Science

Solar Industry ‘Frozen’ As Biden Administration Investigates China

Published

3 years ago

April 29, 2022

Solar Industry ‘Frozen’ As Biden Administration Investigates China

Plans to put in 60 sq. kilometers of photo voltaic panels in Vermont are out of the blue on maintain.

In Maine, a photo voltaic farm that will energy lots of of properties is partly constructed however won’t be accomplished.

And a mission in Texas that will have powered greater than 10,000 properties was weeks away from breaking floor however has now been postponed till a minimum of subsequent 12 months.

Across the nation, photo voltaic corporations are delaying initiatives, scrambling for provides, shutting down building websites and warning that tens of billions of {dollars} — and tens of 1000’s of jobs — are in danger.

The tumult is the results of a call by the Commerce Division to analyze whether or not Chinese language corporations are circumventing U.S. tariffs by shifting parts for photo voltaic panels by way of 4 Southeast Asian international locations.

Although officers haven’t but discovered any proof of commerce violations, the specter of retroactive tariffs has successfully stopped imports of crystalline silicon panels and parts from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam. These 4 international locations present 82 p.c of the most well-liked sort of photo voltaic modules used within the U.S.

In a matter of weeks, 318 photo voltaic initiatives within the U.S. have been canceled or delayed, and lots of of corporations are contemplating layoffs, in line with the Photo voltaic Vitality Industries Affiliation, which surveyed greater than 700 corporations in latest days.

Vitality consultants warn that the fallout is barely starting. A monthslong halt on imports from the 4 international locations might have lasting ramifications for the multibillion-dollar photo voltaic trade and for the Biden administration’s bold objectives to ramp up renewable power growth to fight local weather change.

“The trade is actually frozen,” stated Leah Stokes, a political scientist who research local weather on the College of California, Santa Barbara. “It’s already resulting in layoffs, to say nothing of the influence on our local weather objectives.”

The Commerce Division initiated its investigation on March 25 after Auxin Photo voltaic, a small photo voltaic panel producer based mostly in California, filed a petition requesting an inquiry into whether or not China was circumventing guidelines meant to forestall state-subsidized photo voltaic elements from flooding the U.S. market.

Tariffs on Chinese language photo voltaic panels have been in place since 2012, when the Obama administration imposed them in hopes of selling home manufacturing and stopping China from dominating the rising world market. In 2018, President Donald J. Trump imposed further tariffs on sure photo voltaic merchandise from China, and Mr. Biden prolonged these tariffs in February.

For greater than a decade, China has dominated the worldwide provide chain for photo voltaic panels. The federal government’s insurance policies and subsidies have nurtured big factories churning out supplies like polysilicon and parts like photo voltaic cells that soak up power from daylight and convert it into electrical energy.

To keep away from commerce issues, U.S. photo voltaic installers have purchased lots of their panels from the 4 Southeast Asian international locations. However in line with Auxin, lots of these panels are manufactured by abroad subsidiaries of Chinese language corporations and use cells, wafers and different elements that originated in China.

Till now, the Commerce Division had signaled that as a result of the elements coming from China have been considerably reworked by the businesses in Southeast Asia, these parts weren’t topic to the tariffs.

But when the Commerce Division finds that the panels coming from Southeast Asia included Chinese language-made elements that ought to have been topic to tariffs, panels bought within the U.S. after the beginning of the investigation might carry steep duties. And the specter of these further prices has brought on shipments of photo voltaic panels to grind to a halt.

In an interview, Auxin’s founder and chief govt, Mamun Rashid, stated that he filed the petition as a result of he believes that current tariffs are being undermined and hopes this investigation will assist spur home manufacturing.

“Possibly the commerce legal guidelines are being violated, that dishonest is occurring,” Mr. Rashid stated. “We determined it will be irresponsible of us to not do one thing, to not communicate up.”

Mr. Rashid stated he had acted on his personal and was not working in live performance with another power corporations, buyers or trade teams.

The method for evaluating commerce disputes is a fancy system designed to forestall political interference. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo this week stated that her division was legally obliged to pursue the difficulty.

“My arms are very tied right here,” she stated at a listening to on Capitol Hill on Wednesday. “I’m required by statute to analyze a declare that corporations working in different international locations try to avoid the duties, and I’m required by statute to have a fulsome investigation.”

A spokesperson for the Commerce Division stated that it was “driving efforts to strengthen provide chains on the coronary heart of the clear power transition, together with the photo voltaic provide chain,” and that it was “dedicated to holding international producers accountable to taking part in by the identical guidelines as U.S. producers.”

Final 12 months, the USA put in roughly 24 gigawatts of latest photo voltaic capability, a document aided by the plummeting price of panels. However solely about one-fifth of these panels have been manufactured domestically, whereas the remaining have been imported primarily from Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia.

As the consequences of the federal investigation ripple throughout the U.S. photo voltaic trade, its advocates are incensed.

“It’s an absurd end result that the mere request by one firm can carry the trade to its knees on this approach,” stated Abigail Ross Hopper, chief govt of the Photo voltaic Vitality Industries Affiliation. “The U.S. photo voltaic market is in chaos. Shipments have stopped, installations are stalled, and persons are beginning to be laid off.”

The sudden freeze in photo voltaic panel set up is colliding with Mr. Biden’s purpose to speed up the annual tempo of photo voltaic installations nationwide with a view to understand his pledge to chop U.S. emissions a minimum of 50 p.c under 2005 ranges by the top of this decade.

“For an administration that embraces renewable power growth as one in all its core objectives, this tariff investigation has undermined all of that,” stated Nick Bullinger, chief working officer of Hecate Vitality, a photo voltaic firm based mostly in Chicago. “The investigation is having catastrophic adverse influence on the renewable power sector and driving up electrical energy costs. With every day the tariff investigation continues, the nation is falling additional behind in attaining our local weather objectives.”

The disruption is hitting corporations giant and small.

NextEra Vitality, one of many largest renewable power corporations within the nation, stated it anticipated that between two and three gigawatts price of photo voltaic and storage building — sufficient to energy greater than 1,000,000 properties — can be not be accomplished this 12 months as deliberate.

“It’s completely disrupting our photo voltaic enterprise and the trade’s as effectively,” stated David Reuter, chief communications officer at NextEra. Shares in NextEra have fallen 15 p.c up to now three weeks.

At Inexperienced Lantern Photo voltaic, a personal photo voltaic installer based mostly in Vermont, work on initiatives in Vermont and Maine has come to a standstill.

“The ramification could be very vital, not solely to Inexperienced Lantern however all of our contractors,” stated Scott Buckley, Inexperienced Lantern’s president. “We needed to name all of our suppliers and have exceedingly robust conversations to say, ‘Thanks, however we are able to’t take deliveries.’”

In complete, the Photo voltaic Vitality Industries Affiliation stated that its members have been forecasting a 46 p.c decline within the variety of photo voltaic panels they’ll set up by way of subsequent 12 months.

Nevertheless, one other large photo voltaic firm, First Photo voltaic, which manufactures a kind of photo voltaic panel unaffected by the tariff dispute, stated it was supportive of the investigation.

“What we’re serious about is making certain that there’s a stage taking part in area for home producers,” stated Reuven Proneca, a spokesman for First Photo voltaic. “We really feel that the Division of Commerce’s resolution to proceed with the investigation is a step in the fitting route.”

For U.S. corporations in search of photo voltaic panels, there are few simple substitutes for merchandise from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam.

“We now have referred to as each American panel producer that we might discover, and never one in all them has panels accessible for us with any anticipated timeline that may permit us to maintain these initiatives shifting ahead,” stated Mr. Buckley of Inexperienced Lantern Photo voltaic.

Some photo voltaic trade advocates have urged that the Commerce Division has the power to rapidly reverse course and put a swift finish to the investigation.

“The secretary’s arms are something however tied,” Heather Zichal, chief govt of American Clear Energy, wrote in a weblog put up. “She has a path that’s codified within the statute to cease a pointless course of initiated over a phantom menace — and she will be able to use these choices within the coming weeks to breathe life again into an American photo voltaic trade whipsawed by her division’s actions.”

However Ms. Raimondo, responding to a query on Wednesday from Senator Jacky Rosen, a Nevada Democrat, stated there was solely a lot she might do. “What I’ll decide to you is shifting as quick as doable,” she stated.

Some analysts have argued that the USA must make investments way more closely in home manufacturing with a view to compete with the abroad manufacturing of photo voltaic merchandise. The Construct Again Higher invoice in Congress, as an example, would offer new tax credit for photo voltaic wafers, cells and modules produced at house. However that laws stays in limbo after Senator Joe Manchin III, a West Virginia Democrat, got here out in opposition final 12 months.

Whereas the photo voltaic trade awaits a call by the Commerce Division, renewable energy advocates fear that point is ticking away. The Photo voltaic Vitality Industries Affiliation estimates that the misplaced or delayed photo voltaic deployment ensuing from the investigation will result in a further 364 million metric tons of carbon emissions by 2035, the equal of preserving 78 million gasoline-powered automobiles on the street.

“It’s going to decelerate the trade at a time once we should be shifting sooner,” stated Ms. Stokes. “This might be catastrophic.”

Brad Plumer contributed reporting.

Science

Pink Fire Retardant, a Dramatic Wildfire Weapon, Poses Its Own Dangers

Published

15 minutes ago

January 10, 2025

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Pink Fire Retardant, a Dramatic Wildfire Weapon, Poses Its Own Dangers

From above the raging flames, these planes can unleash immense tankfuls of bright pink fire retardant in just 20 seconds. They have long been considered vital in the battle against wildfires.

But emerging research has shown that the millions of gallons of retardant sprayed on the landscape to tame wildfires each year come with a toxic burden, because they contain heavy metals and other chemicals that are harmful to human health and the environment.

The toxicity presents a stark dilemma. These tankers and their cargo are a powerful tool for taming deadly blazes. Yet as wildfires intensify and become more frequent in an era of climate change, firefighters are using them more often, and in the process releasing more harmful chemicals into the environment.

Some environmental groups have questioned the retardants’ effectiveness and potential for harm. The efficiency of fire retardant has been hard to measure, because it’s one of a barrage of firefighting tactics deployed in a major fire. After the flames are doused, it’s difficult to assign credit.

The frequency and severity of wildfires has grown in recent years, particularly in the western United States. Scientists have also found that fires across the region have become faster moving in recent decades.

There are also the longer-term health effects of exposure to wildfire smoke, which can penetrate the lungs and heart, causing disease. A recent global survey of the health effects of air pollution caused by wildfires found that in the United States, exposure to wildfire smoke had increased by 77 percent since 2002. Globally, wildfire smoke has been estimated to be responsible for up to 675,000 premature deaths per year.

Fire retardants add to those health and environmental burdens because they present “a really, really thorny trade-off,” said Daniel McCurry, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Southern California, who led the recent research on their heavy-metal content.

The United States Forest Service said on Thursday that nine large retardant-spraying planes, as well as 20 water-dropping helicopters, were being deployed to fight the Southern California fires, which have displaced tens of thousands of people. Several “water scooper” amphibious planes, capable of skimming the surface of the sea or other body of water to fill their tanks, are also being used.

Two large DC-10 aircraft, dubbed “Very Large Airtankers” and capable of delivering up to 9,400 gallons of retardant, were also set to join the fleet imminently, said Stanton Florea, a spokesman for the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, which coordinates national wildland firefighting efforts across the West.

Sprayed ahead of the fire, the retardants coat vegetation and prevent oxygen from allowing it to burn, Mr. Florea said. (Red dye is added so firefighters can see the retardant against the landscape.) And the retardant, typically made of salts like ammonium polyphosphate, “lasts longer. It doesn’t evaporate, like dropping water,” he said.

The new research from Dr. McCurry and his colleagues found, however, that at least four different types of heavy metals in a common type of retardant used by firefighters exceeded California’s requirements for hazardous waste.

Federal data shows that more than 440 million gallons of retardant were applied to federal, state, and private land between 2009 and 2021. Using that figure, the researchers estimated that between 2009 and 2021, more than 400 tons of heavy metals were released into the environment from fire suppression, a third of that in Southern California.

Both the federal government and the retardant’s manufacturer, Perimeter Solutions, have disputed that analysis, saying the researchers had evaluated a different version of the retardant. Dan Green, a spokesman for Perimeter, said retardants used for aerial firefighting had passed “extensive testing to confirm they meet strict standards for aquatic and mammalian safety.”

Still, the findings help explain why concentrations of heavy metals tend to surge in rivers and streams after wildfires, sometimes by hundreds of times. And as scrutiny of fire suppressants has grown, the Forestry Service has set buffer zones surrounding lakes and rivers, though its own data shows retardant still inadvertently drifts into those waters.

In 2022, the environmental nonprofit Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics sued the government in federal court in Montana, demanding that the Forest Service obtain a permit under the Clean Water Act to cover accidental spraying into waterways.

The judge ruled that the agency did indeed need to obtain a permit. But it allowed retardant use to continue to protect lives and property.

Science

2024 Brought the World to a Dangerous Warming Threshold. Now What?

Published

9 hours ago

January 10, 2025

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2024 Brought the World to a Dangerous Warming Threshold. Now What?

Source: Copernicus/ECMWF

Note: Temperature anomalies relative to 1850-1900 averages.

At the stroke of midnight on Dec. 31, Earth finished up its hottest year in recorded history, scientists said on Friday. The previous hottest year was 2023. And the next one will be upon us before long: By continuing to burn huge amounts of coal, oil and gas, humankind has all but guaranteed it.

The planet’s record-high average temperature last year reflected the weekslong, 104-degree-Fahrenheit spring heat waves that shuttered schools in Bangladesh and India. It reflected the effects of the bathtub-warm ocean waters that supercharged hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico and cyclones in the Philippines. And it reflected the roasting summer and fall conditions that primed Los Angeles this week for the most destructive wildfires in its history.

“We are facing a very new climate and new challenges, challenges that our society is not prepared for,” said Carlo Buontempo, director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, the European Union monitoring agency.

But even within this progression of warmer years and ever-intensifying risks to homes, communities and the environment, 2024 stood out in another unwelcome way. According to Copernicus, it was the first year in which global temperatures averaged more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, above those the planet experienced at the start of the industrial age.

For the past decade, the world has sought to avoid crossing this dangerous threshold. Nations enshrined the goal in the 2015 Paris agreement to fight climate change. “Keep 1.5 alive” was the mantra at United Nations summits.

Yet here we are. Global temperatures will fluctuate somewhat, as they always do, which is why scientists often look at warming averaged over longer periods, not just a single year.

But even by that standard, staying below 1.5 degrees looks increasingly unattainable, according to researchers who have run the numbers. Globally, despite hundreds of billions of dollars invested in clean-energy technologies, carbon dioxide emissions hit a record in 2024 and show no signs of dropping.

One recent study published in the journal Nature concluded that the absolute best humanity can now hope for is around 1.6 degrees of warming. To achieve it, nations would need to start slashing emissions at a pace that would strain political, social and economic feasibility.

But what if we’d started earlier?

By spewing heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere, humankind has lifted global temperatures to record highs.

If nations had started reducing emissions in 2005, they could have made gradual cuts to limit warming to 1.5 degrees.

Starting in 2015, when the Paris agreement was adopted, would have required steeper cuts.

Starting today would require cuts so drastic as to appear essentially impossible.

“It was guaranteed we’d get to this point where the gap between reality and the trajectory we needed for 1.5 degrees was so big it was ridiculous,” said David Victor, a professor of public policy at the University of California, San Diego.

The question now is what, if anything, should replace 1.5 as a lodestar for nations’ climate aspirations.

“These top-level goals are at best a compass,” Dr. Victor said. “They’re a reminder that if we don’t do more, we’re in for significant climate impacts.”

The 1.5-degree threshold was never the difference between safety and ruin, between hope and despair. It was a number negotiated by governments trying to answer a big question: What’s the highest global temperature increase — and the associated level of dangers, whether heat waves or wildfires or melting glaciers — that our societies should strive to avoid?

The result, as codified in the Paris agreement, was that nations would aspire to hold warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius while “pursuing efforts” to limit it to 1.5 degrees.

Even at the time, some experts called the latter goal unrealistic, because it required such deep and rapid emissions cuts. Still, the United States, the European Union and other governments adopted it as a guidepost for climate policy.

Christoph Bertram, an associate research professor at the University of Maryland’s Center for Global Sustainability, said the urgency of the 1.5 target spurred companies of all kinds — automakers, cement manufacturers, electric utilities — to start thinking hard about what it would mean to zero out their emissions by midcentury. “I do think that has led to some serious action,” Dr. Bertram said.

But the high aspiration of the 1.5 target also exposed deep fault lines among nations.

China and India never backed the goal, since it required them to curb their use of coal, gas and oil at a pace they said would hamstring their development. Rich countries that were struggling to cut their own emissions began choking off funding in the developing world for fossil-fuel projects that were economically beneficial. Some low-income countries felt it was deeply unfair to ask them to sacrifice for the climate given that it was wealthy nations — and not them — that had produced most of the greenhouse gases now warming the world.

“The 1.5-degree target has created a lot of tension between rich and poor countries,” said Vijaya Ramachandran, director for energy and development at the Breakthrough Institute, an environmental research organization.

Costa Samaras, an environmental-engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon University, compared the warming goals to health officials’ guidelines on, say, cholesterol. “We don’t set health targets on what’s realistic or what’s possible,” Dr. Samaras said. “We say, ‘This is what’s good for you. This is how you’re going to not get sick.’”

“If we were going to say, ‘Well, 1.5 is likely out of the question, let’s put it to 1.75,’ it gives people a false sense of assurance that 1.5 was not that important,” said Dr. Samaras, who helped shape U.S. climate policy from 2021 to 2024 in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. “It’s hugely important.”

Scientists convened by the United Nations have concluded that restricting warming to 1.5 degrees instead of 2 would spare tens of millions of people from being exposed to life-threatening heat waves, water shortages and coastal flooding. It might mean the difference between a world that has coral reefs and Arctic sea ice in the summer, and one that doesn’t.

Each tiny increment of additional warming, whether it’s 1.6 degrees versus 1.5, or 1.7 versus 1.6, increases the risks. “Even if the world overshoots 1.5 degrees, and the chances of this happening are increasing every day, we must keep striving” to bring emissions to zero as soon as possible, said Inger Anderson, the executive director of the United Nations Environment Program.

Officially, the sun has not yet set on the 1.5 target. The Paris agreement remains in force, even as President-elect Donald J. Trump vows to withdraw the United States from it for a second time. At U.N. climate negotiations, talk of 1.5 has become more muted compared with years past. But it has hardly gone away.

“With appropriate measures, 1.5 Celsius is still achievable,” Cedric Schuster, the minister of natural resources and environment for the Pacific island nation of Samoa, said at last year’s summit in Azerbaijan. Countries should “rise to the occasion with new, highly ambitious” policies, he said.

To Dr. Victor of U.C. San Diego, it is strange but all too predictable that governments keep speaking this way about what appears to be an unachievable aim. “No major political leader who wants to be taken seriously on climate wants to stick their neck out and say, ‘1.5 degrees isn’t feasible. Let’s talk about more realistic goals,’” he said.

Still, the world will eventually need to have that discussion, Dr. Victor said. And it’s unclear how it will go.

“It could be constructive, where we start asking, ‘How much warming are we really in for? And how do we deal with that?’” he said. “Or it could look very toxic, with a bunch of political finger pointing.”

Methodology

The second chart shows pathways for reducing carbon emissions that would have a 66 percent chance of limiting global warming this century to 1.5 degrees Celsius above the preindustrial average.

Science

U.S. Efforts to Cut Emissions Stalled in 2024 as Power Demand Surged

Published

17 hours ago

January 9, 2025

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U.S. Efforts to Cut Emissions Stalled in 2024 as Power Demand Surged

America’s efforts to cut its climate change pollution stalled in 2024, with greenhouse gas emissions dropping just a fraction, 0.2 percent, compared to the year before, according to estimates published Thursday by the Rhodium Group, a research firm.

Despite continued rapid growth in solar and wind power, emissions levels stayed relatively flat last year because demand for electricity surged nationwide, which led to a spike in the amount of natural gas burned by power plants.

The fact that emissions didn’t decline much means the United States is even further off-track from hitting President Biden’s goal of slashing greenhouse gases 50 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. Scientists say all major economies would have to cut their emissions deeply this decade to keep global warming at relatively low levels.

Since 2005, United States emissions have fallen roughly 20 percent, a significant drop at a time when the economy has also expanded. But to meet its climate goals, U.S. emissions would need to decline nearly 10 times as fast each year as they’ve fallen over the past decade. That seems increasingly unlikely, experts say, especially since President-elect Donald J. Trump has promised to dismantle Mr. Biden’s climate policies and promote the production of fossil fuels, the burning of which generates greenhouse gases.

“On the one hand, it is notable that we’ve now seen two years in a row where the U.S. economy grew but emissions went down,” said Ben King, an associate director at the Rhodium Group. “But it’s far from enough to achieve our climate targets.”

The biggest reason that U.S. emissions have fallen in recent years is that electric utilities have been retiring their older, dirtier coal-fired power plants and replacing them with cheaper and less-polluting natural gas, wind and solar power. That trend mostly continued last year, with a few unexpected ups and downs.

The nation’s demand for electricity, which has stayed more or less flat for two decades, suddenly jumped by roughly 3 percent in 2024, in large part because scorching heat during the summer caused many Americans to crank up their air-conditioners. A smaller factor was that tech companies have been building more energy-hungry data centers in states like Virginia and Texas.

While power companies installed large numbers of wind turbines, solar panels and batteries last year to meet rising demand, natural gas use also rose to record highs, while coal use declined only slightly. The net result was that emissions from the power sector increased an estimated 0.2 percent, according to the Rhodium Group.

At the same time, transportation, the nation’s largest source of greenhouse gases, saw an 0.8 percent rise in emissions last year. Gasoline and jet fuel consumption both increased as Americans continued to drive and fly more after the pandemic. Nearly 10 percent of new car sales in 2024 were less-polluting electric vehicles, but those models still make up a small fraction of total cars on the road and have yet to put a major dent in transportation emissions.

On the flip side, emissions from America’s industrial sector — which includes steel, cement and chemicals — fell by 1.8 percent in 2024. Some of that may have been the result of lost output, as two hurricanes and a strike at the nation’s ports disrupted some factory activity in the fall, Mr. King said.

“It’s a reminder that there’s always some bumpiness in emissions,” Mr. King said. “It’s not just a question of how many electric vehicles are on the road or how much solar we’ve installed. A big portion of our economy still relies on fossil fuels.”

One of the most striking findings in this year’s data was that emissions from oil and gas operations dropped roughly 3.7 percent in 2024. Even though the United States produced record amounts of oil and near-record amounts of natural gas last year, many companies appear to have curbed leaks of methane, which is the main ingredient in natural gas and which can seep into the atmosphere and contribute significantly to global warming.

Over the past few years, the Biden administration and several states have adopted new regulations that require oil and gas producers to detect and fix methane leaks. Many companies also have financial incentives to capture methane to sell rather than vent it into the air.

Between 2014 and 2024, U.S. companies appear to have reduced the amount of methane that escaped, per each cubic feet of gas they produced, by 40 percent, according to the Rhodium Group.

Several experts have estimated that greenhouse gases generated in the United States could start dropping sharply in the years ahead if many clean energy policies stay in place, particularly the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act that pumped hundreds of billions of dollars into low-carbon energy technologies such as electric vehicles, wind turbines, solar panels, nuclear reactors, green hydrogen and batteries.

While Mr. Trump has pledged to scrap many of Mr. Biden’s subsidies and tax credits for electric vehicles and low-carbon energy, it remains to be seen whether Congress will agree.

That law has not yet had a major impact on the country’s emissions, said Mr. King, since it takes time for new factories to open and power plants to get built. But, he said, data shows that low-carbon energy and transportation now make up fully 5 percent of total U.S. private investment.

“That’s a leading indicator that things are changing quickly,” he said.