluntary self-audits, and engagement with industry trade associations," the memo states. "EPA will strive to make the use of these non-enforcement case tools more public."
The move comes amid other efforts at the agency to present a friendlier face to industries, including oil and gas. Bodine is expanding to the industry a program that waives or reduces penalties for companies that self-report air emissions violations (Energywire, May 7). EPA will be holding "stakeholder meetings" on the "self-audit" proposal on June 27-28. The agency is hoping to finish the process by September.
Inspections of "energy extraction" sites dropped by one-third in EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's first fiscal year, according to EPA's website. But the number of concluded cases rose slightly.
President Trump has called for increasing domestic energy production in the interests of "energy dominance." Pruitt was closely aligned with the oil and gas industry, along with other fossil fuel interests, when he was Oklahoma's attorney general.
Shortly after he took over at EPA, state oil and gas associations complained to Pruitt that the Obama administration had been too aggressive on enforcement, particularly in the Rocky Mountain West. In response, he promised them a roundtable meeting with top staff (Energywire, Jan. 17). The meeting was held in February (Energywire, Feb. 20).
The enforcement campaign that sparked those complaints stemmed from the enforcement initiative targeting "energy extraction." EPA found that oil producers in North Dakota and Colorado were allowing storage tanks at their well sites to emit methane and volatile organic compounds. Those emissions can contain benzene and contribute to smog.
EPA also pursued criminal charges against gas drillers that damaged wetlands in the Marcellus Shale and pressed state officials to do more monitoring of Marcellus Shale drilling wastewater. In April, EPA reached a settlement with MarkWest Energy Partners LP to reduce emissions from pipeline facilities in Pennsylvania.Compliance vs. enforcement
The EPA memo acknowledges that the enforcement program has had significant accomplishments, that previous administrations have also focused on compliance and that enforcement actions are sometimes needed.
But it also says the enforcement initiatives "are sometimes misunderstood as involving only enforcement actions."
A key element of enforcement is levying fines or requiring expensive fixes that ensure that a company does not gain a competitive advantage by breaking the rules. In compliance, the focus is on getting the violator to fix the problem.
Compliance can mean informal enforcement actions, compliance assistance websites, inspector training and better coordination among state agencies. Agencies can also work with trade associations, insurance companies and others to increase awareness of problems and create incentives for fixing problems.
Schaeffer said letting states set the priorities for EPA would make significant changes, quite possibly for the worse.
Some states are unwilling to support strong enforcement against refineries and other large energy facilities, he said. But beyond power politics, he said state agencies are just less likely to look at the broad, national picture.
"States have always had input," Schaeffer said. "What they haven't had is veto power."
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/06/11/stories/1060084031
-
Texas Considers Reversal of Historic Limits on Flaring
Jun 11, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Mike Lee
Oil and gas regulators in Texas may decide in the next few months whether to allow producers to flare more natural gas from well sites in the Permian Basin, to help relieve a glut caused by a lack of pipelines.
The Permian Basin produces large amounts of gas along with oil, and the gas lines that serve the region are nearly full. Some producers are in discussions with the state Railroad Commission about simply flaring more of the gas because it can't be transported to market without pipelines. With oil prices rising above $70 a barrel, companies can ship crude by truck and still turn a profit.
"What they're asking for is, hey, if we run into these natural gas capacity issues like we're forecasting, we'd like some more broad flexibility," said Ryan Sitton, one of the three Railroad Commission members who would likely vote on a change.
The situation could come to a head in a few months, and the pipeline constraints could last about a year until new routes are in place.
No one has formally asked the Railroad Commission to change its policy on flaring, Sitton said. And there are concerns that any changes in the current rules would unfairly benefit small producers at the expense of larger producers that either own their own transportation systems or pay for long-term contracts on pipelines.
Oil producers say allowing more flaring will preserve the jobs and other economic benefits that have returned to West Texas since the price oil rebounded. Environmentalists say it would upend the state's historic prohibition on wasting natural gas, which the Railroad Commission established in a series of decisions and court cases in the 1940s and '50s.
Under the current rules, oil producers in Texas can flare their gas for 10 days after a well is completed and can get temporary permits to flare for longer periods. The permits typically last for 45 days, and companies can typically only flare for 180 days, according to the Railroad Commission website.
After that, the Railroad Commission has the authority to shut in wells that aren't selling their gas for a beneficial use.
Texas issued 4,870 flaring permits in 2016, the most recent year for which statistics are available. About 1 percent of the state's gas production was flared in 2016, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
The national average is about 0.6 percent, according to the EIA. Only North Dakota, the second-biggest oil-producing state, burns off more of its gas production — about 12 percent of total output.A Permian problem
The Permian Basin is one of the most active oil fields in the world right now. It accounts for about two-thirds of Texas' oil production and is home to almost half the onshore drilling rigs in the country, 480 out of 1,039.
Sitton said the flaring could happen in two ways. Producers could simply burn more of their gas at individual well sites, which would likely require a rule change by the Railroad Commission. They could also send gas to a processing plant, which could flare the gas after stripping out liquids like propane. That process would be regulated by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and EPA, Sitton said.
Kirk Edwards, who runs the independent production company Latigo Petroleum LLC in Odessa, said the impact will be biggest in the area around Pecos in West Texas, where drillers are tapping into the Delaware Basin, a subsection of the larger Permian.
It's unclear which companies will require more flaring, but it'll likely depend on which have access to the existing takeaway pipelines.
"The ones that don't, they're not going to drill wells just to have them shut in," Edwards said. "The worst thing they can do is have a thousand-barrel-a-day oil well shut in because they can't sell 1,000 mcf [thousand cubic feet] of gas a day."
But burning gas before it can be put to any beneficial use would be a waste, and it would not only damage the Railroad Commission's reputation but also the oil industry's, said Colin Leyden, senior manager for regulatory and legislative affairs at the Environmental Defense Fund.
"Industry's saying any time we feel any kind of an economic squeeze based on a rule, the agency ought to just throw that rule out the window," he said. "It undermines the credibility of the agency, and it punishes those companies that have planned and invested to follow the rules and minimize their waste. And, frankly, it creates a moral hazard where there's no consequences, either for poor planning or risk management."A question of need
The state's biggest energy trade group questioned the need for more flaring, though, and some producers think it's unlikely to happen.
"Takeaway capacity challenges occur every time there is a surge in a production area," Todd Staples, president of the Texas Oil and Gas Association, said in a statement. "Our members have not identified any rule changes that are necessary and they are confident that the current regulatory structure will continue to work. The good news is, there is a tremendous commitment to build pipeline infrastructure and people are working day and night to do so."
Pioneer Natural Resources Co., which is one of the biggest producers in the Permian Basin, stressed during its most recent call with analysts that it has firm transportation commitments for its gas production.
Centennial Resource Development Inc., the company founded by shale-drilling innovator Mark Papa, told analysts that it, too, has plenty of takeaway capacity.
"We are operating under the assumption that the Texas Railroad Commission will not allow us or the industry to flare gas for an extended period when takeaway capacity is full," Chief Operating Officer Sean Smith said.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/06/11/stories/1060084029
-
Opinion: Action Needed to Keep Manufacturing on Move in Ohio
Jun 11, 2018 | CantonRep
By Ryan Augsburger
One of every eight jobs in Ohio is in manufacturing. So why is the future of this economic engine so critical to our state being throttled by a transportation system rooted in the 19th century?
The term “manufacturing” covers many different industries, from chemical products and motor vehicles to rubber and appliances. They all have one thing in common: They receive raw materials from their suppliers, then get their products to their customers. As it has been for well over a century, the primary method for moving these goods from place to place is freight trains.
Unfortunately, America’s freight rail system is stuck in the past, operating under a set of regulations that serve the interests of the railroad companies but derail everyone else.
The Ohio Manufacturers’ Association is deeply troubled by this outmoded system, and our members are keenly interested in reforming a system that makes it more expensive for them to do businesses. But the truth is that every Ohioan has just as much at stake, because the problems of the freight rail system result in higher prices for every consumer product.
More than 687,000 Ohio residents are employed in manufacturing, and the industry produced a total output of $106 billion in 2016 — in Ohio alone. The industry has rebounded strongly from the depths of last decade’s Great Recession, yet it’s true potential for our state is held hostage to archaic regulations that give railroad companies an effective monopoly, here and across the nation.
Manufacturing is what made America the envy of the world, and manufacturers rely on the freight rail network to get their goods to retailers and, ultimately, consumers. But this is becoming increasing problematic as manufacturers have to deal with higher rates and poor service from a rail system that leaves them few options.
Here is why:
America’s railroad industry has been going through a period of consolidation for almost four decades. As a result, shippers in many parts of the country have only one railroad available to carry their freight. As so often happens when monopolies emerge, prices have been inflated even as problems with service have proliferated.
This is a real problem for manufacturers, which must have a reliable, affordable supply chain that brings raw materials to them and transports materials or components to other manufacturers for added value. Some manufacturers have tried alternatives to freight rail, such as long-haul trucking. But that has its own set of challenges, as increased demand for this service has produced the highest prices for freight trucking in more than 15 years. That, in turn, has forced industries that traditionally used freight trucking to pay more, costs they often have to pass on to consumers.
All of this is putting our continued economic growth at risk. Ohio is a desirable place for manufacturers to do business, but transportation issues weigh heavily on business leaders’ minds when they consider potential expansion plans.
We need a freight rail system that serves the needs of producers, not exclusively those of the railroads. Ohio manufacturers favor free-market reforms that can help make freight rail more affordable and reliable. One positive reform would be a competitive switching policy, allowing shippers to chose alternative rail carriers in certain circumstances, a change that would unlock market-based competition in our freight rail system. Another positive change would be something called “rate benchmarking,” a regulatory reform that would cut bureaucracy and help save taxpayer dollars when it comes to streamlining the process for resolving rate cases.
However, the federal agency responsible for implementing these much needed reforms, the Surface Transportation Board, has been dogged by vacancies that have made it impossible to enact any meaningful changes. President Donald Trump has nominated three new members to the five-member board, so it is tremendously important that Congress confirm these appointees so they can get the job done.
Freight rail reform would help to drive down the cost of doing business in Ohio and would encourage investment in Ohio manufacturing, resulting in more high-paying jobs. Manufacturers and consumers all across America need Congress to fill the vacancies on the Surface Transportation Board quickly so long-overdue reforms can be adopted and manufacturing can get back on track.
Ryan Augsburger is managing director at the Ohio Manufacturers’ Association.
http://www.cantonrep.com/opinion/20180609/opinion-action-needed-to-keep-manufacturing-on-move-in-ohio
-
Senate Will Vote on Landmark Measure to Price Carbon
Jun 11, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Benjamin Storrow
The Massachusetts Senate is set to vote on a carbon pricing proposal Thursday.
The measure, included in part of a wider energy bill that would increase the state's renewable energy requirements, would require the governor to establish a "market-based mechanism" for pricing carbon. A cap on emissions would be phased in over time, beginning with the transportation sector by 2020, the industrial and commercials sectors by 2021 and the residential sector by 2022.
Carbon emissions in the commonwealth's power sector are already capped under the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a nine-state cap-and-trade program.
"We've got to get moving in terms of climate policy and embracing a clean energy future," said state Sen. Marc Pacheco, a Democrat who helped author the bill. "It's easy to have the press conference, to talk about these issues, but at the end of the day, you have to pass policies that will allow you to meet the goals that are in statute."
The bill is significant for several reasons. If passed, it would make Massachusetts the second state after California to impose an economywide cap on carbon emissions.
It also addresses the Bay State's leading source of emissions in transportation, which accounted for 39 percent of Massachusetts' greenhouse gas output in 2014. Power-sector emissions were 19 percent that year. The state no longer has any operating coal plants.
By requiring the state to put a carbon cap on other sectors of the economy but leaving many of the details to the governor, the bill's proponents hoped to avoid the type of infighting that has doomed carbon pricing proposals in Washington state. Efforts to tax carbon there fizzled earlier this year.
The lack of specifics also figures to aid regional efforts to address transportation emissions, proponents said. Massachusetts' vote comes amid renewed momentum for the Transportation and Climate Initiative (TCI), a collaboration of Northeastern states seeking to limit tailpipe emissions.
"Instead of mandating a specific approach, it dovetails with the current momentum," said David Ismay, an attorney at the Conservation Law Foundation in Boston. "But it would make it much more real because Massachusetts would really be moving forward. If Massachusetts commits, it's a lot easier for other people to commit."
The bill's prospects looked dim earlier this year after state Senate President Stanley Rosenberg, a Democrat supportive of the legislation, was forced to resign after his husband was accused of sexually harassing legislative staff and lobbyists on Beacon Hill.
But its odds have improved considerably. Incoming Senate President Karen Spilka (D) chairs the Ways and Means Committee, which reported the legislation favorably to the full chamber for a vote.
Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican who supports climate action, has largely remained tight-lipped about the proposal. He has expressed reservations over carbon pricing in the past. But advocates said they are increasingly confident he can be won over. The governor has talked positively about TCI in recent months.
"They know we need alternative strategies to get the emissions down in the transportation sector," Pacheco said. "They are very engaged in looking at various options out there."
The harder test may be in the state House of Representatives, where advocates will need to win over Speaker Robert DeLeo, a moderate Democrat who rules the House with a tight grip.
The bill also contains a number of provisions to boost renewable energy. It would increase the state's offshore wind goal from 1,600 megawatts to 5,000 MW. State officials recently outlined plans for a project that would produce 800 MW of offshore wind.
The state's renewable portfolio standard currently requires 13 percent of state power to be derived from clean sources. That figure increases by 1 percent annually. Under the bill, the annual increase would be 3 percent.
And it would abolish a cap on net metering while requiring distribution utilities to essentially provide smart meters and time-of-use information to residents with solar on their homes, enabling them to better manage a newly instated demand charge.
"It is a great way to increase renewable energy in the commonwealth," said Eric Wilkinson, general counsel and director of energy policy at the Environmental League of Massachusetts.
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/06/11/stories/1060084035
-
Trump Admin Asks Court for More Time on Ozone
Jun 11, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
The Trump administration, seeking to tamp down unrest among Republican state allies, has asked a federal court to give it until August to plot a next move on EPA's contested 2015 ground-level ozone standard.
By that point, EPA hopes to make "a final decision on its expected administrative path forward, which in turn will provide a more solid foundation to decide the appropriate litigation path forward here," according to a filing late Friday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
The filing also highlights recent administration efforts to overhaul the framework for setting air quality standards for ozone and other common pollutants as evidence that EPA is "intensively considering the issues" recently raised by Texas and nine other states.
Those states — all of which are challenging the 70-parts-per-billion standard as overly stringent — recently voiced frustration at the long delay in court proceedings.
At EPA's request, the web of lawsuits surrounding the Obama-era threshold has been on hold for the last 14 months while the agency ponders whether to keep it or attempt a rollback. But because of an enforcement timetable written into the Clean Air Act, EPA has nonetheless had to forge ahead with implementation.
Attainment designations are now final for all but eight counties in Texas, meaning states will soon have to start drafting long-term cleanup plans for areas that are out of compliance.
In a motion last month asking the court to lift the hold and restart legal proceedings, the 10 states — almost all of which have Republican attorneys general and governors — argued their right to dispute the standard's legality was effectively ebbing away as a result. They asked the D.C. Circuit to either lift the abeyance immediately or else to let it expire by Aug. 1, with a goal of holding oral arguments in September (E&E News PM, May 18).
EPA officials have so far given no indication of when their reconsideration of the 70 ppb standard will end.
In Friday's filing, agency lawyers suggested that the court leave the abeyance in place until the beginning of August. At that point, they would submit a full update on the status of that reconsideration. By Aug. 22, all sides could then submit motions to govern future proceedings.
If the court decided that oral arguments were appropriate, there would still be plenty of time to hold them during the D.C. Circuit's fall term, the filing said.
While voicing regret over the "inconvenience" caused by the lengthy delay in proceedings, the lawyers added the 10 states "have identified no specific, tangible injuries" expected because of the continued abeyance.
They also highlighted EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's May memo, which puts a high priority on completing air quality standard reviews on the five-year schedule required by the Clean Air Act (Greenwire, May 10).
In practice, EPA rarely, if ever, meets the timetable.
After finishing the last review of the ozone standard in 2015, for example, the agency has not even formally launched the next one. In the memo, however, Pruitt said he was ordering its completion by October 2020.
His memo followed a White House directive emphasizing the need for EPA to factor in the compliance effects of "background concentrations" of ozone and other pollutants that may be outside of regulators' direct control.
That issue is central to the 10 states' case against the 70-ppb standard, EPA's Friday filing indicates.
Besides Texas, those states are Arizona, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Utah and Wisconsin.
Industry groups that are also contesting the 70 ppb standard as unlawfully strict have taken no position on those states' bid to lift the abeyance, according to last month's motion. Backing that bid is a coalition of environmental and public health groups that contend the standard is not tough enough, the motion said.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/06/11/stories/1060084081
-
Second Suit Over EPA's Delay of Utility ELG Faces Familiar Hurdles
Jun 11, 2018 | Inside EPA
A second lawsuit filed by environmentalists over EPA's partial delay of the Obama-era Clean Water Act (CWA) power plant effluent rule faces familiar hurdles that led to a loss in the first such case, with EPA and utilities reviving claims that the suit must be combined with a separate pending challenge to the merits of the water rule.
The latest suit over the CWA effluent limitation guideline (ELG), filed by the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona, focuses on claims that the delay rule violated Endangered Species Act (ESA) and National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) consultation and review mandates.
That contrasts with a dispute over the limits of EPA’s water law authority to delay enforcing a rule, which was the focus of other environmental groups in a District of Columbia district court suit where they are appealing a transfer order.
Defendants in the CBD case -- including the agency itself and industry intervenors -- are echoing the arguments that succeeded in the D.C. district, that any challenge to the deadline extension must go before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit since it is already hearing a facial challenge against the ELG as a whole.
“Artful pleading cannot circumvent Congress’ ‘careful and thorough remedial scheme’ for EPA’s promulgation of ELGs. This Court should dismiss CBD’s Complaint because the CWA’s exclusive review provision denies the district courts jurisdiction to review ESA or NEPA challenges to the promulgation of ELGs, such as the ELG Amendment,” the Utility Water Act Group (UWAG), which represents utilities on CWA issues, says in a June 6 motion asking the court to dismiss or transfer the case.
Similarly, EPA says in its own motion to dismiss that under the CWA’s structure for judicial review, which assigns ELG challenges to circuit courts, “Plaintiff filed this action in the wrong court.”
The agency last year accepted industry petitions to reconsider the 2015 ELG, and postponed until 2020 enforcement of the provisions under reconsideration -- which deal with standards for reducing pollution content in waste generated from flue gas desulfurization processes and transport of certain forms of coal ash.
Environmentalists quickly sued over the delay, but so far their cases have focused solely on which court has authority to hear the claims, with the plaintiffs seeking review in the district courts separate from the facial ELG challenge while industry and EPA prefer a unified case in the 5th Circuit.
The D.C. district court backed a unified case in its ruling on April 18, saying the delay is too closely tied to the underlying ELG to be litigated separately, though environmental groups have appealed that decision to the D.C. Circuit. CBD is asking the Arizona court to reject that principle, but EPA and UWAG are claiming that it has no choice because a similar precedent has already been established in the 9th Circuit, making it binding in Arizona.
They point to the 2008 case American Bird Conservancy v. Federal Communications Commission, where a 9th Circuit panel said ESA claims over cell tower registrations must be dealt with through the same process established for suing over the registrations themselves.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/second-suit-over-epas-delay-utility-elg-faces-familiar-hurdles
-
SeaWorld, Ikea and Royal Caribbean are Getting Rid of Plastic Straws and Bags
Jun 11, 2018 | The Washington Post
By Darryl Fears
Less than two weeks after a pilot whale died off Thailand with 80 plastic bags in its stomach, three major companies — SeaWorld, Ikea and Royal Caribbean — have vowed to remove plastic straws and bags from their properties.
The companies are now linked to a host of businesses, governments and others across the world that have joined an effort to dramatically reduce the 8 million metric tons of plastic that reach and pollute oceans each year — “one garbage truck into the ocean every minute,” according to a 2016 report released by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. The corporate activism is evidence that a fledgling movement to ban plastic straws, which sprang from outrage over plastic’s impact on the environment and animals, continues to stir.
Movement organizers have recruited Girl Scouts, New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, even Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who, on World Environment Day last Tuesday, announced his nation’s effort to eliminate single-use plastic by 2022. “Let us all join together to beat plastic pollution and make this planet a better place to live,” Modi urged.
His call to action apparently did not fall on deaf ears. SeaWorld Entertainment announced Thursday that its 12 theme parks had removed “all single-use plastic drinking straws and single-use plastic shopping bags.” In a statement, interim chief executive John Reilly called the move “a testament to our mission to protect the environment, the ocean and animals … which are currently threatened by unprecedented amounts of plastic pollution.”
The same day, Royal Caribbean Cruises said its fleet of 50 ships “will ring in 2019 free of plastic straws.” That includes luxury liners under all of its brands, including Celebrity Cruises, Azamara Club Cruises and Royal Caribbean International. “For over a year now, RCL ships have begun implementing a straws upon request policy,” a statement said. “That program will be taken a step further by the start of 2019, when guests requesting a straw will receive a paper straw instead of a plastic one.” Guest will get wood stirrers for coffee and bamboo garnish picks as part of the drive to reduce trash.
By 2020, Ikea said, its stores will no longer hand out plastic bags or straws as part of an effort to become “people and planet positive” within 10 years. Lena Pripp-Kovac, the furniture giant’s sustainability manager, said that moving forward, Ikea “will design all products from the very beginning to be repurposed, repaired, reused, resold and recycled.” Ikea plans to take the effort a step further by introducing low-cost home solar products and even offering vegetarian food selections at its in-store cafeterias.
On July 1, Seattle will become the largest U.S. city to cut out all plastic straws and eating utensils in restaurants, while the California General Assembly is weighing legislation to ban straws and plastic bags statewide. Across the Atlantic, British Prime Minister Theresa May has announced her government will introduce a ban on the sale of plastic straws, stirrers and plastic-stemmed cotton swabs throughout the United Kingdom. The European Commission also has proposed rules banning 10 single-use plastic products throughout the entire European Union. (Its caveat: Alternatives would need to be “readily available and affordable.”)
In Europe, where the push for environmental sustainability and conservation movement is stronger than in the United States, Starbucks agreed recently to phase out all plastic straws and cutlery. But the Seattle-based company is resisting pressure to do the same at home after a celebrity shareholder, Adrian Grenier, drafted a resolution demanding it start removing plastic and using paper. Starbucks has offered a $10 million grant to any group or individual with a workable idea for an environmentally friendly cup.View image on TwitterAdrian Grenier✔@adriangrenier
Help me ask @Starbucks to #StopSucking! Big business with its reach, wealth & influence needs to make hard commitments to keeping plastic out of our ocean. I’m asking #Starbucks at their shareholders mtg to phase-out plastic straws & recommit to their failed sustainability goals.8:17 PM - Mar 21, 2018777296 people are talking about thisTwitter Ads info and privacy
McDonald’s shareholders voted overwhelmingly last month against a proposal that its restaurants stop providing straws. The company said in a statement it is offering straws that can be composted at some locations “while we work with packaging experts to develop a planet-friendly, cost-effective answer for all McDonald’s restaurants.”
The global Plastic Pollution Coalition estimated last year that 1,800 “restaurants, organizations, institutions and schools worldwide have gotten rid of plastic straws or implemented a serve-straws-upon-request policy,” said Jackie Nunez, founder of a group called The Last Plastic Straw.
In addition to the pilot whale that died June 1 after swallowing the dozens of plastic bags — which weighed 17 pounds at autopsy — a sperm whale that had ingested an estimated 65 pounds of trash was found dead in April on a Spanish beach.
The anti-straw campaign exploded after a YouTube video of a sea turtle with a straw stuck in its nose went viral in 2015. The video, which featured a cringe-inducing effort to pull the plastic out of a bloody nostril, has been viewed more than 26 million times.
Plastic production has surged from 15 million tons in 1964 to more than 310 million in 2014 and is expected to double over the next 20 years, according to that 2016 report. Like straws, plastic bags are easily swept upward by winds and deposited in drains that lead to open water.
“Humans didn’t really evolve around straws. It’s not like we have to consume fluids with this appendage. What, really, what is this?” asked Catherine Greener, vice president of sustainability for Xanterra Parks & Resorts, a concessions company that partners with the National Park Service to provide food and lodging at the Grand Canyon, Rocky Mountain and other national parks. It offers straws but asks patrons to not use them.
Discarded plastic straws. (Helen Lockhart of Two Oceans Aquarium)Paper straws were invented more than a century ago by Marvin Stone, a Washington man who did not like how the traditional ryegrass straw people used for drinking would disintegrate and leave gritty residue in his mint juleps. He wrapped strips of paper around a pencil, glued the strips together and test-marketed the contraption, and in 1888, the disposable straw was born, according to the Smithsonian Institution’s Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation.
The new paper straw was limited mostly to hospitals, which used it to avoid spreading disease. Usage widened in the early 1900s as a polio epidemic prompted people to avoid putting their mouths on others’ drinking glasses. In the 1960s, restaurants began offering a disposable plastic straw.
It is a convenience people use arbitrarily. Millions drink soda from a glass with a straw — but not beer. Hot-coffee drinkers gulp directly from cups but stick straws in iced coffee. Bar hoppers drink highballs from a glass, but mixed cocktails come with a straw.
Conservationists are now offering options like bamboo, stainless steel and other straws.
The trouble with plastic, studies say, is it seldom goes away. Of the billions of tons produced since 1950, the vast majority is still sitting in landfills, recycling facilities and the ocean, a study last year concluded. A tiny percentage was burned in incinerators, which also produced pollution.
By midcentury, according to a 2016 study by the World Economic Forum, the amount of plastic in the ocean will outweigh the amount of fish. Plastic abounds on the high seas because about a third of what humans produce escapes collection, about “five bags filled with plastic for every foot of coastline in the world.”
Researchers at Cornell University, the University of Washington, the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology and other institutions reported last year that they had found plastic on a third of the coral reefs they surveyed in the Asian Pacific. Reefs near Indonesia had the highest concentration of plastic trash and Australian reefs the lowest. It appeared to be no coincidence Australia has a superior waste-removal system.
Drew Harvell, a professor of marine ecology at Cornell and one of those researchers, called plastic “a triple whammy for coral.”
“It cuts open the skin of the coral,” he explained, “and then it can convey pathogenic microorganisms, and finally it can shade the light coral needs and cut off water flow.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2018/06/11/seaworld-ikea-and-royal-caribbean-are-getting-rid-of-plastic-straws-and-bags/?utm_term=.ccb6ef49dc17
Industry and Association News
LCSA News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Transportation and Infrastructure News
Environment News
Add recipients
Suggested