The Importance of Open Disagreement to Science, and Why Mean Tweeters Like Mann are Missing in Forest Science

The Mann trial was supposed to be  part of Roundup #2, but as you can see below, I got a bit carried away.

I read an op-ed this week by Loolwa Khazzoom, who said:

We are all pieces of a highly complex puzzle. When we listen instead of project, discuss instead of argue, and have a goal of learning instead of winning – approaching dialogue with an attitude of curiosity and discovery – we can benefit from the unique life experience and thought process that we each bring to the table.

Which is my belief as well. Otherwise I wouldn’t spend so much time on The Smokey Wire and similar efforts. Also this week, I followed along on the highly entertaining podcast Climate Change on Trial presented by the Unreported Story Society. I think it’s safe to say that Michael Mann, the climate scientist and plaintiff in the defamation lawsuit against two bloggers, Mark Steyn and Rand Simberg, would not agree with that statement on the utility of listening and “approaching dialogue with an attitude of curiosity and discovery.”

At first, I thought the trial was a bit ridiculous. As if what two random bloggers wrote could actually defame Mann any more than a cursory examination of his Twitter feed, and that that would effect his financial remuneration in terms of research grants. Were they kidding? Then it turned out that this defamation biz had been going on for 12 years (!), and no one knows who is paying Mann’s court fees. My view is that in a just world, the jury would have awarded the past 12 years of legal fees to Steyn and Simberg. Of course, as a random blogger myself, maybe I’m being too sensitive. But it was OK, I guess, because according to the Hill, these guys are “right-wing” bloggers and I’m not.

So, at first, I was glad that scientists in our forest fields generally don’t behave that way. And I wondered if a podcast on some of our fuels treatment court cases with key parts being reenacted would be as entertaining. But as we delved into the Mann Tweets and emails, I wondered “how could that level of meanness be tolerated?” and “why was it OK for him to do what most of us would never consider doing?,” and “whose job is it to keep our convos civil, if anyone?”

The story of how all this developed was fascinating, at least to me. For those of you who don’t know, Mann was famous for the hockey stick graph, splicing together various measures of past temperatures including our very own tree rings. When someone asked for the data, he was unwilling to part with it, at least at the beginning. He clearly wasn’t a fan of FOIA either, forwarding a message to others to delete emails. The release of the Climategate emails was not a good moment for him.  If you were to ask him, I’m sure that he saw these as efforts to impugn climate science, and (thus, naturally, to him) he became combative in its (his own) defense.  It became a “good guys vs. bad guys” thing, with him, naturally, on the self-defined “good guys” side.

At the same time, you or I could also say that science should stand up to independent scrutiny, and that if someone wants the original data, they should be able to access it. I don’t think that that would be a big problem in forest science world. So what happened here? Perhaps Mann felt that the stakes were so high, it makes usual scientific practices and conduct obsolete. Some of us might say that that correlates at .99 with his self-interest, so.. But on the other hand, billions of dollar have been spent on climate science and Mann is just one of millions of climate scientists around the world, so the hockey stick is not all that important at the end of the day. But that’s today, and perhaps not when the posts were posted.

I started to think “what went wrong here?” and “are there lessons for us in less-favored and financed disciplines to learn?” Many of us belong to scientific and professional societies, universities and agencies, with codes of conduct that incorporate ideas like collegiality and respectful communications.

Dr. Curry (she of Mann’s so-called “slept her way to the top” email to Gavin Schmidt at NASA) drafted a complaint which she never sent:

“This defamation is affecting my academic reputation and my ability to conduct business. I note that I am far from the only person being attacked and libeled by Dr. Mann.
Penn State Policy AD47 (General Standards of Professional Ethics) states that professors have obligations as members of the “community of scholars” and are required to “respect and defend” free inquiry by other members of the community and to show “due respect” for the opinions of others:

IV.As colleagues, professors have obligations that derive from common membership in the community of scholars. They respect and defend the free inquiry of their associates. In the exchange of criticism and ideas they show due respect for the opinions of others.

“The policy also states that researchers are required to be “open-minded when evaluating the work of others” even if that may “contradict their own findings”:

III…. As open-minded researchers, when evaluating the work of others, they must recognize the responsibility to allow publication of theories or experiments that may contradict their own findings, as only by free inquiry and dissemination of all facts will the fruits of the labor of the whole community be allowed to mature.

Policy HR64 says (my bold) that faculty members have “special obligations” as persons of learning and as educators and are obliged to “exercise appropriate restraint” and “to show
respect for the opinions of others” Faculty members are citizens, members of learned professions, and representatives of this University. When the faculty member speaks or writes as a citizen, the faculty member shall be free from institutional censorship or discipline, but the special position in the community held by the faculty member imposes special obligations. As a person of learning and an educator, the faculty member is expected to remember that the public may judge the profession and institution by his/her utterances. Hence, the faculty member agrees at all times to be accurate, to exercise appropriate restraint, to show respect for the opinions of others, and to make every effort to indicate that he/she is not an institutional spokesperson.”

Curry didn’t send it to Penn State because, as she says in her post .

“after all, the damage to my career was already done and I wasn’t clear where this would lead or whether it would have any effect.”

I wonder how Mann could have acted against these rules for so long with no one calling him on it.  I wonder if the folks he emailed (work emails) ever said, “hey, I’m not interested in gossip about our colleagues’ sex lives”,” or “maybe you should tone it down on  Twitter” or “I’m not sure we should try to evade FOIAs and delete emails.” From the court records, it sounded like a few people did.  If more had done so, could this all have turned out differently?

And how did he get awards from prestigious organizations for “science communication?” Was anyone reading his Tweets?

“I am truly humbled to receive the Stephen Schneider Award for Outstanding Climate Science Communications,” said Mann. “While none of us can fill the very large shoes Steve left behind, we can honor his legacy by doing our best to inform the public discourse over human-caused climate change in an objective, clear and effective manner.”

I don’t blame Mann for all of this.   People don’t always behave well when left to their own devices. This is a fact of human nature. That is why we have laws, law enforcement, codes of conduct and enforcement protocols.  It is the role of institutions to enforce their own rules.  And yet they apparently are not, at least in certain cases.

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Having listened to the podcast of the case, I was amused by this NPR story:

In a D.C. courtroom, a trial is wrapping up this week with big stakes for climate science. One of the world’s most prominent climate scientists is suing a right-wing author and a policy analyst for defamation.

The case comes at a time when attacks on scientists are proliferating, says Peter Hotez, professor of Pediatrics and Molecular Virology at Baylor College of Medicine. Even as misinformation about scientists and their work keeps growing, Hotez says scientists haven’t yet found a good way to respond.

“The reason we’re sort of fumbling at this is it’s unprecedented. And there is no roadmap,” he says.

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Imran Ahmed, chief executive at the Center for Countering Digital Hate, says any response has to include social media companies, as that’s where attacks on scientists happen every day. Research finds that social media platforms can encourage the spread of scientific and medical misinformation.

Hotez says he and Mann are working on an upcoming project, collaborating on what they see as overlap in attacks on climate science and biomedicine and how to counter it.

Was NPR even in the room? I guess you don’t have to actually observe things when you can just ask your friends what they think.

With all due respect to Hotez and Mann, having discussions and disagreeing is what science is about in the pursuit of truth; actually even outside of “science,” as in Khazzoom’s quote at the top of this post.  Characterizing people who disagree as “attackers” with “disinformation” who need to be throttled down is bad for discourse, bad for the public trust (yes, that public, the ones who vote for research budgets) and bad for science.  I’m curious as to why, of all the disciplines and subdisciplines in science and engineering, only these two fields (climate and Covid) seem to have this problem highlighted? Perhaps they have bought into a form of politics-science mutualism.  In the same way that a phone call changed the views of the virologists and led to the Proximal Origins paper on Covid origins, in the Mann case a discussion with the President of Penn State led the inquiry team to change its findings on censuring Mann.  Where disciplinary self-interest, institutional self-protection and larger world politics meet.. is probably not a good place for the rest of us, nor for any truth to come out.  And it’s definitely not “science.”

Aren’t we fortunate that we don’t have these issues in forest science? Do we manage it better, are the stakes so low no one cares for high quasi-political drama, or are we just lucky as to the character of our scientists? What do you think?

Energy News II: LNG Exports and Met Co-location of Renewables Idea

LNG Exports

I guess the big news is the Admin’s LNG export infrastructure pause. I think the Admin’s reasoning was climate-related, or at least related to desires of certain climate activist types.  The Admin claimed that the analysis was out of date. Which I think is true, since there has been a war in Ukraine and hopeful a general reduction in Russian LNG exports to them.  Except that those need to be replaced by someone or something.  In the absence of our contribution, would that mean that worldwide supply would go down, which means Russia could make more money.. and our European allies trust us less.  This is all pretty obvious, but what I hadn’t heard in most of the coverage was that if exports are cut off, then it’s a boon to our own domestic gas prices (so will we use more?), and a boon to chemical industries who will make more profits (and produce more? with environmental implications?).  Thanks to Doomberg for that additional information.  Who knows? This seems to me like silly season fire hose flailing to get support from certain quarters (the Bill McKibben/John Podesta/random activists nexus), seemingly more of a political symbolic gesture than actually reducing emissions.  And yet.. wars use a great deal of carbon, so wouldn’t we want to starve Russia of profits?

I guess there are two questions in my mind: 1) will restricting exports have any net impacts on carbon emissions?  2) will restricting exports actually cause more carbon to be emitted due to the actions of other countries? (e.g. continuing to fund war, firing up coal plants)?

The industry association Eurogas was quick to condemn the move:

Europe is committed to phase out its dependency on Russian gas in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and has tied this shift to its 2050 climate goals. In achieving both, imports of US LNG have increased by both volume and importance, and have helped to stabilise gas and electricity prices for European consumers. However, current volumes of LNG coming from the US still leave a supply gap, for which we must continue to increase imports, rather than scale them back, as has been put forward by some interests in the US’ governing institutions.

If additional US LNG export capacities don’t materialise it would risk increasing and prolonging the global supply imbalance. This would inevitably prolong the period of price volatility in Europe and could lead to price increases with the consequent implications that would have for economic turmoil and social impact.

Now if Europe has economic and social turmoil, it’s possible that they might elect folks who don’t care about energy transitions that much and reduce efforts.. so there’s another potential impact.

So glad, I’m not involved in any EIS’s for these…it’s not clear to me what’s “reasonably foreseeable”.

Musician Has Federal Lands Co-Location Idea

Interesting idea of musician Met: Co-locating O&G and renewables on federal land. 

The idea began a little over two years ago with researchers at Planet Reimagined, a climate-focused nonprofit co-founded by Met. He said they mapped the federally leased oil-and-gas land and then worked with someone from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to determine the photovoltaic potential and the annual wind speeds on those leases. “There’s so much opportunity,” Met said.

New renewable generation can be built more quickly and cheaply on these sites, Met said. For instance, wind and solar applications could reuse the environmental site data collected for the original oil-and-gas project’s approval, cutting years off the environmental assessment process, he said. Sites often already have infrastructure including roads and power grid connections, reducing building costs and time.

Co-locating also avoids adding to the competition for land between conservation, agriculture, renewables, industry and other uses. It can also help transition the business of small, mom-and-pop oil-and-gas producers, their communities and their workers. Independent operators with a median of 12 employees produced 83% of U.S. oil and 90% of its gas in 2019, according to the latest data available from the Independent Petroleum Association of America.

Now I don’t remember seeing electric lines to O&G rigs and production equipment out on federal land, which seems like it could be a problem.  So I asked a person online who is familiar with the industry (and if TSW readers know more, please help out.)

The great majority of Federal O&G leases are in remote areas and most are probably are not connected to the grid. The drilling rigs have their own electric generation equipment, which moves on with the rig after the well is drilled. Most production equipment do not require electric service. However some centralized facilities serve multiple wellsites, and those sites generally source their electrical need from small onsite generators, or if they happen to be near a municipal infrastructure, they will connect to local utility lines. In many cases, production equipment can operate on a small amount of electricity produced by a small solar panel with battery backup. The point being, not much electricity is required for the average operating site.

It seems like it might be a good idea, but we run into the need for those pesky and expensive transmission lines again.  Perhaps building them along existing roads would not be so bad.  Anyway, it’s a novel and interesting  idea from an unusual source.

FIA is National Treasure; Eastern Forests are Thriving in Current Climate

Story worth reading by journalist Gabe Popkin, including a journalistic shout-out to FIA:

To my mind, the FIA is a national treasure, like the James Webb Space Telescope. There’s probably no comparable public dataset in the world, yet unlike the James Webb, most people have never heard of it.

It’s long been known both from FIA and other data that eastern U.S. forests are soaking up carbon dioxide as they rebound from a near-total deforestation that started in the early 1600s and ended only in the early 1900s. One shocking photo I came across recently shows what is now the Brookland neighborhood of Washington, D.C. during the Civil War.

A view of Fort Bunker Hill and a military camp in what is now Washington, D.C.’s Brookland neighborhood. See here for more details. Source: Library of Congress

Sidenote: I’ve been reading a memoir by an Alexandria native who describes the Union Army cutting their woodlands for firewood and structures, so I imagine that’s part of what happened to this area as were farm fields.

This desolate scene is hard to square with the lush, green city D.C. is today, especially in outlying neighborhoods like Brookland. Yet around the time of the Civil War, large swaths of the District were apparently nearly as treeless as a western desert — as, indeed, was much of the eastern half of the country.

The scientists found, unsurprisingly, that American forests have bulked up as they rebound from the deforestation that created scenes like the one captured in the photo. While this regrowth will eventually taper off as forests mature, so far it seems to be going strong.

More remarkably, the researchers also found that regrowth alone cannot explain the blistering pace at which our trees are putting on wood. By examining forest growth rates while controlling for age-related differences, the scientists determined that something else is supercharging growth.

And while the study did not directly answer what that something is, the authors highlighted one likely explanation: Trees are gobbling up some of the excess carbon dioxide we’re putting into the atmosphere. Essentially, by burning fossil fuels in our cars, buildings and factories, we are fertilizing nature. And nature is responding.

Many studies have speculated about carbon fertilization using computer models, experiments and theory. It’s clear that all things being equal, plant leaves respond to higher carbon dioxide levels by ramping up photosynthesis (the biochemical process plants use to turn carbon dioxide into sugars), which could cause plants to grow faster and ultimately store more carbon.

But in nature, many things can affect how fast trees grow. Experiments have pumped high levels of carbon dioxide into young forests and found that trees initially grew faster than in unfertilized control plots but eventually leveled off, presumably as nutrient limitations or other factors throttled trees’ growth rates.

The new study is among the first to provide clear evidence that real-world forests over a vast landscape are indeed able to use the extra CO2 to bulk up. And our trees are feasting on carbon dioxide, those in other places with moderate temperatures and ample moisture, such as northern Europe and eastern Asia, likely are too.

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Now, “carbon fertilization” might sound like a wonky scientific abstraction. But for the 180 million of us who live in this part of the world, it has had real, measurable benefits. The trees in our neighborhoods and parks, and even our own yards, have grown faster than they otherwise would have. That means more shade, more storm protection, more wildlife habitat — and, not least of all, more wood. We have all benefited, in multiple ways.

Now, on to the western US:

In the western U.S., unfortunately, the data tell a different story. Forests there are growing less and less robustly, as heat and drought limit trees’ ability to benefit from high CO2 levels. (Interestingly, the Forest Service has reported this for years based on FIA data, but I suspect their reports rarely get read.)

The plight of western forests has gotten plenty of coverage, so I won’t dwell on it here except to note that the fact that some forests are benefiting from high CO2 levels does not mean we can simply assume that all forests will — and certainly does not suggest we don’t need to worry about climate change.

I asked Lichstein and his colleague Aaron Hogan what implications their research has for natural climate solutions — the idea that natural ecosystems like forests can soak up some of the carbon dioxide we humans emit by burning fossil fuels. Their answer, perhaps surprisingly, was not much. In fact, they said that at the global scale, the strength of the carbon fertilization effect is probably exaggerated in most of the computer models scientists use to forecast climate trends.

In other words, as future warming stresses forests, they will probably absorb a smaller and smaller fraction of our total carbon dioxide emissions. Right now that fraction is one quarter, so the strength of the carbon sink diminishes, we could be in real trouble.

This aligns with my view, based on years of reporting on forest science, that at a broad scale, forests and other ecosystems are probably already doing about as much as we can hope for to slow climate change. The idea that we’re going to jam tons of additional carbon into trees or soil strikes me as more aspirational than realistic.

It seems to me that there are three things going on here (which may be investigated somewhere, hopefully commenters will point this out).  1. Western forests are very different from each other, and some (like the Black Hills) are supposed to be getting wetter based on climate models. 2. Fire suppression allowed many more trees (increased density over time)  in some spots, so competition for water would cause them to grow more slowly. 3. After cutting trees for railroads, firewood, and lumber in various places, at various times from in the 1800s and 1900’s trees are growing back and age might be an important reason that growth slows down.  I don’t know how well the study adjusted for those factors.

It’s also worth noting that most of these fast-growing forests are not in parks or preserves, but on private land. That means they can legally be cut down, but it also means that millions of people have a stake in them. The public ownership that’s more common in the West — and that’s often assumed to be more protective — can also be more neglectful, especially when governments don’t have the resources to properly care for vast tracts they’ve been tasked to manage.

While private ownership is not a panacea either, when a lot of people live among forests, there are a lot of people with reasons to keep an eye on them and care for them. Technologically speaking, we could easily cut down every tree in the eastern U.S. — as far fewer, less technologically advanced people once did. Yet instead, we’ve allowed them to grow at the same time that our own population has grown.

This pushes strongly against what I would describe against the prevailing narrative that people are simply bad for trees. This kind of simplification has even been embraced by the august New Yorker, a publication I would expect to do better.

It’s time to ditch simplistic morality tales for a more nuanced and reality-based view of the relationship between trees and humans. After all, we need trees to thrive in places where people actually live. I’ve argued previously that the densely populated Mid-Atlantic could be a climate refuge, in part because our cities and towns are embedded within what, so far at least, appear to be remarkably climate-resilient forests. The new study suggests the same might be said about much of the eastern U.S.

Flowers Grow in Openings in Ponderosa Pine Forests: Bees Like Flowers; Thinning Good for Biodiversity

This is an interesting and pretty comprehensive story from the Colorado Sun. Kind of a bee-centric take on desirable vegetation structures. Ecology is a funny thing in that there are all kinds of ecologists interested in all kinds of critters who may not prefer the same kinds of vegetation. So what is the “ecological work” that needs to be done- and what variety of ecologist decides?

The more-than-decadelong effort to thin Front Range forests to reduce fire danger has brought more bees, more flowers and increased resilience to climate change, new research shows.

The raw number and the diversity of bees and plants exploded a few years after ponderosa pine forests were restored to a “pre-European” state, researchers from Colorado State and Utah State universities found.

“We found that if you cut trees and open up the canopy, between three and 10 years later, you see a pretty good response,” said Seth Davis, associate professor of forest and rangeland stewardship at Colorado State University and co-author of a study recently published in “Ecological Applications.”

“Forest restoration and forest thinning is one of the ways that we can conserve our native communities.”

I like that reporter provided the historical context for how these particular forests came to be.

For thousands of years, natural fires have been an integral part of healthy forest ecosystems in the West. Small fires that clear out underbrush every five to 30 years as well as more devastating fires that can raze the forest to the ground every 50 to 100 or more years clear the way for new growth. Native Americans were known to set small fires to clear out undergrowth for better hunting and regeneration of valuable plants, but did not cause major changes in the ecosystem. Then, beginning in 1859, Euro-Americans flooded into Colorado seeking gold and silver.

I’m not sure that’s accurate; not sure that we can know whether larger pre-European fires were set intentionally. Larger fires did occur.

“Suddenly, in a span of decades, the Colorado Rockies were engulfed by this new, highly unpredictable world of commodity capitalism, of smelters and railroad investment, of boomtowns and sudden busts, of landscape changes so fundamental that they dwarfed the modest human impacts made over the prior 10 centuries,” historical geographer William Wyckoff wrote in his book “Creating Colorado.”

Vast swaths of the Front Range forests were cleared to obtain wood for mining, construction and railroads. Extensive fires also surged across the landscape, fueled by accidental and intentional fires.

To combat the rampant and unregulated logging of these forests, the federal government in the early years of the 20th century created the White River, Pike, and Arapaho and Roosevelt national forests along the Front Range and high into the Rockies. At about the same time, firefighters began trying to suppress all fires.

As a result, over the past century, dense forests with thick undergrowth have grown up across the Front Range and the entire West. Many of the plants that thrived in the pre-European forests disappeared from the now shady forest floor. And with them went many of the animals that ate and pollinated them. You end up with a rather homogeneous landscape that doesn’t have a lot of flowers in it,” Davis said. “You end up with a situation where you can’t have a lot of native bees there.”

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They found an impressively richer, more dense and resilient web of life. While the bee population roughly doubled, the number of interactions between bees and plants rose eightfold and there were five times as many unique connections between specific bee species and plant species.

The researchers illustrated the interactions in a diagram, which visually depicts a richer, more complex web of life.

“Yeah, it’s kind of mind-blowing,” Davis said. “You just see there’s just far more diversity or more complexity.

“You get the idea that if you lost one or two of the flowers or one or two of the bees out of this system, the whole network doesn’t just collapse and fall apart. Whereas on these control plots, if you remove one or two things, you just got a lot more vulnerable ecosystem.”

“This paper is a strong piece of evidence for the ecosystem benefits of forest thinning in areas where fire has been suppressed and the canopy is overgrown,” said Amy Yarger, director of horticulture at the Butterfly Pavilion. She was not involved in the research. “With climate change and biodiversity loss posing existential threats, mindful forest management is key for conservation and for preserving our way of life in Colorado.”

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“Here are some really key species for supporting a lot of biodiversity of pollinators, which in turn supports biodiversity of plants,” said Julian Resasco, assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Colorado. “Things that maintain the integrity and the diversity of these ecosystems make them more robust to other threats, like climate change.”

The researchers recommended that forest managers seed ponderosa pine forests with these plants to promote a robust pollinator network. They also could be good plants for people to plant in their gardens. “These are good choices for planting because they’re going to support the bee-flower interaction network,” Davis said.

He believes the environmental benefits extend beyond bees and plants. “We’re sort of measuring one little component of the overall food web here,” Davis said. “By bolstering their abundances, you’re also bolstering the abundances of things which prey upon them, like predators, which could be birds and other animals.” Another study from 2020 suggests that the thinned forests also benefited bird populations.

Not every scientific paper reminds me of an old pop song.. birds, bees, flowers, trees, this paper has it all.

Decarbonizing the West Workshop Dec. 12 and 13.. Some Interesting Stuff

This one is free…if anyone’s interesting in attending all of parts and writing it up for The Smokey Wire, it would be greatly appreciated.

The second workshop of Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon’s WGA Chair initiative, Decarbonizing the West, will be held in Boise, Idaho, on December 12 and 13.

The two-day workshop will focus on topics related to natural carbon sequestration, including agriculture, forestry, and land management. It will feature roundtable discussions with carbon capture experts from around the region, including the Idaho National Laboratory, as well as remarks from Governor Gordon and Idaho Governor Brad Little.

View the agenda below and register here to watch a FREE livestream of the event.

You can also watch recordings of the first Decarbonizing the West initiative workshop, which explored the potential of carbon capture, utilization, and storage technologies, here.


December 12

12:30 p.m.: Welcome and Introductions  

– Jack Waldorf, WGA Executive Director

12:40: Opening Remarks 

– The Honorable Brad Little, Governor of Idaho

12:50 – 1:55 p.m.: Roundtable 1: Dairy Digesters and Agricultural Waste

Digesters can significantly mitigate greenhouse gas emissions from livestock production by capturing methane that would otherwise be released from manure.  The resulting biogas can be used to meet on-farm energy needs or sold on the market.  This panel will explore the opportunities, challenges, and benefits for biogas recovery and how digester systems can contribute to overall emissions reduction in the agricultural sector.

Panelists:  Andre Brasil, Senior Director, Business Development, California BioEnergy LLC; John Olshefski, Ingevity; and Jesse Burson, Supply Development Lead, Renewable Natural Gas, Shell.

Moderated by: Rick Naerebout, Chief Executive Officer, Idaho Dairymen’s Association

1:55 - 2:50 p.m.: Roundtable 2: Climate-Smart Agriculture

Increasing adoption rates of climate-aware practices is one of the most effective ways to reduce the effects of carbon emissions from the agriculture sector.  Incentivizing new practices, compensating producers for less-efficient yields, and building demand for agriculture-based carbon markets are a few of the approaches to accelerate adoption by producers.

Panelists:  Bill Jaeger, Strategic Initiatives Officer, LOR Foundation; Myles Gray, Program Director, U.S. Biochar Initiative; and Tony Schoonen, Chief Executive Officer, Boone and Crocket Club.

Moderated By: Kirsten Boysen, Managing Director, Colorado Department of Agriculture, Drought and Climate Office

2:55 – 3:50 p.m. Roundtable 3: Decarbonizing through Integrated Energy Systems  

Idaho National Laboratory’s Integrated Energy Systems Program, supported by the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy, conducts research, development, and deployment activities to expand the role of nuclear energy beyond the grid for various industrial, transportation, and energy storage applications.  INL’s work on integrated energy systems and other research areas such as biomass, hydrogen, ammonia, and nuclear for heat and electricity generation can enhance utilization of low or non-emitting energy generation, bolster grid resiliency, and help achieve clean energy economy goals. The panel will discuss various decarbonization pathways and provide insights on the techno-economic and socio-economic effects of deployment on the energy economy.

Panelists: Eric Dufek, Department Manager, Energy Storage & Electric Transportation Department; Seth Snyder, Program Director, Energy, Environment Science and Technology; David Thompson, Chief Scientist, Bioenergy, Ning Kang, Department Manager, Power and Energy Systems; and Ning Kang, Department Manager, Power and Energy Systems.

Moderated by: Todd Combs, Associate Laboratory Director

4:00 – 4:55 p.m.: Roundtable 4: Carbon Storage in Mass Timber

Forests are excellent at sequestering carbon into biomass, but less effective at retaining carbon over long timescales.  Stabilizing forest carbon within long-lived building materials presents a powerful opportunity to not only mitigate carbon emissions from wildfires and decomposition, but also to defray the costs of forest health treatments.  Achieving these dual benefits requires growing both the supply chains for mass timber products as well as the markets for utilizing them.  This panel will examine strategies for expanding mass timber utilization and its benefits for forest restoration economics and natural carbon sequestration.

Panelists:Jennifer Okerlund, Director, Idaho Forest Products Commission; Bill Parsons, Chief Operating Officer, WoodWorks – Wood Product Council; and Julie Kies, U.S. Forest Service, Wood Innovations Program Manager.

Moderated by: Rachael Jamison, Vice President, Markets and Sustainability, American Wood Council

5:00 p.m.: Adjourn 

December 13

8:30 a.m.: Decarbonizing the West Initiative Remarks

– The Honorable Mark Gordon, Governor of Wyoming

8:45 – 9:40 a.m.: Roundtable 5: Balancing Carbon Stewardship Management Goals   

Forests and grasslands sequester about 14 percent of the United States’ carbon emissions and represent one of the largest opportunities for large-scale carbon removal.  Management actions can be strategically selected to optimize carbon sequestration and storage while meeting other management objectives.  This is a delicate balancing act, however, that increases the potential for unintentional outcomes.  The panel will examine the nuances of carbon stewardship and the potential benefits of carbon optimization projects on forests and rangelands.

Panelists: Matt DiBona, District Biologist, National Wild Turkey Federation; Jim Elbin, Trust Lands Division Administrator, Idaho Department of Lands; and Katharyn Duffy, Director of Science Operations, Vibrant Planet

Moderated by: Todd Ontl, Climate Adaptation Specialist, U.S. Forest Service.

9:45 – 10:40 a.m.: Roundtable 6:  Incentivizing Carbon Reductions  

Voluntary carbon markets have emerged as a dynamic and evolving method of reducing carbon emissions.  These markets allow businesses, organizations, and individuals to take proactive steps to reduce their carbon footprint.  Carbon markets can drive innovation, support sustainable projects, and promote environmental stewardship.  In recent years, these markets have expanded, presenting both challenges and opportunities to meet carbon reduction goals.  This panel will explore the potential pitfalls and opportunities to support broader carbon dioxide reduction activities through voluntary carbon markets.

Panelists: Brian DiMarino, Head of Operational Sustainability, JP Morgan Chase; Spencer Plumb, Senior Manager, Forest Market Innovation, Verra; and Matt Bright, Director of External Affairs, CarbonCapture Inc.

10:50 - 11:45 a.m.: Roundtable 7: Innovative Finance for Carbon Benefits  

Healthy forests are a prerequisite for natural carbon sequestration, but funding can be a limiting factor for forest restoration or afforestation projects.  Innovative strategies for providing forestry assistance have demonstrated that unconventional approaches can yield significant carbon sequestration benefits.  Instead of relying exclusively on public resources, these strategies leverage a mixture of funding sources, technical assistance, and other resources to support forest health and carbon sequestration.  In this panel, participants will discuss how innovative finance mechanisms and partnerships can catalyze investment in natural climate solutions.

Panelists: Mary Mitsos, President and CEO, National Forest Foundation; Luke Hawbaker, Director of Business Development and Partnerships, Mast Reforestation; and Jill Ozarski, Program Officer, Environment, Walton Family Foundation.

Moderated By: John Oppenheimer, Government Relations Director, Idaho Conservation League

11:45 a.m.: Recap and Takeaways 

 

ANPR Climate Resilient Forests and Grasslands- Update Webinar Link

I know, I know. A person could get confused because “climate resilience” sounds like its about adaptation, and the MOG discussion seems to be mostly about carbon, or at least the arguments for not cutting trees.. which we have been listening to for 40 years or thereabouts.. are now centered about carbon.  And of course, every little thing the FS does on the landscape needs to have some kind of climate considerations, and has for at least 15 years or so. So the ANPR seems to be asking for “suggestions about anything that the FS does.” I wonder how many other agencies have had a rule making that opens up “everything it does.”

In fact, the FS has what I consider to be an excellent document about climate adaptation.   And many of the people on these calls talk about MOG.  But I’ve been told by internal and external People Who Should Know that it’s really about resilience and not about MOG. Meanwhile ENGOs are working on a MOG policy solution with CEQ, the FS and others.

I’m a general fan of the FS, as you all know, but I would point out a couple of my concerns.   They used an abstraction in the webinar-  “active management” -regularly without defining it.  Fire suppression is active management, prescribed fire, planting trees, timber harvest and so on are all active.  Based on the views of the form letters I read in response to the ANPR and the views of people on our webinars, I’d say that most people with concerns did not want commercial timber harvest, although they said “logging”, which is not exactly well defined at the project level.  Tree cutting, or tree cutting and removal using heavy equipment, or tree cutting and pile burning, or  just commercial timber harvest but maybe not commercial firewood.. So that’s one thing.

My other quibble was with analyzing comments using AI (in this case, natural language processing).  I recently had a bad experience with AI so perhaps am a bit grumpy about it.  You’ll remember I FOIAd both CEQ and USDA for documents with “fire retardant” in them.  USDA gave me the documents they had, as far as I know,  including messages from key people at CEQ.  CEQ did not give me those messages, but did give me a DOE annual report and a mass of unrelated material.  Apparently, that was due to their AI, or perhaps someone did not type in exactly the right search term. It seems to me that using AI is not necessarily increasing transparency nor trust.  I’d argue that to build citizen confidence, each AI application during a test period should have the standard human approach run concurrently and both sets of results published and open for comment (aka Lessons Learned).  I have noticed that contractors and I didn’t always pick the same way of analyzing comments either, so perhaps there’s not one “human” way.  But the results would then be compared in one document that the public could view.   I would see this as needed only for rule making; in my experience, projects are not as complex for content analysis. Also the decision makers for projects and even plans tend to be close enough to the disagreements that they have a base understanding of them.  I am not so sure that’s true of the politicals involved in rule-making.. if they only listen to their friends, then the public comment summaries are key element of their understanding of opposing views.

I’d bet that “double coverage” would be expected and required, say, in fire suppression applications. To increase trust, accountability is also important.  AI, without careful management, could also be an escape valve for accountability, as in “Sorry, folks, the AI did it.” Similar to “it’s not our fault, it’s climate change.”

Anyway,  here’s a link to the presentation. I’m curious what strikes you about it.

Slouching Toward Industrial Policy I. Let’s Do a Programmatic EIS for Decarbonization!

What about a collaborative process for decarbonization?

This week, I’m going to post a series of NEPA papers for discussion.  But I’d like to start out with a fairly wild idea.  Last month, I attended a conference put on by The Breakthrough Institute titled “Slouching Toward Industrial Policy.”  For the past years (20 or more), the US has been debating how exactly to decarbonize.    In the Obama and Biden Administrations, the tendency has been to go for solar and wind and hope for batteries.  During the Trump Admin, the focus was on “all of the above” , domestic production of oil and gas and hope for CCS technologies.  The IRA was called “the Most Important Climate Action in US History” by Forbes.

And yet, the IRA is something of an “all of the above” as well.  So, as I call them, all the technological horses in the horse race are getting extra grain via the bill, from batteries to CCS.   And yet, when it comes to permitting or where what stuff will be built, there doesn’t seem to be a plan.   Perhaps an analogy is PODs versus “random acts of restoration.”  Or when I worked in genetically engineered plants, a company wanted to grow pharmaceuticals in outcrossing food plants.  I asked them to begin with the end in mind, in that case, doing an EIS.

Thinking about a more coherent semi-industrial policy, I developed the three A’s which I think are necessary to any such policy. The first is to develop Agreement, the second is Alignment and the third is Accountability. I sometimes wonder whether, like some other environmental issues (say ESA reform), some powerful political figures prefer jabbing the other political party to actually solving the problem. So we’d need an open and transparent mechanism to develop Agreement outside partisan bickering- perhaps some kind of collaborative process writ large?  And hey, I know that Congress doesn’t need to do NEPA, but heck, it’s a process that works for the most part.  It’s, as some Congressfolk say, a bedrock environmental law that shouldn’t be tampered with.  But there’s no reason, in my mind, to restrict NEPA-like processes to small problems, and leave large problems to random political windshifts or flipflops.  The structured analysis, transparency (FOIAble) and opportunities for public engagement  seem to me especially appropriate to our biggest problems that require big solutions (across the landscape).

What if the US approached decarbonizing by doing an enormous programmatic EIS?  As we’ll see later this week, there’s a divergence between what NEPA practitioners generally think of programmatics (not worth the time) versus others like CEQ and some law profs, so maybe CEQ should be in charg?  So I think we’d have willing volunteers from the “programmatics are good” commuity.  Or like the NW Forest Plan, we could have a FACA committee with representatives from different energy producers, distribution systems and so on, unions, economists, national security folks and so on. Alternatives could be developed with realistic scenarios of future demand, supply chains, and labor needed with the people currently working on such things brought in.   Of course,  specific locations of new infrastructure (power plants, transmission lines, etc.), and sources of raw materials would need to be included.

Research funds would be focused on trying to answer questions needed by this group of analysts.  We could have a moratorium on “bad things could happen in the future based on models” climate research, and fund this kind of work, using whatever mix of disciplines and practitioners would be needed to shed necessary light in the dark corners.  And all the information would be publicly peer reviewed.

Sidenote: a foundation funded the Society of Environmental Journalists webinar with Stanford Prof Mark Jacobson. He did a study that showed that 139 countries could go to all wind solar and hydro by 2050. Right now, if reporters wonder about that study, they have nowhere else obvious to go.  If this EIS existed, they would.  We all would.

Things like permitting difficulties due to local concerns,  or even “whoops, our offshore wind economics models turned out wrong” or “gosh, it turns out that those Europeans need our LNG” might show up in scenarios, and uncertainties would be in the open, and in some cases handled by formal sensitivity analysis or other procedures. And of course, there are unknown unknowns, but they exist whether or not the US tries to develop a cohesive and coherent set of policies, or just randomly picks things that sound good to powerful interests of various kinds. I think all of us would learn a lot; and our chosen policies might be more realistic. And think of all the agency NEPA practitioners for decarb projects who could simply tier to that EIS!  What’s not to like?

Forest Service Proposed Rule on Carbon Capture and Storage

From Clearpath https://clearpath.org/tech-101/pore-space-101-carbon-capture-cant-rock-and-roll-without-storage/

This is where all this gets really interesting to me, as it is jostling between different environmental interests- climate vs. traditional preservation types.  So in what used to be our federal lands space, we will have environmental lawyers  and political operatives duking it out, with federal employees doing the NEPA work, the companies rolling the dice,  and the public likely relegated to the bleachers. And without all the partisan rancor featured in other discussions… at least so far.

The proposal published in the Federal Register would exempt carbon capture and storage (CCS) from an existing agency requirement prohibiting permanent or “perpetual” use of such lands.

Because CCS projects would store carbon dioxide in pore space underground for more than 1,000 years after the gas is injected, it would be tantamount to an “an exclusive and perpetual use and occupancy” not allowed under current rules, according to the Forest Service, which is part of the Department of Agriculture.

By exempting CCS from the prohibition on permanent projects, the Forest Service can review proposals and applications and “authorize proposed carbon capture and storage on NFS lands if, where, and as deemed appropriate,” the proposed rule said.

National forests and grasslands could support greater deployment of carbon capture projects, as they offer billions of tons of CO2 storage potential and blocks of land under government ownership, rather than involving multiple owners.

Some environmental and advocacy groups, however, rejected the prospect of allowing CCS projects on Forest Service lands, saying the plan would create pollution, prolong the fossil fuel industry and put delicate ecosystems at risk.

“This serious rule change invites polluters to apply for dangerous CO2-dumping permits in our national forests,” said Victoria Bogdan Tejeda, a staff attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law program, in an email. “Our forests should be protected for people and wildlife, not handed over to companies for pollution-dumping pipelines that could asphyxiate and kill people if they rupture.”

In response, Scott Owen, a Forest Service spokesperson, said that at this time, the agency “does not have any carbon capture project proposals under consideration.”

Owen said the proposal only changes the initial screening criteria allowing the Forest Service to consider proposals for carbon capture and storage projects.

“All proposals must still pass secondary screening to be accepted as a formal application,” Owen said in a statement. “Carbon capture proposals are still subject to [National Environmental Policy Act] compliance and approval by the authorized officer on the Forest.”

Each forest has an authorized officer that would review individual carbon capture proposals for NEPA compliance prior to approval, Owen added.

The proposed rule also puts forward a definition for CCS where CO2 would not be classified as hazardous waste.

Tara Righetti, a law professor at the University of Wyoming, said in an email that CCS applications for review could be approved “if they met all other criteria required for special use authorizations, including environmental analysis and consistency with the land management plans.”

“When finalized, this rule will mark an important step towards utilization of forest system lands for CCS,” Righetti added.

Xan Fishman, director of energy policy and carbon management at the Bipartisan Policy Center, a think tank, called the rule a positive step forward.

“Fighting climate change is going to be a massive, massive endeavor and it’s going to require a bunch of solutions,” Fishman said in an interview.

Those solutions will involve point source capture, where CO2 emissions are trapped before they go into the atmosphere, and carbon removal, where legacy CO2 is pulled out of the air, he said.

“Opening up every reasonable avenue” to store CO2 is “smart,” Fishman said. “Here’s a way we can store it underground and it doesn’t mess with the rest of the forest for other uses.”

The comment period for the proposed rule ends Jan. 2.

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Remember in our discussions of the Rock Springs RMP last week, the Wyofile story talked about how rights of way potentially needed for CCS might be blocked off by the conservation alternative.  Anyway, as the E&E story says:

Some environmental and advocacy groups, however, rejected the prospect of allowing CCS projects on Forest Service lands, saying the plan would create pollution, prolong the fossil fuel industry and put delicate ecosystems at risk.

It could be argued that current wind and solar projects prolong the fossil fuel industry, because they require natural gas backup at least until there are scalable batteries, with minerals and supply chain issues not yet worked out; certainly they create pollution and put delicate ecosystems at risk. To be fair, I think CBD is fairly consistent on not wanting wind and solar, transmission lines, nuclear,  nor mines for strategic minerals. If I’m not understanding their views I hope someone will correct me.

I get that certain ENGO’s (and CAP and some media) seem to hate the fossil fuel industry, but it’s hard to see that fossil fuels are going anywhere soon. Center for Western Priorities (run by D operatives) almost has a story about the oil and gas industry being bad in almost every newsletter.  Scratch the environmental veneer and there seems to be the waferboard of partisan self-interest.

There’s the EIA report from last month:

Electricity generation from renewables and nuclear could provide as much as two-thirds of global electricity generation by 2050, according to the EIA.

Solar and wind show the highest levels of electricity generation growth. Meanwhile, coal and natural gas is expected to make up between 27% and 38% of power generation capacity by 2050, down from about half in 2022, EIA Administrator Joseph DeCarolis said on Wednesday during an event to present the outlook.

I found this from the Clean Air Task Force, but am trusting them on the details.  The basic point is that we need CCS to keep global warming to below 1.5 degrees C with no or limited overshoot, according to the IPCC.

Carbon capture and storage (including DACCS and BECCS) is central to IPCC mitigation pathways

WGIII made clear that carbon capture and storage is a critical decarbonization strategy in most mitigation pathways. Among the 97 assessed pathways that keep global warming to below 1.5ºC with ‘no or limited overshoot’ (meaning a reduced chance of exceeding 1.5ºC in the near term), there is a broad range of possible deployment levels for the technology, with a median average of 665 gigatonnes (Gt) of carbon dioxide cumulatively captured and stored between now and 2100.

WGIII also identifies seven specific pathways, termed ‘Illustrative Mitigation Pathways’ (IMPs) that best summarize and highlight different decarbonization strategies – four that achieve 1.5ºC and three that keep temperatures ‘likely below 2ºC. Only one of the seven IMPs includes no carbon capture. However, this scenario requires global energy demand to nearly halve in the next 30 years, which is socio-politically unrealistic given the existing energy poverty around the world and that energy demand must increase as much of the world industrializes and urbanizes. Even the IMP based on particularly high uptake of renewable energy still requires more than 3 Gt ofcarbon dioxide to be captured and stored annually by 2050 (Figure 3.15 in the full report).

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DACCS is direct air capture and storage, and BECCS is bioenergy with carbon capture and storage.

So I guess we gotta do it, according to the IPCC. But not on federal land, says CBD.  And so it goes.. Next post: EIS for thee, but not for me.

New to national forests – carbon sequestration

The world’s largest carbon direct air capture facility has started construction in Iceland

From the news release:

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service today announced a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that would allow the agency to consider proposals for potential carbon capture and sequestration projects on national forests and grasslands. This proposal would harmonize the framework between the federal government’s two largest land managers by aligning with regulatory structures already established for the U.S. Department of Interior’s Bureau of Land Management.

If this amendment is finalized, applications for carbon sequestration on national forests or grasslands would be considered for permanent use. The proposed regulation changes the initial screening criteria to allow the Forest Service to consider proposals for carbon capture and sequestration projects and does not allow for any other permanent uses on national forests and grasslands.

From the Federal Register:

The United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service (Forest Service or Agency), is proposing to amend its special use regulations, which prohibit authorizing exclusive and perpetual use and occupancy of National Forest System lands, to provide an exemption for carbon capture and storage.

Carbon dioxide injected in pore spaces may remain for over 1,000 years after injection and would be tantamount to an exclusive and perpetual use and occupancy if authorized on NFS lands.

The proposed rule would not authorize carbon capture and storage on NFS lands. Rather, the proposed rule would exempt proposals for carbon capture and storage from the initial screening criterion prohibiting authorization of exclusive use and occupancy of NFS lands, thereby allowing the Forest Service to review proposals and applications for carbon capture and storage and to authorize proposed carbon capture and storage on NFS lands if, where, and as deemed appropriate by the Agency.

Proposals for underground storage of carbon dioxide would have to meet all other screening criteria, including but not limited to consistency with the applicable land management plan, potential risks to public health or safety, conflicts or interference with authorized uses of NFS lands or use of adjacent non-NFS lands.

Of course it would have to be consistent with forest plans, but would a forest plan that authorizes “exclusive and perpetual use and occupancy” of national forest lands be consistent with the Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act?  (Is the BLM different in this regard?)  I assume that’s why the existing special use regulations are written to prohibit permanent uses.  Maybe this should be viewed as a question of divesting ownership rather than a permitted special use.

 

Rock Springs RMP: Renewables, Carbon Capture, Transmission and Rights of Way- Wyofile Story

This map depicts rights-of-way exclusion areas as proposed in the Bureau of Land Management’s preferred “conservation” Alternative B of the Rock Springs Resource Management Plan draft environmental impact statement. (Wyoming Bureau of Land Management)
This map depicts rights-of-way exclusion areas in the Bureau of Land Management’s current management plan. (Wyoming Bureau of Land Management)

We have been discussing the Rock Springs RMP. First, the Cowboy Daily had an article about a retiree’s views on the process.  Then we had the NY Times story.   I’m always wondering about whom the Biden Admin is serving when it comes to making decisions on renewable energy vs.  “protection.” Fortunately for all of us who don’t want to read draft EIS’s (without getting paid),  a reporter from Wyofile looked into specifically my question.

This map depicts rights-of-way exclusion areas as proposed in the Bureau of Land Management’s preferred “conservation” Alternative B of the Rock Springs Resource Management Plan draft environmental impact statement. (Wyoming Bureau of Land Management)

Undeveloped areas will be largely off-limits to industrial-scale energy projects — be they fossil fuels, trona, hard minerals, wind, solar or a combination — under the Bureau of Land Management’s preferred “conservation” scenario for managing 3.5 million acres of federal land in southwest Wyoming, some observers say.

That’s primarily because the BLM’s conservation priority spelled out in “Alternative B” — one of four management scenarios in the Rock Springs draft environmental impact statement guiding its resource management plan — would vastly expand “exclusion areas” for rights-of-way, hampering greenfield development for projects that require new roads, pipelines and electric transmission lines.

Nearly 2.5 million acres — 71% of the planning area — would be excluded from consideration for new rights-of-way.

That’s a 481% increase in acreage off-limits to things like maintained roads, power lines and pipelines. BLM officials say it’s also a means to inhibit permanent industrial facilities in other areas — a state-owned land section, for example — because they typically require infrastructure like power lines and pipelines. 

“Conservation, that’s what’s driving that particular alternative,” Wyoming BLM spokesman Brad Purdy told WyoFile. “So there would be less development overall.

“Rights-of-way,” Purdy continued, “that’s how we [permit] solar. It’s how we do roads, how we do power lines. I think all of those types of things would be impacted.”

The proposed rights-of-way exclusion areas take into account conservation values weighed against “marginal” energy yield opportunities in yet-to-be-developed areas, according to the BLM. Legislative leaders, however, say it’s another example of the agency’s failure to find a balance that doesn’t harm Wyoming’s “bedrock industries.”

My bold. But if they are marginal energy opportunities, why do they need to be taken off the table?

So here is what the Wyoming Outdoor Council folks think.

A close examination of where the 2.5 million acres of rights-of-way exclusion areas are drawn suggests a recognition of marginal development opportunities, particularly for wind, solar and geothermal energy, according to Wyoming Outdoor Council Energy and Climate Policy Director John Burrows.

There are simply higher-value wind resources in other areas of the state, Burrows said, while the preferred alternative still allows for adequate growth in both wind and solar development where industrial infrastructure already exists — primarily along the Interstate 80 corridor. The proposed exclusion areas, he noted, mostly encompass large areas of the northern and southern portions of the management area, where there’s little to no existing industrial infrastructure.

“The BLM’s preferred alternative keeps just under 1 million acres of land open and available to wind and solar leasing,” Burrows said. “In our assessment, this is more than adequate to give future opportunities for responsibly sited renewable development while also protecting the truly outstanding wildlife habitat, wide-open spaces, cultural resources and other values across the planning area.”

Is it possible that maybe the Wyoming Outdoor Council is not on the same page as DOE might be on the need and preferable locations for renewable development (and transmission lines)?

Industrial-sized carbon management projects such as the Sweetwater Carbon Storage Hub, which would pump and store carbon dioxide deep underground, and Project Bison, which would pull carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in what’s referred to as “direct air capture,” are located just outside the BLM’s Rock Springs Field Office management area. However, those projects require pipelines, power lines and other infrastructure that may need rights-of-way approval from the BLM in the Rock Springs management area.

For example, the Sweetwater Carbon Storage Hub partnership will rely on constructing facilities to collect carbon dioxide from multiple existing trona mining facilities near Green River and pipe it to injection sites near Granger.

Trona, oil and natural gas

The BLM’s preferred conservation alternative would also further restrict potential expansions of trona mining and, especially, oil and natural gas development due to the proposed growth of rights-of-way exclusion areas and myriad wildlife habitat projections.

It would “increase the level of impacts to trona development and could result in further reduction of trona extracted via mining activities,” according to the draft EIS. It would also result in a 73% drop in projected federal oil and gas drilling over the next 20 years “due to an increase in areas that are closed to fluid mineral leasing and managed with [no surface occupancy] stipulations.”

It seems like different departments within the USG are funding climate actions, technologies and subsidies, while others are blithely cutting off possibilities for the future use of those technologies and increasing the difficulty of siting.  If we are in a “climate emergency” wouldn’t we want to map the potential build-out of renewable and transmission needed first, and then “protect” what’s left?  And certainly mining our the minerals we use,  and not importing them (from countries of questionable friendliness) has some value, even if they do not fit the definition of “strategic.” Because they provide jobs and tax dollars, and if our environmental regulations are not as tight as other countries’ are, they can be fixed.  The point of view of “get it somewhere else” applied to the US seems to me to be economically and national security-wise a really bad idea.  And I thought Covid had made us rethink supply chains? At the same time, according to this Admin, made in the US is a good thing, while minerals produced in the US are not, except for some.  It’s all very puzzling.

Anyway, thanks to Dustin Bleizeffer of Wyofile for looking into this.