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The US oil and gas industry is emitting less carbon than it used to

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Monday, June 3, 2024

The U.S. energy industry continues to extract record amounts of fossil fuels, despite climate activists’ calls to ​“keep it in the ground.” But while oil and gas extraction has increased in recent years, the carbon emissions from that industrial activity have actually fallen, a new analysis has found. Even as fossil gas production rose by 40 percent from 2015 to 2022, methane emissions from gas extraction fell by 37 percent, according to a study of Environmental Protection Agency data published today by climate nonprofits Ceres and the Clean Air Task Force. That finding suggests that when energy companies want to, they can effectively reduce emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas with 82 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide over 20 years, and 30 times the warming potential over 100 years. Overall greenhouse gas emissions, which count the industry’s considerable carbon dioxide releases, also fell, but by a more modest 14 percent. There’s a clear playbook for tackling the planet-warming emissions that result from combusting fossil fuels in power plants or vehicles. But the extraction of those fuels happens farther from public view, and adds up to a major source of industrial emissions. Indeed, oil and gas extraction and refining emitted more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than any other industrial subsector last year, the Rhodium Group reports. And while power and transportation emissions are falling, heavy industry is on track to become the largest emitting sector within the next decade. If oil and gas extraction isn’t about to disappear, then making it as clean as possible is a clear win for the climate. The EPA is working on this, with new regulations on the industry’s emissions and an incoming fee on excess methane emissions that was passed in the Inflation Reduction Act. The new report shows that lower-carbon technologies and processes are in fact available, because many, though not all, leading oil companies have already adopted them. “It is possible to produce gas with lower emissions, but not all companies are performing equally,” said Lesley Feldman, who worked on the report and is a research and analysis manager on the Clean Air Task Force’s methane pollution prevention team. ​“We’re poised to have even stronger regulations coming into effect, and it’s important that those are fully implemented.” National fossil fuel production rose substantially from 2015 to 2022, but total methane and overall carbon emissions from that activity actually fell. (Ceres and Clean Air Task Force) Methane emissions fell, even during the Permian oil boom The U.S. oil and gas industry emits a lot of carbon in the process of extracting fossil fuels, which then emit more carbon when they get burned later on. But the emissions trends are heading in the right direction, at least through 2022: Despite vastly more extraction, overall emissions fell. That means the industry is emitting much less carbon per unit of oil or gas produced today than it was seven years ago. The major caveat is that the available EPA dataset underestimates actual emissions, Feldman said. The agency requires reporting only from facilities that emit above a certain threshold, and the rules don’t currently capture super emitter events when large amounts of methane leak out unexpectedly. Field studies have shown that ​“fugitive methane” has been leaking from gas fields at far higher rates than previously assumed; the EPA’s new rules should instigate more accurate reporting of those events. But the current data provides a useful if incomplete picture of the known sources of oil and gas field emissions. To test the thesis that the oil industry can reduce its emissions intensity, there’s no better place to look than the Permian Basin, which has become the heart of domestic oil production since the shale revolution. The basin releases more carbon emissions from fossil fuel extraction than any other U.S. region. Total hydrocarbon production in the Permian more than tripled from 2015 to 2022, and gas production rose by 163 percent. Given that stunning increase in fossil fuel production, one might expect a comparable surge in emissions — but that’s not what happened. Permian methane emissions actually fell by 16 percent by 2022, though they did rise significantly in the intervening years before subsiding again. Driving that improvement, the region’s operators managed to reduce vented methane by 24 percent and cut reported fugitive methane emissions by 22 percent. So far, so good. On the other hand, some producers deal with buildup in gas pressure by burning or flaring it, which converts most of the methane to carbon dioxide before it escapes into the atmosphere. Emissions from flaring in the Permian at the end of 2022 were at double their 2015 levels. Combustion emissions, which come from the equipment that powers extraction, nearly quadrupled during that time. Those increases in carbon dioxide emissions pushed overall GHG emissions up by 65 percent. One big takeaway: Cleaning up Permian oil production will require tackling the on-site combustion of fuels.

The U.S. energy industry continues to extract record amounts of fossil fuels, despite climate activists’ calls to “keep it in the ground.” But while oil and gas extraction has increased in recent years, the carbon emissions from that industrial activity have actually fallen, a new analysis has found. Even as fossil…

The U.S. energy industry continues to extract record amounts of fossil fuels, despite climate activists’ calls to ​“keep it in the ground.” But while oil and gas extraction has increased in recent years, the carbon emissions from that industrial activity have actually fallen, a new analysis has found.

Even as fossil gas production rose by 40 percent from 2015 to 2022, methane emissions from gas extraction fell by 37 percent, according to a study of Environmental Protection Agency data published today by climate nonprofits Ceres and the Clean Air Task Force. That finding suggests that when energy companies want to, they can effectively reduce emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas with 82 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide over 20 years, and 30 times the warming potential over 100 years. Overall greenhouse gas emissions, which count the industry’s considerable carbon dioxide releases, also fell, but by a more modest 14 percent.

There’s a clear playbook for tackling the planet-warming emissions that result from combusting fossil fuels in power plants or vehicles. But the extraction of those fuels happens farther from public view, and adds up to a major source of industrial emissions. Indeed, oil and gas extraction and refining emitted more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than any other industrial subsector last year, the Rhodium Group reports. And while power and transportation emissions are falling, heavy industry is on track to become the largest emitting sector within the next decade.

If oil and gas extraction isn’t about to disappear, then making it as clean as possible is a clear win for the climate. The EPA is working on this, with new regulations on the industry’s emissions and an incoming fee on excess methane emissions that was passed in the Inflation Reduction Act. The new report shows that lower-carbon technologies and processes are in fact available, because many, though not all, leading oil companies have already adopted them.

“It is possible to produce gas with lower emissions, but not all companies are performing equally,” said Lesley Feldman, who worked on the report and is a research and analysis manager on the Clean Air Task Force’s methane pollution prevention team. ​“We’re poised to have even stronger regulations coming into effect, and it’s important that those are fully implemented.”

National fossil fuel production rose substantially from 2015 to 2022, but total methane and overall carbon emissions from that activity actually fell. (Ceres and Clean Air Task Force)

Methane emissions fell, even during the Permian oil boom

The U.S. oil and gas industry emits a lot of carbon in the process of extracting fossil fuels, which then emit more carbon when they get burned later on. But the emissions trends are heading in the right direction, at least through 2022: Despite vastly more extraction, overall emissions fell. That means the industry is emitting much less carbon per unit of oil or gas produced today than it was seven years ago.

The major caveat is that the available EPA dataset underestimates actual emissions, Feldman said. The agency requires reporting only from facilities that emit above a certain threshold, and the rules don’t currently capture super emitter events when large amounts of methane leak out unexpectedly. Field studies have shown that ​“fugitive methane” has been leaking from gas fields at far higher rates than previously assumed; the EPA’s new rules should instigate more accurate reporting of those events. But the current data provides a useful if incomplete picture of the known sources of oil and gas field emissions.

To test the thesis that the oil industry can reduce its emissions intensity, there’s no better place to look than the Permian Basin, which has become the heart of domestic oil production since the shale revolution. The basin releases more carbon emissions from fossil fuel extraction than any other U.S. region.

Total hydrocarbon production in the Permian more than tripled from 2015 to 2022, and gas production rose by 163 percent. Given that stunning increase in fossil fuel production, one might expect a comparable surge in emissions — but that’s not what happened.

Permian methane emissions actually fell by 16 percent by 2022, though they did rise significantly in the intervening years before subsiding again. Driving that improvement, the region’s operators managed to reduce vented methane by 24 percent and cut reported fugitive methane emissions by 22 percent. So far, so good.

On the other hand, some producers deal with buildup in gas pressure by burning or flaring it, which converts most of the methane to carbon dioxide before it escapes into the atmosphere. Emissions from flaring in the Permian at the end of 2022 were at double their 2015 levels. Combustion emissions, which come from the equipment that powers extraction, nearly quadrupled during that time. Those increases in carbon dioxide emissions pushed overall GHG emissions up by 65 percent. One big takeaway: Cleaning up Permian oil production will require tackling the on-site combustion of fuels.

Read the full story here.
Photos courtesy of

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Greenpeace on Trial: $300M Lawsuit over Standing Rock Protests Could Shutter Group & Chill Free Speech

A closely watched civil trial that began in North Dakota last week could bankrupt Greenpeace and chill environmental activism as the climate crisis continues to deepen. The multimillion-dollar lawsuit by Energy Transfer, the oil corporation behind the Dakota Access Pipeline, claims Greenpeace organized the mass protests and encampment at Standing Rock between 2016 and 2017 aimed at stopping construction of the project. Although the uprising at Standing Rock was led by Indigenous water defenders, Energy Transfer is instead going after Greenpeace for $300 million in damages — an amount that could effectively shutter the group’s U.S. operations. “This case is not just an obvious and blatant erasure of Indigenous leadership, of Indigenous resistance,” says Deepa Padmanabha, a senior legal adviser for Greenpeace USA. “It is an attack on the broader movement and all of our First Amendment rights to free speech and peaceful protest.”

A closely watched civil trial that began in North Dakota last week could bankrupt Greenpeace and chill environmental activism as the climate crisis continues to deepen. The multimillion-dollar lawsuit by Energy Transfer, the oil corporation behind the Dakota Access Pipeline, claims Greenpeace organized the mass protests and encampment at Standing Rock between 2016 and 2017 aimed at stopping construction of the project. Although the uprising at Standing Rock was led by Indigenous water defenders, Energy Transfer is instead going after Greenpeace for $300 million in damages — an amount that could effectively shutter the group’s U.S. operations. “This case is not just an obvious and blatant erasure of Indigenous leadership, of Indigenous resistance,” says Deepa Padmanabha, a senior legal adviser for Greenpeace USA. “It is an attack on the broader movement and all of our First Amendment rights to free speech and peaceful protest.”

Activism
Climate
Crisis

Why detecting methane is difficult but crucial work

From handheld to space-based, new methane detectors are making it easier to track the greenhouse gas.

Why detecting methane is difficult but crucial workChristine RoTechnology ReporterHelen GebregiorgisHandheld devices can detect methane and other gasesIn and around Washington DC, volunteers and activists have been walking through streets and homes to see how healthy the air is.They're armed with industry-grade monitors that detect the presence of several gases. The devices look a bit like walkie-talkies.But they are equipped with sensors that reveal the extent of methane, turning this invisible gas into concrete numbers on a screen.Those numbers can be worrying. In a 25-hour period, neighbourhood researchers found 13 outdoor methane leaks at concentrations exceeding the lower explosive limit. They have also found methane leaks within homes.A key concern has been health. Methane and other gases, notably nitrogen oxide from gas stoves, are linked to higher risks of asthma.Djamila Bah, a healthcare worker as well as a tenant leader for the community organisation Action in Montgomery, reports that one out of three children have asthma in the homes tested by the organisation."It's very heartbreaking and alarming when you're doing the testing and then you find out that some people are living in that condition that they can't change for now," Ms Bah says.Methane might be a hazard to human health, but it is also powerful greenhouse gas.While it has a much shorter lifespan in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide (CO2), methane is much better at trapping heat and it accounts for about one-quarter of the rise in global temperature since industrialisation.Methane emissions come from a diverse array of sectors. Chief among these are fossil fuels, waste and agriculture.But methane is not always easy to notice.It can be detected using handheld gas sensors like the ones used by the community researchers. It can also be visualised using infrared cameras, as methane absorbs infrared light.Monitoring can be ground-based, including vehicle-mounted devices, or aerial, including drone-based measurement. Combining technologies is especially helpful."There is no perfect solution," says Andreea Calcan, a programme management officer at the International Methane Emissions Observatory, a UN initiative.There are trade-offs between the cost of technologies and the scale of analysis, which could extend to thousands of facilities.Thankfully, she has seen an expansion of affordable methane sensors in the past decade. So there is no reason to wait on monitoring methane, at any scale. And the world needs to tackle both the small leakages and the high-emitting events, she says.Carbon MapperThe Tanager-1 satellite is designed to spot large methane emissionsAt a larger scale, satellites are often good at pinpointing super-emitters: less frequent but massively emitting events, such as huge oil and gas leaks. Or they can detect the smaller and more spread-out emitters that are much more common, such as cattle farms.Current satellites are typically designed to monitor one scale of emitter, says Riley Duren, the CEO of the Carbon Mapper, a not-for-profit organisation that tracks emissions.He likens this to film cameras. A telephoto lens offers higher resolution, while a wide-angle lens allows a larger field of view.With a new satellite, Carbon Mapper is focusing on high resolution, high sensitivity and rapid detection, to more precisely detect emissions from super-emitters. In August 2024 Carbon Mapper launched the Tanager-1 satellite, together with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Earth imaging company Planet Labs.Carbon MapperA methane plume from a Texan oilfield spotted in September 2024 by Tanager-1Satellites have struggled to spot methane emissions in certain environments, such as poorly maintained oil wells in snowy areas with lots of vegetation. Low light, high latitudes, mountains and offshore areas also present challenges.Mr Duren says that the high-resolution Tanager-1 can respond to some of these challenges, for instance by essentially sneaking peeks through gaps in cloud cover or forest cover."In an oil and gas field, high resolution could be the difference between isolating the methane emissions from an oil well head from an adjacent pipeline," he says. This could help determine exactly who is responsible.Carbon Mapper began releasing emissions data, drawing on Tanager-1 observations, in November.It will take several years to build out the full constellation of satellites, which will depend on funding.Tanager-1 isn't the only new satellite with a focus on delivering methane data. MethaneSAT, a project of the Environmental Defense Fund and private and public partners, also launched in 2024.With the increasing sophistication of all these satellite technologies, "What was previously unseeable is now visible," Mr Duren says. "As a society we're still learning about our true methane footprint."It's clear that better information is needed about methane emissions. Some energy companies have sought to evade methane detection by using "enclosed combustors" to obscure gas flaring.Translating knowledge into action isn't always straightforward. Methane levels continue to rise, even as the information available does as well.For instance, the Methane Alert and Response System (MARS) uses satellite data to detect methane emissions notify companies and governments. The MARS team gathered a large quantity of methane plume images, verified by humans, to train a machine learning model to recognise such plumes.In all the locations that MARS constantly monitors, based on their history of emissions, the model checks for a methane plume every day. Analysts then scrutinise any alerts.Because there are so many locations to be monitored, "this saves us a lot of time," says Itziar Irakulis Loitxate, the remote sensing lead for the International Methane Emissions Observatory, which is responsible for MARS.In the two years since its launch, MARS has sent out over 1,200 alerts for major methane leaks. Only 1% of those have led to responses.However, Ms Irakulis remains optimistic. Some of those alerts led to direct action such as repairs, including cases where emissions ceased even though the oil and gas operator didn't officially provide feedback.And communications are improving all the time, Ms Irakulis says. "I have hope that this 1%, we will see it grow a lot in the next year."At the community level, it's been powerful for residents, such as those in the Washington DC area, to take the air pollution readings themselves and use these to counter misinformation. "Now that we know better, we can do better," says Joelle Novey of Interfaith Power and Light.More Technology of Business

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Lawsuit Accuses Atlanta Police of Illegally Targeting 'Stop Cop City' Protesters

A federal lawsuit accuses Atlanta police of systemically targeting critics of a police and firefighter training center

ATLANTA (AP) — Atlanta police have for years illegally targeted critics of a police and firefighter training center, according to a federal lawsuit filed on behalf of a protester who is one of dozens of “Stop Cop City” activists facing domestic terrorism and racketeering charges.The lawsuit, filed on behalf of Jamie Marsicano, alleges that authorities view any critic of the training center as a would-be criminal and have repeatedly made arrests without cause, depriving protesters of their First Amendment rights and their civil rights protections against false arrest and malicious prosecution. The long-brewing controversy over the training center erupted in January 2023 after state troopers who were part of a sweep of the South River Forest killed an activist who authorities said had fired at them. Numerous protests ensued, with masked vandals sometimes attacking police vehicles and construction equipment to stall the project and intimidate contractors into backing out. Though the training center is nearly complete, dozens of defendants, including Marsicano, are facing a state racketeering charge that critics have decried as heavy-handed attempts to silence the movement, which emerged in the wake of the 2020 racial justice protests. Environmental activists and anti-police demonstrators argued that uprooting acres of trees for the facility would exacerbate environmental damage in a flood-prone, majority-Black area while serving as an expensive staging ground for militarized officers to be trained in quelling social movements.Marsicano, 31, was among 23 people arrested near a music festival in DeKalb County in March 2023, hours after a group of more than 150 masked festivalgoers trekked about three-quarters of a mile (1.2 kilometers) through the South River Forest and stormed the training center's construction site, with some lighting equipment on fire as others threw objects at retreating officers. The group then returned to the festival to blend in with the crowd. According to an arrest warrant, authorities said Marsicano, who uses they/them pronouns, was taken into custody because they had on “muddy clothing” from crossing through the woods and possessed a shield, assertions that Marsicano's attorneys say are false. Marsicano's attorneys say their client was not among the group that attacked the construction site and never left the festival grounds until they were arrested while walking back to their vehicle after police ordered everyone to disperse. Marsicano was caught up in an “indiscriminate mass arrest of legitimate festival attendees” that was part of a pattern spearheaded by Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum of authorities targeting the “Stop Cop City” movement, according to the lawsuit, which was filed Feb. 24.Marsicano was subsequently charged with domestic terrorism and, months later, was one of 61 charged with violating Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, known as RICO.Marsicano was banned from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill campus after their arrest and completed their law degree remotely but has had difficulty finding a job and securing housing because of the charges, according to the lawsuit.Marsicano was “publicly broadcast to the world as a ‘domestic terrorist’ and ‘RICO co-conspirator,’ forever tarnishing Plaintiff’s personal and professional life,” the lawsuit said. The lawsuit lists more than a dozen instances in which authorities “pretextually charged individuals deemed to be at or around Stop Cop City,” including after a May 2022 protest where three people “walking home were selectively stopped for carrying Stop Cop City signs,” and taken into custody. Those arrests, as well as others, have led to civil lawsuits that are pending. Marsicano's lawsuit names various law enforcement officials as well as the city of Atlanta, which it accuses of having made a “custom and practice” of targeting critics of the training center.Neither the Atlanta Police Department nor a spokesperson for the city immediately responded to a request for comment. City officials say the $115 million, 85-acre (34-hectare) campus will replace outdated, far-flung facilities and boost police morale amid hiring and retention struggles. Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens has also said that the facility will teach the “most progressive training and curriculum in the country” and that officials have repeatedly revised their plans to address environmental concerns.Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See - Feb. 2025

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The Endangered Florida Panther Faces the Dual Threats of Urban Sprawl and Increased Traffic

In January, an endangered Florida panther known as UCFP479 became the first to die this year in a vehicle collision along a rural southwestern Florida road

FLORIDA PANTHER NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE, Fla. (AP) — In January, an endangered Florida panther known as UCFP479 became the first to die this year in a vehicle collision along a rural southwestern Florida road.The male panther, just under 2 years old, will not be the last.In 2024, 36 panther deaths were recorded by state wildlife officials, which was the most since 2016. The majority of those deaths are the result of collisions with vehicles, including one that was struck by a train, state statistics show.An estimated 120 to 230 adult Florida panthers live in the wild in the state's southwestern corner, where they are faced with a booming human population and the accompanying development.The Florida panther, which is similar to but smaller than the Western cougar or mountain lion, once roamed across a large swath of the southeastern U.S. Hunting and habitat loss have decimated the species' numbers and confined them to a shrinking space of about 2 million acres (809,000 hectares), according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.Indeed, along what were once narrow country roads in eastern Collier and Lee counties there are numerous major projects under way that will create tens of thousands of homes and the traffic that comes with them.“We’re at a critical juncture now,” said Michael McGrath of the Sierra Club, which recently led a tour of panther country for journalists and activists. “We’re going to see more and more deaths. Sprawl kills.”Environmental groups have been fighting an uphill battle to curb some of the development and vow to continue those efforts.“You can see all of that land is primary panther habitat,” said Amber Crooks, environmental policy manager at the Conservancy of Southwest Florida. “We have to fight until that last decision is made.”The Florida panther is the only established population of pumas east of the Mississippi River, according to the state Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. They have been listed as federally endangered since 1967. A 26,600-acre (10,700-hectare) panther refuge was established in 1989 next to the Big Cypress National Preserve, west of the Everglades.In 1981, the state began capturing panthers to check their health, administer vaccines, take genetic samples and fit them with radio collars to track them.The panther population at one point in the 1990s dropped to around 50 animals, in part because of inbreeding that caused numerous health problems. That led officials to import eight female Texas pumas to Florida to breed with males, helping boost panther numbers and improving their genetic diversity. The offspring are considered to be Florida panthers and are protected under the Endangered Species Act, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Characteristics of panthers Florida panthers resemble the cougars and pumas found in the American West, with beige or tan fur and white markings underneath. They eat various types of prey, especially deer and raccoons.Males tend to roam more than females in search of territory and sometimes are spotted near the Orlando area. One male was shot and killed by a hunter in Georgia in 2008, wildlife officials say. Because males roam more, they are more prone to being struck by vehicles.Panthers face the threat of disease, including a form of feline leukemia transmitted to them by domestic cats. Bobcats also are prone to the disease.A 2002 outbreak of feline leukemia killed at least five panthers, federal wildlife officials say.Another emerging disease appears to cause weakness in the rear legs of panthers and bobcats, many of them seen walking unsteadily on trail video cameras. "We encourage the public to continue to submit footage and pictures of wildlife that appear to have problems with their rear legs,” the Florida wildlife commission said in an online post.Some are killed through fights among themselves, especially males.Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See - Feb. 2025

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How to build data centers without raising grid costs — and emissions

This is the third article in our four-part series “ Boon or bane: What will data centers do to the grid? ” The world’s wealthiest tech companies want to build giant data centers across the United States to feed their AI ambitions, and they want to do it fast. Each data center can use as much electricity as a small…

This is the third article in our four-part series ​“Boon or bane: What will data centers do to the grid?” The world’s wealthiest tech companies want to build giant data centers across the United States to feed their AI ambitions, and they want to do it fast. Each data center can use as much electricity as a small city and cost more than $1 billion to construct. If built, these data centers would unleash a torrent of demand for electricity on the country’s power grids. Utilities, regulators, and policymakers are scrambling to keep pace. If they mismanage their response, it could lead to higher utility bills for customers and far more carbon emissions. But this mad dash for power could also push the U.S. toward a cleaner and cheaper grid — if tech giants and other data center developers decide to treat the looming power crunch as a clean-power opportunity. Utilities from Virginia to Texas are planning to build large numbers of new fossil-gas-fired power plants and to extend the life of coal plants. To justify this, they point to staggering — but dubious — forecasts of how much electricity data centers will gobble up in the coming years, mostly to power the AI efforts of the world’s largest tech companies. Most of the tech giants in question have set ambitious clean energy goals. They’ve also built and procured more clean power than any other corporations in the country, and they’re active investors in or partners of startups working on next-generation carbon-free energy sources like advanced geothermal. But some climate activists and energy analysts believe that given the current frenzy to build AI data centers, these firms have been too passive — too willing to accept the carbon-intensive plans that utilities have laid out on their behalf. It’s time, these critics say, for everyone involved — tech giants, utilities, regulators, and policymakers — to ​“demand better.” That’s how the Sierra Club put it in a recent report urging action from Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and other tech firms driving data center growth across the country. “I’m concerned the gold rush — to the extent there’s a true gold rush around AI — is trumping climate commitments,” said Laurie Williams, director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign and one of the report’s authors. Williams isn’t alone. Climate activists, energy analysts, and policymakers in states with fast-growing data center markets fear that data center developers are prioritizing expediency over solving cost and climate challenges. “I think what we’re seeing is a culture clash,” she said. ​“You have the tech industry, which is used to moving fast and making deals, and a highly regulated utility space.” Some tech firms intend to rely on unproven technologies like small modular nuclear reactors to build emissions-free data centers, an approach that analysts say is needlessly unreliable. Others want to divert electricity from existing nuclear plants — as Amazon hopes to do in Pennsylvania — which simply shifts clean power from utility grids to tech companies. Yet others are simply embracing new gas construction as the best path forward for now, albeit with promises to use cleaner energy down the road, as Meta is doing in Louisiana. Meanwhile, several fossil fuel companies are hoping to convince tech firms and data center developers to largely avoid the power grid by building fossil-gas-fired plants that solely serve data centers — an idea that’s both antithetical to climate goals and, according to industry analysts, impractical. But a number of tech firms and independent data center developers are pursuing more realistic strategies that are both affordable and clean in order to meet their climate goals.  These projects should be the model, clean power advocates say, if we want to ensure the predicted AI-fueled boom in energy demand doesn’t hurt utility customers or climate goals. And ideally, the companies involved would go even further, Williams said, by engaging in utility proceedings to demand a clean energy transition, by bringing their own grid-friendly ​“demand management” and clean power and batteries to the table, and by looking beyond the country’s crowded data center hubs to places with space to build more solar and wind farms. Getting utilities and data centers on the same page The basic mandate of utilities is to provide reliable and affordable energy to all customers. Many utilities also have mandates — issued by either their own executives or state policymakers — to build clean energy and cut carbon emissions. But the scale and urgency of the data center boom has put these priorities on a collision course. As the primary drivers of that conflict, data centers have a responsibility to help out. That’s Brian Janous’ philosophy. He’s the cofounder of Cloverleaf Infrastructure, a developer of sites for large power users, including data centers. Cloverleaf is planning a flagship data center project in Port Washington, a city about 25 miles north of Milwaukee. Cloverleaf aims to build a data center campus that will draw up to 3.5 gigawatts of power from the grid when it reaches full capacity by the end of 2030, ​“which we think could be one of the biggest data center projects in the country,” Janous said. That’s equivalent to the power used by more than 2.5 million homes and a major increase in load for the region’s utility, We Energies, to try to serve. Together with We Energies and its parent company, WEC Energy, Cloverleaf is working on a plan that, the companies hope, will avoid exposing utility customers to increased cost and climate risks. “The utility has done a great job of building a very sustainable path,” Janous said. WEC Energy and Cloverleaf are in discussions to build enough solar, wind, and battery storage to meet more than half the site’s estimated energy needs. The campus may also be able to tap into zero-carbon electricity from the Point Beach nuclear power plant, which is now undergoing a federal relicensing process, he said. The key mechanism of the deal is what Janous called a ​“ring-fenced, bespoke tariff.” That structure is meant to shield other utility customers from paying more than their fair share for infrastructure built to meet data centers’ demand. “This tariff puts it completely in the hands of the buyer what energy mix they’re going to rely on,” he said. That allows Cloverleaf — and whatever customer or customers end up at the site it’s developing — to tap into the wind, solar, and battery storage capacity WEC Energy plans to build to meet its clean energy goals. To be clear, this tariff structure is still being finalized and hasn’t yet been submitted to state utility regulators, said Dan Krueger, WEC Energy’s executive vice president of infrastructure and generation planning. But its fundamental structure is based on what he called a ​“simple, just not easy,” premise: ​“If you come here and you say you’ll pay your own way”— covering the cost of the energy and the transmission grid you’ll use — ​“we invest in power plants” to provide firm and reliable power. “We make sure we can get power to the site, we make sure we have enough capacity to give you firm power, and then we start lining up the resources that can help make you green,” he said. WEC Energy’s broader plans to serve its customers’ growing demand for power haven’t won the backing of environmental advocates. The Sierra Club is protesting the utility’s proposal to build or repower 3 GW of gas-fired power plants in the next several years, and has pressed Microsoft, which is planning its own $3.3 billion data center in We Energies territory, to engage in the state-regulated planning process to demand cleaner options. Krueger said that the gas buildout is part of a larger $28 billion five-year capital plan that includes about $9.1 billion to add 4.3 GW of wind, solar, and battery capacity through 2029. That plan encompasses meeting new demand from a host of large customers including Microsoft, but it doesn’t include the resources being developed for Cloverleaf. Janous said he agreed with the Sierra Club’s proposition that ​“the biggest customers should be using their influence to affect policy.” At the same time, Cloverleaf is building its data center for an eventual customer, and ​“our customers are looking for speed, scale, and sustainability,” in that order. Cementing a tariff with a host utility is a more direct path to achieving this objective, he said. A ​“clean tariff” model for sustainable data center development? Similar developer partnerships between utilities and data centers are popping up nationwide. In Georgia, the Clean Energy Buyers Association and utility Georgia Power are negotiating to give tech companies more freedom to contract for clean energy supplies. In North Carolina, Duke Energy is working with Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and steelmaker Nucor to create tariffs for long-duration energy storage, modular nuclear reactors, and other ​“clean firm” resources. In Nevada, utility NV Energy and Google have proposed a ​“clean transition tariff,” which would commit both companies to securing power from an advanced geothermal plant that Fervo Energy is planning.

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A look at the monumental problem of bird collisions in Chicago, the deadliest city for birds, just ahead of Houston and Dallas. According to scientists, what happens in Chicago can affect bird populations across North America. As many as one billion birds die each year in the United States due to building collisions, but there are people who care and work hard to change this.

Family
Conservation
Activism

The Story of a Forest

In 2004, a generation of activists arose in South Florida, carrying the passion of direct action groups like Earth First. and the deep analysis of the global justice movement that had swept the country in the preceding years. These activists sought local issues that exemplified the threats of corporate globalization. They stumbled upon a plan from biotech industry giants acting in collusion with the administration of then-Governor Jeb Bush to clear a vast swath of land in the Northeast Everglades of Florida to accommodate The Scripps Biotech Research Institute - And it was on. Over the next ten years, endless county zoning meetings were counter-balanced by dozens of civil disobedience arrests and a near-constant flow of news headlines about the battle: lawsuits, scandal, corruption, tree sits, endangered species, pranks, blockades, and a roller coaster of incremental victories followed by devastating losses for years on end. THE STORY OF A FOREST captures it all in a 1/2 hour documentary about the Palm Beach County Environmental Coalition (PBCEC) and Everglades Earth First!'s (EEF!) ten-plus year campaign to stop the Scripps Biotech development, with a focus on protecting biodiversity in the Briger forest and the Florida wetlands.

Activism
Forests
Business

CHAO CARBÓN DOCUMENTARY

Mr. Aes Gener is a greedy mega-entrepreneur in the energy business. Through his story we get into the dirty business he has done in Chile and the world with coal, while we see, through archival footage, the damage to people and nature of this obsolete and polluting fossil fuel.

Energy
Pollution
Activism

The Green Amendment: New Mexico, Part One

Join Maya van Rossum, Founder of Green Amendments For The Generations, in her exploration of New Mexico’s biggest environmental issues and the role a NM Green Amendment could play in the fight for environmental justice with: Senator Antoinette Sedillo Lopez, legislative sponsor of the New Mexico Green Amendment; Emma Rose Cohen, CEO/Founder of the sustainable business Final; Beata Tsosie-Peña, Environmental Health and Justice Program Coordinator for Tewa Women United; Artemisio Romero y Carver, founding member of Youth United for Climate Crisis Action (YUCCA); and Dee George and Penny Aucoin, fracking waste accident victims impacted residents of Otis, NM.

Government
Activism
Documentary

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