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Express Tribune
04-05-2025
- Politics
- Express Tribune
Will a US settlement with Iran bring peace to extended ME?
Listen to article There may be some clearing of the air by the time this article appears in print. The air would clear if the ongoing negotiations hosted by Oman lead to some understanding between Iran on the one hand and the United States and Israel on the other. This would settle down the region I have been calling the extended Middle East by including in it Afghanistan, Pakistan and the countries of Central Asia. As discussed below, an understanding between the contesting parties would bring much-needed peace to the area and have the policymakers concentrate their attention on improving the lives of their large citizenry. In an article titled "A Tough but Sensible Way to Solve the Iran Problem', Bret Stephens, a columnist who writes for The New York Times, quoted from the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, according to which Iran had enriched uranium to 60 per cent purity and might be able to enrich enough uranium to make five fission weapons in less than two weeks. Stephens argued that the real problem with Iran is not that it would go nuclear, but its geopolitical ambitions and raging anti-Americanism, as well as its long record of supporting terrorism. He argues that there are two paths to dealing with the Iran situation. One is to go back to the sanctions-for-nukes deal that was the basis of the agreement reached by the Barack Obama administration in 2015 of which Trump pulled out when he first took office. The other is normalisation of relations with Iran by the United States. Normalisation means the resumption of full diplomatic ties between Tehran and Washington, including the reopening of embassies that have been shuttered for decades; the end of all US economic sanctions, including secondary sanctions imposed on foreign companies for doing business with Iran; direct bilateral trade and investment; thousands of student visas for Iranians wising to study in the United States; and the offer of arms sales to Iran, at least of a conventional kind. In return, Iran would begin to behave like a normal country. Stephens defines what normality would mean for Iran. "A normal country doesn't finance and arm terrorist groups that start regional wars and disrupt global commerce, like Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis. A normal country with the world's third largest oil reserves but an otherwise collapsing economy, doesn't need to spend billions of dollars to enrich uranium. A normal country doesn't call for the elimination of other countries, even hostile ones. A normal country doesn't take foreign nationals as hostage, a routine part of its diplomacy. A normal country doesn't seek to assassinate former U.S. government officials or dissident exiles. A normal country doesn't hang gay people. A normal country doesn't gang rape women in prison to enforce a so-called modesty code. If Iran wants to solve its pressing economic and strategic problems — a catering currency, energy shortages, widespread popular opposition and the decimation of its regional allies — all it has to do is to change its behavior." It has to become a normal country. During his second term that began on January 20, 2025, President Donald Trump began to work on reaching some sort of understanding with the Islamic cleric regime in Tehran to limit Iran's nuclear ambitions. According to an assessment by The New York Times correspondents Susannah George and Nilo Tarrisy that appeared in the issue of April 26, 2025 under the caption, "Elite in Iran grow supportive of nuclear talks amid rising economic unease", hardline media wrote in favour of the talks that were led on the United States by its emissary Steve Witkoff. "There is certainly a sense that ground has shifted," said Gregory Brew, an analyst at Eurasia Group. "There is consensus among the elite, that negotiations with the United States to secure sanctions relief should be a priority." Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, was not enthusiastic about the terms of the 2025 agreement but following successful Israeli military operations against his country and its regional allies, support for engagement with the United States began to grow, particularly among senior military leadership. But the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and Hezbollah's Hasan Nasrallah split the military leadership into two competing groups: one favouring accommodation, the other remaining hostile. At the time of this writing detailed discussions were taking place in Oman. There is no doubt that after facing years of crippling economic sanctions and the growing military pressure from Israel and the United States, Iranian negotiators were being pressed to accept difficult concessions. Iranian pronouncements are markedly different from those that were made by Tehran in the days leading up to the 2015 agreement. Then, Khamenei was in conflict with President Hasan Rouhani and labeled the agreement that was being worked upon with the United States and other participants as disastrous for Iran. The change in Tehran's position began with the election in 2024 of Masoud Pezeshkian as president. He was looked upon as a reformist, prepared to work for slackening the Islamic rule and also working with the West, in particular with the United States. Those working on Iran issues in think-tanks across the globe saw the change in thinking. According to Kusha Sefat, an associated professor of sociology at the University of Tehran, the divide in thinking was between those who were leaning towards regional escalation, even war, and those who advocated for normalisation of relations between Tehran and Washington. "What is particularly significant is that the supreme leader Khamanei has taken up a mediating role between these two opposing poles." There were other commentators who saw significant changes in the way they looked at Iran's situation. Mostafa Najafi, a Middle East analyst based in Iran, said, "President Pezeshkian and some other influential political figures were able to create political persuasion for negotiations." Behind the scenes Khamanei and Pezeshkian were working in close collaboration. The president sought to delay retaliation against Israel for the latter's killing of senior leadership of Hamas and Hezbollah. But there were influential voices that were opposed to the ongoing talks in Oman. Hamid Rasaei, a member of parliament close to senior hardliners, railed against the Oman talks. The supreme leader allowed talks "merely to show the extent of irrationality and perjury of the U.S. officials", he said. Even as negotiations continue, Rasaei warned, "The sanctions are going to get harsher, the problems are going to get worse."
Yahoo
14-04-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Iowa landfills capture methane and convert it to usable natural gas
The Loess Hills Regional Sanitary Landfill is one of a handful of landfills in Iowa that converts landfill gas into renewable natural gas. (Photo courtesy of Bret Stephens/Loess Hills Landfill) When household waste decomposes at a landfill, it produces methane, a greenhouse gas that traps significantly more heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency requires that large landfills monitor and capture the gas, but some landfills in Iowa are going a step further and 'upgrading' the landfill gas into renewable natural gas. John Foster, the board president of the Iowa Society of Solid Waste Operations, said this process can make economic sense for a landfill and provide an environmental impact during a time when 'there's an energy crisis around the corner.' Landfills that upgrade their gas end up shifting their wells into what Foster called a 'production' model that captures far more methane and carbon dioxide than what is required for compliance with the Clean Air Act. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX According to EPA, landfills account for 17% of overall U.S. methane emissions and the agency holds that renewable natural gas and other gas upgrading processes help to reduce the amount of methane emitted. Only a handful of landfills in Iowa are converting their landfill gas, so some advocates hope to involve smaller facilities by making the process more accessible. When combusted, methane is converted to carbon dioxide, which while still a greenhouse gas, has a much lower global warming potential than methane. Sending captured landfill gas up through a flare reduces the emissions of a landfill, by converting that methane to carbon dioxide. But Foster said there is also a potential for energy capture that the industry became interested in. He said 20 years ago, the focus was on direct uses of this energy, like using the flare to heat water needed for part of the landfill processes, or using it to power equipment at the facility. Then the industry began to realize that energy could replace some fossil fuels and offset some of the environmental cost of burning coal. Foster said some facilities installed generator sets that essentially converted landfill gas into electricity for use either in the plant or to connect and sell into a power grid. But, Foster said, as the renewable energy sector continues to focus more on wind and solar, the purchasing price for electricity 'doesn't justify' the cost of maintaining, and installing those generators. Updates to the EPA's Renewable Fuel Standard program created a structure to sell renewable fuel credits, as it does for other biofuels, for landfill gas converted into renewable natural gas. The program presented an economic incentive for landfills to pursue the costly process of upgrading gas in this way. Foster is also the administrator of the Black Hawk County Solid Waste Management Commission, a landfill in Waterloo that is converting its landfill gas into renewable vehicle fuel. 'We're taking gas that's just naturally going to be emitted into the atmosphere from our activity … but instead of just letting it go into the environment as carbon dioxide, we're actually offsetting diesel fuel by putting it into a vehicle,' Foster said. The renewable natural gas, or RNG, facility in Black Hawk County started operating during the summer of 2024. Foster said part of the process involved switching the landfill capture system from 'compliance' to 'production' to pull as much gas from the landfill wells as possible. This process reduces the amount of methane emitted into the atmosphere from the facility by an estimated 5,000 tons annually. The Loess Hills Regional Sanitary Landfill in western Iowa is similarly operating with a production capture system. The facility installed an automation system that maximizes the amount of landfill gas, or LFG, captured from landfill wells. The gas is then pumped to the Loess Hills Landfill RNG Facility, where the gas is cleaned and injected into a pipeline as natural gas. On average, the automated monitoring on the wells, from the company LoCI Controls, increases the amount of methane captured by 15-20%. Andrew Quigley, the director of environmental attributes for LoCI, said the technology increases LFG capture by monitoring the gas temperature, flow and composition every couple of hours. Traditionally, these same metrics would be taken manually, once a month and the valves adjusted to meet the measurements. But, Quigley said landfills are 'dynamic' and the gas composition 'changes constantly' because of temperature and atmospheric pressure fluctuations. 'Between these once a month measurements, you can have a ton of variation on what's going on with the gas generation and what gas collection systems should be doing to better effectively capture that gas,' Quigley said. The automated system analyses the readings it takes throughout the day and tunes the system to 'most effectively' capture the landfill gas, and provide consistency in the gas that is sent to the RNG facility. According to LoCI's data, the Loess Hills facility processes 1,500 standard cubic feet of landfill gas per minute to upgrade to RNG. The facility hopes to increase that amount to 4,000 standard cubic feet per minute within 15 years, as the amount of waste grows at the facility, which would convert to renewable natural gas equivalent to the energy needed to power nearly 14,000 homes in Iowa per year. Bret Stephens, the plant manager at the Loess Hills Landfill RNG Facility, said the automation system gives 'real time data' on the wells, which helps not only to pull more landfill gas, but also to identify oxygen leaks in a well which saves time and manpower. 'What those units can do with their automated tuning in minutes or hours, it would take us all day to do manually,' Stephens said. 'If the barometric pressure changes again, we'd be out there readjusting all the wells, and so we'd be constantly chasing our tails.' Stephens said the landfill is also able to capitalize on some early action carbon credits, by operating the LoCI systems on waste piles that have been in place less than five years. Like the Black Hawk facility, RNG upgraded at the Loess Hills facility is injected into a pipeline and used as renewable vehicle fuel. Foster said the next step is to get these practices onto smaller landfills, many of which don't currently have the tonnage requirements set by EPA that require landfill gas capturing. Some landfills are preemptively building out capture systems and engineering their outfits with methane capture in mind. He said the infrastructure costs of building something like an RNG facility, which was a $40 million investment at Loess Hills for example, continues to be a barrier, though he has seen the cost drop some in recent years as it becomes more widespread. A landfill in Dubuque also cleans landfill methane and converts it to natural gas. According to the EPA database, the Loess Hills site has the highest rate of gas flow out of the three RNG facilities in the state. EPA also shows that RNG facilities, both in landfills and those on agricultural operations that capture and clean methane from manure are growing in popularity. In the past 10 years, the number of landfill RNG facilities in the country has more than doubled, with more than 100 facilities in 2023. Gov. Kim Reynolds introduced a bill that would create regulations for anaerobic digesters as part of her plan to expand energy programs in Iowa. Foster said energy derived from anaerobic digestion is 'really the next step,' though he said the digesters can be applied to many types of organic waste, like food waste for example, and not just from digesting manure on agricultural operations. The energy bills are advancing through both the Iowa House and Senate. Foster said public-private partnerships can also be a way forward for landfills wanting to implement methane upgrading technologies. The Black Hawk County Landfill's operation is a partnership with Pine Creek RNG, a private company that invested in both the gas capture system at the landfill and the gas upgrading facility. 'A landfill is not just this pile of trash,' Foster said. 'Once you start realizing that there can be value to it — if somebody can see that value, they're going to invest in it.' Foster said he envisions the Black Hawk County facility to eventually work in a 'hub and spoke' model and partner with area landfills. This would allow the landfills to transport their captured gas to the Pine Creek RNG facility to be 'cleaned' and put on the pipeline, without the smaller landfills bearing the capital investment of building the facility. Foster said he believes the RNG market will persist, despite changes to energy policy from the current administration. To him, President Donald Trump's 'drill baby drill' policy is less about fossil fuels and more about prioritizing domestic energy over imported fuel. 'Renewable energy, it fills in that gap,' Foster said. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
New York Times
11-04-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
What We Believed About America
To the Editor: Re 'The Destruction of the American Ideal,' by Bret Stephens (column, April 9): What is so remarkable about Mr. Stephens's column is that it describes everything I was raised to believe about America — beliefs so widely shared that they were unremarkable . Everyone I knew believed that we were in this together; there was no us versus them. In the America I knew we believed that we truly were exceptional and that our immigrant population was a huge component of our ability to succeed. For many of us, the realization that people in power, regardless of political party, would belittle, name call and seek retribution has been a shock. There is nothing about this perversion that represents 'real' Americans — only a profound sense of shame that we have come to this. Carol Burton Anacortes, Wash. To the Editor: Bret Stephens notes that he has 'bent over backward' to give President Trump the 'benefit of the doubt.' But giving Mr. Trump the benefit of the doubt is how we got into this sickening mess. Mr. Trump has been telling us for years exactly who he is and what he wants to do — including deporting vast swaths of the population with no due process. Many millions of Americans voted for him multiple times because they think that is a good idea, too. Or at least they were willing to look past a horrifying idea because they support Mr. Trump for other reasons. In other words, they gave him the benefit of the doubt. It's happening now as Mr. Trump promised it would. None of this should surprise us. The fact that Mr. Stephens is surprised by the chilling case of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia — who was arrested, deported and sent without due process to a Salvadoran prison — is the only thing that surprises me. Kate Aufses New York To the Editor: When Republicans complain of American culture in decline, they often extol the moral virtues of our nation's Judeo-Christian tradition. Republicans expound on brilliance of the United States Constitution, our Republic and our nation's founders. They honor those who bravely serve our nation, both in the military abroad and in law enforcement at home. They proclaim that they believe in patriotism, duty and faith. Yet they unflinchingly support a man who lacks decency and honor. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? Log in. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
New York Times
15-03-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
‘A Really Easy Mark for Trump': Three Columnists on the Threats to Elite Colleges
Patrick Healy, the deputy Opinion editor, hosted an online conversation with the Times Opinion columnists M. Gessen, Tressie McMillan Cottom and Bret Stephens about Donald Trump's attacks on Columbia University and other elite colleges and how they became vulnerable to a political and ideological reckoning. Patrick Healy: Bret, Tressie, Masha, I spoke on Thursday to a university president who told me he was just advised to hire a bodyguard. He said he'd never seen so much fear in the world of higher education — that many college presidents are 'scared to death' about the Trump administration cutting their funding, Elon Musk unleashing Twitter mobs on them, ICE agents coming on campus, angry email flooding their inboxes, student protests over Gaza and Israel, and worries about being targeted for violence. I was a higher education reporter two decades ago, when universities were widely admired in America, and so I asked this president — what went wrong? He said presidents and professors had taken too many things for granted — they thought they'd always be seen as a 'public good' benefiting society, but came to be seen as elitist and condescending toward regular Americans. And Americans hate a lot of things, but they really hate elites condescending to them. Now we are seeing a big reckoning for higher education — ideological, cultural, financial — driven by Donald Trump and the right. So I want to start by asking you the question I asked the university president — what went wrong for higher ed? How did colleges become easy pickings? Bret Stephens: Big question; lots of answers. The moment I realized something had gone terribly, maybe irreversibly, wrong in higher ed came in 2015, when Nicholas Christakis, a distinguished sociobiologist at Yale, was surrounded, hounded, lectured and yelled at by students furious that his wife, Erika, had suggested in an email that perhaps students could be entrusted to make their own Halloween costume decisions. The incident seemed to encapsulate the entitlement, the arrogance and the unbearably petty grievances of a generation who seemed to find their voice and power in the taking of offense. I was left asking: Who admitted these students? Who taught them to think this way? And why weren't they immediately suspended or expelled? Healy: I remember that moment. A Harvard friend texted me and said, Glad you didn't go to Yale? Then she backtracked with there-by-the-grace-of-God-goes-Harvard humility. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? Log in. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
New York Times
08-02-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
The Assault on Diversity
To the Editor: Re 'D.E.I. Will Not Be Missed,' by Bret Stephens (column, Jan. 29): Mr. Stephens's column centers the decision to open all combat roles to women — decreed in 2015 by my late husband, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter — as the primordial event from which all D.E.I. efforts flowed. The attempt to label this decision a D.E.I. strategy is simplistic. Instead, let's revisit the common sense that continues to underpin it. It was crucial to Ash, who was also a physicist, that the decision be rooted in logic — the hypothesis that opening all positions would be additive, and would help the military build and maintain the world's finest fighting force. To Ash, that meant filling each position with the most qualified person; he recognized the illogic in excluding half the population from the available talent pool. An honest accounting of the occasional excess in this policy's execution must acknowledge that our services have at crucial times revisited standards for male service members as well. With formidable military recruiting challenges and no shortage of global crises, our emphasis must be to repair these issues with a scalpel — not a machete. Let's remember that in America, we have an all-volunteer force; our military — like any organization — competes for top talent in a competitive environment. People are unlikely to pursue a job where their forward progress is unnaturally capped — even if it is unlikely that they ever reach the top rung of the ladder. These challenges require nuanced thinking over dismissive labels. Ash's decision wasn't woke — it was just work. Stephanie Carter Boston To the Editor: Bret Stephens's column about banning D.E.I. because, in part, 'a young female soldier would only have to be able to complete 10 push-ups' is shortsighted and an insult to those thousands behind the front lines providing support to the ones wielding guns. Brute strength may be a requirement, but there's no military without brainpower. Consider the work of communications teams, maintenance crews, supply teams, food preparers and servers, doctors, nurses, medical technicians and all in field hospitals. Military infrastructure is dependent on technologies that require vital skills that have nothing to do with muscular power, sex, gender or race. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? Log in. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
