Category: Financial Implications

The negative financial impact of fracking is substantial; except for the victims, no one ever considers the health costs of the people affected, or the potential irreparable damage to the environment.

Yale Climate Connection, June 4, 2021

Articles include: A climate-change-inspired video road-trip across the U.S.; Key readings on IEA’s ‘Net Zero by 2050’ report; Tips: How to weatherize your home; Talking climate with those holding different worldviews; New Mexico imposes strict rule to prevent venting, flaring of natural gas; Can fossil-fuel-dependent Wyoming build a more diverse economy?; Swiss utilities used a simple tactic to get customers to buy renewable energy; Foresters use fire and goats to care for Missouri’s Mark Twain National Forest; Youth-led Sunrise Movement calls for national job guarantee

Yale Climate Connection, May 21, 2021

Articles include: Greens: Divided on ‘clean’ energy? Or closer than they appear?; Check these pieces on the diseases of summer; Tropical Cyclone Tauktae is fifth-strongest cyclone on record in the Arabian Sea; What is a ‘just transition,’ and why do we need one?; California’s volunteer ‘Climate Action Corps’ helps fight climate change; Increases in extreme precipitation cost the U.S. $73 billion over three decades; Bladeless wind turbine generates electricity by vibrating with air movements; The moral imperative behind the ‘Big Bold Jewish Climate Fest’;
Renovations put Seattle hockey arena closer to its goal of zero carbon emissions.

Yale Climate Connection, May 14, 2021

Articles include: Silent calamity: The health impacts of wildfire smoke; White House adviser and environmental justice advocate Catherine Coleman Flowers; Climate change increases renters’ risks; Why are there so many Atlantic named storms? Five possible explanations; Heavier downpours strain septic systems in some rural areas; Devastating disease in dolphins linked to extreme downpours, researcher says; Santa Fe women built homemade air purifiers to help protect people from wildfire smoke; Hundreds of coastal airports at risk from flooding, sea-level rise, study finds; Historic Portsmouth Village under threat from hurricanes and rising seas.

Study: A 20-Foot Sea Wall? Miami Faces the Hard Choices of Climate Change.

New York Times: A 20-Foot Sea Wall? Miami Faces the Hard Choices of Climate Change. A proposal to construct barriers for storm surge protection has forced South Floridians to reckon with the many environmental challenges they face.

Three years ago, not long after Hurricane Irma left parts of Miami underwater, the federal government embarked on a study to find a way to protect the vulnerable South Florida coast from deadly and destructive storm surge.

Already, no one likes the answer.

Build a wall, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed in its first draft of the study, now under review. Six miles of it, in fact, mostly inland, running parallel to the coast through neighborhoods — except for a one-mile stretch right on Biscayne Bay, past the gleaming sky-rises of Brickell, the city’s financial district.

Report: Here Are America’s Top Methane Emitters. Some Will Surprise You.

New York Times: Here Are America’s Top Methane Emitters. Some Will Surprise You. Oil and gas giants are selling off their most-polluting operations to small private companies. Most manage to escape public scrutiny.

As the world’s oil and gas giants face increasing pressure to reduce their fossil fuel emissions, small, privately held drilling companies are becoming the country’s biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, often by buying up the industry’s high-polluting assets.

According to a new analysis of the latest emissions data disclosed to the Environmental Protection Agency, five of the industry’s top ten emitters of methane, a particularly potent planet-warming gas, are little-known oil and gas producers, some backed by obscure investment firms, whose environmental footprints are wildly large relative to their production.

Yale Climate Connections, May 7, 2021

Articles include: ‘Which climate change jobs will be in high demand in the future?’;  Most newspaper editorials mum on Biden 50% by 2030 pledge; Revitalized U.S. urgency on climate change and national security;  Empire State Realty Trust agrees to buy 300 million kilowatt hours of wind energy;  Affordable housing could be hit hard as sea levels rise;  Environmental engineer launches group for Latinos in sustainability;  New tool called ‘Vulcan’ could help cities better estimate their carbon dioxide emissions; Women scientists launch ‘Science Moms,’ a climate campaign aimed at mothers.

DeSmogBlog, May 1, 2021

Articles include: Fossil Fuel Companies Are Promoting ‘Lower Carbon,’ ‘Responsibly Sourced’ Oil and Gas; Louisiana Oil Fields and Orphaned Wells; UK’s Leading Climate Science Denial Group; Urge Banks Not to Fund Chemical Plant in Louisiana;  Climate Disinformation Database: The Global Warming Policy Foundation.

Covanta intends to close multiple plants in coming years, divestitures still possible

WasteDive: Covanta intends to close multiple plants in coming years, divestitures still possible.

  • Covanta’s strategic review process is complete, and the company’s North American portfolio will be changing. “We have now identified a number of sites where we intend to shutter operations over the next several years, including several public sector operating contracts where we have already notified our clients that we do not intend to extend contracts when they expire,” said CEO Michael Ranger during a Friday earnings call.
  • The company also identified the potential for $30 million in annual cost reductions by 2023, with some starting this year due to voluntary early retirements. This does not include any potential asset divestitures, which remain under consideration.
  • Looking ahead, the company projected it could achieve $600 million of adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) and $250 million of free cash flow by 2024. Driving the projections, in part, is the company’s ongoing expansion overseas, with its new Rookery South energy recovery facility set to begin receiving waste in the U.K. soon.