Maintaining a balance between preserving the environment and making sure that people have access to the resources they require to survive is difficult.
Why Greta Thunberg and Other Climate Activists Are Protesting Wind Farms in Norway…
“The scene in downtown Oslo this week is hardly unusual in the era of climate protest: chained to doorways and bundled up in thick blankets, Greta Thunberg and dozens of other young activists are blocking the entrance to Norway’s energy and finance ministries to challenge government climate policy. But this time, their target may surprise you: wind farms.”
TIME BY CIARA NUGENT, FEBRUARY 28, 2023
Climate Activists Have a New Target: Civilians…
“We don’t want them to think that they can buy a big car and just enjoy their life and ignore what’s going on in the world,” Claude explained to me. He and his two accomplices gave false names as a condition of allowing me to observe their nighttime expedition. The vehicles weren’t damaged, but they’d need a refill or a tire change. Before he left, Claude stuck a leaflet to the windscreen saying, in French: “Don’t take it personally. You are not our target, it’s your car.”
POLITICO EU BY KARL MATHIESEN, MAY 2, 2023
Burning Man Becomes Latest Adversary in Geothermal Feud
“Festival organizers are trying to block plans to build a clean energy plant in the Nevada desert, highlighting the struggle to combat climate change and the cost of clean power.
NYT BY ARIELLE PAUL, MAY 17, 2023
By Germán & Co, May 18,2023
Life is indeed a complex journey with many twists and turns that can both bring joy and sorrow. It is these challenges that test our resilience and ability to adapt. Unfortunately, our world and humans are not immune to disasters, whether they be natural or man-made. Pollution, for example, can have devastating effects on our environment and health, while the actions of those who disregard basic moral principles can cause harm to others. One of the most recent challenges is the SARC-2 virus, which has disrupted our daily life.
The SARC-2 virus has had a significant influence on our emotional health since it has pushed us to give up physical contact and rely solely on digital communication.
Human beings have always been praised for their ability to adapt to change quickly, and it's not hard to see why. This unknown time has been a cruel change, as human contact is essential to nourish our souls. Unfortunately, the virus has also had a devastating effect on the global economy. The pandemic has caused a shortage of essential goods, which has triggered a dangerous inflationary spiral. And just when we thought things couldn't get any worse, Russia's invasion of Ukraine further destabilized the economy by disrupting the fossil fuel market.
The invasion of Ukraine by Russia severely weakened the economy by causing a disruption in the fossil fuel industry.
So, that times have been demanding since the pandemic hit, and now with the added stress of the Ukraine war, seeing how some people struggle to meet their basic needs is heart-breaking. It's not easy when you need a lot of money product to inflation —that you don't have it—to buy the essentials like bread, tortillas, and rice. It's even worse when you can't afford to pay your electricity bill or rent, and you're forced to be homeless, exposed to the elements. Sadly, even retirees in wealthy countries must rummage through garbage containers to survive. It's a shame that so few people are speaking out against this injustice.
Of course, without any doubt, climate change is a fundamental issue. As someone deeply concerned about the effects of climate change, it is essential to have open and —honest, realistic, scientific, and human discussions— about the subject is our duty to place as much importance and care into looking out for the welfare of our neighbour’s as we do in safeguarding the environment. We must be careful that what we do doesn't hurt others around us. After all, When there are no humans on the globe, what use is it to have a healthy planet?
Unfortunately, the environmental movement can sometimes use —wrong—information and misleading narratives to sway people's emotions instead of simply presenting the facts. While must we recognize that some of these groups may have begun with good intentions, it takes time to determine their impartiality as they grow into massive corporations with significant wealth and well-compensated staff.
Now, while millions of people try to cope with this challenging situation, especially in Europe, like the rest of the world, on the one hand, politicians try to find urgent solutions to supply the fuel that no longer comes from Russia, on the other hand, by exploring many new and environmentally friendly sources of energy. It's a tricky situation that we can overcome with determination and cooperation. Unfortunately, some environmental groups are more interested in pushing their agenda than helping those in need. These groups have inhumanely boycotted projects vital to the current electricity industry, causing further hardship for those already struggling.
Source NYT/Editing by Germán & Co Burning Man Becomes Latest Adversary in Geothermal Feud…
NYT BY ARIELLE PAUL, MAY 17, 2023 One of the darkest towns in America lies roughly 100 miles north of Reno, where the lights are few and rarely lit until one week each summer when pyrotechnics and LEDs set the sky and mountains aglow.
In tiny Gerlach, just outside the Black Rock Desert in Nevada, residents have watched the Burning Man festival grow over the last 30 years to a spectacle of nearly 80,000 countercultural hippies and tech billionaires, offering an economic lifeline for the unincorporated town. Now, Burning Man and Gerlach are more tightly aligned, joining conservationists and a Native American tribe in an alliance against a powerful adversary: Ormat Technology, the largest geothermal power company in the country.
Both Burning Man and Ormat share a vision for a greener future, yet neither can agree on the road to get there.
The festival promotes self-reliance and leaving no trace of its ephemeral metropolis, yet it contributes an enormous carbon footprint; the power company is vested in the future by battling climate change, but its clean energy facilities pose a threat to local habitats while reaping a sizable profit.
The dilemma has complicated similar projects worldwide, underscoring the tension between the need to combat climate change and the cost of doing so using clean power. In the effort for a sustainable future, what compromises must be made?
Experts say the answer comes down to the No. 1 rule in real estate: location, location, location.
“Devil’s in the details with the exact spot,” said Shaaron Netherton, the executive director of Friends of Nevada Wilderness. The organization has joined in a lawsuit to block Ormat’s project, which would explore potential geothermal resources in Gerlach.
Several Ormat initiatives have stalled or been forced to relocate amid concerns about potential threats to endangered species like the bleached sandhill skipper, a rare butterfly; populations of sage-grouse; the steamboat buckwheat; and, most recently, the Dixie Valley toad.
Opponents of Ormat’s project plans in Dixie Valley, Nev., fear it would drain the surface springs and push the tiny toad toward extinction. “Geothermal energy has a dark, dirty little secret: They dry up hot springs every time,” said Patrick Donnelly, the Great Basin director at the Center for Biological Diversity.
Yet other plants, such as Ormat’s Tsuchiyu Onsen plant in Fukushima, Japan, coexist with neighboring hot springs, inspiring the Japanese to reconsider the potential of geothermal energy, which creates electricity using fluids from underground.
Ormat said in a statement that it recognized the value of Nevada’s Black Rock Desert. “Sustaining its resources is not only important to residents but also to our long-term success,” the company said.
Nevada’s geothermal resources have become a controversial topic. The state, known as the “golden child of geothermal,” contributes 24 percent of the country’s geothermal power, the highest after California, and produces nearly 10 percent of its electricity using the earth’s heat.
Ormat has 15 plants in Nevada, which together contribute 433 megawatts to the state’s electrical grid — enough to power 325,000 homes. Geothermal environments, including hot springs, geysers and steam vents found along the “Ring of Fire,” the tectonic pathway encircling the Pacific Ocean, are home to a wide range of biodiverse ecosystems. They can also serve as sacred sites for Indigenous tribes and supply spring water to rural towns like Gerlach.
Loss of drinking water is one of the many concerns Gerlach residents have over Ormat’s proposed project. Another is subsidence, the gradual sinking of land already occurring in certain parts of town.
“They build the plant on the aquifer Gerlach is sitting on, Gerlach will sink,” said Will Roger, who, along with his partner, Crimson Rose, is a founder of Burning Man and have lived in Gerlach for 10 years. “That means the foundations of our houses will break and we’ll get condemned.”
Ormat worked to ensure there would be “no significant environmental or economic losses generated by exploration or development” of the site, the company said in its statement. “Geothermal development can bring numerous benefits to communities, especially in rural towns like Gerlach.”
The aquifer also houses the Great Boiling Springs, studied by the likes of NASA for its rare microbial similarities to conditions on Earth billions of years ago. Locals fear the plant would irreversibly affect the spring by mixing geothermal fluids with groundwater.
These are “geological uncertainties,” said Roland N. Horne, a professor of earth sciences at Stanford University. He explained that older steam plants have dried up hot springs, but most Ormat plants, including the one proposed in Gerlach, run on binary technology in which geothermal water never leaves the ground. Binary power plants create energy through a heat exchanger “with no emissions whatsoever of geothermal fluid or gases,” he said.
Still, binary plants are not foolproof. At Ormat’s nearby Jersey Valley plant, springs dried after operating for a few years. Ormat claims there is no proof the drought was caused by the plant, attributing it instead to a poorly plugged mining core hole.
Complicating matters in Gerlach, the plant would infringe on springs culturally significant to the Summit Lake Paiute Tribe. Randi Lone Eagle, the tribe’s chairwoman, said the Bureau of Land Management failed to adequately consult them before greenlighting the project. “Tribes want to be notified way ahead of that process because a lot of the time, we’re coming to the table when the project is already done,” she said.
The plant’s critics say the town’s 130 residents could also be subject to light, noise and pollution, with desert views and historic emigrant trails sullied by the presence of an industrial plant a hundred feet away. These risks were not weighed when the Bureau of Land Management found “no significant impact” in its environmental assessment of the exploration project.
“It’s kind of a NIMBY thing, but so much more,” said Mr. Roger, the Burning Man co-founder, whose two-acre home has 50 trees, a labyrinth, chickens and an aquaponics system that harvests tilapia and fertilizes their greenhouse. “It’s not just ‘not in my backyard,’ but don’t ruin my backyard.”
Last month, local authorities rescinded a permit for Ormat to “temporarily explore whether a commercially viable geothermal resource exists” in Gerlach, Ormat said in its statement, cuing up what is likely to be a long conflict.
Burning Man organizers say when it comes to their social principles, they practice what they preach. Sustainability projects funded by the Burning Man Project, the nonprofit entity that runs the festival, are sprouting around town. The organization claims that it “owns more than half of the commercial property in Gerlach,” advancing its goal to build a permanent community.
As part of an effort to cut the festival’s annual carbon footprint of 100,000 tons by 2030, the Burning Man Project has outlined green initiatives like supplying more “solar installations for artwork and campers” and “having serious conversations” about what art to burn, Ms. Rose said.
But it’s an ambitious goal. About 90 percent of Burning Man’s emissions are caused by cars, RVs and planes hauling thousands of attendees to the remote desert.
Mr. Roger said he hoped greener grids will beckon more electric vehicles to the festival. Unfortunately, electric cars require lithium-ion batteries mined from plants like the one Fuse Battery plans to build outside of Gerlach and will probably receive similar pushback.
He added that he had no plans to scale down the festival to offset its carbon footprint.
“Burning Man changes lives, so if we can wake people up there, to me all that is worth it,” he said. “I don’t want to lower the number; I’d like to raise it.”