Tag: Middle East

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.

The Daily Climate, April 1,2021

Articles include: Climate change and financial markets; Report: O&G warning – diversify; Tackling climate change will create jobs; Biden and electric vehicles; Rainforests will become savannas – study and  study. EU climate plan and Asia; greening the financial system; low maximum Arctic ice; world bank financing fossil fuels; Canada’s TransMountain pipeline study paper from a team at Simon Fraser University‘s School of Resource and Environmental Management; Increase funding for poor nations; Saudi Arabia, renewable energy, planting trees; frequent flyers; Aussie brewer and solar power; coal shutdowns – German approach; Report (no link provided): Barrier Reef doomed; EPA fires trump appointees.

Red Sea coral reefs ‘under threat’ – 2 articles

France24: Red Sea coral reefs ‘under threat’ from Israel-UAE oil deal. Israeli environmentalists are warning that a UAE-Israeli oil pipeline deal threatens unique Red Sea coral reefs and could lead to “the next ecological disaster”. The agreement to bring Emirati crude oil by tanker to a pipeline in the Red Sea port of Eilat was signed after Israel normalised ties with the Gulf Arab nation late last year and should come into force within months. With experts warning of possible leaks and spills at the ageing Eilat port, and the Israeli environmental protection ministry demanding “urgent” talks on the deal, activists mobilised last week.

The Atlantic: The Mediterranean’s Red Gold Is Running Out. For centuries, red coral was traded all over the world. Now it’s disappearing. On a golden day last September, I visited the ruins of the first Greek city on the Iberian Peninsula, a settlement from the sixth century B.C. called Empúries. Traders venturing down present-day Spain’s Costa Brava, a rugged stretch of coastline in northeastern Catalonia, had recognized the advantages of the location: a natural port, some protection from the fierce tramontana winds blowing off the Pyrenees, and access to local trade networks established by native Iberians. But as the Greek settlers discovered, another attribute of their new home lay just offshore.

Green Hydrogen: Could It Be Key to a Carbon-Free Economy?

Yale Climate Connections discusses Green Hydrogen: Could It Be Key to a Carbon-Free Economy? Green hydrogen, which uses renewable energy to produce hydrogen from water, is taking off around the globe. Its boosters say the fuel could play an important role in decarbonizing hard-to-electrify sectors of the economy, such as long-haul trucking, aviation, and heavy manufacturing.

Saudi Arabia is constructing a futuristic city in the desert on the Red Sea called Neom. The $500 billion city — complete with flying taxis and robotic domestic help — is being built from scratch and will be home to a million people. And what energy product will be used both to power this city and sell to the world? Not oil. The Saudis are going big on something called green hydrogen — a carbon-free fuel made from water by using renewably produced electricity to split hydrogen molecules from oxygen molecules.

This summer, a large U.S. gas company, Air Products & Chemicals, announced that as part of Neom it has been building a green hydrogen plant in Saudi Arabia for the last four years. The plant is powered by 4 gigawatts from wind and solar projects that sprawl across the desert. It claims to be the world’s largest green hydrogen project — and more Saudi plants are on the drawing board.

California’s Air Quality & Wildfires – four articles

The New York Times discusses how poor California’s Air Quality Is and How to Protect Yourself. Wildfire smoke spreads misery, including health problems, far beyond fire zones. We have key facts and tips. The health effects of wildfire smoke are not fully understood, and the particles differ in some ways from other air pollution, which has been shown to cause disease. But wildfire smoke, which can include toxic substances from burned buildings, has been linked to serious health problems. “When this is happening people’s health is suffering,” said Sarah Henderson, senior scientist in environmental health services at the British Columbia Center for Disease Control. “There is no doubt.” Studies have shown that, when waves of smoke hit, the rate of hospital visits rises and many of the additional patients experience respiratory problems, heart attacks and strokes.

The New York Times also discusses a climate reckoning in California. If climate change was a somewhat abstract notion a decade ago, today it is all too real for Californians fleeing wildfires and smothered in a blanket of smoke, the worst year of fires on record. Multiple mega fires burning more than three million acres. Millions of residents smothered in toxic air. Rolling blackouts and triple-digit heat waves. Climate change, in the words of one scientist, is smacking California in the face. The crisis in the nation’s most populous state is more than just an accumulation of individual catastrophes. It is also an example of something climate experts have long worried about, but which few expected to see so soon: a cascade effect, in which a series of disasters overlap, triggering or amplifying each other.

The New York Times also discusses changes that are needed amid worsening wildfires. The blazes scorching the West highlight the urgency of rethinking fire management policies, as climate change threatens to make things worse. Wildfires are ravaging the West — in California alone, five of the largest blazes on record have all struck in just the past four years — offering a deadly reminder that the nation is far behind in adopting policies widely known to protect lives and property, even though worsening fires have become a predictable consequence of climate change.

The New York Times discusses how states are desperate for help fighting wildfires. With millions of acres ablaze across the West Coast, states are having a tough time finding available fire crews. California resorted to calling in a team of firefighters from Israel.

America’s fracking boom flounders as global prices and demand collapse

The Guardian discusses how America’s fracking boom flounders as global prices and demand collapse.

The US shale industry was forecast to deliver record high oil production this year. Only a few months ago the Permian basin was expected to increase its oil output to a new high of 4.8 million barrels per day, on the way to spurring the entire US market to a record daily output rate of 9 million bpd in 2020.

The Permian, North America’s largest shale basin, has been one of the biggest drivers of a shale oil boom that helped make the United States the biggest oil producer in the world, ahead of Saudi Arabia and Russia.

Renewable energy, retrofits touted as job-creating alternative to oil sector devastation

CBC discusses renewable energy, retrofits touted as job-creating alternative to oil sector devastation. Renewables create more jobs per dollar invested than oil industry, say advocates.

With a barrel of Canadian oil now going for the same price as a cup of coffee, some renewable energy experts say it’s time for a different approach to building Canada’s energy sector.

They say the massive job losses and economic turmoil hammering the oil industry could be at least partly offset by a more aggressive shift toward renewables, energy-efficiency retrofits and other sustainable infrastructure.

“There are very practical reasons it would make sense,” said Martin Boucher, of the University of Saskatchewan’s Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy.

Western Canada Select crude oil has been selling for less than $5 a barrel since the coronavirus-imposed travel bans and business shutdowns caused demand to plummet more than a month ago. Even last week’s deal between OPEC and other world powers to cut supply by 10 per cent failed to ignite crude prices. On Friday, WCS was listed at $2.87.

 

DeSmogBlog, April 18, 2020

This week’s articles include:

The Big Deal to Cut Oil Production May Not Be Big Enough

The New York Times discusses why the deal to cut oil production may not be big enough. Saudi Arabia, Russia and other oil-producing nations have pledged to cut about 10 percent of global production, but demand is down by much more than that.

The agreement by major oil producers on Sunday to reduce their daily production by 9.7 million barrels was the largest cutback in history and a feat of remarkable coordination by more than 20 nations led by Saudi Arabia and Russia with unusual mediation from the United States.

But it probably still won’t be enough.

Demand for oil has tumbled in recent weeks as the coronavirus pandemic has crippled global commerce and eliminated untold numbers of commutes, plane trips and cargo shipments. Experts estimate that demand has fallen by somewhere between 25 million barrels and 35 million barrels a day — or up to three and a half times as much as what the oil nations are promising to cut.