SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
fracked gas
'Troublemakers' Block Amazon HQ Over Plan to Link Data Centers With Gas Pipeline
"Amazon is breaking its Climate Pledge by powering new data centers with fracked gas," said one member of the new activist group. "So we came to demand that they honor the pledge."
Mar 27, 2024
A recently formed group of climate activists on Wednesday shut down entrances to Amazon's downtown Seattle headquarters to protest the tech titan's plans to link some of its data centers with an upgraded fracked gas pipeline.
Members of the Troublemakers—who describe themselves as "an ever-growing community of people who are committed to taking action for life on Earth"—blockaded the doors to the Day 1 Building on 7th Ave. in opposition to Amazon Web Services' (AWS) plan to connect three data centers near Boardman, Oregon to TC Energy's Gas Transmission Northwest (GTN) XPress Project.
As Common Dreamsreported last October, GTN XPress, which has been approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, would upgrade compressor stations in Kootenai County, Idaho; Sherman County, Oregon; and Walla Walla County, Washington. TC Energy plans to boost the 60-year-old pipeline's capacity by 150 million cubic feet of fracked gas by increasing the conduit's pressure.
"The decision to use fracked gas from the GTN XPress adds to Amazon's carbon emissions problems," the Troublemakers said in a statement. "Amazon's 2022 carbon emissions totaled 71.27 million metric tons, marking an 18% rise from 2020 and a 40% surge since 2019, the year Amazon unveiled its Climate Pledge. This alarming trend is in stark contrast to the global imperative to halve emissions by 2030."
The group wrote in a March 19 letter to Amazon CEO Andy Jassy:
Amazon prides itself on innovation. Using fossil fuel is not innovation... It is relying on a dying technology that is killing the planet. Utilizing GTN XPress would increase Amazon's carbon footprint and contribute greatly to climate change... We urge you to publicly commit to financing solar or wind projects to provide clean energy for Amazon's operations, and reject the GTN XPress.
The Troublemakers are calling on Amazon to:
- Publicly renounce the plan to connect to GTN XPress;
- Commit to not powering AWS data centers with fossil fuels; and
- Commit to using 100% renewable energy in each operation while funding wind and solar generation, storage, and distribution.
"We see Amazon's greenwashing every time we pass by Climate Pledge Arena," said Troublemaker Valerie Costa, who was referring to the home of the Seattle Kraken and Seattle Storm professional sports franchises. "Until Amazon drops its plan to buy fracked gas from GTN XPress, we'll keep showing up. Every fossil fuel project in the [Pacific Northwest] will be met with fierce resistance."
Leonard Sklar, a scientist and Troublemaker, asserted that "Amazon is breaking its Climate Pledge by powering new data centers with fracked gas. So we came to demand that they honor the pledge."
"We know they have the power to be 100% renewable energy," he added, "and that's what this moment requires."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Study Shows Methane Leaks Put Climate Risk From Gas 'On Par With Coal'
If fracked gas leaks, even a little, "it's as bad as coal," said the lead author. "It can't be considered a good bridge, or substitute."
Jul 13, 2023
The fossil fuel industry has long argued that fracked gas can serve as a "bridge" to a renewable-powered future, but a new study confirms that uncontrolled leaks make it as dangerous for the climate as coal.
So-called natural gas is derived from hydraulic fracturing (fracking) and composed mostly of methane—a planet-heating gas 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide over its first 20 years in the atmosphere. A methane leakage rate of as little as 0.2% is enough to render gas equivalent to coal in driving global warming, according to a peer-reviewed manuscript accepted last week in Environmental Research Letters.
The paper is set is be published next week. According to its abstract:
Global gas systems that leak over 4.7% of their methane (when considering a 20-year timeframe) or 7.6% (when considering a 100-year timeframe) are on par with lifecycle coal emissions from methane-leaking coal mines.
The net climate impact from coal is also influenced by SO2 [sulfur dioxide] emissions, which react to form sulfate aerosols that mask warming. We run scenarios that combine varying methane leakage rates from coal and gas with low to high SO2 emissions based on coal sulfur content, flue gas scrubber efficiency, and sulfate aerosol global warming potentials.
The methane and SO2 co-emitted with CO2 alter the emissions parity between gas and coal. We estimate that a gas system leakage rate as low as 0.2% is on par with coal, assuming 1.5% sulfur coal that is scrubbed at a 90% efficiency with no coal mine methane when considering climate effects over a 20-year timeframe.
Recent aerial measurement surveys of oil and gas production in the United States show methane leakage rates ranging from "0.65% to 66.2%, with similar leakage rates detected worldwide," the abstract states. "These numerous super-emitting gas systems being detected globally underscore the need to accelerate methane emissions detection, accounting, and management practices."
Lead author Deborah Gordon, an environmental policy expert at Brown University and the Rocky Mountain Institute, toldThe New York Times on Thursday that if fossil gas leaks, even a little, "it's as bad as coal."
"It can't be considered a good bridge, or substitute," Gordon emphasized.
"What the world requires is to move away from all fossil fuels as soon as possible, to a 100% renewable energy future."
As the Times noted, the study "adds to a substantial body of research that has poked holes in the idea that natural gas is a suitable transitional fuel to a future powered entirely by renewables, like solar and wind."
Despite mounting evidence that expanding fossil fuel extraction and combustion is incompatible with averting the worst consequences of the climate emergency, the Inflation Reduction Act passed last year by congressional Democrats "includes credits that would apply to some forms of natural gas," the Times reported.
"When power companies generate electricity by burning natural gas instead of coal, they emit only about half the amount of planet-warming carbon dioxide," the newspaper observed. "In the United States, the shift from coal to gas, driven by a boom in oil and gas fracking, has helped reduce carbon emissions from power plants by nearly 40% since 2005."
But that ignores the dangers posed by methane, the primary component of fossil gas. Emissions and atmospheric concentrations of methane continued to climb in 2022, thanks in large part to massive leaks from fossil fuel infrastructure. A study published in October found that pipelines transporting fracked gas in the Permian Basin oil field of the U.S. Southwest are leaking at least 14 times more methane than previously thought.
Another recent study found that more than 1,000 "super-emitter" incidents—human-caused methane leaks of at least one tonne per hour—were detected worldwide last year, mostly at oil and gas facilities, including in Louisiana and Pennsylvania. In addition, it identified 112 global "methane bombs," which are defined as fossil fuel extraction sites where gas leaks alone from future production would release what amounts to 30 years of U.S. greenhouse gas pollution.
Methane is responsible for an estimated 30% of global temperature rise today, and scientists have made clear that policymakers must prioritize cutting this short-lived heat-trapping gas to avoid climate chaos. Even a temporary breach of the 1.5°C threshold—something experts warn has a 50% chance of happening by 2026—could trigger irreversible harm from multiple tipping points.
Robert Howarth, an earth systems scientist at Cornell University who sounded the alarm about methane leaks more than a decade ago, praised the forthcoming study.
"Their conclusion is to once again point out that natural gas may not be any better at all for the climate than is coal, particularly when viewed through the lens of warming over the next 20 years or so, which of course is a critical time" for meeting climate targets, he told the Times.
"I do hope the policy world and the political leaders of the world pay attention to this, as I fear too many remain too fixated at simply reducing coal use, even if it results in more gas consumption," Howarth added. "What the world requires is to move away from all fossil fuels as soon as possible, to a 100% renewable energy future."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Manchin Fumes as Federal Court Halts Mountain Valley Pipeline Construction
One climate advocate applauded the court for giving communities "a measure of reprieve" by stopping construction of the pipeline in Jefferson National Forest.
Jul 11, 2023
A three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit on Monday temporarily blocked the construction of a section of the Mountain Valley Pipeline that runs through Jefferson National Forest, pending a conservation group's petition to review the federal government's authorization of the fossil fuel infrastructure development.
"Time and time again, Mountain Valley has tried to force its dangerous pipeline through the Jefferson National Forest, devastating communities in its wake and racking up violations," Ben Tettlebaum, director and senior staff attorney at The Wilderness Society, said in a statement. "We're grateful that the court has given those communities a measure of reprieve by hitting the brakes on construction across our public lands, sparing them from further irreversible damage while this important case proceeds."
Work on unfinished portions of the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) was fast-tracked last month via the debt ceiling agreement that President Joe Biden, shunning his options for unilateral action, forged with House Republicans who took the global economy hostage.
Construction of the $6.6 billion fracked gas project—pushed hard by the GOP and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), a coal profiteer and Congress' top recipient of Big Oil money—has been halted by courts for years due to concerns about the harms it would unleash on people and ecosystems in Virginia, West Virginia, and beyond.
But Section 324 of the so-called Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 required federal authorities to approve all of MVP's outstanding permits, prohibited judicial review of those permits, and said only the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has jurisdiction to hear challenges to the provision's constitutionality.
Citing Section 324, MVP's developers and multiple government agencies filed motions last month to dismiss lawsuits against the pipeline. On behalf of The Wilderness Society, the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) filed a brief opposing those motions on June 26, arguing that Section 324 is unconstitutional because it violates the separation of powers.
In response to the stay issued by the Fourth Circuit on Monday, Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC said: "This is not the court to hear that claim. Congress, in plain terms, gave the D.C. Circuit 'exclusive jurisdiction' to hear such claims... Congress' message was crystal clear: If you want to challenge Section 324, you must do so in the D.C. Circuit."
In a similar vein, Manchin asserted that the Fourth Circuit lacks jurisdiction over MVP permits, rendering its new order unlawful.
But as The Wilderness Society and SELC explained last month, their two cases against the pipeline challenge "defective approvals by the United States Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management allowing the MVP to cross the Jefferson National Forest in Virginia and West Virginia." Because both lawsuits predate the passage of Section 324 and allege violations of several environmental laws as well as the Administrative Procedure Act, the groups argued, the Fourth Circuit does have jurisdiction.
"Mountain Valley could not build their pipeline in compliance with the law, so they appealed to Congress to interfere with the courts, skirting both our legal system and Constitution," Chase Huntley, vice president of Strategy and Policy at The Wilderness Society, said two weeks ago. "The MVP rider buried in the Fiscal Responsibility Act attempts to ram through the pipeline, forcing it onto communities who have spoken out against its devastating impacts for nearly a decade."
"Because bedrock environmental laws stood in the pipeline's path, Mountain Valley convinced Congress to reach beyond its powers and decide in Mountain Valley's favor, circumventing the courts," said Huntley. "We're fighting to make sure our challenge to the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management's approvals for the pipeline to cross the Jefferson National Forest has its rightful day in court."
The Wilderness Society and SELC weren't the only organizations to take action last month. Lawyers from the Sierra Club, Appalachian Mountain Advocates, and the Center for Biological Diversity filed a companion response opposing identical motions to dismiss another MVP case. That brief was submitted on behalf of 10 environmental groups—Wild Virginia, Appalachian Voices, Indian Creek Watershed Association, Preserve Bent Mountain, Preserve Giles County, West Virginia Highlands Conservancy, West Virginia Rivers Coalition, Chesapeake Climate Action Network, Sierra Club, and the Center for Biological Diversity.
In a Tuesday morning statement, Equitrans Midstream—which holds the largest interest among MVP stakeholders and plans to manage the pipeline once operational—said it was "disappointed" with the Fourth Circuit's stay and claimed the judges exceeded their authority.
"We are evaluating all legal options, which include filing an emergency appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court," the company said. "Unless this decision is promptly reversed, it would jeopardize Mountain Valley's ability to complete construction by year-end 2023."
MVP is one of several new fossil fuel projects being built or considered in the U.S. despite mounting evidence of the worsening climate crisis—and in direct conflict with the international scientific consensus, which has long warned that increasing the extraction and combustion of coal, oil, and gas will exacerbate deadly planetary heating.
As extreme weather disasters continue to wreak havoc across the U.S. and the world, Biden is facing growing pressure to declare a national climate emergency, which advocates say would unlock additional powers his administration could use to rein in the fossil fuel industry and ramp up clean energy production. Congressional Republicans, meanwhile, are currently trying to preempt the president from making such a move.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular