Latest news with #coalindustry
Bloomberg
4 hours ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
China's Coal Industry Has a Big, Dirty Secret
Exactly a century ago, two German chemists patented a process to transform coal into liquid fuels. Following its discovery in 1925, the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis eventually became infamous: The Nazis used it to fuel their war machine, and apartheid South Africa turned to it to offset the impact of an oil embargo in the 1980s. Its last — and huge — user is China. Largely unnoticed, the size of this obscure corner of the Chinese coal industry has reached gargantuan proportions: It consumes about 380 million metric tons of coal as a feedstock for chemical and liquid fuel production, according to the International Energy Agency. To understand its size better, it helps to think about the segment as if it were a country. As such, it would rank as the world's third-largest consumer, only behind the rest of the Chinese coal sector and India, but ahead of the US, Japan and other top coal-consuming nations like Indonesia and Turkey. It's not a little dirty secret — it's a big one, with significant implications for global climate and energy policy. The longer China remains addicted to coal, the more difficult it will be to decrease carbon dioxide emissions. Despite its huge progress in green energy, from electric cars to solar panels, the Asian giant consumes more coal than every other country on the planet combined. Crucially, the Chinese coal-conversion industry is set to expand even further, potentially offsetting declines elsewhere in the country, including a reduction in coal demand to produce cement and steel. 'We expect a growth between 5% and 10% in the coming years,' Carlos Fernandez Alvarez, head of coal at the IEA, tells me. Unfortunately, the sector is a black hole, as China publishes scant statistical information about it. For decades, China has converted some of its coal into chemical products and liquid fuels in what scholars call the 'traditional' coal chemical industry. The starting point was almost always metallurgical coal, converted into coke, and further transformed into ammonia-based fertilizers and acetylene-based chemicals. Yet over the last two decades, China has built a second layer, typically referred to as the 'modern' coal chemical industry, based on new variations of the old Fischer-Tropsch process plus sophisticated new methods, including methanol synthesis to produce petrochemical goods, such as olefins, used in turn to make plastics. The modern part of that processing was largely experimental in the early 2000s. Commercial-scale projects mushroomed in the 2010s, and, after a brief hiatus, more have emerged in recent years, particularly in the Chinese heartland, where the bulk of the country's coal fields are located far from coastal cities. By now, its scale — which dwarfs all other countries' coal-to-chemicals production — and growth is surprising even veteran industry observers. Look at some modernized plants and coal is nowhere to be seen: It's mined underground almost directly beneath the chemical facilities, carried by conveyor into the furnaces where it's gasified and transformed. From there, it goes into your plastic water bottle or synthetic fabric clothes. 1
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
The Lone Star State — and Trump — versus BlackRock
The Trump administration has waded into a politically charged Texas-led legal fight to dilute US financial giants' alleged influence over corporate America. Last week, the US Justice Department and the US Federal Trade Commission filed a joint "statement of interest" siding with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and 10 other Republican-led states in an antitrust case against trillion-dollar asset managers BlackRock (BLK) and its rivals State Street (STT) and Vanguard. The charge: Using their substantial stock holdings, BlackRock and its rival financial firms coordinated a "left-wing ideological" attack on US coal companies, pressuring coal producers Arch Coal, Black Hills, and Peabody to cut coal production in the South Powder River Basin and thermal coal markets, the DOJ and FTC said in the court filing. The decreased output, they said, harmed US consumers by artificially inflating energy prices. "Carbon reduction is no more a defense to the conduct alleged here than it would be to price fixing among airlines that reduced the number of carbon-emitting flights," the DOJ and FTC said in the statement supporting the states' claims. The states allege that the financial firms agreed to reduce output through commitments to carbon-reduction organizations Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative and Climate Action 100+. They also say disclosures from the defendants and public statements show that they engaged directly with coal company executives in efforts to influence production levels, and they used their voting power when engagement fell short of meeting those goals. As large yet minority shareholders, the complaint claims, the defendants have more influence than their formal equity share. The actions extend beyond shareholder advocacy and passive investing by furthering their own "green energy" or net-zero goals, rather than the goals of the coal corporations, in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act and Section 7 of the Clayton Act, the challengers claim. The agencies' effort to have the administration's perspective considered in the case, despite not being a party to the dispute, has drawn criticism from the defendants and others. On Wednesday, Campaign for Accountability (CfA), a nonpartisan nonprofit watchdog organization, accused the administration of targeting the money managers for political rather than law enforcement reasons. The group filed a Freedom of Information Act Request asking the agencies to disclose communications underlying their decision to weigh in on the case. CfA was co-founded in 2015 by Anne Weismann, former head counsel for the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. "This case isn't about antitrust law, but about conservative opposition to even recognizing the risks of climate change," CfA executive director Michelle Kuppersmith said. "Americans deserve to know who is influencing the FTC to use its antitrust authority to attack political opponents." Meanwhile, Derek Mountford, an antitrust partner at Gunster, said the lawsuit's rhetoric also signals political motivation. But, he added, it could ultimately answer an unsettled antitrust question over how competition law applies to the actions of asset managers with significant ownership interests in competing companies. Should asset managers and index fund providers, for example, be treated differently under the law than individuals and businesses that offer products and services and control multiple firms within a singular market? "If one individual owns a significant interest in three competing companies, alarm bells start going off in your head that there could be some anticompetitive conduct going on," Mountford said. Although the BlackRock scenario isn't as cut and dried, he said, concerns have been bubbling about the competitive role that institutional shareholders are allowed to play, compared to companies and suppliers that can more directly influence market competition. "This case is going to represent a much clearer answer to that question than I think we've gotten in any other case of its kind," Mountford said. BlackRock asked for a judge to dismiss the case and accused the administration of trying to "re-write" antitrust law under an "absurd" theory that the coal companies conspired with them to reduce production outputs. "Forcing asset managers to divest from coal companies will harm their ability to access capital and invest in their businesses and employees, likely leading to higher energy prices," the company said in a statement. BlackRock CEO Larry Fink made a series of disengagements from the company's environmental, social, and governance (ESG) initiatives as bipartisan concerns spread over the financial giant's power to sway US markets. Fink publicly stated in June 2023 that he would cease using the politically sensitive acronym "ESG" because it had been "weaponized" by both the ideological right and the left. In January, before President Trump took office, the financial giant cut ties with UN-backed Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative (NZAM), an environmental advocacy group that pledged net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. The administration's legal filing came roughly six months after a GOP-controlled House Judiciary Committee issued a report accusing the three money managers of using their financial clout to force US coal companies to "decarbonize" and reach net zero. According to the report, the money managers forced coal companies to disclose and reduce carbon emissions through negotiations, stockholder proxy resolutions, and the replacement of directors at "recalcitrant companies." Democrats have also criticized the financial firms' outsized influence over US markets, but for different reasons. Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.), a vocal critic of the megamanagers' influence, described the group's stock ownership in 95% of S&P 500 (^GSPC) companies an "oligarchy." Sanders, along with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) also criticized BlackRock for declining to use its weight to intervene in a coal mining labor dispute. Gunster's Mountford said the federal government's decision to weigh in on a state AG-initiated case is unusual but becoming increasingly more prevalent. "It's not something that courts have had to wrestle with, where you have the DOJ weighing in on these types of cases," he said. "It's a pretty new phenomenon, and it's one that Trump sort of pioneered ... and continued during the Biden administration." "I think," he added, "it's here to stay." Alexis Keenan is a legal reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow Alexis on X @alexiskweed. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Reuters
3 days ago
- Business
- Reuters
Russia to provide state support for ailing coal industry
MOSCOW, May 30 (Reuters) - The Russian government said on Friday it had agreed to support the struggling coal industry, including by deferring tax payments, as well as by limiting dividends and bonuses to top management. Russian coal producers face a number of challenges, including international sanctions over Ukraine. According to the government, the country's coal exports fell almost 8% to 213 million tonnes last year, while production rose 1.3% to 438 million metric tons. The European Union, which previously depended on Russia for around 45% of its coal imports, banned supplies from Russia in 2022. Under the government measures, Russian coal companies will be granted a deferral of mineral extraction tax (MET) and insurance contributions until December 1 2025. The possibility of debt restructuring is envisaged for indebted companies, taking into account the position of the Central Bank of Russia, the government added. Russia's NEFT Research consultancy said Russia's coal exports have been declining due to the international sanctions, rising transportation costs and weaker demand. It cited energy ministry data, which showed that the Russian coal industry had lost 1.2 trillion roubles ($15 billion) since 2022 due to the sanctions, including the loss of lucrative markets in Europe and difficulties in getting payment for supplies. ($1 = 78.5000 roubles)
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
The world's best-preserved fossils are right outside Chicago. But there are no dinosaur bones at Mazon Creek
CHICAGO — Sixty-five miles southwest of Chicago, a small hill that looks like a prop from an Indiana Jones movie breaks up the flat, monotone landscape. Consisting of shale, sandstone and rocks from an old coal mine, the waste pile — located on a massive river delta from another era — is an unremarkable remnant from the region's once-thriving coal industry. Except it contains many of the world's best-preserved, most diverse fossils. The defunct mine's location in Grundy County is one of several sites spanning six counties that belong to the Mazon Creek fossil beds, a time capsule dating back some 309 million years — way before the age of dinosaurs — to the Carboniferous period, when large coal deposits formed around the world and terrestrial ecosystems developed. At the time, this area was swampy and tropical, and home to various organisms like the Illinois state fossil, the peculiar Tully monster, which has been found only here — a cigar-shaped vertebrate creature up to a foot long with eyes that protruded sideways, a long snout and a toothy mouth. 'You get everything from insects, millipedes, plants, jellyfish, all the way to early tetrapods, big animals like embolomeri, as well as larval forms,' said Arjan Mann, who recently joined the museum as an assistant curator of fossil fishes and early tetrapods, or four-limbed animals, such as the crocodile-like and predatory embolomeri. 'This makes Mazon Creek the most complete record of a Paleozoic ecosystem' — an era that contained six periods and spanned from 541 million to 252 million years ago. Despite their uniqueness, these sites remain relatively unknown to many outside paleontology circles. Maybe because no dinosaur bones have ever been found in this area or the rest of Illinois, and those tend to draw the most attention. Even as the Field Museum celebrates on Friday 25 years since the arrival of famed Sue the T. rex to its halls after the bones were discovered in South Dakota, some scientists are shining a light on other creatures and plants that once roamed and grew in Illinois. Mann's role as a paleontologist, specifically at the Field Museum, was recently ranked the second-coolest job in the country on a survey. And he wants to make the science more accessible, regardless of age or expertise, by collaborating with amateur fossil collectors from the Earth Science Club of Northern Illinois to find new specimens. The club and museum take amateur fossil hunters to Mazon Creek sites on public land like state parks, where permits are required, as well as on private property like the Grundy County site they recently visited where they have an established relationship with the landowners. In 1946, the museum hired Eugene Richardson as curator of fossil invertebrates, and he became a strong advocate for collaborating with amateur fossil collectors in Mazon Creek localities. Since Richardson's death in 1983, paleontological research at the institution has skewed toward dinosaurs, Mann said. Now, he wants to renew the museum's focus on Mazon Creek. 'I did my dissertation entirely on this site, even though I'm from Canada,' Mann said. 'So my love for this site and my knowledge of what it was in the past, gives me a drive to want to revitalize both the scientific research to show how important the locality is, (and) how important it is as a social experiment — and how we can involve people at all levels.' Rich Holm, a software engineer, joined the club about 20 years ago with his daughter, Anna. While picking through the pea gravel in their Naperville backyard, she'd found tiny fossils of a now-extinct, horn-shaped coral and a brachiopod — a marine animal that resembles a clam. A visit to a gift shop that sold stones and crystals solidified Anna's interest and she told Holm she wanted to collect rocks. 'I said, 'Sure, that's fine,'' he recalled. Which is how he ended up on the club's website and began taking her to junior group outings. 'Now I'm on the board of directors.' Holm said the paleontology experiences fostered a love for science in Anna, who went on to study microbiology in college. Sometimes she'll join him on one of his 20 to 40 yearly collecting field trips. On one trip, he found a fossilized Paleocampa anthrax , a rare, extinct worm with bristles that make it look like a caterpillar and is related to modern-day fireworms. He has also found a fossilized tailless whip scorpion, of the extinct species Graeophonus carbonatius; arachnids like this are rare and coveted among collectors. But acquiring rare specimens requires patience and identifying a lot of concretions, or mineral masses that sometimes contain fossils. The shape of a concretion generally offers a clue into what's inside, so collectors want to bring back as many as possible to open, Holm said. At the recent Mazon Creek dig, participants used pickaxes to sift through the waste pile, known as a spoil tip. 'Can I give you some of the stuff in my pocket?' Mann asked a colleague as he stood on top of the spoil tip. 'It's weighing me down.' In a comical scene, he started pulling out rock after rock. 'You just keep getting them,' Mann laughed. 'And it's like a second collection experience when you open them,' he said. 'These act as little time capsules that entomb animals within them.' Holm has found so many fossils that he often gives them away to family, friends and even co-workers, who proudly display the gifts on their desks. 'You can get buried' in a collection, he joked. 'So I give them away quite readily.' While some prefer to crack the concretions with a hammer for faster results, this can damage the fossil inside. Experts suggest opening the Mazon Creek stones by alternately freezing and thawing them in water. As the liquid freezes and expands, it gently cracks the rocks open by putting pressure on their weakest points. This method often requires that collectors' families make room for the fossils at home. 'It's a passion that just grows exponentially,' Holm said. 'So, probably very soon after you start, you need a freezer of your own.' For Father's Day one year, Holm's wife gave him one that he put in his basement. It is always stacked full of containers with concretions from different sites. 'It can sometimes take six months to a year for some to open,' Holm said. 'I go down there almost every other day, and I'm constantly cycling the containers and checking. So that's where the treasure hunt can continue all year round.' Participants in the Grundy County fossil hunt are still in the freeze-thaw stage for the concretions they found that day. Jeff Allen, another member of the club, uses half of the freezer in his basement to store his frozen fossils. 'I have a very patient wife,' he chuckled. 'That's the kind of enthusiasm that these collectors have,' Mann said. 'As the Field Museum, we would never be able to do the kind of operation that we're able to accomplish involving local collectors who are doing this work, and having good relationships with them.' Mann and a colleague have set out to find the missing stage between the anatomies of primitive amphibians and modern ones, hoping the fossils in the 309 million-year-old Mazon Creek hold the answer. Some modern amphibians have long had body characteristics that make them easily recognizable: frogs with powerful hind legs and salamanders with forelimbs and long tails. Less universally familiar but still peculiar is another kind of amphibian that's still around today, the so-called caecilians, which have long, legless, snake-like bodies and spend most of their lives underground. 'But the thing is, if you go back into the fossil record, you basically see them maintaining the same body plan for about 250 million years. And before that, we have nothing,' said Cal So, a postdoctoral scientist at the museum who specializes in amphibians. 'This time period essentially provides a really good place to look for what some of these early relatives of amphibians looked like. That's one of the biggest mysteries in paleontology — evolutionary biology in general.' The fossils in Mazon Creek offer a snapshot in time from hundreds of millions of years ago, when high oxygen levels, coal deposits and rapid burial caused many plants and animals, including soft tissues, to be well-preserved. Mann looked toward the top of the waste pile. 'When you go up, it's like you're going back in time,' he said. 'When you see topology like this, rounded hills are probably spoil piles. And if you dig into these, there's a good chance you're going to find a concretion.' The Mazon Creek fossil beds include a variety of sites, including local mine spoil piles, no-dig zones like the Mazonia-Braidwood State Fish and Wildlife Area, which requires a permit, and other localities that require sifting through rocks and silt on riverbeds and riverbanks, or bushwhacking through overgrown vegetation. Fossils in the state are not just limited to this one area. Paleontologists also visit Danville and surrounding areas in east central Illinois, and the Little Egypt region around Cairo in far southern Illinois. 'This geologic history is really all over Illinois. And Mazon Creek could be a gateway into that for people,' Mann said. 'That's really what this locality is about. It's about the intersection between private collectors, amateur paleontologists and professionals, and working together synergistically to unveil the natural history data here — and getting kids hooked on fossils when they're young.' ____
Yahoo
25-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Letters: Coal use, restricting public comment
Both President Trump and Gov. Mike Braun signed executive orders aimed at reviving the U.S. coal industry and a move that will hurt the environment and health of Hoosiers. Braun directed state agencies to roll back climate change policies and consider extending the use of burning coal for power generation. Another order prevents state agencies from factoring the "social cost" of greenhouse gas emissions into what they do. Those costs put dollar amounts to the damages caused by climate change — like hospitalizations from asthma or property damage from flooding. Trump's executive orders allow coal plants to remain open past their scheduled retirement dates. He also placed aggressive tariffs on renewable energy. Trump's policies will raise monthly energy bills for Hoosiers. On average, renewable energy costs 20 percent less than coal for the same energy output. The least expensive way to generate power is by wind turbines. Coal use has been linked to decreased life expectancy. In ranking by states, Indiana is 40 (75 years), Hawaii is best (80.7 years). Utah is the only red state in the top ten. Hoosiers pay high rates for power from coal, and their reward is a lower life expectancy. Norman Holy, Bloomington I watched the May 15 Board of Health meeting with great interest. A vague line on the agenda for the meeting said "Discussion of public comment," which I guessed (correctly) meant that the board was going to discuss doing away with public comment at their meetings. Since the start of the administration of Lori Kelley, the Health Department and the Board of Health have been under closer scrutiny by the public. During the April Board of Health Meeting, former employees, a former board member and a current member of County Council called for Kelley and the board to be honest and to be more transparent regarding the closure of Futures and the questionable things put in people's employment records. Toward the end of the May 15 meeting, board president Dawne DiOrio was told by another board member that there were members of the public with their hands raised online, wanting to comment. DiOrio's response was "No, we are not taking public comment. I'm over it." When someone who is working in public health refuses to take public comment, perhaps they do not belong in a position that is supposed to be serving the public. It's time for DiOrio to step down. In fact, it's time for the entire board to be replaced by people who will demand transparency from the Health Department administration. Rocky Festa, Palm Springs, California This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Letters: Coal use, restricting public comment
