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Last Updated: October 11, 2023 by main_y0ke11

Guest column/Democracy denied at oil, gas commission meeting

Herald-Star

Sep 29, 2023

RANDI POKLADNIK

On Sept. 18, about 75 Ohio citizens traveled from all over the state to attend the Oil and Gas Land Management Commission meeting. The meeting was to decide if thousands of acres of public land in Ohio, including Salt Fork State Park, Wolf Run State Park, Zepernick Wildlife Area and Valley Run Wildlife Area, would be open to bidding for oil and gas companies seeking to frack their acreages.

Legislation (HB 133) (passed in 2011 under then-Gov. John Kasich) opened up state lands to fracking. However, public outcry against the bill was so intense that Kasich “instituted a “de facto moratorium” on drilling in these areas by refusing to appoint members to a leasing commission mandated in the bill.

Fast forward to December, when Ohio’s majority Republican legislature fast-tracked HB 507, dubbed the “stuffed chicken bill,” through the lame duck session. In addition to opening state lands to oil and gas development, this bill also declared methane gas to be “green energy.” In a totally undemocratic process, the bill was quickly signed into law without any public comment period.

As mandated by the Ohio Revised Code 155.31, Gov. Mike DeWine appointed a five-person oil and gas land management commission. It includes two members with knowledge or experience in the oil and gas industry, and recommended by a statewide organization representing the oil and gas industry; one member of the public with expertise in finance or real estate; and one member representing a statewide environmental or conservation organization. The commission consists of Ryan Richardson (an attorney), Jim McGregor, Matthew Warnock (an energy attorney), Stephen Buehrer (an attorney) and Michael Wise (also an attorney, who was not present at the last two meetings.) Not one member has a background in environmental science, technology, engineering or the medical field. Yet they are charged with making decisions on whether or not to frack our state parks.

At the latest meeting, the commission was met by a very emotional crowd. People held up signs that read “deny” and “fake e-mails”. Several times members of the crowd yelled out things like “these are our parks” and “don’t frack our water.” Richardson, the commission chair, warned the crowd that she would clear the room if the comments were not stopped. At one point Buehrer, a commission member who represents real estate interests on the commission, responded, “We’re trying to conduct the state’s business here.”

It is ironic that these meeting are categorized as being open to the public. They are open but the public is not allowed to comment or ask questions of the commission at any time. Even though citizens are paying for state parks through their taxes, their voices have been silenced throughout this entire process. I have attended four of the OGLMC meetings this year and I can only describe the commission as ineffective and biased.

Some of the angst expressed by citizens in attendance was in part due to the way the commission and the Ohio Department of Natural Resources has chosen to ignore “fake” e-mail comments that were in favor of fracking the parks.

“Dozens of citizens told Jake Zuckerman that their names and addresses were used without their knowledge on public comments supporting drilling for oil and gas in Ohio’s state parks.” Even though grassroots groups warned ODNR Director Mary Mertz, as well as the commission chair, that they had discovered fraudulent e-mails, Mertz “defended the decision to neither independently investigate nor remove from the official record, disputed, pro-fracking public comments.” Nevertheless, the attorney general has launched an investigation into the e-mails.

Thousands of Ohioans took time to submit real comments urging the commission to save Ohio parks. Many of these comments were technical with references to peer-reviewed studies on the effects of fracking on humans and ecosystems. By contrast, other than two sets of form letters, there were less than a dozen comments in support of fracking our public lands.

It was quite obvious that of the nine criteria to be used when considering fracking in Ohio parks (Ohio Revised Code 155.33), economics was far more important to the commission than any environmental damage or effects to the local tourism industry or visitors. The commission spent a great deal of time debating the current amount of royalties being paid by oil and gas companies for state lands. Matthew Warnock said the state legislature, which set royalties at 12.5 percent, set the value too low.

The four members present split over whether restrictions on fracking under parks sought by the Department of Natural Resources should be considered. These include: No well pads within 1,000 feet of the park boundary, a ban on use of park roads by oil and gas vehicles, rules about water and light pollution, as well as a temporary shutdown of some areas during hunting season. Because the commission could not agree on the ODNR restrictions, the matter was tabled until the next meeting.

The chair, Richardson, repeatedly claimed “I think the statute is very clear about what the scope of our authority is and is not, I don’t think we have the ability to simply say no.” But her statement is not factual. Why were nine specific criteria set for the commission to review if they did not have any recourse other than to say yes to all of the nominations? The relevant statute, ORC 155.33, says the commission can “approve or disapprove” lease nominations on the basis of the nine considerations, including economic benefit, environmental impact, geological impact, impact on visitors, and public comments and objections.

The Oil and Gas Land Management Commission is a prime example of regulatory capture, a form of corruption of authority that occurs when a political entity, policymaker or regulator is co-opted to serve the commercial, ideological or political interests of a minor constituency, such as an industry.

The commission is stacked in favor of the oil and gas industry, and the meetings are merely a puppet show with the strings being pulled by oil and gas interests. Citizens, hoping for an authentic process, diligently try to educate the commission on the many reasons why our Ohio parks should not be fracked. Yet, the commission, statehouse and DeWine have made it impossible for Ohio’s citizens to participate in a democratic process.

(Pokladnik, a resident of Uhrichsville, holds a bachelor’s degree in chemistry, master’s and doctorates in environmental studies and is certified in hazardous materials regulations.)

Last Updated: April 26, 2024 by main_y0ke11

Climate Corner: Electrify the MOV, it just makes cents

Oct 7, 2023

Jonathan Brier

editorial@newsandsentinel.com

Electrification can be more economical and provides health and environmental benefits too. Why am I focusing on electrification? Last week was National Drive Electric Week (Sept. 22-Oct. 1) and we are entering the season where holiday decorations are powered by electricity for scary and fun displays, and lights hang from trees and bushes.

Infrastructure is not a sexy topic, it’s something most people don’t even think about until it breaks. What we choose to invest in as our infrastructure matters not just for immediate needs, but is about long term returns instead of increasing costs. Externalities are costs not always factored into the price you pay. We often end up paying more for healthcare, natural disasters, and environmental impacts. These costs can be harder to see.

Tracking the power grid emissions. PJM (https://pjm.com/ is the regional transmission organization which helps plan our region’s power balancing and includes a map on their homepage which shows the current price of electricity as well as power generation sources. Electricity Maps (https://app.electricitymaps.com/map) is a source of real time and historical power of cost, source, and carbon emission.

Have you considered how much you pay a year just to have gas service? I’m paying approximately $480 a year to maintain the connection even if I don’t use any natural gas. I plan to replace my furnace when it ages out with a cold climate heat pump. I’ll no longer need gas service and can factor in a $480 savings a year toward the cost of the install and operation of the new system. The Department of Energy is running a whole program on heat pumps for cold climates optimized down to -15 degrees F operation so these are not the heat pumps people say can’t handle the winter.

More on the fact sheet: https://tinyurl.com/364eupsx.

When we bought our house our gas hot water heater needed to be replaced so we installed a hybrid heat pump water heater as it had much higher efficiency compared to resistive electric since it moves heat from the basement to the water and had the benefit of dehumidifying the basement somewhat too. This change moved emissions from exhausting just outside of our house and in our neighborhood and moved those emissions to the power plant which can reduce even further as the grid becomes cleaner. Our house came with a gas stove which due to ongoing information on the indoor air quality including those from the American Chemical Society https://tinyurl.com/jmermbrf and Journal of Building Engineering https://tinyurl.com/uyr3k2sd we plan on replacing with an induction stove. Would like our future kid(s) to live in a healthier home environment with the added benefit of lowering the chance to get burns by eliminating the hot surface risk of conductive electric stoves.

I want to electrify my life except, the next step is my car. My approximately 100-mile round trip commute will be in an electric vehicle next year. I hope I can source renewable power generated here in the Mid-Ohio Valley and keep money here to benefit the community. I not only will be getting 60+ miles per gallon equivalent on the current grid carbon intensity according to the Union of Concerned Scientists calculator (https://evtool.ucsusa.org/) which beats my current 39 mpg. I’m making a huge impact in a few years in regards to carbon emissions (https://tinyurl.com/mrfhdkjb).

What might we do to prepare for an electric future? Have proactive policies in place to make it cost less focused on construction and major remodels.

Plug in America has a policy toolkit to consider how to think and plan for the future: https://tinyurl.com/3bxn895m

Rewiring America has an accessible tool to explore tax incentives available to you to help with upgrades: https://www.rewiringamerica.org/

Support development of renewables in the Mid-Ohio Valley. We can benefit from diversifying our tax sources, provide opportunities to diversify income for our county residents, and hedge risk in the economics of maturing technology.

Support “Agrivolatics.” If you are not familiar, it pairs solar with crops and livestock that benefit or have a net zero impact while providing stable revenue to the landowners.

Rethink how you’re powered. Rethink the future.

Climate Corner: The future is NOW!

Sep 30, 2023

Linda Eve Seth

editorial@newsandsentinel.com

“The dog days of summer are not just barking, they are biting.” — U.N. Sec. Gen. Antonio Guterres

***

Global climate change is not a future problem. Effects that scientists have been predicting would result from global climate change are occurring now.

Summers are always hot. But this summer was different in profound ways. Record-breaking temperatures hit multiple cities. Records for heat fell everywhere. Globally, summer 2023 was the hottest summer on record.

The U.S. broke more than 2,000 high temperature records this summer. In July alone, nearly 200 million people — 60% of the U.S. population — were simultaneously under an extreme heat or flood advisory.

Today, with 3 months still left in the year, the U.S. has already experienced more billion-dollar weather disasters in 2023 than in any other year since authorities started tracking such data 40-plus years ago.

Catastrophic floods in the Hudson Valley; Unrelenting heat dome over Phoenix; Ocean temperatures hitting 101 degrees Fahrenheit off the coast of Miami in July (highest ever recorded); A rare flooding deluge in Vermont; A surprising tornado in Delaware; The first hurricane to hit southern California in more than 80 years. And in Iowa in late August, it was so hot that the CORN was literally sweating.

A decade ago, any one of these events would have been seen as an aberration. This year, they have been happening simultaneously as climate change fuels extreme weather.

Changes to Earth’s climate driven by increased emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases are already having widespread effects on the environment world-wide: glaciers and ice sheets are shrinking, river and lake ice is breaking up earlier, plant and animal geographic ranges are shifting, and plants and trees are blooming sooner.

Not every place experiences the same effects: Climate change may cause severe drought in one region while making floods more likely in another. Following are some of the impacts currently being experienced across the planet.

Longer-lasting droughts: Hotter temperatures increase the rate at which water evaporates from the air, leading to more severe and pervasive droughts. The western US is experiencing a severe “megadrought” — the driest 22-year stretch recorded in at least 1,200 years. (125+ consecutive days without rainfall in Phoenix, AZ this summer.), shrinking drinking water supplies, withering crops, forests more susceptible to insect infestations.

More intense wildfires: Drier, hotter climate creates conditions fueling more vicious wildfire seasons. The number of large wildfires doubled between 1984 and 2015 in the western United States.

Stronger storms: Warmer air also holds more moisture, making tropical cyclones wetter, stronger and more capable of rapidly intensifying. The frequency of severe Category 4 and 5 hurricanes is expected to increase.

Melting sea ice: The effects of climate change are most apparent in the world’s coldest regions–the poles. The Arctic is heating up twice as fast as anywhere else on earth. In just 15 years, the Arctic could be entirely ice-free in the summer.

Sea level rise: The predicted 12 inches of sea level rise by 2050 will damage infrastructure, like roads, sewage treatment plants, and even power plants. Recreational beaches that many of us have grown up visiting may be gone by the end of the century.

Less predictable growing seasons: Farming crops is becoming more unpredictable–and livestock, which are sensitive to extreme weather, have become challenging to raise. Climate change shifts precipitation patterns, causing unpredictable floods and longer-lasting droughts. More frequent and severe hurricanes can devastate an entire season’s worth of crops. The dynamics of pests, pathogens, and invasive species are also expected to become harder to predict and costly for farmers to manage. These impacts to our agricultural systems pose a direct threat to the global food supply.

Human health: Climate change worsens air quality. It increases exposure to hazardous wildfire smoke and ozone smog triggered by warmer conditions, both of which harm our health. Insect-borne diseases become more prevalent in a warming world. In the past 30 years, the incidence of Lyme disease from ticks has doubled in the United States.

Climate change is already impacting weather, environment, agriculture, and humanity. But ultimately, if we all work to reduce emissions, we may avoid some of the worst effects.

The Earth is a fine place and worth fighting for. — Ernest Hemingway

Until next time, be kind to your Mother Earth.

***

Linda Eve Seth, SLP, M.Ed., is a mother, grandmother, concerned citizen and member of MOVCA.

Last Updated: September 23, 2023 by main_y0ke11

Climate Corner: With ‘friends’ like these…

Sep 23, 2023

Eric Engle

editorial@newsandsentinel.com

As a Mon Power ratepayer, I have to say I’m really tired of being on the hook for the refusal of the powers that be in West Virginia to move on from coal energy. To quote from a piece in the Charleston Gazette-Mail by energy and environment reporter Mike Tony, “Mon Power and Potomac Edison already have a request pending before West Virginia utility regulators for a $207.4 million, 13% increase in customers’ base rate.”

Tony continues, “That’s the rate that accounts for all utility service expenses, including operating and maintenance costs, taxes and depreciation. Now the FirstEnergy utilities have asked the Public Service Commission for a roughly $167.5 million increase in customers’ rate to cover fuel costs effective Jan. 1, 2024. The PSC approved a $91.8 million rate increase to cover Mon Power and Potomac Edison fuel costs in December [2022]. The rate hike followed a $94 million rate hike the PSC approved for the utilities in May 2022, also for fuel costs. That followed a $19.5 million fuel cost rate increase approved in December 2021.”

Did you hear that cash register sound over and over again in your head as you read that last paragraph? You can thank West Virginia’s coal baron Governor, Jim Justice, his coal industry flunkies on the West Virginia “Public Service” Commission and a Republican supermajority in the state legislature. You can also thank the West Virginia Coal Association and the “Friends of Coal” campaign for the cultural manipulation tactics they’ve deployed to protect their air and water polluting, soil degrading, climate destabilizing and public health threatening status quo.

It’s not just West Virginia that’s engaged in total fossil fuels nonsense, though. A recent report from the organization Oil Change International shows that the U.S. accounts for more than a third of the planned oil and gas expansion globally by 2050. Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), describes fossil fuels expansion efforts as “very unhealthy and unwise economic risks.” Birol was quoted in The Guardian newspaper as saying, “New large-scale fossil fuel projects not only carry major climate risks, but also business and financial risks for the companies and their investors.”

The IEA was created in 1974 to help coordinate a collective response to major disruptions in the supply of oil, according to its website. It’s not exactly a bastion of climate and environmental concern. Investors and fiduciaries would do well to heed the warning of an agency like the IEA that helps coordinate energy policy all over the world and has for almost 50 years. Just don’t tell that to State Treasurer and District 02 congressional candidate, Riley Moore (R-WV), or Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate, Patrick Morrisey (R-WV).

Moore and Morrisey have been on a years-long crusade against Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) investing — investment strategy that accounts for things like climate change and its impacts on finance. They call it “woke capitalism.” I guess now it’s “woke,” used derogatorily of course, to consider how the destabilization of life-supporting systems on our only home in the cosmos might impact a person’s or entity’s portfolio.

That makes about as much sense as the letter to the editor in this paper last week suggesting that the wildfires in Maui had nothing to do with climate change. Hawaii is an average two degrees warmer than in 1950 across its surface area. Hot, dry conditions and hurricane winds from a category 4 storm fueled by almost unfathomable ocean heat created the perfect conditions for a devastating wildfire. Anthropogenic (human-caused) global heating, aka climate change, was most certainly a detectable culprit in all of the above.

It should come as no surprise to anyone that threating the habitability of a planet of which we are an intimate part is a costly endeavor, not just in terms of physical harm and lives lost, but to the bottom lines of energy ratepayers, investors and the labor force. According to a recent analysis by the Stockholm Resilience Center, we have now transgressed 6 of 9 planetary boundaries: Biochemical flows (i.e. phosphorous and nitrogen accumulating in streams); freshwater change/use; land-system change; biosphere integrity; climate change (i.e. C02 and equivalent greenhouse gas accumulation and radiative forcing); and novel entities (i.e. plastics pollution). The remaining three boundaries (stratospheric ozone depletion, atmospheric aerosol loading and ocean acidification) we perform some better on, though we’re close to exceeding the acidification boundary as well. These transgressions are costly.

I don’t want astronomical power bills. I don’t want stranded assets for retirement investments. I want West Virginia to remain an energy state–cleaner, safer, healthier, more sustainable, more efficient and more affordable green energy. I encourage you to reflect on what you really want and not just on bumper sticker and license plate logic like being a “friend of coal,” whatever that means.

***

Eric Engle is chairman of Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action.

Last Updated: September 17, 2023 by main_y0ke11

Climate Corner: Beyond shopping bags

News & Sentinel

Sep 16, 2023

Jean Ambrose

After a month of climate-induced catastrophes across the world–so called “thousand year” floods in eight countries in just the past eleven days! –I’ve been feeling as though my efforts to avoid single use plastics or take my own bags to the grocery store are almost too feeble to matter.

The pictures are all the same: brown rushing water, bodies, smashed cars, ruined real estate, survivors who have lost everything they owned. People who contributed nothing to the problem wandering in shock.

How was it decided that the air, the water, and the earth under our feet can be owned and trashed for the sole purpose of making a profit, but we all have to bear the consequences of that destruction in polluted air, water, and a warming planet? That maintaining and expanding that profit justifies almost any action. Contributions to politicians ensure that fossil fuels development is expanded. This year alone the U.S. has approved $1.5 billion in fossil fuel financing, more than any other country, and we continue to break records in domestic oil production. We see corruption large and small: Just this week, it was reported in the Cleveland Plain Dealer that a front organization for the natural gas industry, the Consumer Energy Alliance, used people’s names without their knowledge on petitions to allow fracking in Ohio State Parks, including those close to us, Salt Fork and Wolf Run.

There’s no question the fossil fuel industry is the wealthiest one the world has ever known. Since the Industrial Revolution first used fossil fuels to produce energy, large economies have been driven by carbon-emitting energy, agriculture, and industrial systems. What we often overlook is the invisible financial underpinnings of the fossil fuel economy, such as banking, capital investment, and insurance. The financial world is being disrupted in an unprecedented way by the climate crisis.

For example, insurance companies are pulling out of states because the climate risk of fires and floods is too great. State Farm and Allstate will no longer offer property insurance to new clients in California. Farmers Insurance will no longer write policies in Florida. The National Flood Insurance Program is $20 billion in debt and had to raise rates last year, making it even more unaffordable.

This represents a profound opportunity for climate activists and gives us something more meaningful to do than remember our shopping bags. Campaigns for cultural, educational, and religious institutions to divest their investments from fossil fuels pull the legitimacy or permission bestowed by the community for the fossil fuel industry to burn and flood the planet. This is called the “social license to operate,” a term created by the mining and extraction industries in the past 25 years. “A social license to operate exists when a mineral exploration or mining project is seen as having the approval, the broad acceptance of society to conduct its activities…Such acceptability must be achieved on many levels, but it must begin with, and be firmly grounded in, the social acceptance of the resource development by local communities (Joyce and Thomson 2000: 52).” Rescinding this approval gets to the root of the climate crisis.

The divestment movement was sparked by Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org when he said “If it is wrong to wreck the climate, then it is wrong to profit from that wreckage” (McKibben, 2012). Divestment allows institutions to align their actions with their mission and values to restore a livable future. Divestment in higher education is the single most common activity among college students this year in climate action. According to the Guardian this week, more than 250 US higher education Institutions have divested from fossil fuels.

This is something we all can research and act upon, maybe in divestment clubs? Where do you keep your savings? Where is your pension invested? What about bequests in your will? How about your church? Community cultural and philanthropic institutions? You can find out about investment funds at fossilfreefunds.org. 350’s Go Fossil Free campaign is a good place to start if you want to pursue divesting or start a campaign. Stand.earth has the most comprehensive database , listing 1596 institutions worldwide which have divested more than 40 trillion from the fossil fuel industry, and is a great source of ideas.

We can reduce an array of carbon emissions through the ways we decide to spend and save as well as by how institutions transact, invest, and trade. Your retirement plan, your bank, or your credit card company may be funding the climate crisis but it doesn’t have to.

***

Jean Ambrose is trying not to be a criminal ancestor.

Last Updated: September 9, 2023 by main_y0ke11

Climate Corner: Human stories amid our changing climate

Sep 9, 2023

Rebecca Phillips

editorial@newsandsentinel.com

(Photo Provided)

This column often focuses on facts and figures, and those are important, but today I want to share stories from the front lines of climate change. We in the Mid-Ohio Valley are–for the moment–in one of the areas spared the worst of climate change effects, but some of the places and people we care about are increasingly in harm’s way.

Part of my childhood was spent on Fort Myers Beach, a barrier island off the coast of southwest Florida. My sister and I spent a lot of time at the public beach, watching the sunset from the pier and occasionally visiting the tiny restaurants and snack bars that dotted the small commercial district. My mother and her sister at one time worked at an old-fashioned drug store in that same commercial hub, my father in the produce section of a nearby grocery. When Hurricane Ian made landfall a year ago, that area was leveled–not a single building left standing and most of the pier washed away. While I had not missed the island enough to visit in the last forty years, knowing that every structure from that area where we spent so much time was destroyed — in a single storm — was a shock.

2023 has been the year of wildfires. The smoke from Canada that blanketed the eastern U.S. for several days was followed by the devastating fires on Maui, which killed 115 people, with more than 300 others still unaccounted for. And the fires keep coming.

WVUP journalism graduate Matthew Stephens edits the Cheney Free Press in Spokane County, Wash., where wildfires last month burned more than 20,000 acres and left two people dead. His reporting and photographs brought home the reality of the fires’ devastation. Stunned evacuees reported having to change course while seeking shelter because the fire spread so fast as to close off their initial escape route, burning some 10,000 acres in a matter of minutes. Traffic on one of the roads that remained open backed up nearly 20 miles at one point.

Animals that escaped or were in some cases turned loose when their owners fled have been held at a local fairgrounds, where veterinarians are treating them and volunteers are attempting to reunite them with their owners. When Matt was photographing the aftermath, he met a woman walking around with a bag of chicken feed, hoping that some of her chickens had escaped the flames. Miraculously, some had. The full coverage can be seen at https://www.cheneyfreepress.com/.

(Photo Provided)

Most of us probably think hurricanes are Louisiana’s most common natural disaster, but right now, the state is on fire, a third of its parishes having declared wildfire emergencies. One of the driest summers on record has led to an average of 21 wildfires per day in the state, with more than 60,000 acres burned as of Aug. 30. Another WVUP graduate, now living near Fort Johnson, had to evacuate when the Vernon Parish fire reached to within a football-field length of her home.

On Aug. 30, Hurricane Idalia made landfall on Florida’s central Gulf coast, with 125-mile-an-hour winds and storm surges of up to ten feet. Bridges closed, stranding residents who did not evacuate in time. Much of Tampa, where I lived for eight years, was under water. Tropical Storm Lee, now forming in the Atlantic, is forecast to become a Category 4 hurricane over the next few days, with winds of 145 miles an hour.

What do these disasters have to do with climate change? Droughts, fires, and hurricanes are nothing new in our planet’s history; however, they are becoming more common as increased levels of atmospheric CO2 lead to warmer air and ocean temperatures. Warmer oceans, according to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, cause hurricanes to strengthen and become more deadly. NASA has documented the effects of warmer air temperatures on rain patterns, with increased drought conditions in many areas and more intense rain events in others. The Mid-Ohio Valley has thus far not experienced the worst of our current climate extremes, but we cannot be sure that our good luck will continue.

***

Rebecca Phillips is a WVU Parkersburg retiree and a member of Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action and the Green Sanctuary Committee of the First Unitarian Universalist Society of Marietta.

(Photo Provided)

Last Updated: September 2, 2023 by main_y0ke11

The Teflon Time Machine – from the Manhattan Project to the Mid-Ohio Valley

Sep 2, 2023

Callie Lyons

editorial@newsandsentinel.com

The years between World War I and World War II were full of innovation, technological advances, and scientific growth. Many modern inventions — or the perfection of modern inventions — take root in that time. And, so it is with Teflon, a specialty plastic or fluoropolymer with some highly desirable properties, and also some deadly consequences.

While the invention of Teflon in 1938 came about by accident in the laboratory of Roy Plunkett, who was working on a refrigerant, being able to safely manufacture the substance took some time. At the intersection of modern chemistry and global history, developing a means to bond carbon and fluorine was seen as a solution to a problem — and one that had little to do with what goes on in the kitchen.

Around this time, prominent U.S. scientists were warning President Franklin D. Roosevelt that Germany would soon have a nuclear bomb. In response, the U.S. initiated a covert program to stockpile and weaponize uranium and create the atom bomb. This program was called The Manhattan Project.

In order to accomplish such a task, the government needed industry to develop a compound that would be virtually indestructible — one that could withstand the harshest conditions without breaking down. This was fundamental to the production of components necessary for the physical construction of the bomb. While scientists were looking to the bonding of carbon and fluorine for the answer, such a marriage was a dangerous and explosive proposition. First, they needed to develop the technology to merge them safely and in large quantities. In doing so, some of the resultant tech led to processes for making bomb components — and some was licensed by industry.

By 1944, DuPont still faced some difficulties with the mass production of Teflon. This became all too apparent when an accident occurred just before Thanksgiving at the company’s New Jersey facility — ripping apart a building and killing two workers. In the aftermath, the corporation decided to construct a plant specifically for the manufacture of Teflon. They selected Washington, W.Va., as the site of this new endeavor.

A photo of the newborn manufacturing facility kept in the Hagley Digital Archives shows a rather sparse looking place that is nearly unrecognizable as the Washington Works of today.

The rest, as they say, is history. Forever chemicals formed by the bonding of carbon and fluorine are essential to the production of Teflon and thousands of other consumer applications. However, PFAS are so slippery that their release into the environment proved most difficult to control. For decades DuPont used a riverside landfill for the disposal of Teflon waste. In time, a growing awareness of contamination issues led the corporation to relocate the contents of this landfill. They dug it up and moved it to Dry Run.

And, so began the Tennant family’s struggles — and the legendary battle over their cattle and the mysterious wasting disease that killed their entire herd.

Today this is all part of our chemical legacy.

The proliferation of PFAS had a 50-year head start on concerns over health and the environment. Evidence that exposure leads to the development of cancer and other health problems has done little to slow the spread. Industry keeps making new derivatives and putting them into use. PFAS can be found in the environment globally, in every body of water, and in the bloodstream of every human alive — from before birth.

If you are interested in a more thorough, academic exploration of the subject, I invite you to explore “Timebombing the Future” by Dr. Rebecca Altman.

***

Callie Lyons is the author of the 2007 book, “Stain-Resistant, Nonstick, Waterproof and Lethal: The Hidden Dangers of C8,” which chronicles the discovery of PFAS or highly fluorinated compounds in Mid-Ohio Valley water supplies and beyond. She is a journalist and researcher for FITSNews and the FITSFiles true crime and corruption podcast.

Last Updated: September 7, 2023 by main_y0ke11

Don’t buy snake oil in form of carbon capture

By Eric Engle
Aug 30, 2023

Charleston Gazette-Mail

The idea of carbon capture and storage (aka carbon capture and sequestration or in some cases carbon capture, utilization and storage or sequestration) has captured the imagination of West Virginia’s state and federal politicians. That’s about all it significantly captures, though.

The technology doesn’t capture even a fraction of what’s needed and envisioned after decades of effort. This proposition is well on its way to becoming a financial boondoggle, public health and environmental nightmare and a major factor in why we fall well short of greenhouse gas emissions reductions that we absolutely must achieve.

We at Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action were one of 17 groups that sent a letter to the U.S. EPA recently requesting that the federal agency not grant primacy over Class VI injection wells for the storage of captured carbon dioxide to the state of West Virginia. We have numerous reasons for concern.

For one, West Virginia regulators do not have the experience or expertise necessary to effectively oversee these wells. Class VI wells are fairly new developments as injection wells go. Secondly, West Virginia regulators lack the capacity or resources to oversee this additional class of wells. Despite recent legislative efforts, West Virginia has the lowest inspector to well ratio of any state in the region, and that ratio is not going to rise to acceptable levels anytime soon. It will continue to be about one inspector per 3,500 wells for the foreseeable future.

West Virginia law also allows owners and operators to evade liability for storage facilities, in this case underground pore spaces located below our state parks and wilderness areas, socializing risks while privatizing profits. To quote from the letter to the EPA, “in 2022, West Virginia passed [House Bill] 4491, allowing storage operators to be released ‘from all liability and regulatory requirements associated with the storage facility’ as early as 10 years after completion of a storage project, with the state assuming the responsibility for monitoring and managing the storage facility.”

Finally, the state government in West Virginia has shown time and again that the public engagement and participation in new energy projects they allow is all but nonexistent, and what does exist is just a formality with no meaningful influence. Those of us in the groups who sent this letter to the EPA saw this on full display just recently when offering public comment to the West Virginia Economic Development Authority. The WVEDA made a decision to write a $62.5 million loan using taxpayer dollars for a proposed facility in Mason County right outside of Point Pleasant and the public was all but shut out and completely ignored.

The Mason County proposal is for a blue hydrogen production facility (blue hydrogen is hydrogen obtained from methane gas with the associated carbon dioxide captured and sequestered) and an accompanying biomass usage facility. The project goal is to use the hydrogen and biomass to power data centers, greenhouses, steel production and transportation. The promise is 4,000 construction jobs and 800 permanent jobs with average wages at those permanent jobs of at least $110,000 a year. If you believe that will come to fruition, I’ve got oceanfront property I’d like to sell you in Mason County.

Want a more likely scenario? Look no further than the fracked gas industry that will supply the hydrogen behemoth in Mothman territory. To quote from analysis by the Ohio River Valley Institute, an independent, nonpartisan research and communications center focused on the Ohio River Valley, “Appalachia’s largest gas-producing counties have continued to drastically underperform the region and the nation in job, population and income growth since the beginning of the fracking boom. These 22 counties lost 10,339 jobs and 47,652 residents between 2008 and 2021.”

What about the methane released throughout every step of the natural gas recovery and use process? Methane, while shorter-lived in the atmosphere, is 86-times more efficient at trapping heat over a 20-year period than carbon dioxide. There’s no discussion of methane in these plans.

What about the fact that carbon dioxide displaces oxygen and, if it leaks from the miles of pipelines and numerous storage sites being proposed, could cause internal combustion engine failure or, far worse, widespread asphyxiation? Crickets.

What about the fact that carbon dioxide can form carbonic acid when stored underground and cause a breakdown of storage sites and combine with co-pollutants to cause immense harm to water resources? Nothing.

These ideas stink of desperation by the fossil fuels and derivative industries to maintain their enormously profitable status quo. Green hydrogen — produced using renewable energy to split water molecules to obtain and use the hydrogen atoms — is the most promising path for hydrogen’s decarbonizing future. There is also the possibility of white hydrogen, which is hydrogen obtained directly from the earth in what are hopefully safely and justly recoverable deposits. Blue hydrogen, like the rest of the hydrogen color scheme, is nonsense.

We’re being sold snake oil again, my fellow West Virginians, and we need to let our politicians know unequivocally that we’re not buying.

Eric Engle, of Parkersburg, is board president of Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action.

Last Updated: August 26, 2023 by main_y0ke11

Climate Corner: Weather on steroids

Aug 26, 2023

Giulia Mannarino

editorial@newsandsentinel.com

The jet stream is a river of wind that blows from West to East, high up in the atmosphere where jets fly. It is the boundary between the cold air of the north and the warm air of the south. The peaks and valleys in the jet stream generate the pressure centers shown on weather maps as an H or L. The waviness of the jet stream is a feature that effects its movement. In the past 30 years, scientists have observed extremely large bends in the jet streams’ northward peaks and southward valleys coinciding with rising air temperatures. Because polar regions of the planet are warming more rapidly than other regions, the typical north-south temperature difference is decreasing which may be causing a wider, slower jet stream. Certain climate scientists theorize the drastic decline of ice in the Arctic, a direct consequence of human release of greenhouse gases, is linked to these shifting weather patterns.

Atmospheric scientist, Jennifer Francis, PhD, senior scientist at Woodwell Climate Research Center, has done extensive research on Arctic warming, atmospheric vapor and energy. She was among the first to identify the consequences of shrinking Arctic ice and its link to shifting global weather.

In 2003, Francis was part of a group of scientists who published a paper with a stunning conclusion: within a century, the world could witness a summer Arctic Ocean that would be ice-free, a state not seen for thousands of years. They theorized that the loss of Arctic sea ice had caused the jet stream to weaken. Since larger dips in the jet stream move more slowly, Persistent Weather Patterns (PWP) are increasing. That means droughts, heat waves, intense rain and tropical storms now persist in the same location longer than usual.

In the April 2018 issue of Scientific American, Francis authored an article with the title “Meltdown”. Her article stated the Arctic is a “…canary in the coal mine for the earth’s entire climate system.” Francis concluded the Arctic Ocean will likely be free of summer ice by 2040, a full 60 years earlier than predicted originally. As the temperatures of the air and ocean increase; sea ice, permafrost and glaciers/ice caps are all thawing rapidly. This summer there is a lot less sea ice than ever recorded before. Less sea ice, which reflects much of the sun’s energy, means more exposed ocean water, which is darker in color and absorbs more of that heat, making it even more difficult for ice to reform. And this year additional factors, including El Nino, are helping push temperatures to new extremes. However, according to a Yale “Environment 360” article published recently, global warming caused by use of fossil fuels is still by far the leading driver.

On July 29, 2021, in a radio interview, Francis shared information regarding the predicted increases for extreme weather events in the future. If current fossil fuel emissions were not limited, PWP would increase in frequency by two to seven times as many. Going beyond that into the future, the probabilities would get even larger, up to 21 times more likely. If the pace of human-induced climate disruption continues to grow, the consequences of planet warming fossil fuels will continue to produce PWP that grow more extreme as well as more frequent. In early July, an online news article reported that according to Francis, this summer’s soaring temperatures are “almost certainly” the warmest temperatures the planet has seen “probably going back at least 100,000 years.” And although July was the hottest month ever recorded, across the globe, weather records continue to be broken. Global warming is becoming global “weirding” and the resulting shattering of weather records a disturbing new normal.

The Arctic is changing the way scientists said it would but faster than the most aggressive predictions. Although it’s too late to preserve the Arctic as we have known it, there are rays of hope. World leaders agreed to establish a fund to help developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to climate change and to protect at least 30% of the world’s land, inland waters, coastal areas, and oceans. The European Union adopted new rules that will put its 27 member states on track to reduce carbon emissions by 55% by 2030. The Inflation Reduction Act, now one year old, puts the U.S. on the path to cut greenhouse gas emissions 40% by 2030. For the sake of the grandchildren, we must build on these successes and ensure that political leaders carry through on these plans.

***

Giulia Mannarino, of Belleville, is a grandmother concerned for her granddaughter’s future, and vice president of Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action.

Last Updated: August 20, 2023 by main_y0ke11

Climate Corner: Two new innovative developments for renewable energy and jobs

Aug 19, 2023

Randi Pokladnik

editorial@newsandsentinel.com

My family has strong ties to the steel industry. My paternal grandmother “flipped tin” during the 1950s and 1960s to check for tinplate defects. My dad was a millwright at Wheeling-Pitt. He worked on the blast furnace. My uncle worked at Weirton Steel’s coke plant on Brown’s Island. My brother also worked at Weirton Steel and I worked at the research center for National Steel. I remember when the steel mills were the biggest employers in the Ohio River Valley. During the 1980s, 15,000 people were employed at Weirton Steel alone. Those days are gone, but recently a new company, Form Energy, has selected a 55-acre portion of Weirton Steel’s former site to build rechargeable iron/air batteries. NASA experimented with this type of battery back in the 1960s.

This past April, my husband and I went to Form Energy’s informational open-house for the new iron/air battery plant. The session took place at Weirton’s Millsop Community Center where representatives from various departments in the company answered our many questions. Some questions we had were: What exactly is an iron/air battery? How will it help renewable energy use? What types of jobs and how many jobs will it provide for the area?

We all know that iron rusts in the presence of oxygen. During this rusting process, the iron releases energy. That energy can be converted to electricity, and can be used to back up commercial-scale wind, solar and hydro-electric projects. If electricity is applied back to the battery, the process is reversed and the rust (iron-oxide) becomes iron again as oxygen is released. The batteries are designed for commercial-scale applications and can provide 100+ hours of energy; so wind, water and solar energy become reliable 24-7 throughout the world. The costs to produce iron/air batteries is 1/10th that of Lithium batteries. Iron/air batteries also have no risks of thermal run-away, are recyclable, contain no heavy metals, and pair well with Lithium-ion batteries. Iron/air batteries may be “the best solution to balance the multi-day variability of renewable energy due to their extremely low cost, safety, durability, and global scalability.”

Form Energy is an American company with more than 400 employees working at locations in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and California. The plant in West Virginia will employ at minimum 750 full-time employees. The $760 million dollar investment is expected to start production of batteries by late 2024 and expects to produce 500 megawatts of batteries annually.

One of the downsides of renewable energy that fossil fuel proponents are quick to point out is that “the sun doesn’t shine at night and the wind doesn’t blow all the time.” The iron/air battery will provide the backup system needed for these renewable energy sources during downtimes. “Each iron/air battery is about the size of a washer/dryer set and holds 50 iron-air cells, which are then surrounded by an electrolyte (similar to the Duracell in your TV remote).” These batteries could be a game changer for renewable energy systems.

The combined manufacturing capabilities of two solar companies in Northwest Ohio (First Solar and Toledo Solar) place Ohio second only to China when it comes to being the world’s largest solar panel manufacturer. Toledo Solar makes about one million panels a year; one every 30 seconds. Their panels are shipped across the nation for residential and commercial buildings. First Solar supplies panels for the utility-scale solar sector.

Even though Ohio leads the world in production of solar panels, anti-solar voices seek to halt new solar projects in the state. They claim that large-scale solar projects are destroying farm lands. That claim is simply not true and in fact research is being conducted all over the world to help integrate solar energy production with agriculture. It is called agrivoltaics.

Recently, the Ohio Air Quality Development Authority issued $275 million in bonds to finance the Madison Fields Solar Project in Madison County, Ohio. This project will combine cattle and crops with solar panels. “By working together on the same land, farmers and energy developers can realize benefits for all involved while preserving the agricultural character of the state’s rural communities.”

Researchers have found that the crops best suited to be grown under solar panels can vary from region to region. Oregon State University Department of Biological and Ecological engineering published a peer reviewed report “Solar PV Power Potential is Greatest Over Croplands.” Some of their findings concluded that solar panels create a sort of micro-climate for certain crops, and the crops create cooler conditions for the panels which enhances their efficiency. Some plants that have been successfully grown under panels or alongside them include: aloe vera, tomatoes, biogas maize, pasture grass, and lettuce. In the Pacific Northwest, barley and other grasses worked well. Additionally, berries offered the highest yields and also had the highest increase solar efficiency. Some crops that did not do well included taller varieties like sunflowers, apples and corn.

In 2022, Senators Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) and Mike Braun (R-Ind.) jointly proposed legislation that could catalyze the growth of agrivoltaics in the U.S. If passed into law, the Act would invest $15 million per year from 2024 to 2028, a $75 million total toward agrivoltaics research and demonstration projects. A report from the Ohio University Extension said of agrivoltaics, “many farmers support PV solar because it reduces volatility of future energy costs, has low maintenance costs, positive environmental attributes, and once the initial capital investment is recovered, the fuel is free.”

***

Randi Pokladnik, Ph.D., of Uhrichsville, is a retired research chemist who volunteers with Mid Ohio Valley Climate Action. She has a doctorate degree in environmental studies and is certified in hazardous materials regulations.

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Climate Corner: Weather on steroids

Giulia Mannarino

Climate Corner: Two new innovative developments for renewable energy and jobs

Randi Pokladnik

editorial@newsandsentinel.com

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