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newsclips -- ARB Newsclips for July 18, 2016
Posted: 18 Jul 2016 14:02:44
This is a service of the California Air Resources Board’s Office of Communications. You may need to sign in or register with individual websites to view some of the following news articles. AIR POLLUTION Air Pollution Reduction Settlement Reached for 6 Refineries. The Justice Department and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Monday announced a $425 million settlement with two companies to reduce air pollution at six petroleum refineries in the West. The agreement with Tesoro Corp. and Par Hawaii Refining resolves alleged violations of the federal Clean Air Act and requires installment of new equipment to control emissions. http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/W/WA_REFINERIES_SETTLEMENT?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT World Energy Outlook calls for global clean air act as worldwide pollution death rate rises. Deaths linked to air pollution are set to increase significantly in the coming decades unless the energy sector takes greater action to curb emissions, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). Each year an estimated 6.5 million deaths are linked to air pollution. Around 3.5 million of these are linked to energy poverty due to the use of biomass for cooking and kerosene for lighting, while three million deaths are linked to outdoor air pollution, mostly in cities. http://business-reporter.co.uk/2016/07/18/world-energy-outlook-calls-global-clean-air-act-worldwide-pollution-death-rate-rises/ China's urban air quality improves in first half: ministry. Air quality in China's largest cities continued to improve during the first six months of 2016, the country's environment ministry said on Sunday. China's largest 338 cities enjoyed more clean air days in the first half compared with the same period of 2015, the ministry said on its website. It said 76.7 percent of January-June days had clean air, an increase of four percentage points from a year earlier. In the capital Beijing, levels of PM 2.5 - dangerous tiny pollutants - fell 17.9 percent from a year earlier, the ministry said. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-environment-pollution-idUSKCN0ZX098 Increased Asthma Attacks Tied to Exposure to Natural Gas Production. Exposure to more intense shale gas development correlates with a higher risk of asthma attacks among asthma patients, according to a new study of Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale, one of the nation's largest and most active fracking regions. The paper, published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine, a publication of the American Medical Association, didn't examine the exact cause of the trend. But lead author Sara Rasmussen, a Ph.D. candidate in environmental health sciences at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said air pollution and stress are both plausible explanations. https://insideclimatenews.org/news/18072016/asthma-study-marcellus-shale-pennsylvania-natural-gas-fracking?utm_source=Inside+Climate+News&utm_campaign=8ccebdb9c5-InsideClimate_News12_10_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_29c928ffb5-8ccebdb9c5-327494049 CLIMATE CHANGE EPA issues final actions to cut methane emissions from municipal solid waste landfills. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued final New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) to reduce emissions of methane-rich landfill gas from new, modified and reconstructed municipal solid waste (MSW) landfills, updating standards that were issued in 1996. In a separate action, EPA also issued revised guidelines for reducing emissions from existing MSW landfills, updating the previous Emissions Guidelines, which also were issued in 1996. http://www.greencarcongress.com/2016/07/20160717-epa.html Regulators engage Barrio Logan on state's climate plan. As the state overhauls its road map for curbing greenhouse-gas emissions, regulators are reaching out to residents most impacted by air pollution that also drives climate change. Officials with the California Air Resources Board held a workshop in San Diego’s Barrio Logan, the most polluted neighborhood in the county, on Thursday night. The meeting was part of the agency’s tour of nearly a dozen cities statewide that are disproportionately affected by air pollution. http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2016/jul/15/air-board-scoping-plan-san-diego-barrio-logan/ The world is poised to take the strongest action of this year against climate change. When the world moved to phase out ozone-destroying chlorofluorcarbons, or CFCs, it solved one enormous and urgent environmental problem — but it left behind another. CFCs were bad for the ozone layer and also caused a great deal of global warming to boot. But a key substitute — hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs — spare the ozone layer but are still powerful greenhouse warming agents. That’s why diplomats and leading national ministers have assembled in Vienna this week for negotiations under the Montreal Protocol, the treaty that led to the phaseout of CFCs and is now aiming its sights at HFCs. If an amendment to the treaty can be adopted this year, advocates say, it could represent the single largest tangible piece of climate progress in all of 2016. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/07/18/this-could-do-more-to-save-the-planet-this-year-than-any-other-action/?hpid=hp_hp-more-top-stories-2_ee-save-1056am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory Closing Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant Will Cost Money And Raise Carbon Emissions. A widespread claim—that dozens of nuclear plants merit subsidies to protect the earth’s climate—has been borne out by reality. One of America’s most prominent and technically capable utilities, Pacific Gas & Electric Company, recently announced its decision to close its well-running, low-carbon, low-cost nuclear reactors at Diablo Canyon, because of political pressure from the state of California and especially its Lt. Governor. At the same time, tax subsidies for renewables, plus low natural gas prices, are making reactors uneconomic in the short term. http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2016/07/15/closing-diablo-canyon-nuclear-plant-will-cost-money-and-raise-carbon-emissions/#427931176fb6 12 rare animals that are teetering on the brink of extinction. Every day, species around the planet are going extinct. And for each species that goes extinct, many more become and remain endangered due to habitat loss, poaching, human activities, and climate change. Some are so critical that they are teetering on the brink of extinction. All these threatened animals are included on the International Union for Conservation (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, a non-prescriptive list that is the world’s most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of species. http://www.sfgate.com/technology/businessinsider/article/12-rare-animals-that-are-teetering-on-the-brink-8384805.php This map shows what different countries view as the greatest threat to the world. Different cultures span the globe, and with that, various societal sentiments, such as fear, are also differentiated. In order to determine what these fears are, a survey was conducted by the World Economic Forum in the fall of 2015 to determine what the threat and risks are in the next decade. This survey included over 700 experts and stakeholders from a variety of fields, including banking, government, and academia. http://www.sfgate.com/technology/businessinsider/article/This-map-shows-what-different-countries-view-as-8384817.php DIESEL ACTIVITIES Indian court orders older diesel vehicles off New Delhi's roads. India's top environmental court on Monday ordered authorities to remove all diesel vehicles at least 10 years old off the capital city's streets in a bid to help clean New Delhi's polluted air. The ruling is the latest in a series of court-issued orders targeting the automotive industry's role in polluting Delhi's air, which the World Health Organisation said in May was the world's 11th dirtiest. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-autos-court-idUSKCN0ZY12P FUELS US says fuel economy likely won't meet 2025 targets. The U.S. government says fuel economy of the nation's fleet of cars and trucks won't meet its targets in 2025 because low gas prices have changed the types of vehicles people are buying. Under standards set in 2012, automakers' fleets were expected to get an average of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. But in a report issued Monday, the government says that's more likely to be between 50 miles per gallon and 52.6 miles per gallon, depending on the price of gas. http://www.sacbee.com/news/business/article90287362.html Los Alamos team develops robust route to convert starch and sugar to C10 and C11 hydrocarbons; “potato-to-pump”. Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory have developed a route to convert oligosaccharides, such as starch, cellulose, and hemicelluloses to C10 and C11hydrocarbons by using depolymerization followed by chain extension. In a paper published in the journal ChemSusChem, they report on the robustness of the approach by performing a simple starch extraction from a Russet potato and subjecting it to their process. (They noted that the use of the potato was simply illustrative, and that the use of food crops for fuel production should be avoided.) http://www.greencarcongress.com/2016/07/20160718-gg.html GREEN ENERGY Thorny issues challenge California's commitment to renewable energy goals. As California pushes forward on its ambitious goal to produce 50% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030, it will confront a wide range of potentially troubling economic, technical and political questions — though there remains strong support among public officials for the state’s climate program. The state is demonstrating to the rest of the nation and the world that it has the deep political willpower to address climate change, but it has yet to fully understand the impacts of the program on low-income residents, economic growth and electrical grid reliability. http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-renewable-energy-summit-20160711-snap-story.html Energy guzzlers no more: Data centers finally using less electricity, new study finds. A decade ago, they were widely feared as the source of a huge new environmental problem. America's data centers, the vast storehouses of computers that hold everything from Facebook pages to Netflix movies to billions of emails, were guzzling electricity at a ferocious rate, increasing air pollution and greenhouse gases as internet use grew by leaps and bounds. But a new study shows that data centers, also commonly known as "server farms," have slimmed down dramatically. http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_30135940/energy-guzzlers-no-more-data-centers-finally-using Biomass plants make pitch for dead trees to produce electricity. Trees are dying in the Sierra at modern-day unprecedented rates, posing elevated fire danger and creating health, water and air quality concerns, but a possible solution to rid the forest of dead and dying trees is getting short shrift, officials say. California’s biomass industry is set up regionally to turn agricultural waste into electricity while eliminating open burning. But many local biomass plants have closed or are closing soon because it costs less to produce electricity with solar and wind, which get subsidies that are not available to biomass. http://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/article89666272.html#emlnl=Morning_Newsletter MISCELLANEOUS A New Climate Change Documentary Focuses on Solutions, Not Doom. Despite the shrillness of climate deniers in today’s political and media circuses, it’s fair to say that most regular citizens--and nearly all of the global scientific community--know that our planet’s climate is changing, and that those changes are already causing damage to our environments, cities, and economies and will continue to do so on a grander scale in the future. Whether people are jumping from their seats to battle climate change, however, is another thing altogether. More immediate concerns like paying bills and putting food on the table tend to take precedence for obvious reasons. http://www.popsci.com/time-to-choose-is-not-your-typical-climate-change-documentary OPINIONS The Politics of the Greenhouse Gas Law Extension. The California Air Resources Board set a match to controversy this week suggesting that the board could push the cap-and-trade deadline for funding greenhouse gas reduction programs past its 2020 end date by executive fiat. That’s not the way the law works, many Republicans cried, and they are backed up by an opinion from the Legislative Counsel’s Office. http://www.foxandhoundsdaily.com/2016/07/politics-greenhouse-gas-law-extension/ California is in a drought emergency. Visit www.SaveOurH2O.org for water conservation tips.