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A quarter of America could experience LONG BLACKOUTS this winter due to energy supply problems

November 22, 2022

Image: A quarter of America could experience LONG BLACKOUTS this winter due to energy supply problems

(Natural News) Large parts of North America could face long blackouts and other energy emergencies this winter as supplies of natural gas and coal begin to tighten.

According to the latest seasonal assessment of the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC), a large portion of the North American [bulk-power system] is “at risk of insufficient electricity supplies during peak winter conditions.”

The regional grids with the largest risk of experiencing supply shortfalls this winter are in Texas, New England, the Carolinas and the central system stretching from the Great Lakes region down to Louisiana.

The NERC’s report noted that supply shortfalls, higher peak-demand projections, weaknesses in natural gas infrastructure and inadequate weatherization upgrades for generators are contributing to the heightened risk of power outages.

The risk would be further worsened by severe weather putting stress on these already weakened grids by causing demand for electricity to soar while supplies of energy coming from natural gas, coal and backup fuels like oil remain low. (Related: In the middle of a global energy crisis, Joe Biden promises to SHUT DOWN COAL PLANTS all across America.)

“The trend is we see more areas at risk, we see more retirements of critical generation, fuel challenges and we are doing everything we can,” said NERC Director of Reliability Assessment John Moura. “These challenges don’t kind of appear out of nowhere.”

Electricity bills to go up in winter

NERC’s warning for the coming winter notes that around a quarter of American households will also see their already high utility bills soar even higher this winter as demand for power shoots up.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Eat Less Meat and Save the Planet

February 6, 2019

Eat Less Meat and Save the Planet

Salvador Dali Portrait of Gala with Two Lamb Chops Balanced on Her Shoulder 1933

Dr. D: 

Eat less meat to save the planet – report (1)
The new diet that could save the planet (2)
What to eat to save the planet: Report urges ‘radical changes’ to world’s diet – less meat, more veggies (3)

These headlines, likely sourced from a recent article from “The Lancet” (4) are a regular feature of our time, in diet, in environmentalism, and in global warming. They are well-researched, sourced by the world’s experts, and put forward with the highest intentions. However, they are also completely wrong – dangerously, ignorantly wrong. 

Like most industries, agriculture and food production is a specialty, with its own language and details. I don’t attempt to tell the Lancet how to perform heart surgery, for to do so would be ridiculous, dangerous, outside of my expertise. I wouldn’t tell a geologist how to interpret the magnetic layers of rock, or how oceanographers should properly interpret sea water samples to guide us on fishing or pollution. Yet this is what they do for farmers.

The primary drive of most such articles is that, with so many people, and so much hunger, we find that it takes “2,500 gallons of water, 12 pounds of grain, 35 pounds of topsoil and the energy equivalent of one gallon of gasoline to produce one pound of feedlot beef.” that “64% of US cropland produces livestock feed.” (5) That it takes “20 pounds corn [to make] 1 pound beef.” (6) Or that you can get 15lbs of beef per acre, but 263lbs of soybeans. (7) Also that cattle are the primary reason for deforestation, and a major cause of methane.

 …click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Traceability in Farming Supply Chains

July 10, 2017

TRACEABILITY IN FARMING SUPPLY CHAINS

There are growing environmental challenges and people are increasingly aware of the environment. This awareness has extended to social issues faced around the world. Businesses within farming supply chains are concerned about these issues – they have to ensure that they are addressed within their operations to gain a competitive advantage.

Customers are asking critical questions about the social and environmental credentials of the food they eat. Customers want to know what farmers are doing within their own powers to improve the environment. They want to be rest assured that efforts are being made by supply chain players to combat climate change, reduce water scarcity and land pollution and so on.

In the context of social issues, customers want to understand the social conditions associated with the food they buy. They want to know if measures have been taken to ensure that no element of child labour was used to grow and produce their food crops, they want to be sure that farm workers were not exposed to health risks, and that workers are paid decently and so on.

In the same vein, environmentalists have come to terms with the fact that the environment has social dimensions attached to it. For example, people are part of the environment and it is expected that environmental protection measures being applied across all sectors of the economy should also put people into considerations – any measure that is deemed good for the environment should also be good for human lives and vice-versa before it can be implemented in any sector of the economy. As a result, efforts to improve environmental sustainability are also geared towards the creation of positive social impacts.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Fracking Supply Chain a Climate Disaster, Doing Little to Uplift Poor Communities: Studies

March 8, 2016

Fracking Supply Chain a Climate Disaster, Doing Little to Uplift Poor Communities: Studies 

One of those studies, published in Environmental Research Letters and titled, “Just fracking: a distributive environmental justice analysis of unconventional gas development in Pennsylvania, USA,” concludes that “the income distribution of the population nearer to shale gas wells has not been transformed since shale gas development.”

The other, a report released by Environmental Integrity Project titled, “Greenhouse Gases from a Growing Petrochemical Industry,” examines the post-fracking supply chain and concludes that the petrochemical industry’s planned construction and expansion projects announced in 2015 alone are the “pollution equivalent to the emissions from 19 coal-fired power plants.”

Not Quite “Shaleionaires”

Two academics from outside of the U.S. and employed by the United Kingdom’s Newcastle University published the fracking environmental justice report. Lead author Emily Clough serves as a political science lecturer at Newcastle, while co-author Derek Bell serves as a professor of environmental political theory.

Both of them undertook an effort, as they write in the study’s introduction, to examine “income distribution and level of education in addition to race and poverty” and how these juxtaposed communities fared both “before and after shale gas development.” As it turns out, if you are poor and live in close proximity to a Marcellus Shale basin oil or gas well, you will receive some economic benefit — but not a very big one.

“In the 2009–2013 data, we found that the percentage of those living below the poverty threshold was slightly lower in areas close to unconventional wells than in areas further away,” they wrote. “This difference is small but statistically significant.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

What Happens After A Mega Corporation Raises Its Workers’ Wages

April 2, 2015

What Happens After A Mega Corporation Raises Its Workers’ Wages

Earlier today, McDonalds announced that it would become the latest company to raise hourly pay for 90,000 workers by more than 10% and add benefits such as paid vacation for its restaurant workers. Specifically, starting in July, MCD will pay at least $1 per hour more than the local legal minimum wage for employees at the roughly 1,500 restaurants it owns in the U.S. The increase will lift the average hourly rate for its U.S. restaurant employees to $9.90 on July 1 and more than $10 by the end of 2016, from $9.01 currently. Finally, McDonald’s also will enable workers after a year of employment to accrue up to five days of paid time-off annually.

With this announcement, McDonalds joins the following companies which have likewise raised minimum wages in recent months:

  • WalMart
  • Aetna
  • Gap
  • Ikea
  • Target
  • TJ Maxx

Surely this is great news for the workers of these above companies, as some of the massive wealth accrued by corporate shareholders may be finally trickling down to the lowliest of employees, right? As it turns out, the answer is far from clear.

As the following WSJ story released overnight, here is what happens when mega-corporations such as WalMart and McDonalds, whose specialty are commoditized products and services and have razor thin margins, yet which try to give an appearance of doing the right thing, raise minimum wages. They start flexing their muscles, and in the process trample all over the companies that comprise their own cost overhead: their suppliers and vendors.

Take the case of WalMart: the world’s biggest retailer “is increasing the pressure on suppliers to cut the cost of their products, in an effort to regain the mantle of low-price leader and turn around its sluggish U.S. sales.”

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The “Catastrophic Shutdown Of America’s Supply Chain” Begins: Stunning Photos Of West Coast Port Congestion

February 12, 2015

The “Catastrophic Shutdown Of America’s Supply Chain” Begins: Stunning Photos Of West Coast Port Congestion

One week ago, when previewing what may be the first lockout of the West Coast Ports since 2002, we cited the Retail Industry Leaders Association who, realizing that failure to reach an agreement between the dockworker union and their bosses, the Pacific Maritime Association representing port management would lead to devastating consequences for the US retail industry, had several very damning soundbites:

  • “a work slowdown during contract negotiations over the past seven months has already created logistic nightmares for American exporters, manufacturers and retailers dependent on an efficient supply chain. A complete shutdown would be catastrophic, with hundreds of thousands of jobs at risk if America’s supply chain grinds to a halt.“
  • “A west coast port shutdown would be an economic disaster.”
  • “A shutdown would not only impact the hundreds of thousands of jobs working directly in America’s transportation supply chain, but the reality is the entire economy would be impacted as exports sit on docks and imports sit in the harbor waiting for manufacturers to build products and retailers to stock shelves.”

And the punchline: “The slowdown is already making life difficult, but a shutdown could derail the economy completely.”

Just so readers have a sense of what is at stake, this is what the average dockworker makes: $147,000 a year in salary, plus $35,000 a year in employer-paid health care and an annual pension of $80,000 (according to an association press release). It is the overtime compensation to the total shown here, which grosses to over a quarter of a million dollars, that dockworkers are negotiating to raise or else the key US supply-chains gets it.

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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