Dirty coal: When WUSTL Says "CLEAN COAL" this makes us look really stupid, like Trump. Everyone Is Sending Trump the Same Reminder After His Big Environmental Move

Everyone Is Sending Trump the Same Reminder After His Big Environmental Move

Why utilities don't think Trump will stop the clean energy transition

Why utilities don't think Trump will stop the clean energy transition

Congressional climate panel featuring Penn State prof could be 'high theater'

Congressional climate panel featuring Penn State prof could be 'high theater'

With Sleeping Bags in Tow, 33 Students Begin Sit In Demanding University Divestment From Fossil Fuels

With Sleeping Bags in Tow, 33 Students Begin Sit In Demanding University Divestment From Fossil Fuels

Keystone XL: Keystone XL Pipeline Is A Gusher Of Financial Risk

Keystone XL Pipeline Is A Gusher Of Financial Risk  
(Amory Lovins, Forbes)
When an oil consultant in Forbes pretty much thinks KXL has no future...

President Donald Trump announces the final approval of the Keystone Pipeline following a meeting with the National Economic Council in the Oval Office of the White House on March 24. At left is TransCanada CEO Russell Girling with Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross (C). (MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)

LOL OIL: Tesla driver has it right. From one of my great students.

Black Lung Returns To Coal Country

Black Lung Returns To Coal Country

Criminal Coal, criminal system: This rendition of "Black Lung" by Hazel Dickens actually wins the lecture opener today...

Criminal Coal: Openers for today's lecture – deciding between 'You'll Never Leave Harlan Alive" and "Coal Tattoo" --

Criminal Coal: Spoiler for tomorrow's lecture: Blankenship Settles Into ‘Club Fed’ Prison in California

Blankenship Settles Into ‘Club Fed’ Prison in California

NoKXL: Trump approves Keystone XL, calling it 'great day' for jobs

Trump approves Keystone XL, calling it 'great day' for jobs: WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump declared it a 'great day for American jobs' on Friday as he formally green-lighted the Keystone XL pipeline, clearing the way for the $8 billion project to finally be completed.

Study: Natural Gas Power Plants Emit up to 120 Times More Methane Than Previously Estimated

Study: Natural Gas Power Plants Emit up to 120 Times More Methane Than Previously Estimated

New Anti-Protesting Legislation: A Deeper Look

New Anti-Protesting Legislation: A Deeper Look

Keystone XL Update: State Department to approve Keystone pipeline permit

Headline should read:  



State Department to approve Keystone pipeline permit and people to resist.

Electric-co-ops-bring-solar-to-hundreds-of-rural-communities

Electric-co-ops-bring-solar-to-hundreds-of-rural-communities

Speaking of a different form of sabotage: FANG locks down at Citizens Bank’s corporate HQ in Providence

FANG locks down at Citizens Bank’s corporate HQ in Providence

#NoDAPL Sabotage: Remember Mitchell? (via Unicorn Riot)

Back in the day laborers used sabotage to demand better working conditions.  In other times, the oil companies used sabotage to keep prices up and stifle competition.  Today, the monkeywrenchers are back.  Read the full story here.

Dakota Access Pipeline Sabotaged in Several States, Authorities Claim (Unicorn Riot)

http://www.unicornriot.ninja/?p=14231

Burn damage from alleged blowtorch attack on the Dakota Access Pipeline in Iowa. (Source: Mahaska County Sheriff’s Office via AP)

Criminal Coal: Arch Coal wins an investing award while workers lose their retirement benefits

Arch Coal wins an investing award while workers lose their retirement benefits

A shovel prepares to dump a load of coal into a 320-ton truck at the Arch Coal Inc.-owned Black Thunder mine in Wright, WY. CREDIT: AP Photo/Matthew Brown, File

Damage to Dakota Access pipeline in Iowa confirmed

Damage to Dakota Access pipeline in Iowa confirmed

Climate Change: What do Americans think? Hint: We're on the right track but not thinking and acting fast enough (via NY Times)

https://nyti.ms/2mL0o4J

Coal in the Trump age: Industry has a pulse, but prospects for jobs are weak

We talked about dirty coal today, and lo and behold, this is in the Washington Post, worth reading through since it addresses both the dirtiness of coal, but also the fallacy of Trump's talk about creating thousands of jobs in the coal industry.  Also discussed: Peabody's bankruptcy schemes, bad investments, and overall dirtiness.

Coal in the Trump age: Industry has a pulse, but prospects for jobs are weak  (Steve Mufson, Washington Post)

Highlights:

'Clean coal technology' -- which does not exist and "doesn't actually make coal clean" -- is not even being considered by Trump budget.

Some coal supporters pin their hopes on the president supporting “clean coal technology,” which removes and stores carbon dioxide from coal-burning plants. That technology, which is costly and relies on federal aid, doesn’t actually make coal clean; it addresses climate concerns.  [No, it does not make coal clean, well said. But it does not address climate concerns either, because 'it' does not exist at any viable scale in any viable time frame that might slow emissions, and because injecting CO2 underground does not address climate concerns.]

Trump, however, has shown no signs of backing that technology. His budget proposal for the Energy Department would cut $2 billion from a number of programs that help fund basic science as well as full-size, carbon-capture plants. ['Carbon capture plants' are not viable, economically or environmentally.  See the story on the Kemper case.]

Trump already rolling back the very weak environmental protections, such as Streamwater Protection rule:

Instead Trump, who has voiced skepticism about climate change, on Feb. 16 signed legislation rolling back a regulation on coal debris dumped in streams. At the signing ceremony at the White House were Kentucky’s senators, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul, both Republicans; Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.); and Murray Coal executives and miners.

On Obama's war on coal?  No, unemployment lower in coal country now then when Obama took office:

In fact, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis reports the unemployment rate in Clay County [Kentucky], one of the hardest-hit counties in the state’s eastern coal region, at 8.4 percent in December, half the rate it was at its peak in January 2010. It was 14.1 percent when President Obama took office.

Peabody, with close ties to WUSTL, is a crooked company, this is one of many:

The company still has to iron out disputes with stakeholders, especially bondholders who say that Peabody executives are in cahoots with hedge funds and making the business sound worse than it was last year so that it pays old bondholders less than they deserve. At the same time, now Peabody has an interest in sounding good enough to attract investors, the less fortunate bondholders say. 

On the fact that coal industry profits rely on reducing the number of jobs, not increasing them:

“A lot of people conflate two primary things: the coal industry and coal jobs,” said Chiza B. Vitta, a coal analyst at Standard & Poor’s. “Even if the coal industry were to do better, that doesn’t translate into coal jobs. Over time the process has become more and more efficient, and they’re able to mine with fewer and fewer people working.” 

Decide for yourself,read the whole story here.

Bulldozers ready to work at Peabody Energy’s Somerville Central coal mine in Indiana. (Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg News)

#NoDAPL: This is what environmental racism looks like. The water supply of these people matters. 'Those' people don't matter.

Climate Inheritance Plan: Great idea. Youth activists score big climate victory in small Minnesota town

Older folks need to step aside and make way for the generation whose future is on the line.  Great idea from kids in Michigan:



Youth activists score big climate victory in small Minnesota town  (via Midwest Energy News)

"The resolution calls for three things to happen — the creation of a climate action plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, to begin the aforementioned plan within three months of the resolution’s passage and to include “the youth voice” in future decisions involving the environment and climate change."

Resistance works, with the help of low prices: #NoKXL/Keystone Update: Three Reasons Why Keystone XL May Never Get Built

Earth and water protectors can also use the fossil fuel industry tactic of delay delay delay.  By slowing pipeline development, the struggle forces capitalists to lose money on their investments while also increasing risk of further losses.  Resistance works.  And, big oil, despite hype of a few years ago, now cutting its losses in the tar sands in climate of low prices.  This will have longer term effect since no  capital investment means no infrastructure.  This is why all fossil fuel infrastructure and new investments (and existing investments) should be resisted.



Three Reasons Why Keystone XL May Never Get Built

Criminal Oil/Oligarchy: Koch Brothers and company trying to kill struggling electric vehicle industry

Koch brothers and other oil-funded organizations and politicians are working hard to dismantle the small progress being made by the electric car industry.  Strategies of the 1990s are returning, at the state level.

Who's killing the electric car? (via Treehugger)

See also, original New York Times story.

Dirty coal, criminal coal: Deadline looms again for retired coal workers’ health care

Dirty coal, criminal coal:  Retired workers of companies like Peabody tossed aside with bankruptcy, much like they are doing with environmental cleanup left undone.
Deadline looms again for retired coal workers’ health care  (via STL Public Radio)

Members of Local 1148 meet in Marissa, Illinois. Union president Randy Phelps sits in yellow, in yellow, said that without health insurance, he would "probably make it three months."

DURRIE BOUSCAREN | ST. LOUIS PUBLIC RADIO

#NoDAPL Resistance Music: Prolific: Black Snakes

What do you mean the Earth is not your Mother?  Are you from Mars?

Tar Sands Update: Need to lock that bitumen in Canada. No exports thru US, no exports anywhere: Canada Oil Dependence on US Loosens in Age of Donald Trump

Note reference to US midwest refineries that are 'configured' to process Canada's dirty crude (tar sands and otherwise). That's a reference to Wood River and friends, right here.  And why we need to push divestment and transition here in St Louis. We're locked in to the dirtiest kind of oil.



Canada Oil Dependence on US Loosens in Age of Donald Trump

Small step beyond coal for Clemson U. Duke Energy plans combined heat-and-power project at Clemson University - Charlotte Business Journal

Nat'l football champions make a small step to move beyond coal.  Could have gone solar, but at least trying to get rid of coal.



Duke Energy plans combined heat-and-power project at Clemson University - Charlotte Business Journal

Model for the Future: Worker-Owned Solar: Energy, democracy, community – John Duda – Medium

Energy, democracy, community – John Duda – Medium

Climate Criminality: Via Jeff Biggers, Huffington Post: Call It What It Is: Climate Cover-Up, Not Climate Denial

We're going to call it "Climate Criminality":  Pruitt is a criminal, waging violence against us and our children.  Jeff Biggers' great piece.  Biggers is from Southern Illinois (See 'Reckoning at Eagle Creek'). He knows dirty coal.

Call It What It Is: Climate Cover-Up, Not Climate Denial

Spring Came Early. Scientists Say Climate Change Is a Culprit.

Spring Came Early. Scientists Say Climate Change Is a Culprit.

Heroes of International Women's Day: These amazing activists who disrupted CERAWeek, a festival of industry-funded think tanks who do the bidding of the fossil fuel industry

Second batch of Energy Politics heroes of the day:

https://www.facebook.com/AnotherGulf/videos/318372658577329/

MIT professors denounce their colleague in letter to Trump for denying evidence of climate change - The Boston Globe

Energy politics heroes of the day: 

These MIT scientists who had the guts to speak out on climate. And on their fossil-fuel industry-funded idiot colleague.

MIT professors denounce their colleague in letter to Trump for denying evidence of climate change - The Boston Globe

Studying for your exam? A concise illustration of militarized fossil fuel hegemony (aka coercion at work) in the name of private capitalist interests, via Tara Houska

Just transition to green energy > brutalizing Native Americans, destroying our lands and waters. #NoDAPL #PeopleOverProfits pic.twitter.com/6zdq4qlz30

— tara houska (@zhaabowekwe) March 6, 2017

Climate Deniers, You're Climate Deniers--Deal With It

Climate Deniers, You're Climate Deniers--Deal With It  (@pdykstra)

From Scientific American, more on Exxon and climate science denialism.  For information on how Washington University's Murray Weidenbaum Center (aka Center for the Study of American Business) participated in Exxon's (probably criminal) obfuscation of climate science, see here.

For information on how Washington University participates in Peabody, Arch, and Ameren's obfuscation of public knowledge with the phrase "clean coal" – I call this criminal, in Britain they determined it was false advertising at least – see here.

" Tillerson has acknowledged climate change for many years, but his company funded denial-based think tanks and scientists, all while Exxon’s own internal science affirming climate impacts was deep-sixed."

Read the full story from Scientific American here. 

Auto Industry: So, when I say things like "the auto industry is organized criminality" -- that's not extreme, that's just the truth: Volkswagen’s Emissions Fraud May Affect Mortality Rate in Europe

This is what, in other contexts, such as mine explosions, we refer to as "industrial homicide".  Do you think anyone will go to jail? 

This is why fighting greenwashing is so important.  Companies like Exxon, Peabody, Ameren - those who fight climate science, fight the EPA, and use phrases like 'clean coal' – are conspiring to delay real action on the climate.  The affect of these delays is more pollution, and in turn, more premature mortality as well as other public health impacts.  Hence, criminal.

For more on how Washington University distorts the public trust with phrases like 'clean coal', see these notes.

Volkswagen’s Emissions Fraud May Affect Mortality Rate in Europe

From 2008 to 2015, Volkswagen sold 11 million diesel cars worldwide rigged with software that cheated emissions tests by running the full emissions-control system only if the car sensed a test was underway.

 Otherwise, the cars operated without emissions control, releasing more than four times the levels of nitrogen oxides, a class of harmful air pollutants, permitted by European regulation.

Now, scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology estimate that 1,200 people in Europe will die prematurely, each losing as much as a decade of life, because of excess emissions from 2.6 million affected cars sold just in Germany.  Full story here.

Traffic during August, in Lyon, France. Scientists estimate that because Volkswagen sold 11 million diesel cars worldwide rigged with software that cheated emissions tests, 1,200 people in Europe will die prematurely.

Credit

Sipa, via Associated Pres

Federal Vehicle Standards | Center for Climate and Energy Solutions

Federal Vehicle Standards | Center for Climate and Energy Solutions

100 years ago, Alexander Graham Bell warned us about the ‘greenhouse effect’

100 years ago, Alexander Graham Bell warned us about the ‘greenhouse effect’

Energy Politics, Hero of the Day: Fabio de Pasquale: The oil deal, the disgraced former minister, and $800m paid via a UK bank

A concise illustration of how corruption is embedded in the relationships between the oil complex (industries) and dependent states.  The result is the petrostate, not a closed entity but a relationship.

The oil deal, the disgraced former minister, and $800m paid via a UK bank  (via The Guardian, Faull, et al.)

The Energy Politics hero of the day: Fabio de Pasquale

Italian prosecutor, Fabio de Pasquale, who is pursuing an indictment against Shell and Eni execs alleged to have participated in massive bribe to secure an oil concession in offshore Nigerian waters.    Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Iraq and US militarized oil imperialism in the Middle East: Remember the lies and criminal actions that led us to war, and that keep us there. LRB · Eliot Weinberger · What I Heard about Iraq: watch and listen

LRB · Eliot Weinberger · What I Heard about Iraq: watch and listen

Seems pretty clear that the Iraq generation - my students – needs much more critical history of the course of events, the lies, and the war criminality that led us there.

Saudi Arabia: The sub-imperialist? Or neo-imperialist turn? Saudis go for land grab, colonization, and control of oil routes to China

A shift, globally, as Saudis try to secure access routes and a market for oil that should not be extracted or burned, by anybody.  One more reason to stop selling weapons to the Saudis.  Recall Mitchell: chokepoints, vulnerabilities, and the instrumentalization of conservative Islam in the service of oil capitalism and modernity.

Saudis make Maldives land grab to secure oil routes to China

By Karl Mathiesen in London and Megan Darby in Malé (Climate Home)

http://www.climatechangenews.com/2017/03/05/saudis-make-maldives-land-grab-secure-oil-routes-china/

"In February, the Saudi embassy in Malé was criticised for handing out sealed envelopes filled with cash to local Maldivian journalists at an event. The embassy described them as “gifts”.Foreign land ownership was illegal in the Maldives until 2015, when the Yameen government passed an amendment to the constitution. Nasheed compared Saudi acquisition of Faafu to China’s building of military facilities on islands in the South China sea.“This is far more devious, because they hide inside you and they come out when they want to,” he said."

Read the full story here. 

Saudi Arabian King Salman bin Abdulaziz (Photo: Erin A. Kirk-Cuomo) http://sumo.ly/wEz9 via @ClimateHome

New Energy Outlook 2016 (NEO) | Bloomberg New Energy Finance

New Energy Outlook 2016 (NEO) | Bloomberg New Energy Finance



The reasonable business crowd, 60% carbon-free by 2040.

On the question of oil, war, detachment, and dehumanization: Greenwald – Trump’s Use of Navy SEAL’s Wife Highlights All the Key Ingredients of U.S. War Propaganda

Trump’s Use of Navy SEAL’s Wife Highlights All the Key Ingredients of U.S. War Propaganda

'Clean coal', CCS and CSG will not save fossil fuels – their game is up | Ian Dunlop

A friendly note to Chancellor Wrighton and Washington University.  Your legacy is at stake.  Stop saying 'clean coal'.  Stop wasting time, money, and energy.  We will neither forgive nor forget your inaction on climate change.  Nor will we forgive nor forget your active work trying to confuse and distract the public with greenwashing strategies that the industry is promoting. 

See my notes on how much it cost to betray the public trust at WUSTL. -BG

'Clean coal', CCS and CSG will not save fossil fuels – their game is up | Ian Dunlop

“Clean coal” is neither new nor clean. These technologies can reduce emissions by up to 40% relative to conventional practice but that does not solve our problem when the global carbon budget has already been exhausted. Furthermore, costs are increased by up to 30%, rendering coal even less competitive with renewables. 

Years of research have failed to establish the basis for CCS expansion at scale. CCS works where emissions are stored in depleted oil and gas reservoirs, which the oil industry has practised for decades. Storage in other types of geological structures is far harder. The few commercial operations in the world today are in the former category. The substantial additional costs of CCS again reduce coal’s competitiveness, particularly if you refuse to price carbon, as the government is doing. CCS will be useful at the margin but it will not save fossil fuels from their inevitable demise.

Nationalize the Grid: Public-owned Australian power grid could solve energy issues, paper argues

My hero of today is an Australian economist named John Quiggin:  



Public-owned Australian power grid could solve energy issues, paper argues



"The paper authored by University of Queensland economist Prof John Quigginsays the creation of the national electricity market in the 1990s has failed to lower power prices and improve system reliability or environmental sustainability.

High energy bills here to stay but jobs heading overseas, industry group warns

 

Read more

It argues the electricity grid, including physical transmission networks in each state and interconnectors linking them, should instead be publicly owned.

And it says that “renationalised” grid should be responsible for maintaining a secure power supply and moving towards a zero emissions industry."

Fossil Fuel Fascism? Republicans pushing to criminalize protest in wake of rising opposition to fossil fuel infrastructures, c.f. Carbon Democracy

This is what we refer to as the "criminalization of protest." Republicans pushing for authoritarianism https://t.co/Ft6oLtNBD7 via @nytvideo

— Energy Politics (@energy_politics) March 2, 2017

Mark your calendars: March 28 - 4 PM: David Easterling of NOAA will talk on Climate Change at WUSTL #ExxonKnew

This is nice to see.  The Weidenbaum Center here at Washington University took a lot of money from Exxon during the 1980s and 1990s and participated in Exxon's climate denialist strategies through a number of publications.  That may have been illegal, if tied to Exxon's (illegal) obfuscation of what it knew about the climate. While there is room for plausible deniability, the Weidenbaum Center, in effect, was laundering both money and the facts, for Exxon.  We'll see how the case unfolds.  

So fast forward to today.  I suppose it's good to see the Weidenbaum Center sponsoring talks like this.  But the Weidenbaum Center (formerly known as the Center for the Study of American Business) did plenty of damage to public knowledge during the Reagan-Bush-Clinton years.  

I think the Weidenbaum Center needs to accompany this event with a public apology for its role in the #ExxonKnew scandal, and for the fact that the Weidenbaum Center still has climate science denial publications posted on its website. See my notes here.

Scientific View of Climate Change

(A public lecture)

David Easterling

David Easterling, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

March 28, 2017 - 4:00pm

Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom, Anheuser-Busch Hall, Washington University

Dr. Easterling received his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1987 and served as an Assistant Professor in the Climate and Meteorology Program, Department of Geography, Indiana University-Bloomington from 1987 to 1990. In 1990 he moved to the National Climatic Data Center as a research scientist, was appointed Principal Scientist in 1999, and Chief of Scientific Services in 2002. He has authored or co-authored more than sixty research articles in journals such as Science, Nature and the Journal of Climate. Dr. Easterling was also a contributor to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Second and Third Assessment Reports, and is currently a Lead Author for the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report. His research interests include the detection of climate change in the observed record, particularly changes in extreme climate events.

Registration is not required for this event.  However, registrants will receive emailed directions and parking instructions the day of the event and updates on the event, if necessary.  Click here to register for this event.  

This forum is cosponsored by Washington University's Assembly Series and the International Center for Advanced Renewable Energy and Sustainability (I-CARES).