EXTRACTED: Daily News Clips 11/28/23
PIPELINE NEWS
Roanoke Times: MVP allowed to work 24-7 on boring under I-81 in Montgomery County
Public News Service: VA environmentalists frustrated by FERC-approved pipeline extension
RBN Energy: Wolf Carbon Solutions To Refile Application For CO2 Pipeline
Offshore Technology: Gulf Of Mexico Oil Spill Impacts 3% Of Daily Oil Output, Threatens Endangered Species
WASHINGTON UPDATES
Reuters: Biden to skip COP climate meeting in Dubai - official
New York Times: Biden’s Absence at Climate Summit Highlights His Fossil Fuel Conundrum
Guardian: US oil and gas production set to break record in 2023 despite UN climate goals
Wall Street Journal: American Oil—Good to the Last Drop?
Center for Biological Diversity: Analysis: Biden-Approved Fossil Fuel Projects Undermine IRA Emissions Cuts
Washington Post: In a ‘sacred’ desert, the U.S. turns away from drilling and mining
E&E News: GOP Looks To Advance Bill Against Biden Arctic Policies
E&E News: DOE inspector general pleads with Granholm to push for funds
E&E News: Interior Report Faults Oil Company For Explosion That Killed Worker
STATE UPDATES
Chicago Tribune: In 1st trial of its kind in the U.S., Irish startup spreads concrete dust on Illinois farm field to remove CO2 from the air
CBS News: Black smoke clouds air over Chevron Richmond refinery as power loss triggers flaring incident
Colorado Newsline: ‘Out of compliance’ Utah oil facility could keep polluting during environmental review
EXTRACTION
Wall Street Journal: Oil-and-Gas Companies Account for Only 1% of Clean-Energy Investment Globally, IEA Says
International Energy Agency: Oil and gas industry faces moment of truth – and opportunity to adapt – as clean energy transitions advance
Reuters: Canada oil sands carbon capture project to make final investment decision in mid-2025
Reuters: Two US projects highlight divide over carbon removal’s role in climate fight
Guardian: Revealed: Saudi Arabia’s grand plan to ‘hook’ poor countries on oil
Mix1037FM: Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation reports third leak at Kearl Oil Sands
Environmental Defence: From Toxic Leak to Cover-Up: Unravelling the Imperial Oil Scandal in Alberta’s Oil Sands
Reuters: Greenpeace accuses China oil and gas firms of 'greenwashing' LNG purchases
CLIMATE FINANCE
Investing.com: JPMorgan Faces Scrutiny Over Ties To Gulf Oil Spill And Fossil Fuel Funding
OPINION
Newsweek: Biden's Carbon Pipeline Is a Boondoggle for Big Oil That Punishes Iowa Farmers
NorthJersey.com: The Tennessee Gas Pipeline East 300 through NJ's highlands is Phil Murphy's failure
Business In Vancouver: Karen Ogen: Pipelines can symbolize new era of economic reconciliation
Washington Post: How to end plastic pollution on Earth for good
PIPELINE NEWS
Roanoke Times: MVP allowed to work 24-7 on boring under I-81 in Montgomery County
Laurence Hammack, 11/27/23
“Boring a tunnel to allow a natural gas pipeline to cross under Interstate 81 will be an around-the-clock job that may take the rest of this year,” the Roanoke Times reports. “Mountain Valley Pipeline was given permission last week by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to drill horizontally – 24 hours a day, seven days a week – about 50 feet below I-81 in Montgomery County, just north of the Ironto exit. The boring, which will be largely out of view to passing motorists, is not expected to impact traffic, Jason Bond, a spokesman for the Virginia Department of Transportation, told the Times. The project is expected to be completed late this year or early next year, according to Bond. In a request to FERC filed Oct. 13, Mountain Valley said it needed to work 24-7 in order to “improve feasibility/constructability of the crossing of Interstate 81 and reduce the risk of bore collapse.” “...For the I-81 project, construction crews will install vinyl blankets or plywood around water pumps to reduce noise. The steps are required to bring nighttime noise levels below FERC-imposed limits for the closest two homes, which are 1,200 and 675 feet away… “Construction of the controversial project has been repeatedly delayed by lawsuits from environmental and community groups, who say that running a 42-inch diameter pipe across steep slopes and through clear-running streams will do serious harm to the region’s natural resources.”
Public News Service: VA environmentalists frustrated by FERC-approved pipeline extension
Edwin J. Viera, 11/28/23
“The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved a plan extending a natural-gas pipeline in Virginia. The Virginia Reliability Plan and Transcot's CEC project calls for compressor stations and a natural-gas pipeline extension in communities already harmed by these impacts such as Petersburg,” Public News Service reports. “...Tim Cywinski, communications director with the Sierra Club's Virginia Chapter, told PNS projects like this undermine the state's climate progress. "Whether it's a natural-gas pipeline that's doubling the size and diameter or a proposal to build a 'peaker plant' in Chesterfield, Virginia," he told PNS. "All of these go against Virginia's goals, specifically since we're the last stronghold in the South that has any kind of climate commitment." “...The project's Environmental Impact Statement is explicit on the determinants this project poses, but, Cywinski told PNS Petersburg is a "sacrifice zone." This is an area where fossil-fuel companies already have an approved project and go there for a new project since the area's already facing environmental impacts. Feedback to the project has been particularly negative. Numerous community and environmental groups voiced their opposition, and Cywinski told PNS policymakers need to understand the importance in plans like this not being implemented.”
RBN Energy: Wolf Carbon Solutions To Refile Application For CO2 Pipeline
Jason Lindquist, 11/27/23
“Wolf Carbon Solutions submitted a motion last week to withdraw its application to the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) for the development and operation of a carbon dioxide (CO2) pipeline system known as the Mt. Simon Hub,” RBN Energy reports. “Wolf said it intends to refile the application with the ICC in early 2024 and that it remains committed to the project. Construction is planned to begin in Q2 2025, with operations commencing in Q4 2025, according to the project’s website… “As we wrote in Rock and a Hard Place, carbon-capture pipelines have faced pushback from affected landowners and advocacy groups for a number of reasons, including risks to public safety, skepticism around climate-change initiatives, a perceived lack of transparency on the part of project developers, and opposition to the potential use of eminent domain to secure the rights-of-way necessary to build a project. Navigator CO2 Ventures decided in October to pull the plug on its long-planned Heartland Greenway project (dashed green line), a vast network that would have captured CO2 emissions from dozens of ethanol producers in the Midwest and Great Plains then piped them to a permanent sequestration site in Illinois. Summit Carbon Solutions, which is planning a similar project in the Midwest and Great Plains called Midwest Carbon Express (dashed gold line), has been having similar issues with permitting and public opposition. Stung by the North Dakota Public Service Commission’s decision to reject its plan to build a pipeline that would transport captured CO2 to a storage hub near Bismarck, ND, (gray oval at top left of map) it submitted a revised application in August designed to address key concerns.”
Offshore Technology: Gulf Of Mexico Oil Spill Impacts 3% Of Daily Oil Output, Threatens Endangered Species
Ashima Sharma, 11/23/23
“More than one million gallons of crude have spilled into the Gulf of Mexico, first detected by the US Coast Guard (USGC),” Offshore Technology reports. “The USGC said their teams observed ‘visible oil’ and ‘intermittent surface sheens’ on the water. The origin of the leak, according to the officials, was the 67-mile-long pipeline system owned by MPOG, a subsidiary of Houston-based Third Coast Infrastructure in Louisiana. The pipeline was closed by MPOG last Thursday after crude oil was spotted around 19 miles offshore of the Mississippi River Delta, near Plaquemines Parish, south-east of New Orleans. The US Coast Guard has scrambled a multi-agency response, including the US Fish and Wildlife Service. The US Environmental Protection Agency also said that the USGCC was coordinating with 15 federal entities to respond to oil pollution incidents while the National Transportation Safety Board is determining the cause of the leak.”
WASHINGTON UPDATES
Reuters: Biden to skip COP climate meeting in Dubai - official
11/26/23
“U.S. President Joe Biden will not attend a gathering of world leaders focused on climate change in Dubai this week, a U.S. official said on Sunday,” Reuters reports. “Reuters reported last month that Biden was unlikely to be at the United Nations "Conference of the Parties" on climate, known as COP28, which begins on Thursday, as he balances demands of a Middle East war and a presidential campaign expected to heat up in January… “Dozens of countries plan to push for the world's first deal to phase out CO2-emitting coal, oil and gas at the Dubai meeting. Biden has attended both of the COP summits since his 2021 inauguration.”
New York Times: Biden’s Absence at Climate Summit Highlights His Fossil Fuel Conundrum
Jim Tankersley and Lisa Friedman, 11/27/23
“President Biden signed the country’s first major climate law and is overseeing record federal investment in clean energy. In each of the past two years, he attended the annual United Nations climate summit, asserting American leadership in the fight against global warming. But this year, likely to be the hottest in recorded history, Mr. Biden is staying home,” the New York Times reports. “...Aides say he is consumed by other global crises, namely trying to secure the release of hostages held by Hamas in its war with Israel and working to persuade Congress to approve aid to Ukraine in its fight against Russia. At home, Mr. Biden’s climate and energy policies are crashing against competing political pressures. Concerned about Republican attacks that Mr. Biden is pursuing a “radical green agenda,” centrists in his party want him to talk more about the fact that the United States has produced record amounts of crude oil this year. At the same time, climate activists, particularly the young voters who helped elect Mr. Biden, want the president to shut down drilling altogether… “In bypassing the climate summit known as COP28, Mr. Biden is missing an opportunity to strengthen his climate credentials, Michele Weindling, the political director at the Sunrise Movement, a youth-led climate activist group, told the Times. “If Biden wants to be taken seriously on climate by young people at home and by the rest of the world, he needs to use every tool at his disposal to mobilize the U.S. government to save lives,” she told the Times.. David Victor, co-director of the Deep Decarbonization Initiative at the University of California San Diego, was more blunt. “He’s really got to worry about holding the left together and his re-election,” Mr. Victor told the Times.
Guardian: US oil and gas production set to break record in 2023 despite UN climate goals
Oliver Milman, 11/27/23
“The United States is poised to extract more oil and gas than ever before in 2023, a year that is certain to be the hottest ever recorded, providing a daunting backdrop to crucial United Nations climate talks that hold the hope of an agreement to end the era of fossil fuels.” the Guardian reports. “The US’s status as the world’s leading oil and gas behemoth has only strengthened this year, even amid warnings from Joe Biden himself over the unfolding climate crisis, with the latest federal government forecast showing a record 12.9m barrels of crude oil, more than double what was produced a decade ago, will be extracted in 2023. Records will also be broken this year for gas production, with a glut of new export terminals on the Gulf of Mexico coast facilitating a boom that will see US exports of liquified natural gas (or LNG) double in the next four years… “The US’s surging fossil fuel production casts a pall over such ambitions, however. “It’s particularly alarming to see the projections of record US oil and gas production year after year until 2050,” Michael Lazarus, a senior scientist at Stockholm Environment Institute, which helped produce a recent UN report finding the world is planning double the amount of fossil fuel production consistent with remaining within a 1.5C (2.7F) global temperature rise compared with pre-industrial times, told the Guardian. “The US is locking in production for years that makes it hard to meet climate goals,” he told the Guardian. “It’s out of sync and it needs reckoning.” “...What the Inflation Reduction Act didn’t do in any way disincentivize the use of fossil fuels – it was all carrots and no sticks,” Kelly Gallagher, a former climate adviser to Barack Obama’s administration and now interim dean at the Fletcher School at Tufts University, told the Guardian. “If the US had done this 20 years ago, it would be a great approach to grow clean energy first before reducing fossil fuel production. But we have very little time now. “What’s difficult is that we are in an election year now and it’s unlikely that President Biden is going to take steps to hasten the decline of fossil fuels in the US.”
Wall Street Journal: American Oil—Good to the Last Drop?
Jinjoo Lee, 11/27/23
How low can they go? U.S. shale developers have been on a relentless chase to drill for oil as cheaply as possible,” the Wall Street Journal reports. “With plenty of cash in their pockets and a hunch that they might soon exhaust their best inventory in the prolific Permian Basin, some companies have been shifting their focus to making sure they get every last drop of crude they can get out of what they have. That could mean higher costs today… “U.S. onshore and offshore wells that have been producing for 12 months since August 2022 were 59% more productive compared with those that were drilled five years earlier, the data show. Those gains have been driven by improvements in seismic technology and mapping, longer wells and the amount of fracking fluid used, Jason Brown, economist at the Kansas City Fed, told the Journal. It is unclear how long productivity gains can continue at this pace. There may be a limit on how long lateral wells can get, for example… “A niggling concern for U.S. shale has been that, while the industry has gotten very good at extracting oil, it has come at the cost of leaving some in the ground. If underground shale layers were analogous to a milkshake, the traditional method—known as best-bench development—involved extracting through just one or a few straws first in a section and then coming back later for more. While that yielded initial wells that were very productive, the problem was that the later wells were significantly less productive. Cube development, also known as co-development, aims to fix that problem. It involves sticking multiple straws all around the figurative milkshake before extraction…”
Center for Biological Diversity: Analysis: Biden-Approved Fossil Fuel Projects Undermine IRA Emissions Cuts
11/27/23
“Fossil fuel projects approved by the Biden administration threaten to erase the climate emissions progress from the Inflation Reduction Act and other climate policies, according to a new analysis released today by the Center for Biological Diversity. Out-Polluting Progress finds that the potential carbon emissions from 17 massive fossil fuel projects approved by the Biden administration are larger than the projected emissions reductions from the IRA and other climate policies (see figure below). The report comes ahead of Thursday’s kickoff of the COP28 U.N. climate summit in Dubai, which President Biden is not expected to attend. “The report shows in stark detail how the Biden administration is canceling out its own climate progress by greenlighting major oil and gas projects,” said Shaye Wolf, Ph.D., climate science director at the Center for Biological Diversity and the report’s lead author. “This report also shows how President Biden can truly build on the IRA’s progress. He can save lives and wildlife by halting the approval of new fossil fuel projects and phasing out drilling on our public lands and waters.” Under the Biden administration, the United States is the world’s largest oil and gas producer. Last year it became the world’s biggest exporter of liquified gas, with exports set to nearly double by 2035. The United States is also leading the world’s largest planned expansion of oil and gas through 2050, at the exact moment we need to be moving in the opposite direction… “Approving more fossil fuels not only torches our climate future, but it also harms people’s health, degrades ecosystems and threatens wildlife,” said Wolf. “Many of these projects concentrate more polluting fossil fuel infrastructure in overburdened communities of color and low-income communities, worsening environmental injustice.” Boosting renewables isn’t enough, the analysis shows. The U.S. must stop oil and gas expansion and phase out existing production to meet its climate targets and protect people and the planet. The analysis lists essential actions the Biden administration can take to implement a bold fossil fuel phase-out plan, including: Stop approvals of new fossil fuel projects like the massive CP2 liquified natural gas export terminal slated for the Gulf Coast; Revoke permits for the Willow oil drilling project, Mountain Valley Pipeline and other projects; Revise the offshore oil leasing Five Year Plan to include no new leases; Phase out oil and gas production on public lands and waters by instituting a managed phase down policy; Declare a national climate emergency.”
Washington Post: In a ‘sacred’ desert, the U.S. turns away from drilling and mining
Timothy Puko, 11/28/23
“...For decades, the U.S. government made resource extraction — mining, grazing, and oil and gas development — a priority on public lands such as these in southwest Wyoming. Environmental protections often came second,” the Washington Post reports. “That would change under a sweeping Biden administration plan to place hundreds of thousands of acres of the Red Desert and the surrounding sagebrush steppe off limits to development. It represents a big shift for the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management, the 80 year-old agency that oversees 245 million acres of public property — about a tenth of the nation’s land mass. Known as the nation’s largest landlord, the bureau is putting more emphasis on conservation, recreation and renewable energy development as the planet warms. Many politicians in this Republican-dominated state fiercely oppose the plans for Wyoming, arguing they could kneecap industries crucial to the region’s economy. Environmentalists counter that it would be a long-overdue update for the modern age, to protect the nation’s public lands from the emerging challenges of climate change and development… “The tug-of-war over Interior’s Bureau of Land Management has gone on for decades. The agency manages some of the West’s most spectacular red-rock canyons, intact wildlife habitats and uncrowded camping spots, but has also long been an engine for energy production — primarily fossil fuels. It manages even more of what’s below ground than above, more than a third of the country’s subsurface rights. That makes it the country’s largest coal owner, responsible for nearly half of all U.S. coal mined every year. Nearly 11 percent of all U.S. oil output and roughly 8 percent of U.S. natural gas also come through the bureau, according to federal data, producing about $3 billion to $10 billion of revenue a year. Under Biden, however, the bureau has leased only a small fraction of the millions of acres that his predecessors had made available, going back at least to the 1970s, while modifying other policies to meet the president’s environmental priorities. It published one of the biggest changes, the Public Lands Rule, in March. The proposal would put conservation, restoration and recreation on equal footing with energy and mineral production on federal lands, as Congress intended, supporters say.”
E&E News: GOP Looks To Advance Bill Against Biden Arctic Policies
Heather Richards, 11/27/23
“A House Natural Resources subcommittee will consider legislation this week to thwart President Joe Biden’s oil restrictions in the Arctic,” E&E News reports. “The Energy and Mineral Resources Subcommittee will take up Chair Pete Stauber’s (R-Minn.) ‘Alaska’s Right to Produce Act,’ H.R. 6285, which would reverse the Interior Department’s limits on oil and gas drilling across roughly 13 million acres of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska. ‘Alaska has been blessed with vast deposits of oil and natural gas that can unleash economic prosperity,’ Stauber said in a statement earlier this month. ‘It makes no sense to deny Alaskans the right to safely produce these resources and instead continue our dependence on hostile foreign nations,’ he said. The legislation is backed by Reps. Mary Peltola (D-Alaska), Kevin Hern (R-Okla.) and August Pfluger (R-Texas). It would also reinstate leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge that Interior Secretary Deb Haaland canceled earlier this year over what she said was ‘flawed’ environmental review.”
E&E News: DOE inspector general pleads with Granholm to push for funds
Brian Dabbs, 11/27/23
“The Department of Energy’s inspector general wants hundreds of millions of dollars in new funds as she conducts oversight on a historic DOE spending spree,” E&E News reports. “In a report released last week, Inspector General Teri Donaldson urged Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm to pressure Congress to deliver the watchdog $264.7 million to monitor the implementation of key initiatives. That includes elements of the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law as well as the Inflation Reduction Act and CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, plus the $1 billion Puerto Rico Energy Resilience Fund that Congress approved late last year. Donaldson is calling for those funds through either a new congressional appropriation or a transfer of funds previously appropriated for the four items. The request, submitted to Granholm in the report, is on top of a persistent plea from Donaldson to increase the annual budget for the inspector general’s office… “The report warns that a failure to increase funding for the DOE inspector general presents a “tremendous risk” to taxpayers. The office is obligated to investigate and audit DOE to ensure the department is spending taxpayer money properly… “The inspector general’s office “may only be able to conduct 50 oversight projects pertaining to the $65 billion of grant and financial assistance awards, even though we have determined that more than 400 oversight projects are necessary to protect the taxpayers,” Donaldson said.”
E&E News: Interior Report Faults Oil Company For Explosion That Killed Worker
Heather Richards, 11/22/23
“An offshore oil and gas worker who died two years ago in a well explosion likely wasn’t properly prepped by the company, according to a federal investigation released Tuesday,” E&E News reports. “Tim Stringer, a more than 20-year veteran of offshore drilling, was a contract employee on a Fieldwood Energy oil platform located roughly 40 miles south of the Louisiana coast when he died doing a pressure test on a shut-in well — one that is not currently producing oil. A panel of investigators with the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement found some fault with the company for not fully preparing the workers for the job and its risks. In the wake of the investigation, they also recommended the nation’s offshore oil and gas operators do an analysis of their shut-in oil and gas wells, noting that many show signs of degradation. The well that exploded and killed Stringer was a gas-lifted oil well, meaning gas had been used to push up recalcitrant oil via pressure. It was first drilled by Shell in 1970 and shut in at the time of the test, due to be decommissioned. Pressure readings had indicated problems with the well and BSEE had ordered a test to evaluate its integrity.”
STATE UPDATES
Chicago Tribune: In 1st trial of its kind in the U.S., Irish startup spreads concrete dust on Illinois farm field to remove CO2 from the air
Adriana Pérez, 11/26/23
“Over the course of millions of years the Earth regularly removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through a natural process called “weathering,” when exposure to the elements wears down surface rocks and silicate minerals,” the Chicago Tribune reports. “But at the rate humans have been producing and releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution, this process that happens on a geological time scale just isn’t fast enough to keep up. A corn and soybean farm in the village of Buckingham, 60 miles south of Chicago, is providing the testing grounds for an Irish startup attempting to “enhance” weathering, thus shortening the process from millenniums to decades. The Illinois trial, the first of its kind in the United States, is one of many efforts to leverage the potential of different materials to combat global warming… “Last week, Silicate began covering over 100 acres of farmland with 500 to 1,000 tons of fine dust from ready-mix concrete that has been returned. Researchers at the climate tech company hope the concrete dust can permanently remove up to 220 tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and transfer it to the soil over the course of a year, the equivalent of CO2 emissions from almost 50 cars in one year… “If it’s done well, it can result in very long-term, highly durable carbon storage,” Cullenward told the Tribune. “And because you’re relying on essentially natural chemical processes without extremely energy-intensive production techniques, if you can figure out how to make this work, the pathway to scaling it is potentially a little bit easier and cheaper than it would be for some of the other competing carbon removal technologies.” “...Opposition from farmers, landowners and environmentalists eventually helped derail plans for the Heartland Greenway pipeline, a fight that encapsulates the myriad opinions on the most effective approach to decarbonization, which will likely be on display at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, later this month.”
CBS News: Black smoke clouds air over Chevron Richmond refinery as power loss triggers flaring incident
DAVE PEHLING, 11/27/23
“Flaring activity at the Chevron Richmond refinery Monday afternoon due to a loss of power at part of the facility has sent a large cloud of black smoke over the region,” CBS News reports. “A Facebook post by the Chevron Richmond account shortly after 4 p.m. confirmed that the workers at the facility were attempting to "quickly to minimize and stop the flaring." The post said a "Community Warning System (CWS) Level 1" was issued due to smoke and the visible flaring. This type of warning does not require action by the public, the post said. A representative from Contra Costa Health (CCH) confirmed that Chevron Richmond notified them about the flaring due to "an unplanned unit shutdown" at about 3:30 p.m. CCH said it was sending a hazardous materials team to the refinery to investigate, but no shelter-in-place order has been issued in connection with the incident… “The district initially said four complaints were received as of around 4:30 p.m. As of an hour later, 51 complaints had been submitted… “Chevron Richmond encouraged residents who live in the area to visit www.richmondairmonitoring.org to view real-time air quality data.”
Colorado Newsline: ‘Out of compliance’ Utah oil facility could keep polluting during environmental review
DAVID O. WILLIAMS, 11/22/23
“A privately owned oil loading facility on public lands eight miles northwest of Price, Utah, has been operating out of compliance with state air-quality regulations for years, a state official recently confirmed to Colorado Newsline, and likely will continue to do so as it seeks approval from the federal government for a massive expansion to serve the booming, nearby Uinta Basin,” Colorado Newsline reports. “The Wildcat Loadout near Price, located on U.S. Bureau of Land Management land, was originally just a coal-loading facility where trucks transferred coal onto trains on Union Pacific’s Central Corridor rail line, which heads west to Nevada and east to Colorado. In recent years, the Wildcat Loadout has also been used to transfer oil from the Uinta Basin from trucks onto trains. Expanding the Wildcat Loadout from its current level of 30,000 barrels of waxy Uinta Basin crude oil a day to a capacity of 100,000 barrels a day requires both the approval of the BLM and a modified air-quality permit from the Utah Department of Environmental Quality. The expansion is viewed by opponents as a Plan B in the event the proposed Uinta Basin Railway is blocked. Rik Ombach, manager of oil and gas compliance for Utah’s Division of Air Quality, told Newsline in a phone interview that the state did conduct an advisory inspection at the facility in March 2022 and found violations, although no fines have been levied and no steps have been taken to remedy the situation… “The division’s 2022 advisory reads: “The Facility is operating without air pollution control equipment and not a manner consistent with good air pollution control practice for minimizing emissions. The Facility has been operating in this manner since December of 2019.”
EXTRACTION
Wall Street Journal: Oil-and-Gas Companies Account for Only 1% of Clean-Energy Investment Globally, IEA Says
Giulia Petroni, 11/23/23
“As the world prepares to travel to the COP28 climate summit, hosted by the United Arab Emirates, a new report warns that the fossil-fuel industry isn’t investing enough in decarbonization,” the Wall Street Journal reports. “Despite earning average annual revenues of $3.5 trillion since 2018, oil-and-gas companies are spending just 2.5% of their investment on clean energy, which is about 1% of the global clean-energy spend, according to the International Energy Agency. And 60% of that comes from just four companies out of thousands of producers. “Clean energy progress will continue with or without oil and gas producers,” IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said. “However, the journey to net zero emissions will be more costly, and harder to navigate, if the sector is not on board.” The IEA estimated about half of the industry’s capital expenditures should go toward clean energy projects by 2030 to be on track for the Paris climate agreement target. The fossil-fuel industry could leverage the skills and resources used for oil-and-gas extraction, processing and transportation to scale up low-emissions fuels and technologies such as hydrogen, liquid biofuels, biomethane and geothermal energy, the organization said. In addition, cutting emissions from oil-and-gas companies’ operations and energy usage is “one of the cheapest options to reduce GHG [greenhouse gases] emissions generally,” the IEA said. It estimated producing, transporting and processing oil and gas generate nearly 15% of global energy-related emissions and said tackling methane leaks should be a top priority, as it can be done very cost-effectively and is about half of total operational emissions… “The IEA said carbon capture, utilization and storage, known as CCUS, is essential in the energy transition but cautions it isn’t a way to retain the status quo. It estimates that would require an “inconceivable” 32 billion metric tons of carbon be captured, requiring more electricity than current global demand and over $3.5 trillion in annual investments from now through 2050.,, “While some investment in oil and gas is still needed to ensure security of supply even in a net-zero scenario, the IEA cautioned “not all producers can be the last ones standing” and warned the $1 trillion currently spent each year is double what it is required in 2030 to meet demand. “Continuing with business as usual is neither socially nor environmentally responsible,” Birol said. “Oil and gas producers around the world need to make profound decisions about their future place in the global energy sector.”
International Energy Agency: Oil and gas industry faces moment of truth – and opportunity to adapt – as clean energy transitions advance
11/23/23
“Oil and gas producers face pivotal choices about their role in the global energy system amid a worsening climate crisis fuelled in large part by their core products, according to a major new special report from the IEA that shows how the industry can take a more responsible approach and contribute positively to the new energy economy. The Oil and Gas Industry in Net Zero Transitions analyses the implications and opportunities for the industry that would arise from stronger international efforts to reach energy and climate targets. Released ahead of the COP28 climate summit in Dubai, the special report sets out what the global oil and gas sector would need to do to align its operations with the goals of the Paris Agreement… “In a pathway to reaching net zero emissions by mid-century, which is necessary to keep the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 °C within reach, oil and gas use would decline by more than 75% by 2050. Yet the oil and gas sector – which provides more than half of global energy supply and employs nearly 12 million workers worldwide – has been a marginal force at best in transitioning to a clean energy system, according to the report. Oil and gas companies currently account for just 1% of clean energy investment globally – and 60% of that comes from just four companies. “The oil and gas industry is facing a moment of truth at COP28 in Dubai. With the world suffering the impacts of a worsening climate crisis, continuing with business as usual is neither socially nor environmentally responsible,” said IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol. “Oil and gas producers around the world need to make profound decisions about their future place in the global energy sector. The industry needs to commit to genuinely helping the world meet its energy needs and climate goals – which means letting go of the illusion that implausibly large amounts of carbon capture are the solution. This special report shows a fair and feasible way forward in which oil and gas companies take a real stake in the clean energy economy while helping the world avoid the most severe impacts of climate change.” “...The report also notes that carbon capture, currently the linchpin of many firms’ transition strategies, cannot be used to maintain the status quo. If oil and natural gas consumption were to evolve as projected under today’s policy settings, limiting the temperature rise to 1.5 °C would require an entirely inconceivable 32 billion tonnes of carbon captured for utilisation or storage by 2050, including 23 billion tonnes via direct air capture. The amount of electricity needed to power these technologies would be greater than the entire world’s electricity demand today. “The fossil fuel sector must make tough decisions now, and their choices will have consequences for decades to come,” Dr Birol said. “Clean energy progress will continue with or without oil and gas producers. However, the journey to net zero emissions will be more costly, and harder to navigate, if the sector is not on board.”
Reuters: Canada oil sands carbon capture project to make final investment decision in mid-2025
Nia Williams, 11/27/23
“Canadian oil sands producers will start making final investment decisions on their proposed C$16.5 billion ($12.03 billion) carbon capture and storage (CCS) project from mid-2025 onwards, the president of the Pathways Alliance said on Monday,” Reuters reports. “Pathways, a consortium of the six biggest oil sands companies, plans to build a CCS hub to store emissions from 14 projects in northern Alberta… ‘Some climate advocates, however, say the Pathways project, first announced in 2021, is moving too slowly to make a meaningful contribution to Canada's target of reducing emissions by 40%-45% below 2005 levels by 2030. Pathways President Kendall Dilling told Reuters the alliance expects to submit a project application to the Alberta Energy Regulator in the "next few months" and has allowed a year for the regulatory process, meaning the first final investment decisions would start in mid-2025… “Ottawa will issue a 50% investment tax credit to support the CCS project while the Alberta government is expected to announce provincial tax credits this week, but Pathways has said a financial contract to help offset operating costs is also essential. The federal government announced last week that its Canada Growth Fund would start issuing contracts for difference, which help guarantee the future price of carbon credits, allocating up to C$7 billion to underwrite the contracts. Dilling told Reuters it was unclear whether C$7 billion would be enough to support the Pathways CCS project because of the large volume of credits it will generate, and the alliance is still in discussion with Canadian government officials on contracts for difference… “Pathways is also consulting with Indigenous groups along its path about potential economic participation, such as taking an equity position in the project. "They are still working through whether they want to participate in that," Dilling told Reuters.
Reuters: Two US projects highlight divide over carbon removal’s role in climate fight
Valerie Volcovici, 11/28/23
“In Texas, oil and gas producer Occidental Petroleum (OXY.N) is constructing a giant facility to suck 500,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere annually to keep it from warming the climate, a project backed by hundreds of millions of dollars from investment firm BlackRock,” Reuters reports. “In Louisiana, a consortium of companies that includes Swiss firm Climeworks is teaming up to build a similar facility that can pull a million tonnes of the greenhouse gas out of the sky each year, boosted by hundreds of millions of dollars in grants from the U.S. government. The direct air capture (DAC) projects are in neighboring states, but the companies leading them are worlds away when it comes to their views on how carbon removal - an expensive and largely unproven family of technologies to fight or even reverse global warming - should be deployed in a climate-friendly future and the role oil and gas should play in its deployment. Occidental says some of its carbon would be injected into oil fields to ramp up pressure and raise crude production – a strategy it says that can cleanse the world’s future fossil fuel consumption of climate impact. Climeworks and its partner Heirloom, meanwhile, says its carbon will go straight into underground storage, and that the technology must go hand in hand with a transition to renewable energy. The clashing philosophies mirror a global debate underway over the role carbon removal technologies should play to keep the world from exceeding a 1.5 degree Celsius rise that will take center stage at the 28th United Nations climate change conference in Dubai on Nov. 30-Dec. 12. The COP28 conference's hosts, OPEC member the United Arab Emirates, is promoting the use of carbon removal - a family of technologies to keep excess CO2 out of the atmosphere - as a means of reducing emissions from fossil fuels, as opposed to eliminating the fossil fuels themselves… “That approach has the backing of global producers seeking to continue profiting from fossil fuels, but draws skepticism among environmentalists and some governments who see it as a ploy to prolong the lifespan of oil and gas and who are pushing for tough language at COP28 to phase out fossil fuels completely. Underscoring the rift, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said last week that the oil and gas industry is over-relying on carbon capture to reduce emissions and called the approach "an illusion," sparking an angry response from OPEC which views the technology as a lifeline for future fossil fuel use. “We think that no amount of direct air capture as an industry should be used as any justification for prolonging of expanded fossil fuel production,” Vikrum Aiyer, head of climate policy at Heirloom, which is a partner in the Louisiana facility called Project Cypress, told Reuters. The differing approaches also reflect an important financial dynamic in the carbon removal industry: In the near term, it is a lot easier to make money trapping carbon if it comes with a perk like higher oil production. Otherwise, the enormous price tag for world-scale carbon removal would need to fall to governments if there is any chance of these projects surviving.”
Guardian: Revealed: Saudi Arabia’s grand plan to ‘hook’ poor countries on oil
Damian Carrington, 11/27/23
“Saudi Arabia is driving a huge global investment plan to create demand for its oil and gas in developing countries, an undercover investigation has revealed,” the Guardian reports. “Critics said the plan was designed to get countries “hooked on its harmful products”. Little was known about the oil demand sustainability programme (ODSP) but the investigation obtained detailed information on plans to drive up the use of fossil fuel-powered cars, buses and planes in Africa and elsewhere, as rich countries increasingly switch to clean energy. The ODSP plans to accelerate the development of supersonic air travel, which it notes uses three times more jet fuel than conventional planes, and partner with a carmaker to mass produce a cheap combustion engine vehicle. Further plans promote power ships, which use polluting heavy fuel oil or gas to provide electricity to coastal communities. The ODSP is overseen by Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, the crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, and involves its biggest organisations, such as the $700bn Public Investment Fund, the world’s largest oil company, Aramco, the petrochemicals firm Sabic, and the government’s most important ministries. In publicly available information, the programme is largely presented as “removing barriers” to energy and transport in poorer countries and “increasing sustainability”, for example by providing gas cooking stoves to replace wood burning. However, all the planned projects revealed in the investigation by the Centre for Climate Reporting and Channel 4 News involve increasing the use of oil and gas. An official said this was “one of the main objectives”.
Mix1037FM: Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation reports third leak at Kearl Oil Sands
Alex MacLeod, 11/27/23
“The Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation is reporting another incident from Exxon-Imperial’s Kearl oil sands site. ACFN posted a statement to social media saying 670,000 litres of treated water escaped a settling pond and into the Muskeg River,” according to Mix1037FM. “They reported 140 mg of suspended solids per litre, which is four times the legal limit. This follows two separate reported incidents of wastewater leaking from a pond. “We are continually disappointed by the industry and government, who allow such incidents to occur and Indigenous peoples to face the brunt of the consequences,” said Chief Allan Adam in the social media post. “We are tired of this and demand that the industry and regulator be held to account.” “...Imperial Oil and the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) said the incident was from clean water partially eroding a culvert. “This was not a leak from a tailings pond, and the water that was released is not processed water from tailings, it is drainage from surrounding landscape,” said Teresa Broughton, Senior Specialist, Media Management, Media, Issues, and External Affairs with the AER... “The AER says Imperial Oil is repairing the culvert and will continue to test the water quality to determine any impacts to fish or wildlife. Imperial Oil and the AER will speak about the leak on Nov. 28, 2023, when they present to the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development.”
Environmental Defence: From Toxic Leak to Cover-Up: Unravelling the Imperial Oil Scandal in Alberta’s Oil Sands
Alienor Rougeot, 11/27/23
“In February 2023, 5.3 million litres of toxic industrial wastewater known as tailings spilled from Imperial Oil’s Kearl mine in the tar sands into the surrounding environment. Local Indigenous communities rely on the land and water for sustenance and cultural practices,” Environmental Defence reports. “Tar sands tailings “ponds,” store over 1.4 trillion litres of toxic wastewater from oil production. They contain mixtures of dangerous chemicals such as mercury, benzene, arsenic and naphthenic acids. The tailings have grown out of control, sprawling over 300 square kilometres, enough to cover the city of Vancouver 2.6 times, and there are no credible plans to clean them up. The Imperial Oil disaster highlights the ongoing failure of oil companies to responsibly manage their waste and the danger it poses to ecosystems and human health… “The Alberta Energy Regulator and Imperial Oil did not notify the Indigenous nations whose territories the Kearl mine is on, nor any other Indigenous nation living downstream, despite regularly discussing the disaster with each other behind closed doors… “Many community members had to discard the food they had harvested due to the risks of contamination. They also voiced their concerns about the game they had already consumed and the safety of their drinking water… “At the hearings, Corson apologized profusely for what he called a “communication breakdown,” and attempted to shift part of the blame onto the staff of Indigenous Nations. He attempted to frame this leak and cover-up as a one-time mistake and avoided taking responsibility for the fact that Imperial Oil continues to store billions of litres of toxic waste in tailings ponds that were designed to leak. Indigenous nations impacted by the disaster also testified, highlighting the decades of environmental racism and violations of their treaty and inherent rights in Northern Alberta… “Imperial Oil and the Alberta Energy Regulator are set to testify in Parliament by the end of this month (November)... ‘The Imperial leak is only the tip of the iceberg. All companies leaking toxic waste in violation of federal and provincial environmental laws must be charged. Finally, while it is critical to come up with a long-term cleanup plan for tailings, the immediate next step is to stop the growth of tailings. We cannot allow this problem to get worse with no end in sight.”
Reuters: Greenpeace accuses China oil and gas firms of 'greenwashing' LNG purchases
David Stanway, 11/27/23
“Big oil and gas companies in China and elsewhere are using low-quality carbon offsets to "greenwash" their imports of natural gas while failing to make strong emissions cutting commitments, environment group Greenpeace said on Monday,” Reuters reports. “Firms like PetroChina and CNOOC Gas and Power have signed long-term contracts with Shell to buy "carbon neutral" liquefied natural gas (LNG), which uses "forest offsets" to balance out carbon emissions. Greenpeace, which has long opposed fossil fuel producers counting carbon offsets toward their emissions reduction goals, said the "carbon neutral" branding was misleading the public. "For oil and gas companies in particular, carbon offsets are a smokescreen to obscure their continued, redoubled carbon emissions," Li Jiatong, project leader with Greenpeace in Beijing, told Reuters… “Many of the offsets were not being measured consistently and sometimes were being double counted, Greenpeace told Reuters. And some forests tied to offset schemes were vulnerable to fires that could turn them into a carbon source, rather than a carbon sink. Greenpeace said credits from 15 forestry carbon sink projects in China, involving Shell, PetroChina, CNOOC and other companies, have already been banked, but 80% of the projects planted trees that are at medium- to high-risk of burning down. Rising sales of "carbon neutral" LNG are being driven by a surge in gas demand, particularly in Asia. Around 85% of carbon neutral cargoes have been sold to Asian buyers, Greenpeace said.”
CLIMATE FINANCE
Investing.com: JPMorgan Faces Scrutiny Over Ties To Gulf Oil Spill And Fossil Fuel Funding
11/23/23
“Public concerns are mounting over JPMorgan Chase’s financial connections to Third Coast Infrastructure following a recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico,” Investing.com reports. “The incident, detected last Thursday by the United States Coast Guard (USCG), did not immediately result in environmental damage, but it has brought to light JPMorgan’s ties to the energy sector and its substantial investments in fossil fuels. Cleanup operations for the spill are currently underway, involving skimming vessels and remotely operated vehicles. As of Monday, there have been no reported impacts on shorelines. Third Coast Infrastructure, linked to the spill, is partially owned by IIF, an entity that JPMorgan is legally affiliated with according to a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) report from September. Amidst these developments, Tyson Slocum of Public Citizen has voiced his concerns about banks like JPMorgan owning energy companies. He has called for enforcement of the Bank Holding Company Act and the Volcker Rule by the Federal Reserve System Board of Governors. Specifically, Slocum has requested that Vice Chair for Supervision Michael S. Barr investigate potential legal violations by JPMorgan due to its extensive investments in fossil fuels.”
OPINION
Newsweek: Biden's Carbon Pipeline Is a Boondoggle for Big Oil That Punishes Iowa Farmers
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is an independent candidate for President of the United States, 11/27/23
“For 40 years, I've stood among the leadership of the environmental movement crafting sensible, market-based solutions for reducing our deadly addiction to oil and coal,” Robert F. Kennedy Jr. writes for Newsweek. “...But whether or not you believe in the greenhouse effect, no one can deny that powerful vested interests are now hijacking the climate emergency—as they do with every crisis—to shift wealth upward and impose totalitarian controls. A troubling poster child of this dynamic is one of the flagships of President Biden's climate strategy: giant pipelines that purport to transport waste carbon from Iowa ethanol plants across six states to deep-well injection sites in Illinois and North Dakota. I have long denounced these sorts of "carbon capture storage and sequestration" projects as wasteful corporate welfare boondoggles that do little to reduce atmospheric carbon but serve instead to enrich billionaires and subsidize Big Carbon… “In actuality, the only thing certain to be captured by this project is taxpayer money. Section 45Q of Biden's law could funnel $2 billion a year for 12 years from bilked taxpayers to Iowa ethanol titan Bruce Rastetter's Summit pipeline and Archer Daniels Midland's (ADM) Wolf pipeline (BlackRock's Navigator Energy Services recently canceled a third proposed pipeline)... “Every carbon capture project ever built yielded similarly dismal results, but that doesn't stop corporate titans like Rastetter and ADM from milking these flimflams for obscene profits. Mr. Rastetter and his confederates promise their captured carbon will remain trapped in deep geology for eternity. But historically, these wells are notorious for being at serious risk of leaking long before eternity—as well as for killing wildlife and poisoning streams, rivers, drinking water, and aquifers, and potentially triggering earthquakes. This is why environmental groups like Food & Water Watch and Sierra Club oppose the project… “Some 80 percent of Iowa voters oppose the pipelines and 22 towns and 46 of the Iowa counties through which the pipelines will run have issued angry denunciations to elected officials and the Iowa Public Utility Board. Nevertheless, the cash-stoked project lurches forward like a runaway locomotive… “The endpoint of Rastetter's Summit project is the Bakken Crude Oil fields, but North Dakota has denied the project a permit for deep-well injection. So why hasn't that slowed the project's momentum?... “Sierra Club characterized the Iowa Utilities Board Summit CO2 Pipeline Hearing as a "Kangaroo Court" that violated "open meetings rules and the rights of both impacted landowners and the public to a fair and transparent hearing process" and lambasted the commissioners' sweetheart collusion with Summit. Sierra Club also blasted Rastetter and BlackRock for using bullying tactics to intimidate, terrorize, and inconvenience farmers and other project opponents to clear the road to approval… “If political leaders were really interested in battling dangers from changing climate, they would end the obscene subsidies to the carbon industry and spend the carbon capture money to help Iowa farmers to protect wetlands and forests and transition to regenerative agriculture.”
NorthJersey.com: The Tennessee Gas Pipeline East 300 through NJ's highlands is Phil Murphy's failure
Sam DiFalco is an organizer with the advocacy group Food & Water Watch, 11/28/23
“For more than three years, residents, activists and environmental advocacy organizations have called on Gov. Phil Murphy and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection to stop a dangerous fossil fuel expansion project,” Sam DiFalco writes for NorthJersey.com. “And when a key court decision over the summer gave the Murphy administration an opportunity to slam the brakes, we thought we had won a huge victory. Unfortunately the DEP allowed the project to move forward, even though it no longer had a key permit — putting clean water and our climate goals at risk. The project in question is called East 300. Tennessee Gas Pipeline, or TGP, a subsidiary of the multi-billion dollar fossil fuel company Kinder Morgan, wanted approval for a major expansion of a compressor station in Wantage, as well as a massive new compressor station in West Milford within the Highlands Preservation Area. That station would be less than a quarter mile from the Monksville Reservoir, a major source of clean drinking water. Compressor stations are loud, polluting and accident-prone facilities that pressurize fracked gas to push it through a pipeline. TGP wants to ship higher volumes of gas through an aging pipeline system from Pennsylvania across New Jersey, and then on to Westchester County, New York — even though New York has banned new gas hookups in homes and businesses, and the state’s climate law requires major reductions in fossil fuels… “There’s no other way to put it: At every step of the way, the Murphy administration has failed. A governor who likes to portray himself as a climate champion did nothing to stop a major fossil fuel expansion that threatens his own climate goals and a major source of clean drinking water for our state. Throughout this process, the DEP acted like an agency that was more concerned with protecting the business interests of billion-dollar fossil fuel corporations than upholding laws that protect our state's most vital natural resources. As the grassroots movement to stop fossil fuel pollution continues to grow, the Murphy administration needs to decide which side it is on.”
Business In Vancouver: Karen Ogen: Pipelines can symbolize new era of economic reconciliation
Karen Ogen is CEO of the First Nations LNG Alliance and former elected chief councillor of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation in northern B.C., 11/27/23
“Indigenous. Opportunity. Ownership. Historically, those words have been spoken independently of each other. Today, after over a decade of LNG development – with the Coastal GasLink pipeline complete, and the LNG Canada facility in Kitimat nearing completion – we have entered an era where Indigenous, opportunity and ownership can be spoken together, with a proof point,” Karen Ogen writes for Business In Vancouver. “Over the last decade, Indigenous people across northwestern B.C. have been working closely with TC Energy, trying to ensure our place at the table, not just as advisors or as workers, but as equity partners. The Coastal GasLink project is Canada’s first pipeline to tidewater in nearly 70 years. Perhaps more importantly, for Indigenous people, it was the first project of this scale and size that offered equity ownership. The option for First Nations communities to purchase a 10-per-cent equity interest in the pipeline was and is historic. This is economic reconciliation at work, creating generational opportunities for Indigenous people and communities across BC. And this level of partnership has become the standard for how resource and energy companies work with Indigenous communities… “When First Nations are included in decisions, as partners and owners in resource projects, everyone wins. This is the future of business in B.C. and in Canada. And the beginning of a new Indigenous-powered energy future. While achieving completion of Coastal GasLink has been a decade-long journey, it has been a journey worth taking. The pipeline is more than just steel in the ground moving a Canadian product the world needs – it is a symbol of new era of Indigenous opportunity and Indigenous ownership.”
Washington Post: How to end plastic pollution on Earth for good
Tatiana Schlossberg, 11/27/23
“Someday, if future forms of intelligent life look for evidence of human existence in the 20th and 21st centuries, they should have an easy time finding us in the geologic record. Just look for the plastic,” Tatiana Schlossberg writes for the Washington Post. “Between 1950 and 2021, humanity produced about 11 billion metric tons of virgin plastic — that’s the weight of 110,000 U.S. aircraft carriers. Only about 2 billion tons of this is still in use. The rest — some 8.7 billion tons — is waste: 71 percent has ended up in landfills or somewhere else in the environment, including the ocean; 12 percent has been recycled; 17 percent has been incinerated. At the rate we’re going, global plastic waste will rise 60 percent by 2050. But now comes hope that it’s possible to stop the accumulation: Last year, more than 175 countries agreed to develop a legally binding international treaty to end plastic pollution by 2040. And new research demonstrates that it is actually possible: with a combination of nine policies, countries could reduce annual plastic waste by more than 87 percent. As things stand, from 2010 to 2050 alone, the world could generate enough to cover all of Manhattan with a pile of plastic more than two miles high. A less-ambitious treaty could include reducing single-use packaging by 30 percent and a 20 percent minimum recycling-rate mandate. Along with other policies, such an agreement might reduce plastic waste by 16 percent. A highly ambitious treaty might require a 90 percent reduction in single-use packaging and a 40 percent minimum recycling rate mandate, cutting plastic waste by half… “A mandate that all new plastic products contain at least 30 percent recycled plastic would, alone, reduce mismanaged plastic waste by about 30 percent, from about 108 million tons to 77 million tons by 2050. But that’s still too much. So the scientists also suggest capping plastic production at 2025 levels. Both policies combined would bring mismanaged plastic waste down to 68 million tons. Add in a high consumer tax on plastics, and it would be possible to avert about 10 million more metric tons of pollution. If we use the revenue from that tax to invest $50 billion in global waste infrastructure, we could reduce pollution to one-third of the business-as-usual scenario… “The United States, which produces more plastic waste than any other country, has a responsibility and an opportunity to lead the world in the right direction. Navigating the legal vagaries and facing up to the powerful fossil fuel industry won’t be easy, but this is an extraordinary opportunity. We know that if we do nothing, we’ll bury ourselves under mountains of plastic. But if we try, we can rewrite the geologic record of our planet. We can end plastic pollution on Earth.”