Pumped Hydro, FERC and Policy that Tribes Approve Projects on Tribal Lands

In this story,

Federal officials Thursday denied preliminary permits for multiple pumped storage hydroelectric projects proposed on the Navajo Nation that would have required vast sums of water from limited groundwater aquifers and the declining Colorado River, citing a lack of support from tribal communities.

In the order, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission announced it was implementing a new policy requiring that any project proposed on all tribal land must gain the respective tribe’s consent to be approved, a move that local tribes, opposed to the proposed hydroelectric projects, had been calling for. The decisions pave the way for increased tribal sovereignty in energy-related projects seeking federal approval across the country.

“This is a federal commission acknowledging tribal sovereignty,” George Hardeen, a spokesman for the Navajo Nation president’s office, said. “If a company wants to do business on the Navajo Nation, it, of course, needs to talk to and get the approval of the Navajo Nation. And in the eyes of FERC, that has not yet happened.”

I notice the caveats “all Tribal land” so maybe not where projects are partially on Tribal land?  It seems to me like Tribes should be able to approve any projects on Tribal land.  Maybe some readers in the legal space can help clarify.   And what energy projects does FERC regulate exactly? Transmission?

If  energy policy were only linear and rational.. first we’d ask Tribes and locals and environmental organizations what kind of build out they want, and the impacts on critters, plants and water supplies, and then assess what energy sources and transmission would best avoid those areas and impacts.  Seems like proposing a seemingly endless series random projects (some pumped hydro storage here, some geothermal there) and getting shut down project by project is not going to resolve the climate emergency anytime soon.

Anyway, the story is interesting and not paywalled so I recommend reading the whole ting.  No paywalls seems to be the case for news funded by foundations because they want their version of the news to get out there.  I’m just noticing a pattern here, as my media bills go up and my access to media goes down.

 

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.

A Roundup of Tribal Views on Energy Projects

Photo is from AP story on SunZia transmission line (see last story below).

 

Utes Supports Rail Transport of Crude Oil.  These Utes seem fairly invisible in the media reports on  the Forest Service permit for the oil train.  I looked at several news stories about the Forest Service decision on the railroad. The AP story did not mention the Utes.  All of the Colorado stories I reviewed did not mention them. Only the Salt Lake City Tribune, in my review, mentioned them.

The Ute Indian Tribe, whose reservation is in the Uinta Basin, and Utah’s elected officials support the railway, arguing that it would boost struggling local economies and aid domestic energy production.

Here’s a link to an op-ed I think I posted before. Title:  “Opinion: Blocking the Uinta Basin Railway is another injustice to the Ute Indian Tribe Hickenlooper, Bennet and Polis are wrong to oppose this project needed for the reservations.”  It’s one thing for your opinions to be ignored; it’s another to be mostly invisible to the media, at least compared to the examples below.

Tribes Against Uranium Mine.

Grand Canyon -Guardian Article

“There are so many reasons why this mine doesn’t belong where it is,” said Amber Reimondo, the energy director with the Grand Canyon Trust, an environmental group focused on protecting the region. “And the fact that it is allowed to operate is a stark example of the weaknesses in our regulatory system.”

Across the south-west, local communities and tribes have been pushing back against uranium mining proposals, including in Utah, where the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe is concerned about air pollution from a nearby Energy Fuels mill facility. Similar tensions have arisen around lithium mining in the west, as a need for the metal in clean energy components grows.

Tribe Against Wind Turbines.

Federal Judge Sides With Osage Nation, Orders Removal Of 84 Wind Turbines

Tribes Against Transmission Lines

From the AP yesterday.

Pattern Energy officials said Tuesday that the time has passed to reconsider the route, which was approved in 2015 following a review process.

“It is unfortunate and regrettable that after a lengthy consultation process, where certain parties did not participate repeatedly since 2009, this is the path chosen at this late stage,” Pattern Energy spokesperson Matt Dallas said in an email.

Plaintiffs in the lawsuit are the Tohono O’odham Nation, the San Carlos Apache Tribe and the nonprofit organizations Center for Biological Diversity and Archaeology Southwest.

“The case for protecting this landscape is clear,” Archaeology Southwest said in a statement that calls the San Pedro Arizona’s last free-flowing river and the valley the embodiment of a “unique and timely story of social and ecological sustainability across more than 12,000 years of cultural and environmental change.”

The valley represents a 50-mile (80-kilometer) stretch of the planned 550-mile (885-kilometer) conduit expected to carry electricity from new wind farms in central New Mexico to existing transmission lines in Arizona to serve populated areas as far away as California. The project has been called an important part of President Joe Biden’s goal for a carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035.

Work started in September in New Mexico after negotiations that spanned years and resulted in the approval from the Bureau of Land Management, the federal agency with authority over vast parts of the U.S. West.

The route in New Mexico was modified after the U.S. Defense Department raised concerns about the effects of high-voltage lines on radar systems and military training operations.

Work halted briefly in November amid pleas by tribes to review environmental approvals for the San Pedro Valley, and resumed weeks later in what Tohono O’odham Chairman Verlon M. Jose characterized as “a punch to the gut.”

SunZia expects the transmission line to begin commercial service in 2026, carrying more than 3,500 megawatts of wind power to 3 million people. Project officials say they conducted surveys and worked with tribes over the years to identify cultural resources in the area.

A photo included in the court filing shows an aerial view in November of ridgetop access roads and tower sites being built west of the San Pedro River near Redrock Canyon. Tribal officials and environmentalists say the region is otherwise relatively untouched.

Yakama Tribe and Washington State Land and Solar

From High Country News.

18 Bill Bucks Back to States, Tribes and Individual Indian Mineral Owners in 2023 from Interior Energy Revenues

New Mexico is one of our poorer states, so this is good news from a social justice perspective. But if fees from renewables decline by 50% based on the new reg, assuming similar years, it would be $300 mill less? And that difference would grow as new renewables come on line.  I wonder where exactly the future missing $300 mill or more would have gone?

Interior Department Announces $18.24 Billion in Fiscal Year 2023 Energy Revenue

WASHINGTON — Today, the Department of the Interior’s Office of Natural Resources Revenue (ONRR) announced the disbursement of $18.24 billion in revenues generated in fiscal year 2023 from energy production on federal and Tribal lands and federal offshore areas. U.S. energy production under President Biden’s leadership has reached an all-time high on both public and private lands throughout the nation.

The disbursements provide funds for states and Tribes to pursue a variety of conservation and natural resource goals, including irrigation and hydropower projects, historic preservation initiatives, conservation of public lands and waters, and investments in maintenance for critical facilities and infrastructure on our public lands.

The Department’s renewable energy programs yielded nearly $600 million in revenue and is making significant progress toward the President’s ambitious clean energy goals. President Biden’s Investing in America agenda is growing the American economy from the middle out and bottom up – from rebuilding our nation’s infrastructure, to driving over $600 billion in private sector manufacturing and clean energy investments in the United States, to creating good paying jobs and building a clean energy economy that will combat the climate crisis and make our communities more resilient.

This year, $1.43 billion was distributed to Tribes and individual Indian mineral owners; $3.46 billion to the Reclamation Fund; $1 billion to the Land and Water Conservation Fund; $150 million to the Historic Preservation Fund; $379 million to federal agencies; and $7.09 billion to the U.S. Treasury.

ONRR disbursed $4.72 billion in fiscal year 2023 funds to 33 states. This revenue was collected from oil, gas, renewable energy, and mineral production on federal lands within the states’ borders and offshore oil and gas tracts in federal waters adjacent to four Gulf of Mexico states’ shores.

The states receiving the highest disbursements based on those activities are:

 New Mexico

 $2.93 billion

 Wyoming

 $832.86 million

  Louisiana

 $177.25 million

 Colorado

 $153.24 million

 North Dakota

 $132.66 million

 Utah

 $123.91 million

 Texas

 $108.27 million

 Mississippi

 $52.58 million

 Alabama

 $52.49 million

 California

 $49.12 million

 Alaska

 $44.81 million

 Montana

 $36.18 million

The revenues disbursed to 33 federally recognized Tribes and approximately 31,000 individual Indian mineral owners represent 100 percent of the revenues received for energy and mineral production activities on Indian lands. Tribes use these revenues to develop infrastructure, provide health care and education, and support other critical community development programs, such as senior centers, public safety projects, and youth initiatives.

Since 1982, the Department has disbursed more than $371.3 billion in mineral leasing revenues. ONRR makes most of these disbursements monthly from the royalties, rents, and bonuses it collects from energy and mineral companies operating on federal lands and waters.

A complete list of states receiving revenues and FY 2023 disbursement data is available on the Natural Resources Revenue Data portal.

*********************

I was playing around with the database trying to separate wind and solar but couldn’t.. maybe someone with an Interior background could help?

I did find the below chart.. maybe someone knows what negative revenues are in this case.

The Ethical Paradox of Oil and Gas Use (Everyone Does It) Versus Production (Those Folks are Bad)

 

Apologies to all, I had thought to be back to The Smokey Wire sooner.  I spent some time with the Public Lands Foundation in Cheyenne Wyoming, meeting many BLM folks and others dealing with access issues to public lands in Wyoming.  Then the next week, I was off to the Salamander Resort in Middleburg, Virginia, with The Breakthrough Institute, to experience how the other 1% lives and mix with admitted coastal wonky elites...here’s the agenda of that session. I’ll post some of the videos once they are up.  The next week I was back West to Rapid City, South Dakota with field trips to Wall, South Dakota to see efforts dealing with dispersed recreation and the restoration of black-footed ferret with the Rocky Mountaineers retirees’ group.  I hope to upload presentations on the latter so that you all can enjoy a virtual field trip.

What the three trips had in common was some amazing young people working on the problems of the day.   From getting minerals from seawater and enhanced rock weathering at TBI to restoring ferrets at the Wall Ranger District, to research at the Rapid City Forest and Grassland Research Laboratory, to regulating pore space for CO2 sequestration at the BLM.    Perhaps these are stories that are too much “in the weeds”, so to speak, for media to pick up on, but they’re out there.

So that’s one commonality that I observed on these trips.  The other was the omnipresence of gasoline and diesel-powered vehicles (and trains, in the case of Cheyenne and Rapid City). Even in urbanized places in Northern Virginia and the District, I noticed many vehicles, and in fact, ended up in the DC morning rush hour from Middleburg one morning.  Even with excellent public transportation, as there is in NoVa, there are many, many, cars and trucks.  And of course recreationists coming from the Midwest to recreate in South Dakota and Wyoming.. cars and RV’s. This seems obvious.

And yet, when I look at my news outlets, such as Center for Western Priorities, or others, there are frequent articles on the badness of oil and gas production when it is done domestically.  In fact, there was a major environmental group push against the Biden Admin for the Willow Project.  Who knows what random goodies will be thrown by the Admin (perhaps some MOG treats?)  in attempts to placate these groups?

But what is that really about?  Do these groups think that outsourcing to say, Iran and Venezuela is environmentally more desirable?  Not to think like an economist, but reducing supply does tend to raise prices, and we care about poor or even middle-class people not being able to get to work or not affording food because of high gas prices. And we are shipping lots of military stuff abroad which runs on.. fossil fuels.

Some of us remember the oil embargo of 1973..this from an interview with Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of RI:

“One in five gas stations in the country had no fuel to sell whatsoever,” Colgan said. “By January 1974, oil prices worldwide had quadrupled, and that led to a whole bunch of economic and political consequences” that are still present today.

When asked what it was like living through the oil crisis, Whitehouse shared that there were odd and even days to get gas, decided based on the last number of each person’s license plate. For example, if your license plate ended with a seven and it was an odd day, you could get gas, but if it ended with a six and was an odd day, you could not.

Whitehouse outlined the dilemma faced by oil companies at this time: “Do you keep your prices level because you have an obligation to your country and your customers, or do you follow the international cartel and take advantage of its price gouging?”

“Of course, they chose the latter,” Whitehouse said, explaining that oil companies chose to take advantage of their customers, rather than make gas affordable.

So O&G companies have not always acted well. Perhaps that’s a reason for hate. OTOH some of us also remember the financial crisis and banks being too big to fail and all that.  And yet.. we don’t see daily in the press  the need for better regulation of them. In fact, our friends in the financial industry do things like naming the CEO of Aramco to their board of directors.

The Biden Admin is all on domestic production of strategic minerals.. but not O&G. Or maybe DOE kind of is, but DOI is not.  It’s all puzzling to me.

Meanwhile there are people working every day, human beings, citizens of our country, whom I don’t think deserve this scapegoating. Union jobs, paying a family wage, diverse folks working that bring us what we are using every day.  So what is all this really about, and how do we “un-hate” ourselves out of it?

In fact, many of the folks most against  fossil  production use more than the average person, as in this article on Robert Bryce’s Substack.

Of course, Bloomberg can spend his vast fortune however he wants. According to Forbeshe’s the 11th-richest person on the planet, with assets worth $96.3 billion. (Bloomberg.com doesn’t include Michael Bloomberg in its rankings of the world’s richest people.) And the former mayor of New York City does not live modestly. As I noted in these pages in March, Bloomberg owns about a dozen houses. He’s also one of the biggest users of private jets. As I explained:

According to ClimateJets.org, Bloomberg, or people connected to him, used five aircraft which emitted about 3,197 tons of CO2 in 2022. That number puts Bloomberg in the top 10 of all private jet owners in terms of emissions. For comparison, the average American is responsible for about 16 tons of CO2 emissions per year. In other words, Bloomberg’s fleet of jets is emitting about 200 times more CO2 per year than what’s emitted by the average American.

Recall in announcing his $500 million grant to Beyond Carbon, Bloomberg claimed he wants to move “beyond fossil fuels” and replace them with renewable energy. Last year, Bloomberg, or people connected to him, flew on his private jets to New York, New Jersey, Florida, Bahamas, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Bermuda, Switzerland, France, Costa Rica, Brazil, Israel, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. All that flying required burning about 328,000 gallons of jet fuel. For comparison, that’s about 670 times more than the volume of gasoline consumed by an average American motorist in a year.

Also, recall that in 2021, Bloomberg said, “We’re in a race to save Earth from climate change.” It’s unclear to whom Bloomberg referred when he used the royal “we.”But given his predilection for far-flung houses and private jets, it seems that the media mogul and near-centibillionaire is a lot like the rest of us when it comes to using hydrocarbons.

How can we both use something- in fact it’s vital to our economy-  and say at the same time, that the (domestic only?)  folks that produce it are bad and need to be shut down? Or is it simply that it’s easier to shut down things here than other countries (the policy equivalent of logging the flat ground).

Aside from obvious potential class issues related to workers.  I wonder what that does to people internally to live with that contradiction if they really believe what they say about production. To me, it’s a bit as if the Deuteronomic food laws said “you can eat shrimp, but only if the Canaanites produce  it for you .”  I find it all very puzzling.

I haven’t seen this discussed anywhere, and I am curious about what TSW readers think.

Undermining science to undermine renewable energy

 

We’ve talked a little about energy transmission, especially in conjunction with renewable energy production, and the need to improve the electrical grid.  One thought seems to be that conservation interests are a barrier to that.  It turns out that the coal industry may be an even bigger barrier.  At least, here’s an example from the Trump Administration.

The Seams study demonstrated that stronger connections between the U.S. power system’s massive eastern and western power grids would accelerate the growth of wind and solar energy—hugely reducing American reliance on coal, the fuel contributing the most to climate change, and saving consumers billions.

But a study like Seams was politically dangerous territory for a federally funded lab while coal-industry advocates—and climate-change deniers—reign in the White House.

According to interviews with five current and former DOE and NREL sources, supported by more than 900 pages of documents and emails obtained by InvestigateWest through Freedom of Information Act requests and by additional documentation from industry sources, Trump officials would ultimately block Seams from seeing the light of day. And in doing so, they would set back America’s efforts to slow climate change.

The fallout was swift: The lab grounded Bloom and Novacheck (the lead researchers), prohibiting them from presenting the Seams results or even discussing the study outside NREL.  And the $1.6 million study itself disappeared. NREL yanked the completed findings from its website and deleted power-flow visualizations from its YouTube channel.

If NREL researchers are able to work unencumbered by political concerns and release Seams in its entirety, it could help point the U.S. toward a greener future, in which a robust economy runs on renewable energy. But for now, Seams is demonstrating an unintended finding—that when administrations stick their hands into scientific research, politically inconvenient truths are in peril.

The author indicated later that Congress had demanded that the study be released (and here it is).

This story is another example of political interference in science production and distribution.  I remain a strong skeptic that the pro-environment side can match this kind of interference by the coal lobby and “climate-change deniers” (as some have suggested here, including self-proclaimed climate-change “skeptics”).  It also seems obvious that this direct intervention is a lot more influential than any bias that exists in research funding.

Recent developments in mining and energy litigation and policy – July 2023

I only recently started specifically looking for BLM cases, so I may be catching up late on some of them.  Most seem to involve mining and energy.  (This summary includes one Forest Service case.)

New lawsuit:  Center for Biological Diversity v. Haaland (D. Nev.)

On July 7, CBD and Amargosa Conservancy challenged the BLM’s authorization of the Let’s Go Lithium mineral exploration project on federal lands in BLM’s Pahrump Planning Area, in the vicinity of springs in the Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, and two BLM Areas of Critical Environmental Concern.  Lithium mining requires a lot of water.  The project would involve up to 30 exploratory drillholes.  The proposal allegedly violates FLPMA, NEPA and indirectly ESA (with regard to consultation on 12 species).  On July 17 plaintiffs filed a motion for a temporary injunction.  The article includes a link to the complaint.  Also, according to this article, “under federal law, most exploratory projects on public land are not required to submit a plan of operation, complete an environmental analysis, or solicit public comment.” A representative of the Conservancy was quoted:

“We are collectively witnessing what is inarguably the greatest transformation of public lands in our nation’s history, and western Nevada’s Amargosa Desert is at the epicenter of this change.  Renewable energy development and lithium extraction are the twin priorities driving this transformation forward at an unprecedented scale and pace.”

His reference to renewable energy was probably to the Interior Department’s recent sale of leases for solar development on 23,675 acres in or near the Amargosa Valley Solar Energy Zone, a designated solar leasing area with high solar potential and what the Bureau of Land Management in a 2012 analysis characterized as an area of low resource conflict.  The BLM identified the Amargosa valley as one of 17 nationwide solar energy zones wherein solar energy projects are encouraged.  (The BLM is currently processing 74 utility-scale solar, wind and geothermal projects on public lands in the western United States.  An additional 150 solar and wind development applications are undergoing preliminary reviews.)

“Utility-scale solar does not have a huge annual consumption of water during operation, but construction activities can use thousands of acre-feet of water for a single facility. If BLM is going to develop tens of thousands of acres of solar in this area, it could potentially take tens of thousands of acre feet of water,” said Patrick Donnelly, the Great Basin director of the Center for Biological Diversity.  He contrasted the lack of a plan for this area with the BLM California’s Desert Renewable Energy and Conservation Plan.

This article also summarizes a number of lawsuits over renewable energy proposals.

Court decision in Western Watersheds Project v. McCullough (9th Cir.)

On July 17, the 9th Circuit affirmed a district court holding that the Bureau of Land Management had not violated the National Environmental Policy Act and other federal laws when it approved the Thacker Pass lithium mine.  This did not address the district court’s order that the BLM complete additional analysis of how the mine will handle waste and tailings in accordance with the 1872 mining law, and it means the mine development can continue while that analysis occurs.  The court also ruled the BLM acted “reasonably and in good faith” in its consultation with tribes.  “This is the first time in public land history that we have a major project violating a number of provisions but is allowed to go forward,” Roger Flynn, the director of the Colorado-based Western Mining Action Project, told the 9th Circuit panel during oral arguments in Pasadena on June 27.  (The article includes a link to the opinion, and here is further background.)

Here is an interesting perspective from “The Voice of the Automotive World.”

In other news, the mining company has sued protesters for what they deemed “nonviolent prayer” protests at the mine site. Lithium Americas was forced to call the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office when protesters got “dangerously close” to construction equipment.

Notice of intent to sue under ESA

On June 20, eight environmental groups challenged the Coronado National Forest’s approval of the Sunnyside and Flux Canyon exploratory mineral drilling projects in the Patagonia Mountains for copper, lead, zinc and silver (discussed here).  On July 13, they gave the Forest Service and Fish and Wildlife Service a 60-day notice of intent to sue for Endangered Species Act violations affecting Mexican spotted owls, yellow-billed cuckoos, jaguars, and ocelots.  On July 14 they asked for a preliminary injunction on their existing claims.  We also discussed another mine in the same area that was being fast-tracked for its rare metals by the Biden Administration.  From this article, it does not sound like there will be litigation on the Hermosa Project.

Update

In September 2020, a coalition of conservation groups including Friends of the Floridas, New Mexico Wild, WildEarth Guardians, Gila Resources Information Project, and Amigos Bravos sued BLM to reverse the agency’s simultaneous approvals of construction and operation of a dolomite mine, and the exploration activity required to prove the value of the mineral claim in the Florida Mountains in southwest New Mexico.  On July 12, 2023, the Federal District Court for the District of New Mexico heard oral arguments involving violations of NEPA and FLPMA.

Update

As discussed here, the lawsuit against the BLM’s decision to allow Ormat Technologies to develop geothermal resources in Dixie Meadows east of Reno in habitat for the recently listed Dixie Valley toad has been on hold at the request of the developer.  BLM has now decided, “As a result of its ESA consultation efforts and new information it has determined that it would be prudent to revisit the environmental review underlying the project.  BLM does not intend to authorize any such new construction until the conclusion of the environmental review.”  Ormat supports the delay.

 

Is Something Rare (Almost) Everywhere? Geothermal vs. Toads and the Search for Land for Renewables with Fewest (No?) Impacts

Ormat’s Steamboat Hills geothermal plant outside Reno, Nev., supplies electricity to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. (Ormat Technologies)

 

Update: the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe is a plaintiff  with CBD on this lawsuit against this project.

Another excellent piece by Sammy Roth of the LA Times in his Boiling Point newsletter. The Times has something like 99 cents for six months which IMHO is worth getting if you only read Sammy’s work. He also has links to interesting articles on wind and solar and wildlife that I hadn’t seen. And perhaps you can sign up for his Boiling Point newsletter without being a subscriber.  This is a controversy about something considered to be good for decarbonization (geothermal) but has localized environmental impacts. We usually see this as a “good ENGO’s vs. bad industry” kind of thing, but this seems to be a “good ENGO vs. good industry” kind of thing. I like how Sammy interviews both Patrick Donnelly of CBD and folks from Ormat, the geothermal company, and tries to put the pieces together.

Looking through our lens posited yesterday considering the Biden Admin and Native people, I don’t see any mention of Native concerns in this piece (I’m checking with the reporter).  Also the Biden Admin would have to go with the science of the USFWS because of the unique science-based characteristics of ESA (Jon can correct me on this).  And perhaps their own views of “scientific integrity” as Jon brought up here yesterday.

 

The nation’s largest geothermal power company is preparing to sue the Biden administration over its decision to protect a tiny toad, in the latest high-stakes showdown between renewable energy development and wildlife conservation.

In a letter to Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and the director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service — a copy of which was shared exclusively with The Times — Ormat Technologies Inc. warned Wednesday that it would sue the wildlife service in 60 days if the agency doesn’t revisit its decision to declare the Dixie Valley toad an endangered species. That decision might otherwise derail Ormat’s plan for a Nevada geothermal plant that could potentially supply climate-friendly electricity to California.

Federal scientists say the 2-inch amphibian’s wetland habitat — the only place it’s found on Earth — is threatened by Ormat’s renewable energy project. The Reno-based company disputes that conclusion, arguing it’s grounded in shoddy science.

Paul Thomsen, Ormat’s vice president of business development, told me federal officials wrongly assumed his firm’s geothermal production would drain the nearby Dixie Meadows, when the company’s tests have suggested otherwise. He also said the Biden administration had illegally invoked the Endangered Species Act based on speculative future harm to the toad.

“For us, the precedent there is terrifying,” Thomsen said. “If this action were to stand, many renewable energy projects in the West could be thwarted simply based on a concern, with no evidence that they may impact a species in the future.”

“We’re being convicted of a crime that we haven’t committed,” he added.

To help avert the worst consequences of global warming — which is already fueling deadlier and more destructive heat waves, fires, droughts and floods — the U.S. must build huge amounts of renewable energy infrastructure at a breakneck pace.

But across the American West, endangered-species concerns have emerged as a key barrier to construction of solar farms, wind turbines, power lines and lithium mines that would supply electric-car batteries. Lawsuits and protests from conservation activists, Native American tribes and rural residents are poised to slow or block a growing number of projects.

******************

 

As far as Donnelly is concerned, the geothermal industry has a “dirty little secret,” which is that its facilities frequently dry up hot springs. He pointed me to a 2000 research paper from the U.S. Geological Survey concluding that when geothermal plants are built, impacts to nearby water features such as hot springs, geysers and steam vents “should be viewed as the rule, rather than the exception.” The paper cited several decades-old examples involving Nevada plants since acquired by Ormat.

“There’s this huge body of peer-reviewed literature,” Donnelly said.

When I asked Ormat’s Thomsen about that literature, he told me the geothermal plants cited in the research paper used an older technology that the company has phased out at most of its facilities. As for Dixie Meadows, he told me Ormat’s flow testing found no direct connection between the deep geothermal reservoir and shallower springs that he said feed the wetlands.

He also noted that Ormat recently reduced the plant’s proposed size from 60 megawatts to 12 megawatts, and that the company agreed to extensive real-time monitoring to ensure the wetlands aren’t affected. He said the monitoring would cost roughly $1.5 million a year during the geothermal facility’s operation, adding to a likely construction cost of around $60 million.

Federal officials, Thomsen said, failed to take those factors into account before protecting the Dixie Valley toad last year.

“We support the Endangered Species Act,” Thomsen said. “We want it to be implemented properly.”

***********************

An Interior Department spokesperson declined to comment on Ormat’s 60-day notice warning of a potential lawsuit.

But in its species assessment of the Dixie Valley toad, Interior’s Fish and Wildlife Service cited research that it said showed the springs feeding Dixie Meadows “are not hydraulically isolated from the underlying geothermal reservoir.” As a result, the toad’s wetland habitat “can be impacted by production pumping and/or injection for the geothermal project,” the agency wrote.

Donnelly, meanwhile, pointed me to data showing that temperatures and water levels increased in one spot at Dixie Meadows after Ormat finished flow testing — a possible indication of underground hydraulic links that could put the toad at risk.

“The toads have this incredibly delicate relationship to temperature,” Donnelly said. “If you start cooling off those springs, they might all freeze to death. And if you start heating up those springs, they might all boil to death.”

Asked about the temperature and water level changes, Ormat’s senior legal counsel, Laura Jacobsen, told me via email that small amounts of data from a single spring are “far from sufficient to establish the flow test impacted the springs,” especially with temperature readings “within the variable baseline range for that spring.” The company also pointed me to a Bureau of Land Management document concluding that flow tests “indicate little to no observed changes in spring discharge conditions.”

************

I’ve been shining a light on similar battles across the region through The Times’ Repowering the West series. I’m now writing Part 3, dealing with solar sprawl in southern Nevada. Next month I’ll travel to Idaho to report Part 4, about why the red state’s dominant power company set a goal of 100% clean energy even when lawmakers haven’t ordered it to do so.

In the meantime, Dixie Meadows is far from the only geothermal conflict I’m tracking. Another project contemplated by Ormat could be built just outside Gerlach, a Nevada town best known as the gateway to the Burning Man art and music festival. Local residents and Burning Man leaders are fighting to block exploratory drilling, saying a geothermal plant could industrialize their rural outpost and scare off tourists. The San Francisco Standard’s Maryann Jones Thompson wrote about the controversy.

I was also struck by a recent study from the U.S. Geological Survey, funded in part by Ormat, finding that populations of greater sage-grouse — an iconic Western bird known for its mating dance, and a prime example of the extinction crisis — “declined substantially in years following the development of the geothermal energy plants” in Nevada, as the Geological Survey described the study. The agency has built a mapping tool that it says can help companies find low-impact spots to build geothermal plants.

“It’s great that they’ve developed a tool that can identify areas that are more or less sensitive,” Ormat’s Thomsen said.

Ultimately, that’s what it’s going to come down to: finding the best places to put renewable energy. It’s as true for small-footprint geothermal plants as it is for sprawling solar farms, vast fields of wind turbines and lengthy power lines.

A person could wonder if the first step in renewable energy buildout would have been to work with companies to identify sites with less potential for wildlife and Indigenous concerns. Rather than set targets, make assumptions, fund companies, and when they are far down the road, say “oops, not there.”

Seems like we might have done better by making sure top-down determinations of what should be done with renewable energy installations are actually viable in the real world.

DOE and BLM: Seemingly Contradictory Energy Strategy

Secretary Granholm at CeraWeek .Bloomberg photo.

Right hand-left hand. Interior vs. Energy.. with the White House as referee or ????

I’d like to start with Secretary Granholm’s statement at CERA week. From an article at E&E News..Energywire (open access).

The Biden administration’s seemingly contradictory energy and climate strategy was on full display here Wednesday: Try to pivot away from fossil fuels, but promote them for now.

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm faced that paradox as she addressed energy leaders and insiders gathered in a hotel ballroom, praising the uptick in U.S. oil and gas exports during Russia’s war in Ukraine while touting a clean energy shift.

“Europe is poised to reach the spring without major outages or shortages, and that’s thanks in no small part to many in this room, who have been producing and exporting and working with the U.S. and with allies,” Granholm said.

“Indeed, the U.S. has become in this year an indispensable energy partner to our allies and a global energy powerhouse,” she said to applause.

**************

Meanwhile, in another blow to the fossil fuel sector, the Biden administration said this week that a new five-year plan for offshore oil and gas drilling may be delayed until December (Greenwire, March 8).

To “complete all necessary analyses, approvals, and mandatory procedural steps, Interior requires until December 2023 to finish and approve the next Program,” said Walter Cruickshank, deputy director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, in a legal filing.

That prompted a sharp rebuke from Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), a key architect of the Inflation Reduction Act and a fossil fuel ally.

“The Department of the Interior made it painfully clear — again — that they are putting their radical climate agenda ahead of our nation’s energy security, and they are willing to go to great lengths to do it,” Manchin said in a statement Wednesday, saying the December deadline is “18 months late.”

*************

Despite Granholm’s comments commending the fossil fuel sector, she used much of her speech to champion a clean energy transition.

Granholm announced $6 billion in new grants for industrial decarbonization projects, which may involve carbon capture and hydrogen. And she urged the fossil fuel sector to help develop those and other technologies.

“The U.S. is the indispensable nation, and our companies are producing irresistible products. And this administration is all in on it,” Granholm said. “We need the energy sector stepping up and that certainly includes the oil and gas industry.”

“You have the skill sets and knowledge to build some of these critical technologies at scale,” she said.

There’s also a story at Bloomberg that looks interesting but is paywalled:
Energy Secretary Granholm Changes the Tune on Big Oil
Just five months ago, President Biden was accusing the oil industry of profiteering. Yesterday, his energy secretary went to Houston to shower executives with praise.

You’d almost think there are three loci of control… the pragmatic DOE, the ideological DOI and the White House trying to placate key Demo interest groups without going to far into doing things that won’t look good for the 2024 election. The oil and gas industry.. demonized by some, and flagellated to produce more by others in the same Admin. If I were a political science professor, I would find this fascinating. What causes agency divergence? Career feds, or loyalties of politicals to the interest groups they came from? When are divergences tolerated, and when are they expunged?

Tribal “Stewardship” But Not Agreement? The Thacker Pass Lithium Case

I think we’re all for Tribal consultation and co-stewardship (depending on exactly what that means). Here’s a quote from Interior Department Guidance to Strengthen Tribal Co-Stewardship of Public Lands and Waters:

said Secretary Deb Haaland. “By acknowledging and empowering Tribes as partners in co-stewardship of our country’s lands and waters, every American will benefit from strengthened management of our federal land and resources.”

Of course, federal authorities stay the same, that is, to consult and not go with what Tribes want. It seems to be a focus on the process (consultation) rather than the product (decisions that Tribes agree with). This sounds like a bit of an echo of ordinary public involvement. We can have a great process and not decide the way any particular group wants. But the term “co-management” to me implies more than “we listen to your opinion more carefully than other groups”. But if the Admin can still overrule Tribes, are they any more “empowered” than before an enhanced consultation process?

There’s also the scale thing. For example, when DOI had their public session on oil and gas regulations, that I covered here, Tribes and Native Alaskans said they were for “all of the above” and yet this did not seem to transfer directly to DOI policy. Perhaps the scale is the problem, and Tribes should be consulted on the overall decarbonization- climate- energy policy in its entirety. Because the solar-wind-minerals-uranium under all scenarios would occur on federal lands. To the extent that it does, maybe the USG should back up and consult on the broader-scale policy- both energy and climate. Perhaps have an elected Tribal representative in all White House climate discussions?

Anyway, here’s a story from “This is Reno” on Tribes suing the BLM:

Three Native American tribes filed this week a new lawsuit against the Bureau of Land Management over Lithium Americas planned Thacker Pass lithium mine.

The lawsuit comes after federal Judge Miranda Du mostly ruled against the plaintiffs seeking to stop the project near the Nevada-Oregon border. It was filed Thursday by the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony, Burns Paiute Tribe and Summit Lake Paiute Tribe in Federal District Court.

The tribes are alleging BLM withheld information from the state “and lied about the extent of tribal consultation in order to secure legally required concurrence about historic properties” at Thacker Pass. They are also alleging BLM lied and misled the tribes about other aspects of the mining project.

“The new lawsuit is also strengthened by the addition of the Summit Lake Paiute Tribe, one of the Tribes that the BLM claims to have consulted with prior to issuing the [record of decision],” they said in a press statement. “Summit Lake and both other tribes the BLM claims to have consulted (the Winnemucca Indian Colony and Fort McDermitt Paiute-Shoshone Tribe) have disputed BLM’s assertion that any consultation took place.”

The Winnemucca Indian Colony, they said, was unable to intervene in the case for not filing soon enough.

“When the decision was made public on the previous lawsuit last week, we said we would continue to advocate for our sacred site PeeHee Mu’Huh,” said Arlan Melendez, chair of the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony. “It is also the very same place where our people were massacred (never laid to rest properly) by the U.S. Calvary. It’s a place where all Paiute and Shoshone people continue to pray, gather medicines and food, honor our non-human relatives, honor our water, honor our way of life, honor our ancestors.

“The Thacker Pass permitting process was not done correctly. BLM contends they have discretion to decide who to notify or consult with,” he added. “They only contacted 3 out of the 22 tribes who had significant ties to Thacker Pass.”

There’s also a good comprehensive story on E&E News that is open to everyone. They took a political slant to it..

“Democrats and Republicans are both pro-development in this state and always have been,” Lokken said.

Some Democrats are more likely to be concerned about the environmental impact of mining and about ensuring that the state gets tax revenue from the industry, added Lokken, but development has ultimately won out.

“The party decided a long ago that this kind of development is fine,” he said.