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File:  ltr to Congress, 76 scientists 2012.pdfResource Type: Letters

File:  ltr to Congress, 76 scientists 2012.pdfResource Type: Letters

WASHINGTON, D.C. – As the leading bird conservation organization in the Americas, the National Audubon Society will join world leaders at the 2023 UN Climate Change Conference (COP28) to call for a...

This story was supported by the Economic Hardship Reporting Project.

When hurricanes hit, it’s easy to show the damage: downed power lines, uprooted trees and destroyed houses. But when those things are removed or cleaned up, there is a more insidious damage that still lurks and is hard to portray: lack of affordable housing.

And that hits renters in the coastal United States especially hard, according to new research from Ohio State University. 

The study looks into how affordable rent is in the wake of hurricanes, weather disasters that are becoming more common due to climate change. Researchers found that after a hurricane, the number of rental units usually decreases, which leads to higher rent prices. Some states, like Florida, actually have a moratorium on rent increases after disasters — but it only lasts for a month. Meanwhile, the damages from hurricanes can sometimes take years to repair.  Other research backs that up, with one study from 2022 finding that 40 percent of rental units are in the path of disaster. 

The trouble often comes because tenants are vulnerable in a multitude of ways, according to Kelsea Best, lead author and a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Ohio State University. Specifically, renters are contending with the “overlapping crises of housing affordability and climate-related disasters in the United States.”

Another finding from the researchers: Both eviction filings and threats of eviction went up in the wake of hurricanes, which could be fueling housing instability and displacement in the wake of disasters. 

Best also noted that the damage brought on by climate-related disasters can speed up gentrification and displace renters, especially those who are low-income. 

Currently, renters aren’t protected by the same federal programs that protect homeowners in the wake of disasters. They can’t access the same cash grants, or be compensated fully for their items by the government since often renters don’t have receipts or a clear accounting of all of their items and how much they are worth the way that homeowners do. 

“Our disaster safety net in this country has always prioritized property,” said Carlos Martín, project director at the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University. “We assess what you’re due in the safety net program based on damages to your property.”

The steps that both disaster management agencies and local governments take before a disaster can often be just as important, protecting tenants from rising rents and eviction post-disaster, according to Martín. He emphasized that to ensure renters don’t experience housing instability or are pushed into homelessness, that municipalities and the federal government need to invest in affordable housing, “before the disaster hits.” 

If aid does come to renters, they are often still stuck waiting for properties to be rebuilt. 

“It takes a lot longer to build rental housing, aka a multifamily unit, than it does to rebuild a single family property,” said Martín. He noted that rental housing often takes four or five years to rebuild — the longest compared to other forms of housing of a similar size. By then, renters would have long moved on to other places or properties. 

“There’s so many ways that renters are screwed,” said Martín. 

But solutions to the problem do exist, and Martín suggests looking to the recent past to enact some of these policies. The most notable ones being eviction moratoriums and rent relief enacted at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. These policies, created to accommodate a global pandemic, have resonance as a way to protect renters from the financial burden of climate change, a crisis in which costs are already in the billions of dollars per year and are only expected to go up. 

Best suggests earmarking funding specifically for renters in the wake of disaster. In addition, she agreed that rental protections like the ones Martín and his team looked into are crucial, not just in the immediate aftermath of a disaster but in the months and years after a disaster hits. 

In the meantime, the country can go a long way to work on its housing availability and affordability, which is hitting low-income Americans the hardest. 

“We have this really severe shortage of affordable, safe rental housing and these effects of climate change and climate related disasters are just going to become more frequent and intense,” said Best.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Why tenants struggle more in the wake of hurricanes on Nov 28, 2023.

“We strongly urge the Mayor and City Council to halt these short-sighted cuts and commit to long-term funding of the NYC Compost Project and GrowNYC." - Brenda Platt, Director of the Composting for Community Initiative… Read More

Amid heightened concern last winter about the security of the electricity supply across the island of Great Britain, National Grid Electricity System Operator (ESO) brought in a first-of-its-kind demand-management system. 

The Demand Flexibility Service (DFS) relied on consumers reacting to notifications from the operator to help reduce their demand and keep the island’s grid secure during times of particular strain. (The island’s grid incorporates England, Scotland and Wales, but not Northern Ireland.)

Over the course of the winter of 2022/23, the system-level impact of DFS was significant, reducing demand by 2.92 gigawatt hours (GWh) from times of grid strain, according to a recent report from the Centre for Net Zero.

This is equivalent to the electricity needed for every person in Great Britain to make a large cup of tea, it claims.

This helped ensure, it adds, that the ”lights stayed on” and reduced the need for reliance on coal-fired power stations or exceptionally expensive alternatives. Additionally, 681 tonnes of carbon dioxide (tCO2) emissions were avoided through the use of DFS.

ESO has reintroduced the service for 2023/24, with the first session taking place on 16 November.

The Q&A below examines what the service has achieved – and whether it offers value for money.

• What is the ‘demand flexibility service’ and why was it created?
• Who took part in last year’s trial of the service and why?
• What did the demand flexibility service achieve?
• Did the demand flexibility service offer value for money?
• What will the service look like in winter 2023-24?

What is the ‘demand flexibility service’? 

In 2022, ESO launched its new DFS to provide an additional mechanism to support energy security over the winter. 

There was heightened concern about the potential of blackouts over the winter of 2022/23, due to the volatility in the gas market, exacerbated substantially by the Russian invasion of Ukraine earlier that year. 

As such, in its Winter Outlook report, the operator added new tools in the form of securing contingency contracts with coal-fired power plants and launching DFS. 

From 1 November 2022, DFS started to incentivise users to reduce consumption during key times, to reduce the overall demand across the system. 

Households with a smart meter or business sites with half-hourly metering were eligible to sign up to the scheme and could sign up through either their supplier or a technology provider. In total, there were 31 providers that registered by the end of the DFS period in March 2023. 

This was made up of 14 “domestic only”, 10 “non-domestic only” and seven “both domestic and non-domestic”.

DFS was designed so that the ESO could notify providers about the times when capacity on the grid was expected to be tight, allowing them to reach out to their customers who had signed up to the scheme. They could then opt-in to the DFS sessions and work to reduce their demand during the specified periods. 

Over the winter of 2022/23, there were 20 test events – which were used to “onboard” providers – and two live uses of DFS, where it was used to ensure there was sufficient capacity to meet demand. These sessions had a duration of 60, 90 and 120 minutes.

Across the test events, ESO established a guaranteed “acceptance price” of £3,000 per megawatt hour (/MWh) for all bids submitted by DFS providers. This was designed to offer assurance to providers.

During the live events, DFS providers presented bids at higher prices than the guaranteed acceptance price, allowing them to incentivise participants further and, therefore, provide more substantial demand reductions during times when balancing the grid was particularly challenging. 

The two live events – which took place on 23 and 24 January 2023 – saw providers submit bids within the range of £3,300/MWh and £6,500/MWh, according to data from LCP Delta. 

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Who took part in last year’s trial of the service?

Between November and March, 1.6m households and businesses participated in DFS, according to the ESO. 

Collectively, they provided ~350MW of flexibility during events, helping to avoid blackouts during periods of particular constraint on the grid. 

According to a survey conducted by the system operator, a wide range of households took part in DFS. Of those surveyed, 30% had a health condition or long-term illness, 18% were tenants and 30% lived in households with three or more people. This highlighted the low barriers to participation of DFS, according to ESO. 

There were still groups that were underrepresented, including younger age groups, lower income households, renters and city residents.

According to ESO’s survey, those under the age of 45 were underrepresented in DFS participation in comparison with the British population. (Britain’s electricity system covers England, Wales and Scotland, therefore, the population of Northern Ireland was not eligible to take part in DFS.) The most pronounced underrepresentation was seen in those aged 18-19 and 20-24 years old. The most overrepresented age groups were 55-64 and 65-74. 

Within the under-45 age group, women made up the majority of participants, whereas in the over-45 group men made up the majority. Overall, 54.9% of those surveyed identified as female, in comparison with 51.7% of the British population, the survey continues. 

The white ethnic group was overrepresented, with 95.7% of respondents falling within the category, notes the ESO, compared to 82.7% of the British population (a 13% difference). 

All other groups were underrepresented, with Asian or Aisan British the most severely so, with only 2.4% of respondents compared to 8.7% of the British population (6.3% difference). 

The majority of participants took part for the financial benefits, be they savings or rewards. Of those surveyed by ESO, 76% selected this as their main motivation. 

Beyond this, 41% of households were motivated by the challenge of responding and 37% by balancing the grid. 

ESO surveyed 23,717 people (orange), as well as getting 134 to keep diaries (yellow) explaining their experience of DFS, plus interviewing 329 people (red) about their experience. The three groups were asked to select the reasons why they decided to sign up to DFS. Source: National Grid ESO.

The actions taken by participants to reduce demand varied, with the majority (three-in-four) shifting demand, according to the Centre for Net Zero’s research. For example, shifting the times they used high-load appliances, such as heating or ovens, by an hour, to avoid the DFS session. 

Around one-in-two participants reported “demand destruction” in at least one event, according to the research. This is where the demand is completely removed – for example, households who chose to go for a walk instead of putting on the television and did not subsequently watch an extra hour of television later to make up for it. 

The Centre for Net Zero’s research found that 75% of participants manually switched off appliances, while the rest scheduled them to either come on before or after the event.

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What did the demand flexibility service achieve?

Overall, DFS was considered a success, delivering a total of 3,300MWh of electricity reduction across the 22 events, according to ESO. This is nearly enough to power 10m homes for an hour during peak times across the island of Great Britain. 

Through demand reduction, DFS is considered to have avoided a total of 681tCO2. 

Great Britain was spared blackouts over the winter of 2023/24 – while services such as DFS played a role in helping to keep the grid balanced and secure during this time. Favourably warm weather, among other factors, also played a role. 

Additionally, DFS provided financial benefits to participants. For example, CUB, a family-run commercial energy and utilities consultants business, introduced the CUB Reduction Reward Scheme, allowing its customers to participate in DFS. 

In a case study released by ESO, it highlighted that throughout six events, there was an average of 86 businesses taking part in each through the CUB Reduction Reward Scheme. Participants ranged from using 14,000 kilowatt hours (kwh) to 14,000,000kwh per annum. 

As of 30 January, participants had earned £34,025, with one business earning £1,726 in one event. Over these events, CUB delivered 12MWh of energy reduction, and avoided 945kg of carbon emissions. 

With regard to the domestic market, 13 sessions were offered to 1.4m Octopus Energy customers over the course of last winter, via financial incentives. Overall, the company’s “Saving Sessions” resulted in a reduction in energy demand of 12-25%.

Octopus Energy’s Saving Sessions from November 2022 through to March 2023, showing whether it was a test or live event, the duration, incentive offered, the number of participants and the percentage of those who signed in that then opted in. Source: Centre for Net Zero.

The trial also managed to answer several questions around the potential of demand schemes and the challenges they may face.

For example, the impact of cold weather on the willingness of participants to reduce their demand was an area in need of data, with heating being one of the easier and more common energy uses to turn down during DFS sessions. 

Those who opted into Octopus’s Saving Sessions on cold winter days provided a “mean average turndown” of 0.2kW, a similar level to mild or warm days. If this was scaled to the UK’s 30m households at the same rate of participation (one-in-three), the company estimates that would equate to around 2GW of consumer flexibility on cold winter days. 

This is roughly equivalent to the entire capacity of Britain’s contingency coal power plants.

Electricity consumption by Octopus Energy customers in kWh in half-hour increments, shown across the hours before and after the Saving Session stated, with the period in which it was active highlighted in grey. Source: Centre for Net Zero.

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Did the demand flexibility service offer value for money?

Overall, ESO paid households and businesses nearly £11m to reduce their power use during the DFS period of 2022/23. 

As such, the average cost per megawatt hour of reduced electricity was around £3,330/MWh across the 22 sessions. While this is relatively high, it is also reflective of the scarcity of the use of the service. This is not a cost paid out consistently, but only in the tightest of periods where the alternative options were expensive fossil-fuel generators. 

During the same winter, some gas-fired power plants cost up to £6,000/MWh, for example. 

Across the two live events, ESO paid more than £3m to suppliers, split between around £850,000 during the shorter event on Monday 23 January and £2.1m for the longer session on Tuesday 24 January. 

These arguably provide a clearer picture of what this service could cost in the future, given they allow suppliers to bid what they are happy to pay as opposed to the guaranteed price offered during the test sessions. 

For example, during the first live session on Monday 23 January, 400,000 customers participated and were given £3.37/kWh of electricity demand they reduced. Customers were offered £4/kWh on Tuesday 24 January, as ESO accepted a higher bid. 

By contrast, ESO’s other additional measure for the winter of 2022/23 was to contract five coal units to stay online under contingency contracts. This was estimated to cost between £340m and £395m, subject to the procurement and use of the coal.

While the coal units were “warmed” six times, according to the Centre for Net Zero’s research, they were not ultimately used. ESO paid approximately £6,000/h to the plants that were warmed, in order to synchronise them with the grid frequency.

ESO has not contracted them for the coming winter. 

DFS cost approximately £10.5m in total meaning 2.7% of the capacity payments were spent on the contingency coal contracts. 

The Centre for Net Zero’s research, completed a welfare analysis to explore what the marginal social benefits of the policy were with regards to the net cost to the government. 

In doing so, it found Octopus’ Saving Sessions demonstrated a marginal value of public funds (MVPF) – which is calculated by dividing the beneficiaries’ willingness to pay by the net costs of the policy – of between 1.05 and 2.6. 

This metric shows that the welfare impacts of DFS are sensitive to the extent to which demand response reduces the likelihood of “lost load”, namely, the security of the electricity supply. If it is considered to have reduced the likelihood of a blackout, the MVPF  is high, with 2.6 larger than many other popular policy programs, such as housing vouchers, job training, cash transfers, and adult-health subsidies, according to the Centre for Net Zero. 

The report notes that during DFS events – when the grid was particularly strained – a marginal unit of electricity would have been sourced from a carbon-intensive gas or coal-fired power plant. These would incur a “marginal private cost” of £835/MWh on average for the ESO, with a maximum of £5,500/MWh, plus the social cost of continued fossil fuel reliance.

It is a difficult balance for the operator to ensure the service offers value for money, while paying consumers enough to make participation attractive.

Lucy Yu, the Centre for Net Zero’s CEO, tells Carbon Brief: 

“The DFS is one of the biggest innovations the grid has seen in years. Our analysis shows consumers can offer gigawatt-scale flexibility, at good value for public money. This value exceeds policy spending in areas such as adult education, healthcare and housing.”

According to figures from Octopus in January, the average saving for a household was 23p for each test event. Some participants saved up to £4.35 for each session. 

During the first live test, the largest savings seen by domestic users were about £8.75 for the hour. 

The supplier estimates that a customer that reduced its demand by 1kWh during 25 events at an average of £4/kWh – as seen in the second live event – could save £100 over a winter.

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What will the service look like in winter 2023-24?

DFS has been reintroduced for winter 2023/24. It began on 1 November, with the first test event taking place on 16 November. The first live event has now been announced for 29 November. 

As with last year, ESO will run 12 incentivised test events that consumers and businesses can participate in. A guaranteed acceptance price of £3/kWh will be on offer to  suppliers, aggregators and businesses for at least six of the test events. 

According to the surveys conducted by the Centre for Net Zero, 92% of customers were “very interested” in continuing to participate in future sessions year-round. 

DFS remains in a trial stage, with lessons yet to be learnt before it could be truly integrated into the ESO’s system stability services. As such, there are a number of changes made to this year’s service, including the lead time given by the ESO, changes to metering requirements and the ability for providers to make the service “opt-out” rather than “opt-in”. 

While the DFS is currently only used to reduce demand, there is also the potential that such a system could be used in the future to manage periods of high generation on the system. 

For example, during a period of low demand, such as in the middle of the night, when there is high wind generation. Currently, wind generation has to be “curtailed” to protect the system if there is more generation than demand. DFS could be used to increase demand to take advantage of such periods. 

Of those surveyed by the Centre for Net Zero, 81% said they were interested in using more energy to avoid curtailment. 

Yu tells Carbon Brief:

“As the energy system evolves to optimise demand closer to real-time, it is important to understand the role schemes such as the DFS might play – including as an important contingency resource targeted at times and locations where it is needed most. 

“In the near term, it is a critical tool that allows us to raise consumer awareness of demand response, scale flexibility behaviours and deliver meaningful value to both the grid and households, transforming the relationship between the two.”

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As we drove by the long chain of refineries and other petrochemical facilities that surround the small town of Port Arthur, Texas, noxious fumes wafted into our truck. The residents of Port Arthur, Groves and towns along the Gulf Coast are forced to inhale polluted air day in and day out. 

“Smell that? To some people it smells like money, but it’s death to us,” said John Beard III of the Port Arthur Community Action Network. “That’s the smell of death.” 

Colleagues from Friends of the Earth Japan and I traveled to Texas and Louisiana in early November for a week-long tour, organized graciously by Texas Campaign for the Environment, to witness and learn about the impacts of LNG development on local communities. We also discussed opportunities for our Fossil Free Japan coalition to collaborate to pressure the Japanese government and corporations to stop financing fossil fuel development in the Gulf South. 

 

“And people fish from these waterways”

Beard’s family has a long history of fighting against LNG and petrochemical development. Their community has been battered directly both by fossil fuel development and by the intense hurricanes and drought worsened by the climate crisis. The fracking boom in the Permian basin and the lifting of the crude oil export ban in 2015 spurred massive LNG and petrochemical development along the Gulf Coast.

Communities in Port Arthur, largely communities of color, once thrived off of the rich fisheries from the lakes and waterways. However, the proliferation of LNG projects and petrochemical facilities, coupled with regulatory failure to enforce environmental standards, have allowed the fossil fuel industry to severely pollute the air and water without consequence. When there is significant water runoff during storms, petrochemical facilities dump untreated wastewater into local waterways. “And people fish from these waterways,” said Beard. 

Communities bear the brunt of the suffering, particularly in terms of their health. Residents of Port Arthur and other communities on the Gulf Coast suffer from high rates of cancer, respiratory infections and migraines. Beard personally underwent kidney dialysis as a teenager and had a kidney transplant at the age of 22. 

Water security is also an issue. Industrial water use is prioritized over the needs of local residents. Pipelines and other water-related infrastructure was developed by local governments for LNG facilities which use huge amounts of water and are charged at the same rates as residential customers. These facilities are “just big water hogs,” said  Jeffrey Jacoby of Texas Campaign for the Environment. 

Credit: Greenpeace

Five LNG terminals are currently operating along the Gulf Coast with many more planned or under construction. The Port Arthur and Golden Pass terminals are currently under construction and the nearby Sabine Pass LNG terminal, the largest in the US, has been operating since 2016. 

The Japanese government is the largest global financier of LNG export terminals, providing 50 percent of international public finance, or $39.7 billion, for LNG export capacity built from 2012-2022, as well as projects under construction or expected to be built by 2026. In the Gulf South, Japan’s export credit agencies, the Japan Bank for International Cooperation and Nippon Export and Investment Insurance, provided $3.7 billion in financing for the Freeport LNG terminal and $4.5 billion for Cameron LNG in 2014.  The Japanese and Korean governments are also rolling out plans to develop new ammonia and hydrogen production and export facilities globally including in Lake Charles and Corpus Christi. These projects would worsen the climate crisis and subject communities to further exploitation and harm.

 

Explosion at Freeport

Before dawn on June 8 last year,  an explosion at the Freeport LNG export terminal sent a fireball 450 feet in the sky and released roughly 120,000 cubic feet of LNG, methane. The force from the blast thrusted a lifeguard off of their perch and prompted a toddler wandering on the nearby beach to fall face first onto a rocky outcropping, shared Melanie Oldham and Jenny Loehr from the frontline group Better Brazoria. 

The explosion happened after a safety valve on a pipeline was inadvertently left closed, causing the pipe to over pressurize and burst. The $14 billion plant was completely shut down for 8 months. Investigations by the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission found that the owner Freeport LNG violated a condition of the project’s approval. Instead of having over 200 employees working onsite, FERC found that Freeport LNG, was 94 employees short. They also uncovered that workers were suffering from “operator fatigue” from working 12-hour-long shifts and other hazardous conditions. 

This is a prime example of corporations prioritizing profits over environmental protection and the well-being of people. “We face all of the dangers and risks from this project every single day and receive very few benefits,” said Oldham. “The company makes billions of dollars and couldn’t invest enough to make the plant safe.”

In 2021, Freeport LNG, led by billionaire CEO Michael Smith, made $5 million per day in tolling revenues. The company only received federal approval a few weeks ago to restart full operations, over 16 months after the accident. 

The neglect and cutting corners of the operation of the Freeport LNG facility reflects its lack of care and respect for communities neighboring the facility. After the Freeport explosion, the company failed to show up to a public hearing to share what had happened.

The town of Freeport was once a thriving community that relied on the shrimp industry, historically one of the region’s top industries. However, fisheries have declined as LNG, refineries and other petrochemical facilities were developed and degraded the environment. Freeport resident Jenny shared that her grandson recently caught a fish so damaged by pollution that its scales were falling off. 

The Port of Freeport has also spent the last 20 years purchasing properties and forcing out residents of Freeport’s historic East End, a historically black community developed during segregation. Most have been bought or forced out. Now the land they were relegated to and have built their lives around has been bought up for further expansion of the port area.

 

Japan’s push for Gulf Coast fossil expansion

Despite the serious health and safety concerns with the Freeport LNG terminal, Japan’s export credit insurance agency NEXI is planning to support the expansion of the Cameron LNG terminal located on Calcasieu Lake in Louisiana.  JERA, the world’s largest corporate importer of LNG, has 20-year offtake agreements with Freeport,  purchases LNG from  Cameron and Calcasieu Pass export terminals, and signed an agreement this year to offtake 1 mtpa for 20 years from the proposed Calcasieu Pass 2 LNG export terminal, which is facing strong resistance. 

Japanese companies which hold stakes in Freeport LNG (JERA – 25.7% and Osaka Gas -10.8%) suffered massive losses during the shutdown when they were forced to purchase LNG on the spot market. 

“JERA has to seriously consider whether they want to be part of a dirty, risky project,” said Oldham. 

Recently, the Japanese government announced plans with South Korea to develop a joint ammonia/hydrogen supply network supported by public finance. Co-firing of ammonia at coal power plants and hydrogen at gas plants would prolong the use of fossil fuels and delay the transition to renewable energy in Asia. Yet, Japan’s Mitsubishi Corporation signed agreements this year to develop ammonia production facilities along the Gulf in Corpus Christi and Lake Charles.

 

Centering profits over people

Travis Dardar stared out the window of his shrimping boat as he reminisced about his life in Calcasieu Parish before the Calcasieu Pass LNG terminal was built. Dardar started shrimping when he was six. As we traveled along the waterways towards the Gulf of Mexico, brown pelicans and dolphins traveled by our side.

Local fishermen used to catch 700,000 pounds of shrimp per year before the Calcasieu Pass LNG export terminal started operating last year, said James Hiatt, founder of For a Better Bayou. So far this year, local fishermen have faced a 90% decline in shrimp catch. Fishermen have suffered from losses in crab catch as well, but no compensation has been provided. The area has been facing a serious drought and an increase in ship traffic with LNG tankers. As if on queue during our trip, a Japanese LNG tanker passed by dwarfing our shrimp boat as it traveled to fill up at the Cameron LNG export terminal.

Dardar used to live 300 feet from the proposed Calcasieu Pass 2 terminal. Once construction started, vibrations in his house would knock the pictures off his walls. His kids suffered from illness and his wife had a heart attack. “By the time they build their plants, it will be all plants and no fish. If these LNG projects are so good, why are all the fishermen on their knees and the executives’ pockets are lined with cash?”

According to research by the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, Venture Global’s Calcasieu Pass LNG export terminal violated its air pollution permits on 286 of the first 343 days it was in operation, 83% of its first year. Instead of trying to clean up its operations, Venture Global petitioned the state air quality agency to increase its allowable pollution limits. The company also received $184 million in tax exemptions for one year. Meanwhile, local communities up and down the coast suffer from lack of funding which has left business districts struggling and the schools with insufficient resources. Venture Global has plans to build the Plaquemines, Delta and Calcasieu Pass 2 LNG terminals.

“I’m disgusted they want to build two more LNG terminals here and more upstream when they can’t even follow the rules here,” said Dardar. “They don’t follow the rules or even try to and there are no consequences if they don’t. They take so much and give so little back.”

Hiatt reflected about the gorgeous wetlands surrounding us in Calcasieu parish with its cheniers and water features. “The wetlands are like a grocery store – they’ve been providing and blessing our families for generations. And they want to pave it over for fossil fuel exports to continue exploiting the land.” 

“We say we love our neighbor but we pollute nonstop and act like we can extract and exploit without end, and we can’t. We all just have one life. What are we doing if we only center profits and not people?” said Hiatt. “I just think about my children and their children and about the suffering we’re inflicting on them because we couldn’t break free from our addiction to fossil fuels.”

 

No more “sacrifice zones”

Over and over, frontline organizers said these areas are considered sacrifice zones. Our new report, Biden’s Fossil Fuel Fail, shows that under the Inflation Reduction Act U.S. oil and gas production will continue to grow – particullary, due to escape hatches for LNG exports and petrochemicals that disproportionately  impact communities in the Gulf South.  Dardar’s response to Japanese importers, “Don’t buy LNG. It’s not worth it. It’s like selling your soul to the devil. You don’t sacrifice someone’s life for someone else.”  

The fossil fuel industry’s egregious human rights violations of already marginalized communities in the Gulf Coast was shocking and particularly for our Japanese colleagues who assumed this wouldn’t happen in the US. They drew parallels with the environmental and social destruction caused by Japanese-financed fossil fuel projects in Indonesia and the Philippines. 

“What’s happening in the Gulf South is happening in the Global South,” said Roishetta Ozane, founder of The Vessel Project and Finance Coordinator with Texas Campaign for the Environment, during a Power Up rally in New Orleans at the close of my trip. “Corporations are extracting our resources and claiming it’s benefiting the American people. But it’s all about money and greed.” 

As I reflect on our trip, what stands out is the blatant exploitation and harm inflicted on low-income predominantly communities of color by the fossil fuel industry. 

I’m also in awe of the grace, tenacity and love of frontline community activists which powers their work to protect their communities and future generations. I am excited to partner with them and our Fossil Free Japan coalition to stop Japanese investment in these destructive projects.

“I live in St. John Baptist Parish with one of the highest rates of cancer,” said Jo Banner of the Descendants Project, an emerging organization committed to the intergenerational healing and flourishing of the Black descendant community in the Louisiana river parishes. “I am calling on financiers in Japan to stop financing devastation for our past, present and future. We don’t want to die. We need you to stop.”

Thanks to the incredible and kind organizers at Texas Campaign for the Environment, Better Brazoria, Port Arthur Community Action Network, For a Better Bayou, The Vessel Project, The Descendants Project and Louisiana Bucket Brigade for generously sharing their time, knowledge and experiences with us. Special thanks to Jeffrey Jacoby, Katherine Hahn and Trevor Carroll for coordinating and accompanying us on this trip.

The post “The smell of death”: Gulf Coast communities speak out against Japanese-backed LNG development appeared first on Oil Change International.

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Diplomats, academics, and activists from around the globe will gather yet again this week to try to find common ground on a plan for combating climate change. This year’s COP, as the event is known, marks the 28th annual meeting of the conference of the parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. More than 70,000 people are expected to descend on Dubai for the occasion. 

In addition to marathon negotiations and heated discussions, the fortnight-long assembly will see all manner of marches, rallies, speakers, advocacy, and lobbying. But, aside from fanfare, it remains unclear how much COP28 will, or can, achieve. While there have been signs that the United States and China could deepen their decarbonization commitments, countries have struggled to decide how to compensate developing countries for climate-related losses. Meanwhile, global emissions and temperatures continue climbing at an alarming rate. 

That has left some to wonder: Have these annual gatherings outlived their usefulness?

To some, the yearly get-togethers continue to be a critical centerpiece for international climate action, and any tweaks they might need lie mostly around the edges. “They aren’t perfect,” said Tom Evans, a policy analyst for the nonprofit climate change think tank E3G. “[But] they are still important and useful.” While he sees room for improvements — such as greater continuity between COP summits and ensuring ministerial meetings are more substantive — he supports the overall format. “We need to try and find a way to kind of invigorate and revitalize without distracting from the negotiations, which are key.”

Others say the summits no longer sufficiently meet the moment. “The job in hand has changed over the years,” said Rachel Kyte, a climate diplomacy expert and dean emerita of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. She is among those who believe the annual COP needs to evolve. “Form should follow function,” she said. “And we are using an old form.” 

Durwood Zaelke, co-founder and former president of the Center for International Environmental Law, was more blunt. “You can’t say that an agreement that lets a problem grow into an emergency is doing a good job,” he said. “It’s not.”

Established in 1992, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is an international treaty that aims to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions and avoid the worst effects of climate change. Some 198 countries have ratified the Convention, which has seen some significant wins. 

Get caught up on COP28

What is COP28? Every year, climate negotiators from around the world gather under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to assess countries’ progress toward reducing carbon emissions and limiting global temperature rise. 

The 28th Conference of Parties, or COP28, is taking place in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, between November 30 and December 12 this year.

What happens at COP? Part trade show, part high-stakes negotiations, COPs are annual convenings where world leaders attempt to move the needle on climate change. While activists up the ante with disruptive protests and industry leaders hash out deals on the sidelines, the most consequential outcomes of the conference will largely be negotiated behind closed doors. Over two weeks, delegates will pore over language describing countries’ commitments to reduce carbon emissions, jostling over the precise wording that all 194 countries can agree to.

What are the key issues at COP28 this year?

Global stocktake: The 2016 landmark Paris Agreement marked the first time countries united behind a goal to limit global temperature increase. The international treaty consists of 29 articles with numerous targets, including reducing greenhouse gas emissions, increasing financial flows to developing countries, and setting up a carbon market. For the first time since then, countries will conduct a “global stocktake” to measure how much progress they’ve made toward those goals at COP28 and where they’re lagging.

Fossil fuel phase-out or phase-down: Countries have agreed to reduce carbon emissions at previous COPs, but have not explicitly acknowledged the role of fossil fuels in causing the climate crisis until recently. This year, negotiators will be haggling over the exact phrasing that signals that the world needs to transition away from fossil fuels. They may decide that countries need to phase-down or phase-out fossil fuels or come up with entirely new wording that conveys the need to ramp down fossil fuel use. 

Read more: How fossil fuel phrasing played out at COP27

Loss and damage: Last year, countries agreed to set up a historic fund to help developing nations deal with the so-called loss and damage that they are currently facing as a result of climate change. At COP28, countries will agree on a number of nitty-gritty details about the fund’s operations, including which country will host the fund, who will pay into it and withdraw from it, as well as the makeup of the fund’s board. 

Read more: The difficult negotiations over a loss and damage fund

Dive deeper:
The decade-old broken climate promise that looms over COP28

The world is careening toward 3 degrees of warming, UN says ahead of climate conference

Developing countries need at least $215 billion a year for climate adaptation

The 1997 Kyoto Protocol marked the first major breakthrough, and helped propel international action toward reducing emissions — though only some of the commitments are binding, and the United States is notably absent from the list signatories. The 2015 Paris Agreement laid out an even more robust roadmap for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, with a target of holding global temperature rise to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels, and “pursuing efforts” to limit the increase to 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F). 

Although the path to that future is narrowing, it is still within reach, according to the International Energy Agency. But, some experts say, relying primarily on once-a-year COP meetings to get there may no longer be the best approach.

“Multilateral engagement is not the issue anymore,” Christiana Figueres said at a conference earlier this year. She was the executive secretary of the Convention when the Paris agreement was reached, and said that while important issues that need to be ironed out on the international level — especially for developing countries — the hardest work must now be done domestically. 

“We have to redesign the COPs…. Multilateral attention, frankly, is distracting governments from doing their homework at home,” she said. At another conference a month later, she added, “Honestly, I would prefer 90,000 people stay at home and do their job.”

Kyte agrees and thinks it’s time to take at least a step back from festival-like gatherings and toward more focused, year-round, work on the crisis at hand. “The UN has to find a way to break us into working groups to get things done,” she said. “And then work us back together into less of a jamboree and more of a somber working event.”

Read Next The world is careening toward 3 degrees of warming, UN says ahead of climate conference Naveena Sadasivam

The list of potential topics for working groups to tackle is long, from ensuring a just transition to reigning in the use of coal. But one area that Zaelke points to as a possible exemplar for a sectoral approach is reducing emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas with more than 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide in the first 20 years after it reaches the atmosphere.

“Methane is the blow torch that’s pushing us from global warming to global boiling,” he said. “It’s the single biggest and fastest way to turn down the heat.”

To tackle the methane problem, Zaelke points to another international agreement as a model: the Montreal Protocol. Adopted in 1987, that treaty was aimed at regulating chemicals that deplete the atmosphere’s ozone layer, and it has been a resounding success. The pollutants have been almost completely phased out and the ozone layer is on track to recover by the middle of the century. The compact was expanded in 2016 to include another class of chemicals, hydrochlorofluorocarbons.

“It’s an under-appreciated treaty, and it’s an under-appreciated model,” said Zaelke, noting that it included legally binding measures that the Paris agreement does not. “You could easily come to the conclusion we need another sectoral agreement for methane.”

Zaelke could see this tactic applying to other sectors as well, such as shipping and agriculture. Some advocates — including at least eight governments and the World Health Organisation — have also called for a “Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty”, said Harjeet Singh, the global engagement director for the initiative. Like Zaelke, Kyte, and others, he envisions such sectoral pushes as running complementary to the main Convention process — a framework that, while flawed, he believes can continue to play an important role.

“The amount of time we spend negotiating each and every paragraph, line, comma, semicolon is just unimaginable and a colossal waste of time,” he said of the annual events. But he adds the forum is still crucial, in part because every country enjoys an equal amount of voting power, no matter its size or clout.

“I don’t see any other space which is as powerful as this to deliver climate justice,” he said. “We need more tools and more processes, but we cannot lose the space.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Why some experts say COPs are ‘distracting’ and need fixing on Nov 28, 2023.

This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

At the tail end of the aughts, as it became clear that the United States would need to create much more renewable energy, fast, many believed the transition would be bolstered by the proliferation of offshore wind. But not off the coasts of states like Massachusetts and California, where it’s best positioned today. They thought the industry would emerge, and then take hold, in the Great Lakes.

Things looked promising for a while. Glimmers of an offshore wind boom arose from the depths of the Great Recession, as developers offered up proposals on both the U.S. and Canadian sides of the lakes. In 2010, the Cleveland-based Lake Erie Energy Development Corporation, better known as LEEDCo, announced plans to install its first 20 megawatts by 2012 and scale up to 1,000 megawatts by 2020. Two years later, the Obama administration and five states—though not Ohio—formed the Great Lakes Offshore Wind Consortium to help streamline the permitting process.

“That was really a peak of burgeoning interest in climate,” said Greg Nemet, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies energy policy. “There was also a spike in energy prices just before the global financial crisis … that also stimulated awareness and interest in energy. And at the same time, the prices of renewable energy were really starting to come down.”

The wind that blows over the Great Lakes is stronger and more consistent than what inland wind farms receive. It holds steady even in the middle of the day, when power demand is high but generation from onshore wind farms tends to slow down. Which means that, in theory, tapping into the wind resource over the lakes would allow the electric grid to rely more on renewables without being as affected by their intermittency.

Yet more than a decade on, none of those early offshore wind projects have succeeded. There are still no commercial wind turbines in any of the five Great Lakes. And as the industry debates when, if ever, it will give the region another shot, those who tried before want newcomers to avoid making the same mistakes that they did.

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Perhaps the most famous (or most infamous) such proposal is Icebreaker Wind, the sole project of Cleveland’s LEEDCo, a public-private nonprofit launched by several lakefront counties and a local foundation in 2009. By most accounts, the six-turbine pilot project is the most successful Great Lakes offshore wind initiative of its time—even though it may never be built.

“They were really ahead of their time,” Nemet said of LEEDCo. “It’s high risk, and just because it’s high risk doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea…You can learn from success, but you can also learn from failure.”

Two key qualities set Icebreaker apart from nearly all of its counterparts: It has been permitted, and it hasn’t been canceled. It survived the labyrinth of federal reviews and state and local hearings that took out the handful of others that made it that far. And it’s being spearheaded by a developer that, despite blow after blow from local policymakers, still hasn’t given up.

These days, though, LEEDCo is struggling to overcome the resistance it’s faced from birders, anti-wind groups and fossil fuel interests.

“There was an awful lot of delay and uncertainty,” said Will Friedman, president and CEO of the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority and the acting president of LEEDCo. (The nonprofit, which no longer has any full-time staff, is being held together by Friedman and a few other volunteers.)

Following years of permitting slowdowns, LEEDCo sparred with Ohio regulators in 2020 over conditions tacked onto a key state permit that it said would’ve killed the project, then slogged through an Ohio Supreme Court case—brought by area residents but partly funded by a coal company—that lasted another year and a half. It won both, but development has dragged on for so long now that some of LEEDCo’s initial work has become outdated.

“While we currently hold all the permits, we don’t know if we can build the project consistent with the original permits, so maybe we have to go back to the drawing board and do that over again,” Friedman said. With a resigned chuckle, he added, “Do we then open ourselves up to being sued again by opponents?”

Major barriers

The challenges LEEDCo has confronted are far from unique. Onshore renewable energy projects have long faced pushback from prospective neighbors and are, increasingly, being met with inhospitable new regulations designed to shut them down. The idea of offshore wind turbines being built within sight of beloved coastlines can have entire communities up in arms.

“I think a lot of policymakers are hesitant to get offshore wind attached to their name, because it’s such a controversial technology,” said Doug Bessette, an associate professor at Michigan State University whose work explores the acceptance of renewables. “I think people are afraid to push it forward.”

Most of the Great Lakes region has made little headway on enacting policies that would help offshore wind. Efforts to change state or Canadian provincial laws to facilitate or subsidize offshore wind projects have struggled to gain momentum. For pilot-sized wind farms like Icebreaker, designed to prove that the technology is safe and effective, but too small to take advantage of economies of scale, cost remains a nearly insurmountable barrier.

The progress made by offshore wind projects in the Northeast, where supportive policies have found more traction and turbines have actually made it into the water, could be a boon for the industry if it ever returns to the Great Lakes, according to David Bidwell, an associate professor in the University of Rhode Island’s Department of Marine Affairs.

There’s real data now on offshore wind farms’ socioeconomic impacts, along with evidence that overwhelming public opposition is not, in fact, inevitable. While the approval process would be different—Great Lakes states have more authority over the lakebed than East Coast states have over the ocean floor—and studies on things like bird migration routes wouldn’t translate very well, the region would no longer be starting from scratch.

But there are also infrastructure barriers specific to the Great Lakes, Bessette noted. U.S. supply chains for freshwater turbines, designed to resist annual icing and de-icing, don’t exist. The workforce hasn’t been trained. There are a limited number of ports deep enough to support offshore wind, and some of those don’t yet have the capacity. There’s no way to get a ship big enough to put up turbines through the St. Lawrence River and into the lakes, meaning that the first company to make it to the construction phase will probably need to build one.

Offshore wind turbines themselves have advanced considerably in the last decade and a half, thanks to ongoing research and their continued deployment in Europe and, more recently, on the U.S. East Coast. They’re sturdier. More efficient. Better at withstanding freshwater ice. All that technological progress will inevitably boost the odds of an offshore wind project one day succeeding in the Great Lakes.

The political climate may be working against them, however. In the early 2010s, and maybe even more recently than that, there was an appetite in the Great Lakes region for bold new clean energy projects, Bessette said. “I don’t know if we’re there right now.”

Still, as the developers that flocked to the Great Lakes region back then quickly learned, building wind turbines that are visible from shore has never been an easy sell, even in places that are supportive of the idea of creating more renewable energy.

Trillium power

In many ways, the Great Lakes offshore wind sort-of-boom started in Canada. Toronto-based Trillium Power led the charge. The company’s plan was ambitious: 80 turbines, situated on a shallow shelf about 10 miles off Ontario’s mainland, together capable of generating roughly 500 megawatts of electricity.

The concept went over well at first, according to John Kourtoff, Trillium’s CEO. Kourtoff felt like local officials were on his side until a swarm of other developers—over a half-dozen by some counts—got the same idea. Some of the projects, he said, were proposed very close to shore, well within the lake views of affluent communities. That’s what he believes turned the tide of public opinion.

Trillium almost made it to construction. “We were just ready to close the financing to do detailed engineering for two specialized barges that we were having made to erect the turbines,” Kourtoff said. 

It was Feb. 11, 2011, a Friday, when he got the call. Facing increasing public opposition to offshore wind months, and with a general election coming up that October, Ontario had imposed a moratorium on offshore wind. Ontario officials cited a lack of scientific research on the turbines’ impacts. Offshore wind’s proponents believe, however, that the moratorium was prompted by opposition from the public and from the province’s influential nuclear power industry.

Following the cancellation, Trillium sued, ultimately securing a partial victory in response to its claim that the province had destroyed relevant evidence, but failing to convince the courts of its primary argument that officials had targeted the project unfairly when they issued the moratorium.

Twelve years later, Kourtoff hasn’t given up on his flagship offshore wind project, or on the three others he wants to build in the Great Lakes. But he hasn’t been able to move forward on any of them, either. The moratorium is still in place.

Public outcry

Toronto Hydro, the city-owned electric utility, relinquished its own vision for offshore wind after the province’s moratorium went into effect. It had planned to start with an approximately 20-turbine, 100-megawatt project at a promising site about two miles offshore, said Joyce McLean, who worked as Toronto Hydro’s director of strategic issues and oversaw its clean energy programs at the time.

“We basically put the anemometer in the lakes, collected the data, and then there was nothing for us to do, because the program disappeared,” McLean said. The province, she said, “couched [the moratorium] in terms of ‘Well, we’re going to study it.’ But they never did, and it was deemed dead.”

Residents had reacted more strongly to the proposal than the utility expected. They’d packed its public meetings to ask about what would happen to their views and their property values and whether construction would stir up old industrial toxins sitting on the lakebed. One man, McLean said, yelled in her face about the harm the project would cause him. Then the moratorium came down, and the wind project went away.

“I think that we were a cautionary tale,” McLean said. 

Scandia Wind arrived in Grand Haven, Michigan, even less prepared for the backlash it would face. The prospect of somewhere between 100 to 200 turbines, some of them situated as close as a mile and a half to shore, didn’t sit well with the beachfront city. The Norwegian developer’s later decision to reduce the scale of the project by half and move it six miles offshore did little to remedy the situation. In the end, unable to win over much of the community, Scandia was all but run out of town.

“I think they came with a mindset that, ‘Well, we have crossed these thresholds in Europe, and surely the Americans, with their desire for renewable energy, would welcome similar developments in their Great Lakes,’” said Arnold Boezaart, then-director of Grand Valley State University’s Michigan Alternative and Renewable Energy Center. “Well, they miscalculated.”

Some Michigan leaders believe that the fallout from Scandia ruined the chances for any offshore wind project to move forward in the area. Boezaart disagrees. “Even without Scandia,” he said, the offshore wind industry would still be figuring out how to better navigate public concerns about safety and visibility. “But certainly, there’s no question that Scandia Wind caused a big dustup during that time.”

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In 2009, the New York Power Authority put out its own call for offshore wind projects aimed at a swath of eligible sites in Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. Several interested developers responded, but facing higher-than-expected costs and angrier-than-expected residents, the state-owned power organization scrapped the idea in 2011.

The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority revisited the question of Great Lakes offshore wind two years ago. Advocates hoped the results of its feasibility study, published in December 2022, would catalyze new development across the Great Lakes region. Instead, NYSERDA found that freshwater offshore wind “currently does not offer a unique, critical, or cost-effective contribution” toward the state’s climate goals, and concluded that “now is not the right time to prioritize Great Lakes Wind projects in Lake Erie or Lake Ontario.”

Walt Musial, a principal engineer and offshore wind researcher at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory who worked on the New York state feasibility study, isn’t sure turbines that are anchored to the ground will ever succeed, at least at scale, in the Great Lakes. He anticipates, though, that floating turbines will be a game-changer, tapping into some of the lakes’ best winds and potentially opening the door to the sort of growth that LEEDCo envisioned in the early 2010s.

“In Lake Michigan, for example, you can go 15, 20 miles out, get out of the viewshed of most people,” Musial said. “You can avoid the ice, you can avoid the birds and you can avoid the toxic sediments that people are concerned [about]. … So maybe we made a mistake not looking at that sooner, but I think that’s where the biggest opportunities will be in the Great Lakes.”

Floating wind turbines are still being tested. Floating freshwater wind turbines are even more experimental. But Musial is one of many offshore wind researchers who suspect that when the technology does mature, it’ll unleash a plentiful new source of relatively dependable renewable electricity—assuming, as many do, that the grid will still need it by then.

Yet none of offshore wind’s lingering limitations have dissuaded more than 50 Illinois state lawmakers from pushing for a 150-megawatt (or larger) pilot project to be built somewhere along the state’s coast. Ideally, they want it near the Southeast side of Chicago, where the low-carbon electricity the wind farm would generate and the local economic boost it would provide are both very much needed.

The Illinois Rust Belt to Green Belt Program Act would authorize surcharges on ratepayers’ bills once the pilot project goes into operation—guaranteeing it the sort of state-backed financial support that no Great Lakes offshore wind project has ever received (and which Icebreaker’s advocates, despite years of lobbying, couldn’t convince the Ohio General Assembly to provide). A Lake Michigan pilot, if built, would also supply the sort of unparalleled efficacy and impact data that the offshore wind industry has long hoped would come from Icebreaker.

The bill fell short in 2022 and again in 2023. Its backers plan to keep trying.

“Let’s get going,” said state Rep. Marcus Evans Jr., one of the bill’s sponsors. “What are we waiting for? I don’t want to be 185 years old when these things come to fruition. So we need a policy to make it happen. We need action. Things don’t just happen. You have to do something.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline What happened to the Great Lakes offshore wind boom? on Nov 28, 2023.

If Canada upheld the rule of law, we would expect a police raid on Heather Reisman’s mansion for inducing people to join a foreign military that has just killed 15,000 in Gaza.

The post Toronto police should target Heather Reisman, not activists first appeared on Spring.

Joint Base San Antonio is the first Department of the Air Force installation planning to introduce a utility-scale advanced geothermal energy system. This accomplishment bolsters national security and represents a critical milestone in the advancement of the nation's defense infrastructure. When operational, the system will hold the potential to furnish a seamless supply of clean, reliable baseload energy even in the event of commercial-grid outages.

Work to create Scotland’s largest airport-based solar farm is now underway following the successful completion of the development phase of the project. Glasgow Airport, in partnership with leading energy transition adviser and developer Ikigai Group, has completed the development phase and the subsequent successful financial close for a 19.9MW solar plant with Zestec Renewable Energy. Approximately £18.5 million is being invested to create the solar farm.

Swift Current Energy announced that NYSERDA has awarded its Mineral Basin Solar project a 20-year contract as part of New York State’s largest-ever state investment in renewable energy. Mineral Basin Solar is the largest land-based energy project to be selected as a part of NYSERDA’s competitive 2022 Renewable Energy Standard solicitation.

ZeroAvia has signed an MOU with Japan Airlines Co., Ltd. and JAL Engineering Co., Ltd. to explore development of hydrogen-electric engines to enable clean flight operations on regional routes in Japan. ZeroAvia is advancing the technology for its second engine platform, ZA2000 – a 2-5.4 MW hydrogen-electric propulsion system for 40-90 seat regional turboprops with 2027 planned for entry in service. Across its group of companies, JAL operates more than 50 regional class aircraft. 

KPI OceanConnect, a global marine energy solutions provider,  announced the successful sale and supply of a B24 biofuel blend to Orient Overseas Container Line (OOCL), one of the world’s leading container transport and logistics service providers.

Mainstream Renewable Power, majority-owned by Aker Horizons ASA, has reached financial close on a 97.5 MW solar PV farm which has 20-year Power Purchase Agreements with Sasol and Air Liquide, in South Africa. Construction of the solar PV farm, which is located in the Free State province, will start this year and is scheduled to be fully operational in 2025.

Producer of renewable green hydrogen, Lhyfe, has announced it has won a call for proposals launched at the end of 2022 by Nantes Saint-Nazaire Port to develop a green hydrogen industrial production and distribution site in Montoir-de-Bretagne (Loire-Atlantique).

BUTTERFLY (Biomass Utilised To The Extended portfolio of Renewable Fuels with Large Yields) is a new EU funded project that delivers a circular, cost-effective and flexible production process of advanced biofuels and renewable fuels, targeting the off-grid energy supply, the steel industry and heavy-duty transport.

Global sustainable development consultancy Arup, in partnership with Energy Systems Catapult and Electron, have been successful in securing funding from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, to carry out a feasibility study assessing the development of innovative technical solutions to facilitate system-wide integration of multiple flexibility markets.