Preview Newsletter
ACC PM 19/11/18
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(ACC Mentioned) Senate EPW Schedules Hearing on EPA Chemical Nominee
Nov 19, 2018 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Annie Snider
The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will consider President Trump’s nominee to lead EPA’s chemical safety office when lawmakers return from the Thanksgiving holiday. -
Wheeler to Remain Chief During Confirmation Battle
Nov 19, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Kevin Bogardus
Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler will remain at the top of the agency while his nomination for chief is pending. -
Perry: U.S. Will Bring ‘A-Game’ to Eastern Europe Energy Markets
Nov 19, 2018 | PoliticoPro
By Darius Dixon
Energy Secretary Rick Perry’s trip to Eastern Europe to pitch American energy exports and “sell freedom” is helping to drive new deals for U.S. companies, but he holds no illusions that the U.S. can single-handedly challenge Russia as the region’s dominant supplier. -
Refiners Get Taste of Post-IMO World With Gasoline/Diesel Imbalance
Nov 19, 2018 | Reuters (In The New York Times)
By Ron Bousso
Refineries around the world are squeezing out every last drop of diesel while drowning in gasoline, in what could well become the new normal for the next few years. -
Kinder Morgan's Gulf LNG Project Clears Environmental Test
Nov 19, 2018 | Zack's (In Nasdaq)
Kinder Morgan Inc KMI made progress toward receipt of federal consent for construction of the proposed Gulf LNG export terminal in Mississippi. -
FERC Staff Advances Eagle LNG’s Florida Project with Positive DEIS
Nov 19, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By David Bradley
FERC staff has issued a positive draft environmental impact statement for the Jacksonville, FL, project, which would include siting, construction and operation of a liquefied natural gas terminal and export facility on the north bank of the St. John's River in Duval County... -
Northam Replaces Regulators Ahead of Pipeline Vote
Nov 19, 2018 | AP (In E&E Greenwire)
Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) has removed two members of the State Air Pollution Control Board after the citizen review board delayed a key vote on whether to allow a natural gas compressor station in a historic African-American community. -
Explosion at Hazardous Waste Facility Kills One
Nov 19, 2018 | The Chemical Engineer
By Amanda Doyle
AN explosion at a US Ecology facility in Idaho, US, has killed one worker and injured three. -
‘Like a Terror Movie’: How Climate Change Will Cause More Simultaneous Disasters
Nov 19, 2018 | The New York Times
By John Schwartz
Global warming is posing such wide-ranging risks to humanity, involving so many types of phenomena, that by the end of this century some parts of the world could face as many as six climate-related crises at the same time, researchers say. -
Sanders to Host Town Hall on Climate Change
Nov 19, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is planning to host a town hall next month on climate change, with the goal of pushing aggressive policies to fight global warming. -
White House Clears EPA Wood Stove Proposals
Nov 19, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
EPA could soon propose a slate of changes to its updated 2015 emission standards for new wood stoves and other wood-fired heating appliances.
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(ACC Mentioned) Senate EPW Schedules Hearing on EPA Chemical Nominee
Nov 19, 2018 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Annie Snider
The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will consider President Trump’s nominee to lead EPA’s chemical safety office when lawmakers return from the Thanksgiving holiday.
The committee will hold a hearing on Alexandra Dunn’s nomination to be Assistant Administrator for the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention on Thursday, Nov. 29. Dunn is currently serving as Region 1 Administrator at EPA.
Dunn is the Trump administration’s second nominee for the chemical safety post and is widely seen as a centrist pick. The president’s first nominee, industry consultant Michael Dourson, withdrew his name last year after several Republicans came out against his nomination.
For the past year and a half, the office has been led by the No. 2 political official, Nancy Beck, who was previously a top expert for the chemical industry’s lead lobbying group, the American Chemistry Council. Environmentalists and public health advocates have criticized Beck’s implementation of the Toxic Substances Control Act overhaul and are challenging it in court on multiple fronts.
Dunn’s nomination also comes as the Trump EPA has vowed action on a class of toxic chemicals called PFAS that are widely used in everything from cookware to water resistant jackets but have made their way into drinking supplies.
WHAT’S NEXT: The committee will hold a hearing on Dunn’s nomination on Thursday, Nov. 29 at 10:30 a.m. in Dirksen 406.
https://subscriber.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard/2018/11/senate-epw-schedules-hearing-on-epa-chemical-nominee-2218338
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Wheeler to Remain Chief During Confirmation Battle
Nov 19, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Kevin Bogardus
Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler will remain at the top of the agency while his nomination for chief is pending.
EPA spokesman John Konkus confirmed to E&E News in an email that Wheeler will stay as acting chief during the Senate confirmation process.
Under federal law, executive branch officials typically aren't allowed to serve on an acting basis in positions for which they've been nominated. There are exceptions to the law, however, that allow Wheeler to remain as acting administrator while he waits for Senate confirmation.
This past April, Wheeler was confirmed by the Senate as deputy EPA administrator, essentially the "first assistant" position to the agency's administrator. A Senate-confirmed "first assistant" can serve as the acting head of the agency while nominated for that job.
"Because the Senate previously provided its advice and consent for Andrew Wheeler to serve as deputy administrator, the law allows him to continue to serve as acting administrator while he is also the nominee," said Kevin Minoli, formerly EPA's top career lawyer and now a partner at law firm Alston & Bird LLP.
That fits with EPA's reasoning, as well.
"Mr. Wheeler can continue to serve as the Acting Administrator because (1) he currently serves as the 'first assistant' to the Administrator position, (2) the first assistant position is one that itself requires appointment after Senate advice and consent, and (3) the Senate approved Mr. Wheeler to serve in the first assistant position when it confirmed him as Deputy Administrator," Konkus said.
On Friday, President Trump said he planned to nominate Wheeler for the top EPA job. Environmental groups soon came out in opposition to his expected nomination, while Republicans began to rally behind Wheeler (E&E News PM, Nov. 16).
"Acting administrator, who I will tell you is going to be made permanent, he's done a fantastic job and I want to congratulate him," Trump said.
Trump has not yet sent Wheeler's nomination to the Senate, but once he does, the acting administrator may be waiting for some time for confirmation. It took more than six months for him to be confirmed as EPA's deputy chief.
White House press officials didn't respond to questions from E&E News for this story, including when the president will send Wheeler's nomination to the Senate.
If the president sends Wheeler's nomination to the Senate in the upcoming lame-duck session, Trump may have to resubmit it next year if the Senate doesn't confirm Wheeler this year and doesn't hold over his nomination at the end of this Congress. The president previously had to resubmit Wheeler's nomination for deputy.
"Another question to consider is the strategic implications of submitting his nomination during what remains of this Congress (if that is the plan)," said Scott Fulton, president of the Environmental Law Institute, who served as general counsel at EPA during the Obama administration.
"If they don't get it through, they will have to start the process over again in the next Congress," he said.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/11/19/stories/1060106603
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Perry: U.S. Will Bring ‘A-Game’ to Eastern Europe Energy Markets
Nov 19, 2018 | PoliticoPro
By Darius Dixon
Energy Secretary Rick Perry’s trip to Eastern Europe to pitch American energy exports and “sell freedom” is helping to drive new deals for U.S. companies, but he holds no illusions that the U.S. can single-handedly challenge Russia as the region’s dominant supplier.
Perry has embraced the role of the U.S. energy pitchman, promoting natural gas, coal and nuclear power technology to countries that have long depended on Russia, and he’s offered assurances that Washington would never leverage energy supplies to lean on Eastern European countries the way Moscow has.
“We didn’t go over there and say, ‘You gotta buy all your gas from the U.S.’ We went over there and said we will be one of a diverse supply of gas to you," Perry told POLITICO in a phone interview on Friday.
Perry attended an announcement in Warsaw that Cheniere Energy had signed a 24-year liquefied natural gas supply contract with Poland’s state-run gas firm, PGNiG, starting next year. But even after the Cheniere deal fully ramps up in 2023 — a year after Poland’s current deal with Russia’s Gazprom expires — the sales will replace less than a quarter of the Russian gas PGNiG now buys, and the U.S. shipments will be about two-thirds the volume that global LNG leader Qatar sells there.
Even as U.S. LNG exports rise and new production facilities come online, those supplies will remain more expensive than fuel shipped via pipeline from Gazprom, which saw its overall European sales reach a new record in the first half of the year.
But Perry expects the U.S. industry to make a positive mark on the European gas sector without becoming a replacement for Russia.
“I would be more comfortable saying that we’re going to be a major supplier than we’re going to be dominant," he said, and he referenced worries about the "record of the Russian Federation using their gas in a coercive way."
Perry said the U.S. will be a “consistent, reliable partner” in Europe for years to come, and he said the U.S. welcomed competition in the region from LNG suppliers like Qatar and Australia because it would help lower prices and squeeze Gazprom’s revenues.
"We’re going to bring our A-game,” he said. “We’re going to try to win every contract that we can knowing that we can’t win every contract and we can’t supply every contract. But if we’re in the game in a very substantive way, we will help drive the competition, which will drive down the cost of gas."
Despite the chilly relations with some Western European leaders like French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, President Donald Trump’s administration has taken a keen interest in those countries that lie in Russia’s shadow.
“The Trump administration is doing its careful knitting on Europe,” said Amy Myers Jaffe, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who specializes in energy security and climate change. Trump’s emphasis on Eastern Europe stands in contrast to the Obama administration’s focus on Asia, and China in particular, where the former president struck deals on carbon emissions.
“This administration’s rhetoric on our alliances in Eastern Europe has been clear,” she said.
During the 10-day trip to Poland, Ukraine, Hungary and the Czech Republic, Perry offered tailored messages to each nation on how to improve their cybersecurity and encourage infrastructure investment from the U.S., while steering them away from Russian gas — or nuclear power projects with Russia’s Rosatom.
The boom in U.S. oil and gas output that has made it the world’s top producer of both fuels is turning the country into a major energy exporter, a development that Energy Undersecretary Mark Menezes said last week had the U.S. “competing against Russia in ways that hurt them economically.”
Perry did not embrace Menezes’ sharp rhetoric, however, and said his aim was broader than trying to curb Russian energy influence.
“I don’t wake up every day and go ‘Oh God, what do we have to do today to beat the Russians?'" he said Friday. "We’re in the process of building an energy foundation that is going to be a major supplier of oil and gas, innovation in technology dealing with nuclear, and coal and renewables for the foreseeable future."
That requires a commitment to being competitive and aggressively marketing U.S. supplies — a role he relishes, and in some ways, suits a longtime politician like himself.
“You go sell your product, whether you are selling brushes door to door back in the 1930s or whether you’re selling LNG today. You gotta go knock on doors and I consider that to be part of my job, is to go sell America and sell freedom,” he said.
But experts say it’s easy to overstate the role U.S. energy will play in the broader international oil and gas markets, and how much of a counterbalance it can play on Russian supplies.
“It’s all well and good for Secretary Perry to say that we’re delivering freedom to Poland, but Poland is buying Qatari LNG,” said Nikos Tsafos, a senior fellow with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“My frustration in dealing with this topic is that a lot of times people present this as the U.S. and Russia battling over Europe,” he said. “This sounds good, but it bears absolutely no relation to reality and not at all how the market is behaving.”
Still, even though most U.S. LNG ships to Asia, Tsafos said bringing more competition into the European market would likely help keep prices low there.
And experts say the Trump administration’s trade policies, including a 25 percent tariff on steel, are a drag on U.S. energy companies. The White
House’s rolling trade battles with Europe and other nations have created new uncertainties, and the steel tariffs were directly raising the costs of building some U.S. LNG projects by hundreds of millions of dollars.“All those benefits that U.S. oil and gas companies were seeing are being pretty outweighed by his trade and foreign policy agenda,” said Hilary Novik Sandberg, a global energy and natural resources analyst with the Eurasia Group, noting Trump’s diplomatic tensions with Europe on climate change, Iran and NATO.
Perry acknowledged that the oil and gas industry needed more exemptions from the steel tariffs, a case he says he made to Trump personally.
"I don't disagree that we need to address the steel tariffs from the standpoint of the oil and gas industry," Perry said. "My recommendation to the president is that we really need to look at the potential for some waivers there."
Those types of waivers, as well as more predictability about Trump’s trade policies, will be crucial for the industry, Jaffe said.
“They can go send Rick Perry around and talk about LNG sales but the fastest thing they could do for LNG sales is lock down some kind of progress on trade,” said Jaffe. “There’s only so much that diplomacy can do. There are just commercial realities.”
But Perry said he was convinced the industry's frustrations would blow over.
"My bet is that we'll look back on this at some particular time in the future and all those people who were projecting chaos and loss of markets and the end of the world from a trade perspective will be again found to be wrong," he said.
Unlike his predecessor Ernest Moniz, Perry has largely sidestepped climate change issues, even during his trip to Poland, which will host the latest round of UN climate change talks next month. That message, in a speech there, was limited to urging officials to “expand the recognition nuclear energy innovation” can play fighting greenhouse gases.
Perry told POLITICO that small modular reactors — whose development DOE is supporting through research projects at its national labs — got a lot of attention on his trip.
“There was a substantial amount of interest in SMRs in each of the places we went to," he said, noting that Ted Garrish, a nuclear expert who runs the Energy Department's international affairs office, tagged along to several meetings and met with Czech officials, who are looking to expand nuclear power capacity. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission expects to finish its first design review of the technology in early 2021.
https://subscriber.politicopro.com/energy/article/2018/11/perry-us-will-bring-a-game-to-eastern-europe-energy-markets-981439
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Refiners Get Taste of Post-IMO World With Gasoline/Diesel Imbalance
Nov 19, 2018 | Reuters (In The New York Times)
By Ron Bousso
Refineries around the world are squeezing out every last drop of diesel while drowning in gasoline, in what could well become the new normal for the next few years.
The imbalance is a confluence of major shifts in oil markets - surging production of light U.S. shale oil, plummeting exports of heavier Venezuelan and Iranian crude, weakening gasoline demand and rising diesel consumption.
The coming in 2020 of the biggest change in fuel regulations in decades, when the International Maritime Organization (IMO) will start requiring ships to use cleaner fuel, is likely to prolong this reality, oil executives and analysts say.
Refineries that distil crude oil into fuel have always had to adapt their output to shifting demand patterns such as high consumption of gasoline in summer and increased demand for heating oil in winter.
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But the market for refined products appears out of kilter in a way rarely seen before, and the IMO changes are likely to prolong the imbalance.
"We are witnessing a microcosm of the post-IMO environment," Jefferies analyst Jason Gammel said.
The new IMO regulations will reduce the allowed content of sulfur in shipping fuel, known as bunker fuel, from 3.5 percent to 0.5 percent, increasing demand for diesel at the expense of dirtier fuel oil.
Ahead of the change, refineries invested in equipment to remove more sulfur from crude oil and increase production of diesel. At the same time, a slew of new refineries has come or will come on stream in coming years.
Several long-term changes are further impacting oil refining.
First, gasoline demand is gradually decelerating due to higher engine efficiency, slowing economic growth in China and a gradual expansion of the electric vehicle fleet.
The International Energy Agency has estimated that gasoline demand will grow by "a puny" 80,000 barrels per day in 2018, the slowest expansion since 2011.Editors’ PicksHis Body Was Behind the Wheel for a Week Before It Was Discovered. This Was His Life.China’s Women-Only Subway Cars, Where Men Rush InWhere Brexit Hurts: The Nurses and Doctors Leaving London
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Diesel demand, on the other hand, has been persistently strong due to higher industrial activity in the United States, while global stocks have tightened as a result of lower exports from China and refinery outages.
Graphic: Diesel vs gasoline - https://tmsnrt.rs/2PHAhiM
LIGHT AND SWEET
The imbalance has been deepened by the shifting supply of crude oil to lighter, sweet grades that yield less diesel and more gasoline.
Production of light shale oil in the United States surged over the past year, while supply of heavy crudes dropped in Venezuela and Iran, which was hit by newly instated U.S. sanctions this month.
So while historically refineries tweak their crude intake and production yields to adapt to seasonal consumption, this time the acute demand for diesel and lighter crude intake means refiners are opting to maximize output.
In terms of overall refining profits, strong diesel cracks are able to offset slumping gasoline margins.
Refineries have also found support from fuel oil, a "bottom of the barrel" product usually sold at a loss. The abundance of light, sweet crude has pushed up demand for fuel oil, which is blended with lighter crude to increase diesel output.
"We are seeing very healthy demand for diesel and fuel oil and the only weak spot really is gasoline," Dario Scaffardi, chief executive of Italian refiner Saras, told Reuters.Subscribe to With Interest
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"The IMO will be very constructive for us, and the question is how constructive. I would agree that this scenario of strong diesel and weak gasoline seems the most reasonable going forward."
Unlike previous years that saw an extreme imbalance between gasoline and diesel, which account for around 70 percent of global refinery output, today's reality is likely to persist.
Refineries will attempt to shift output as much as they can away from gasoline into diesel, said Russell Hardy, chief executive of Vitol, the world's largest oil trader which owns several refineries in Europe.
"As more refineries come on and as more light sweet materials come on ... It is going to tend to weigh heavily on that part of the barrel, which in turn essentially puts all of the onus on distillates to make the refinery margin in 2020," Hardy told the Reuters Commodities Summit in October.
Consultancy JBC Energy expects the abundance of light crude supply in the United States to hinder the ability of refiners to cut gasoline output, while also forecasting that demand in 2019 is unlikely to rebound strongly.
The refineries with the highest diesel production and lowest fuel oil output are generally likely to benefit the most from the IMO changes. Less complex, older plants that have a greater output of gasoline or fuel oil are likely to fall behind.
According to Morgan Stanley, in Europe, Spain's Repsol, Turkey's Tupras and Saras are best placed for the IMO changes. In the United States, the largest independent refiner Valero and in Asia, India's reliance, which operates the world's largest refinery in Jamnagar, are in pole position.
https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2018/11/19/business/19reuters-refining-imo-analysis.html
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Kinder Morgan's Gulf LNG Project Clears Environmental Test
Nov 19, 2018 | Zack's (In Nasdaq)
Kinder Morgan Inc KMI made progress toward receipt of federal consent for construction of the proposed Gulf LNG export terminal in Mississippi. The news followed after a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ("FERC") staff issued a draft of environmental report.
In the report, also termed as an environmental impact statement, the FERC staff concluded that construction and operation of the project will lead to various unfavorable impacts on the environment. These can be reduced to tolerable levels if Kinder Morgan follows the suggestions in the draft report.
FERC has not revealed the time of commissioners' decision on the project. The federal body stated that the commissioners will consider the staff's recommendations whenever the decision is made.
Gulf LNG comprises the pipeline and two liquefaction trains. Each of them have a production capacity of 5.75 million tons per annum (MTPA) of LNG, equivalent to about 0.77 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd). One billion cubic feet includes sufficient gas to fuel about 5 million homes for a day.
To meet the growing global demand for fuel, dozens of LNG export terminals, including Gulf LNG, in the United States, Canada and Mexico are seeking customers with regards to construction in the next several years.
In 2017, the United States became a net exporter of natural gas, including LNG, for the first time in six decades. Evaluating the plants currently under construction, U.S. LNG export capacity is anticipated to climb to 5.2 bcfd by the end of 2018, 8.9 bcfd in 2019 and 10.3 bcfd in 2020 from the current level of around 3.8 bcfd.
Kinder Morgan did not make a statement regarding the final investment decision for the construction of the Gulf LNG project. The Gulf LNG export terminal will be incorporated with an existing import terminal at the site in Pascagoula. The import terminal has the capacity to re-gasify 1.5 bcfd.
Other partners in the project include units of Blackstone Group, Warburg Pincus and Lightfoot Capital Partners.
Zacks Rank & Other Key Picks
Currently, Pioneer Natural carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).
A few other top-ranked players in the same sector are Hess Corporation HES , Enterprise Products Partners L.P. EPD and Energen Corporation EGN , each sporting a Zacks Rank #1. You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank stocks here .
New York-based Hess is a global integrated energy company. The company delivered an average positive earnings surprise of 230.5% in the last four quarters.
Headquartered in Houston, TX, Enterprise Products Partners is among the leading midstream energy players in North America. It pulled off an average positive earnings surprise of 9.3% in the last four quarters.
Headquartered in Birmingham, AL, Energen is a leading oil and natural gas exploration as well as production company. It pulled off an average positive earnings surprise of 18.6% in the last four quarters.
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FERC Staff Advances Eagle LNG’s Florida Project with Positive DEIS
Nov 19, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By David Bradley
FERC staff has issued a positive draft environmental impact statement for the Jacksonville, FL, project, which would include siting, construction and operation of a liquefied natural gas terminal and export facility on the north bank of the St. John's River in Duval County...
§ Access to full text unavailable – subscription required.
Story can be found here:
https://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/116519-ferc-staff-advances-eagle-lngs-florida-project-with-positive-deis
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Northam Replaces Regulators Ahead of Pipeline Vote
Nov 19, 2018 | AP (In E&E Greenwire)
Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) has removed two members of the State Air Pollution Control Board after the citizen review board delayed a key vote on whether to allow a natural gas compressor station in a historic African-American community.
News outlets report that Northam's move has angered minority groups and environmentalists, who say the governor is trying to improperly influence the board in order to help Dominion Energy build a new natural gas pipeline.
Northam's office said the board members' terms had expired this summer and their removal was unrelated to the pipeline.
Earlier this month, the board issued a surprising delay on a vote to approve a permit for a natural gas compressor station in Buckingham County (Greenwire, Nov. 12). The new vote is set for Dec. 10.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/11/19/stories/1060106593
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Explosion at Hazardous Waste Facility Kills One
Nov 19, 2018 | The Chemical Engineer
By Amanda Doyle
AN explosion at a US Ecology facility in Idaho, US, has killed one worker and injured three.
The explosion occurred at 09:23 on 16 November during a routine process involving powdered magnesium products. Officials said a series of chemical reactions followed the initial blast. Equipment operator Monte Green was working moving materials and was killed in the explosion. Three other people were hospitalised for non-life threatening injuries.
The Environmental Protection Agency and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration were at the site on the following day. There was no threat to the public and no evacuations took place.
Jeff Feeler, chairman and CEO of US Ecology, said: “Today is an exceptionally hard day for our team. As we mourn the loss of one of our own, we are also moving forward to try and figure out exactly what happened. US Ecology is committed to finding the cause and working closely with the agencies and teams on site to ensure a thorough investigation.”
Simon Bell, the company’s vice president of operations and chief operating officer, said of the building: “Most of the skin has been blown out, and much of the metal has been bent. It would have been a large explosion based on the damage to the building.”
US Ecology takes hazardous inorganic waste such as arsenic, lead, zinc, cadmium and other metals and converts them to non-hazardous residues, which are then buried on site.
https://www.thechemicalengineer.com/news/explosion-at-hazardous-waste-facility-kills-one/
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‘Like a Terror Movie’: How Climate Change Will Cause More Simultaneous Disasters
Nov 19, 2018 | The New York Times
By John Schwartz
Global warming is posing such wide-ranging risks to humanity, involving so many types of phenomena, that by the end of this century some parts of the world could face as many as six climate-related crises at the same time, researchers say.
This chilling prospect is described in a paper published Monday in Nature Climate Change, a respected academic journal, that shows the effects of climate change across a broad spectrum of problems, including heat waves, wildfires, sea level rise, hurricanes, flooding, drought and shortages of clean water.
Such problems are already coming in combination, said the lead author, Camilo Mora of the University of Hawaii at Manoa. He noted that Florida had recently experienced extreme drought, record high temperatures and wildfires — and also Hurricane Michael, the powerful Category 4 storm that slammed into the Panhandle this summer. Similarly, California is suffering through the worst wildfires the state has ever seen, as well as drought, extreme heat waves and degraded air quality that threatens the health of residents.
Things will get worse, the authors wrote. The paper projects future trends and suggests that, by 2100, unless humanity takes forceful action to curb the greenhouse gas emissions that drive climate change, some tropical coastal areas of the planet, like the Atlantic coast of South and Central America, could be hit by as many as six crises at a time.
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That prospect is “like a terror movie that is real,” Dr. Mora said.
The authors include a list of caveats about the research: Since it is a review of papers, it will reflect some of the potential biases of science in this area, which include the possibility that scientists might focus on negative effects more than positive ones; there is also a margin of uncertainty involved in discerning the imprint of climate change from natural variability.
New York can expect to be hit by four climate crises at a time by 2100 if carbon emissions continue at their current pace, the study says, but if emissions are cut significantly that number could be reduced to one. The troubled regions of the coastal tropics could see their number of concurrent hazards reduced from six to three.
The paper explores the ways that climate change intensifies hazards and describes the interconnected nature of such crises. Greenhouse gas emissions, by warming the atmosphere, can enhance drought in places that are normally dry, “ripening conditions for wildfires and heat waves,” the researchers say. In wetter areas, a warmer atmosphere retains more moisture and strengthens downpours, while higher sea levels increase storm surge and warmer ocean waters can contribute to the overall destructiveness of storms.Editors’ PicksHis Body Was Behind the Wheel for a Week Before It Was Discovered. This Was His Life.China’s Women-Only Subway Cars, Where Men Rush InWhere Brexit Hurts: The Nurses and Doctors Leaving LondonA search-and-rescue team looking for human remains in the aftermath of the recent Camp Fire in Paradise, Calif. The state is also suffering from drought, extreme heat waves and degraded air quality.CreditEric Thayer for The New York Times
ImageA search-and-rescue team looking for human remains in the aftermath of the recent Camp Fire in Paradise, Calif. The state is also suffering from drought, extreme heat waves and degraded air quality.CreditEric Thayer for The New York Times
In a scientific world marked by specialization and siloed research, this multidisciplinary effort by 23 authors reviewed more than 3,000 papers on various effects of climate change. The authors determined 467 ways in which those changes in climate affect human physical and mental health, food security, water availability, infrastructure and other facets of life on Earth.
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The paper concludes that traditional research into one element of climate change and its effects can miss the bigger picture of interrelation and risk.
Climate change also has different ramifications for the world’s haves and have-nots, the authors found: “The largest losses of human life during extreme climatic events occurred in developing nations, whereas developed nations commonly face a high economic burden of damages and requirements for adaptation.”
People are not generally attuned to dealing with problems like climate change, Dr. Mora said. “We as humans don’t feel the pain of people who are far away or far into the future,” he said. “We normally care about people who are close to us or that are impacting us, or things that will happen tomorrow.”
And so, he said, people tend to look at events far in the future and tell themselves, “We can deal with these things later, we have more pressing problems now.” But, he added, this research “documented how bad this already is.”
The paper includes an interactive map of the various hazards under different emissions scenarios for any location in the world, produced by Esri, which develops geographic information systems. “We see that climate change is literally redrawing the lines on the map, and revealing the threats that our world faces at every level,” said Dawn Wright, the company’s chief scientist.
Michael E. Mann, a climate scientist at Pennsylvania State University who was not involved in the paper, said it underscored the urgency for action to curb the effects of climate change and showed that “the costs of inaction greatly outweigh the costs of taking action.”
Dr. Mann published a recent paper suggesting that climate change effects on the jet stream are contributing to a range of extreme summer weather events, such as heat waves in North America, Europe and Asia, wildfires in California and flooding in Japan. The new study, he said, dovetails with that research, and “is, if anything, overly conservative” — that is, it may underestimate the threats and costs associated with human-caused climate change.What on Earth Is Going On?
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A co-author of the new paper, Kerry Emanuel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, hailed its interdisciplinary approach. “There’s more than one kind of risk out there,” he said, but scientists tend to focus on their area of research. “Nations, societies in general, have to deal with multiple hazards, and it’s important to put the whole picture together.”
Like military leaders developing the capability to fight wars on more than one front, governments have to be ready to face more than one climate crisis at a time, Dr. Emanuel said.
Dr. Mora said he had considered writing a book or a movie that would reflect the frightening results of the research. His working title, which describes how dire the situation is for humanity, is unprintable here. His alternate title, he said, is “We Told You So.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/19/climate/climate-disasters.html
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Sanders to Host Town Hall on Climate Change
Nov 19, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is planning to host a town hall next month on climate change, with the goal of pushing aggressive policies to fight global warming.
Sanders announced the event Monday. He’s expecting to feature numerous experts and activists at the event, such as 350.org founder Bill McKibben, actress Shailene Woodley, Democratic strategist Van Jones and Earth Guardians Youth Director Xiuhtezcatl Martinez.
The event will be a matter of weeks after Election Day, which ushered in dozens of new House Democrats. Many of the incoming Democrats, including Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), are pushing progressive climate policies like transitioning the country completely to renewable energy, and are clashing with current Democratic lawmakers over the policies.ADVERTISEMENT
“The reason we are having this town hall is pretty simple. Unless we take bold and drastic action to address climate change and transform our energy system away from fossil fuels to renewable sources of energy, I fear very much that the world we leave for our kids and grandkids will be in much worse shape than the world we live in today,” Sanders said in a statement announcing the town hall.
“Let’s go forward to transform our energy system away from fossil fuels, create millions of jobs in the process and leave behind a planet that is livable for our children and grandchildren.”
The event is slated for the evening of Dec. 3. It will take place in Washington, D.C., and be webcast on multiple platforms.
Sanders, a progressive firebrand who unsuccessfully took on Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, has long been one of the most outspoken lawmakers on climate change.
He has proposed taxing carbon dioxide emissions and moving the country to 100 percent renewable electricity by 2050.
Sanders has already hosted four similar town hall events this year, on topics like healthcare and economic inequality.
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/417453-sanders-to-host-town-hall-on-climate-change
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White House Clears EPA Wood Stove Proposals
Nov 19, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
EPA could soon propose a slate of changes to its updated 2015 emission standards for new wood stoves and other wood-fired heating appliances.
The White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs late last week wrapped up appraisals of two separate proposals related to the standards, according to a website that tracks federal rulemakings.
The first, labeled a proposed rule, would allow retailers to keep selling models made before the final compliance date of May 2020 for an unspecified period of time afterward.
The second, a "prerule," is intended to gather comment on "issues raised by the public," according to an online summary.
EPA press aides did not reply to an emailed request for more information this morning, but Arthur Marin, executive director of the Boston-based Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management, said he had heard that both packages will be released for public comment this week.
EPA sent the two proposals to OIRA, a branch of the White House Office of Management and Budget, in August. The agency's 2015 update to the wood stove emission standards was the first since the original regulations were issued in 1988. Three years ago, the agency predicted the updated standards would generate at least $3.4 billion in yearly health savings in return for an estimated $46 million in annual compliance costs.
But manufacturers say they now need more time to fully comply. A House bill, H.R. 1917, would delay the final compliance date until May 2023. After passing the House in March, however, the legislation has languished in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/11/19/stories/1060106625
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