It’s the Sun, stupid

Posted on May 25, 2010 by energyprbe

Lawrence Solomon
Financial Post
May 22, 2010

Four years ago, when I first started profiling scientists who were global warming skeptics, I soon learned two things: Solar scientists were overwhelmingly skeptical that humans caused climate change and, overwhelmingly, they were reluctant to go public with their views. Often, they refused to be quoted at all, saying they feared for their funding, or they feared other recriminations from climate scientists in the doomsayer camp. When the skeptics agreed to be quoted at all, they often hedged their statements, to give themselves wiggle room if accused of being a global warming denier. Scant few were outspoken about their skepticism.

No longer.

Scientists, and especially solar scientists, are becoming assertive. Maybe their newfound confidence stems from the Climategate emails, which cast doomsayer-scientists as frauds and diminished their standing within academia. Maybe their confidence stems from the avalanche of errors recently found in the reports of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, destroying its reputation as a gold standard in climate science. Maybe the solar scientists are becoming assertive because the public no longer buys the doomsayer thesis, as seen in public opinion polls throughout the developed world. Whatever it was, solar scientists are increasingly conveying a clear message on the chief cause of climate change: It’s the Sun, Stupid.

Jeff Kuhn, a rising star at the University of Hawaii’s Institute for Astronomy, is one of the most recent scientists to go public, revealing in press releases this month that solar scientists worldwide are on a mission to show that the Sun drives Earth’s climate. “As a scientist who knows the data, I simply can’t accept [the claim that man plays a dominant role in Earth’s climate],” he states.

Kuhn’s team, which includes solar scientists from Stanford University and Brazil as well as from his own institute, last week announced a startling breakthrough — evidence that the Sun does not change much in size, as had previously been believed. This week, in announcing the award of a ¤60,000 Humboldt Prize for Kuhn’s solar excellence, his institute issued a release stating that its research into sunspots “may ultimately help us predict how and when a changing sun affects Earth’s climate.”

Earlier this month, the link between solar activity and climate made headlines throughout Europe after space scientists from the U.K., Germany and South Korea linked the recent paucity of sunspots to the cold weather that Europe has been experiencing. This period of spotlessness, the scientists predicted in a study published in Environmental Research Letters, could augur a repeat of winters comparable to those of the Little Ice Age in the 1600s, during which the Sun was often free of sunspots. By comparing temperatures in Europe since 1659 to highs and lows in solar activity in the same years, the scientists discovered that low solar activity generally corresponded to cold winters. Could this centuries-long link between the Sun and Earth’s climate have been a matter of chance? “There is less than a 1% probability that the result was obtained by chance,” asserts Mike Lockwood of the University of Reading in the U.K., the study’s lead author.

Solar scientists widely consider the link between the Sun and Earth’s climate incontrovertible. When bodies such the IPCC dismiss solar science’s contribution to understanding Earth’s climate out of hand, solar scientists no longer sit on their hands. Danish scientist Henrik Svensmark of the Danish National Space Institute stated that the IPCC was “probably totally wrong” to dismiss the significance of the sun, which in 2009 would likely have the most spotless days in a century. As for claims from the IPCC and other global warming doomsayers who argue that periods of extreme heat or cold were regional in scope, not global, Svensmark cites the Medieval Warm Period, a prosperous period of very high solar activity around the year 1000: “It was a time when frosts in May were almost unknown — a matter of great importance for a good harvest. Vikings settled in Greenland and explored the coast of North America. On the whole it was a good time. For example, China’s population doubled in this period.”

The Medieval Warm Period, many solar scientists believe, was warmer than today, and the Roman Warm Period, around the time of Christ, was warmer still. Compelling new evidence to support his view came just in March from the Saskatchewan Isotope Laboratory at the University of Saskatchewan and Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado. In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, the authors for the first time document seasonal temperature variations in the North Atlantic over a 2,000-year period, from 360 BC to about 1660 AD. Their technique — involving measurements of oxygen and carbon isotopes captured in mollusk shells — confirmed that the Roman Period was the warmest in the past two millennia.

Among solar scientists, there are a great many theories about how the Sun influences climate. Some will especially point to sunspots, others to the Sun’s magnetic field, others still to the Sun’s influence on cosmic rays which, in turn, affect cloud cover. There is as yet no answer to how the Sun affects Earth’s climate. All that now seems sure is that the Sun does play an outsized role and that the Big Chill on freedom of expression that scientists once faced when discussing global warming is becoming a Big Thaw.

Posted in Climate Change, Energy Probe News | Leave a comment

Be prepared for electric shock

Posted on May 22, 2010 by energyprbe

(May 22, 2010) If you haven’t already, you’re about to get a nasty shock when you open your electricity bill. Continue reading →

Posted in Electricity | Leave a comment

It’s the Sun, stupid

Posted on May 22, 2010 by energyprbe

(May 22, 2010) Four years ago, when I first started profiling scientists who were global warming skeptics, I soon learned two things: Solar scientists were overwhelmingly skeptical that humans caused climate change and, overwhelmingly, they were reluctant to go public with their views. Continue reading →

Posted in Climate Change | Leave a comment

Lawrence Solomon: Solar scientists worldwide working to counter global warming hypothesis

Posted on May 19, 2010 by energyprbe

Solar scientists worldwide are working to disprove the hypothesis that man is primarily responsible for climate change, according to Dr. Jeff Kuhn, Associate Director of the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii. In the view of Dr. Kuhn and other top scientists, the Sun changes Earth’s climate. “As a scientist who knows the data, I simply can’t accept (the claim that man plays a dominant role in Earth’s climate),” he states.

Dr. Kuhn last week announced breakthrough research on the role of the Sun – after years of precise satellite measurements, undistorted by Earth’s stratosphere, he and his team discovered that the Sun did not change much in size, as has generally been believed. Rather, the Sun is surprisingly stable, its diameter changing by less than one part in a million during the last 12 years.

Dr. Kuhn’s team, which includes scientists from Stanford University in California and Universidade Estadual de Ponta Grossa in Brazil, used  NASA’s SOHO satellite to obtain resolutions 10 times better than telescopes on Earth, allowing them to measure the Sun’s diameter of approximately 865,000 miles to an accuracy of a few hundred feet. In 2017, when the world’s most powerful telescope  — his institute’s Advanced Technology Solar Telescope —  starts operating on Hawaii’s Mt. Haleakala’s summit at a resolution 10 times better still, he expects to zero in on details that unravel the mystery of how minute changes on the Sun’s surface affect climate on Earth. NASA’s SOHO satellite revealed that 100 metre high bumps 90,000 kilometres apart cover the Sun’s surface. With his new telescope, Dr. Kuhn expects to capture never-before-seen details of the solar surface.

“We can’t predict the climate on Earth until we understand these changes on the sun,” concludes Kuhn.

Lawrence Solomon is executive director of Energy Probe and Urban Renaissance Institute and author of The Deniers: The world-renowned scientists who stood up against global warming hysteria, political persecution, and fraud.

He can be contacted at: LawrenceSolomon@nextcity.com

Lawrence Solomon, Financial Post, May 19, 2010

 

Posted in Climate Change, The Deniers | 1 Comment

Aldyen Donnelly: Sticking it to the Canadians

Posted on May 18, 2010 by energyprbe

(May 18, 2010) After I read the original draft Greenhouse Gas (GHG) reporting regulations, I phoned US EPA contacts as well as some staff in Senate and House representatives offices and asked: Given that all major US stationary GHG sources and importers of carbon-based energy and building products are required to report GHGs from biomass use and will eventually be liable for domestic production and the US consumer end use GHGs:

  • how will products derived from sustainable biomass be awarded a zero-GHG rating, and
  • how will foreign upstream GHGs associated with fossil fuel and biomass-based products be addressed?

Clearly, the existing US domestic GHG reporting rule obliges any US forest stand management operation and wood products plant that discharges 25,000 TCO2e/year or more to report their US production GHGs—not counting carbon stock losses. If the US GHG reporting regulations do not oblige biomass feedstock and finished product importers to account for foreign upstream supply chain GHGs, there is the potential that the US reporting regulation will favour imported biomass at the expense of biomass feedstocks and products that are sustainably produced in the US.

There was a rather amazing concensus among the divergent group I contacted with these questions. In all cases, they referred me to the existing US Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) as the model that final US GHG regulations will replicate in the future.

The RFS is the regulation that implements the renewable fuel content mandate that is outlined in the 2005 US Energy Security Act and which was further amended in the 2008 Energy Security Act.

The legislation obliges US distributors of gasoline and diesel fuels to demonstrate that the products they sell in the US incorporate increasing percentages of “renewable” content. The legislation leaves it to the EPA to promulgate regulations to implement and enforce this renewable content requirement.

In regards to RFS regulation, the essential components for foreign biomass feedstock and bio-based energy products, in the current regulatory context and then expanded into the GHG regulatory context, are as follows:

  • The US EPA authorizes certified biomass feedstock and/or biomass-based fuel suppliers to create “Renewable Identification Numbers” or “RINs”, where one RIN represents one US gallon of certified renewable biomass or biofuel.
  • Any biomass and/or biofuel that is shipped with a RIN is deemed to be “renewable”. Any biomass or biofuel that is shipped without a RIN is deemed to be a fossil fuel (does not get a zero-GHG rating at the point of combustion) for purposes of compliance with the existing US Renewable Fuel Standard and—I am told—any future GHG regulations.
  • US gasoline and diesel fuel distributors prove compliance with the existing US renewable fuel content requirements by surrendering RINs equal to their legally-binding content targets to the US EPA.
  • Existing US GHG reporting regulations oblige US producers and importers of biomass feedstock and biomass-based energy products to report biomass combustion GHGs in the same manner that they report fossil fuel GHGs.
  • We are told to anticipate that the default procedure is that all biomass combustion will wear a GHG charge as if it was fossil fuel combustion. Then obligated parties (US biomass feedstock and/or finished product producers and importers) will be permitted to surrender RINs to the US EPA as units of compliance with any future US GHG standard.

So the critical question is: what conditions will Canadian biomass feedstock and finished product exporters need to meet to receive authority from the US EPA to create and ship RINs with their biomass commodity exports?

EPA officials as well as legislation drafters in Senate and House representative offices all respond that the same procedures that are outlined in the RFS regulation will be carried through into all US renewable electricity/portfolio standard and GHG regulation. In other words, the full trade implications of any final US GHG legislation will not be obvious until the EPA finalizes regulations pursuant to that legislation. But it is reasonable to anticipate that those final regulations will reflect existing practice as outlined in the existing RFS.

Read the primary conditions “foreign suppliers” have to meet to gain authorization to ship product with RINs starting on page 109. The regulation outlines separate requirements for “small refiners”, “cellulosic ethanol refiners” and “all other foreign RIN owners”.

In my view, the obligations this existing law imposes on Canadian biomass feedstock and bioenergy suppliers to the US should be deemed entirely unacceptable. They include obliging Canadian producers that are certified to issue RINs to sign a contract stipulating that:

  • “any United States Environmental Protection Agency inspector or auditor must be given full, complete and immediate access to conduct inspections and audits of the foreign producer facility…
  • “Inspections and audits may be either announced in advance by EPA, or unannounced…
  • “Inspections and audits by EPA may include interviewing employees…
  • “any documents requested that are related to matters covered by inspections and audits must be provided to an EPA inspector or auditor on request….
  • “An agent for service of process located in the District of Columbia shall be named, and service on this agent constitutes service on the foreign producer or any employee of the foreign producer for any action by EPA or otherwise by the United States related to the requirements of this subpart…
  • “The forum for any civil or criminal enforcement action related to the provisions of this section for violations of the Clean Air Act or regulations promulgated thereunder shall be governed by the Clean Air Act, including the EPA administrative forum where allowed under the Clean Air Act…
  • “United States substantive and procedural laws shall apply to any civil or criminal enforcement action against the foreign producer or any employee of the foreign producer related to the provisions of this section…
  • “The foreign producer, or its agents or employees, will not seek to detain or to impose civil or criminal remedies against EPA inspectors or auditors, whether EPA employees or EPA contractors, for actions performed within the scope of EPA employment related to the provisions of this section…
  • “Sovereign immunity. By submitting an application to be an approved foreign producer…or by producing and exporting [feedstocks or finished products with RINs] to the United States under such approval, the foreign producer, and its agents and employees, without exception, become subject to the full operation of the administrative and judicial enforcement powers and provisions of the United States without limitation based on sovereign immunity, with respect to actions instituted against the foreign producer, its agents and employees in any court or other tribunal in the United States for conduct that violates the requirements applicable to the foreign producer under this subpart…
  • Bond posting. Any foreign producer shall…post a bond of the amount calculated using the following equation: Bond = G *$ 0.01 Where: Bond = amount of the bond in U.S. dollars. G = The largest volume of [RIN-related products] produced at the foreign producer’s facility and exported to the United States, in gallons, during a single calendar year among the most recent of the following calendar years, up to a maximum of five calendar years:..”

The regulations expressly states:

“Withdrawal or suspension of foreign producer approval. EPA may withdraw or suspend a foreign producer’s approval where any of the following occur:…

(2) A foreign government fails to allow EPA inspections as provided in paragraph (f)(1) of this section.

(3) A foreign producer asserts a claim of, or a right to claim, sovereign immunity in an action to enforce the requirements in this subpart.

(4) A foreign producer fails to pay a civil or criminal penalty that is not satisfied using the foreign producer bond specified in paragraph (g) of this section.”

If/when this existing practise—to date not challenged by any Canadian legislator—is incorporated in US GHG and renewable electricity/portfolio standard regulations, the US EPA will have completely bypassed Canadian legislators and made any major Canadian exporter of carbon-based products directly accountable to the US Congress and subject to US law.

When we are working together to develop an inventory-based methodology for accounting for forest and forest product carbon, I will be trying to ensure that the final methodology will have sufficient environmental integrity to both (1) meet with US standards and (2) support a WTO challenge of the current and anticipated future US EPA dictates that Canadian plants become directly subject to US laws.

For purposes of determining whether a biomass-based product is renewable and its producer will be authorized to issue RINs, the original RFS defines renewable energy that is cellulosic in origin somewhat ambiguously: “derived from any lignocellulosic or hemicellulosic matter that is available on a renewable or recurring basis, including dedicated energy crops and trees, wood and wood residues, plants, grasses, agricultural residues, fibers, animal wastes and other waste materials, and municipal solid waste…”

This original definition has spawned confusion and numerous disputes in the US market.  This led to significant amendments to the original RFS regulation—but no changes in the conditions that apply to foreign suppliers—and a new law was adopted on March 26, 2010.

I repeat: the above wording exists in existing law and determines how US distributors of gasoline and diesel will comply with existing US renewable fuel standards. The existing law does not, at this time, directly apply to renewable electricity and GHG standards. However, I have received many and frequent assurances from EPA officials and staff of elected Congress persons active on the climate change file that they see no need to develop an entirely separate procedure for demonstrating “renewable” for purposes of generating RINs to establish a zero-GHG charge for biomass used in all future regulated carbon-based products sold in the US.

The new version of the RFS states:

  • “This final rule also implements the revised statutory definitions and criteria, most notably the new greenhouse gas emission thresholds for renewable fuels and new limits on renewable biomass feedstocks. This rulemaking marks the first time tha greenhouse gas emission performance is being applied in a regulatory context for a nationwide program…
  • “it requires that all renewable fuel be made from feedstocks that meet the new definition of renewable biomass including certain land use restrictions…
  • “Parties that intend to generate RINs, own and/or transfer them, or use them for compliance purposes after July 1, 2010 will need to…modify their information technology (IT) systems to accommodate the changes…these changes include…adding a process for verifying that feedstocks meet the renewable biomass definition, and calculating compliance with four standards instead of one…
  • “We have established five categories of biofuel feedstock sources…These [include]:…2. Forest material including eligible forest thinnings and solid residue remaining from forest product production…
  • “the final renewable biomass recordkeeping and reporting provisions require that individual producers obtain documentation about their feedstocks from their feedstock supplier(s) and take the measures necessary to ensure  they know the source of their feedstocks and can demonstrate to EPA that they have complied with the EISA definition of renewable biomass. Specifically, EPA’s renewable biomass reporting requirements for producers who generate RINs include a certification on renewable fuel production reports that the feedstock used for each renewable fuel batch meets the definition of renewable biomass. Additionally, producers will be required to include with their quarterly reports a summary of the types and volumes of feedstocks used throughout the quarter, as well as maps of the land from which the feedstocks used in the quarter were harvested.

The EISA definition includes:

 

  • how will products derived from sustainable biomass be awarded a zero-GHG rating, and
  • how will foreign upstream GHGs associated with fossil fuel and biomass-based products be addressed?

Clearly, the existing US domestic GHG reporting rule obliges any US forest stand management operation and wood products plant that discharges 25,000 TCO2e/year or more to report their US production GHGs—not counting carbon stock losses. If the US GHG reporting regulations do not oblige biomass feedstock and finished product importers to account for foreign upstream supply chain GHGs, there is the potential that the US reporting regulation will favour imported biomass at the expense of biomass feedstocks and products that are sustainably produced in the US.

There was a rather amazing concensus among the divergent group I contacted with these questions. In all cases, they referred me to the existing US Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) as the model that final US GHG regulations will replicate in the future.

The RFS is the regulation that implements the renewable fuel content mandate that is outlined in the 2005 US Energy Security Act and which was further amended in the 2008 Energy Security Act.

The legislation obliges US distributors of gasoline and diesel fuels to demonstrate that the products they sell in the US incorporate increasing percentages of “renewable” content. The legislation leaves it to the EPA to promulgate regulations to implement and enforce this renewable content requirement.

In regards to RFS regulation, the essential components for foreign biomass feedstock and bio-based energy products, in the current regulatory context and then expanded into the GHG regulatory context, are as follows:

  • The US EPA authorizes certified biomass feedstock and/or biomass-based fuel suppliers to create “Renewable Identification Numbers” or “RINs”, where one RIN represents one US gallon of certified renewable biomass or biofuel.
  • Any biomass and/or biofuel that is shipped with a RIN is deemed to be “renewable”. Any biomass or biofuel that is shipped without a RIN is deemed to be a fossil fuel (does not get a zero-GHG rating at the point of combustion) for purposes of compliance with the existing US Renewable Fuel Standard and—I am told—any future GHG regulations.
  • US gasoline and diesel fuel distributors prove compliance with the existing US renewable fuel content requirements by surrendering RINs equal to their legally-binding content targets to the US EPA.
  • Existing US GHG reporting regulations oblige US producers and importers of biomass feedstock and biomass-based energy products to report biomass combustion GHGs in the same manner that they report fossil fuel GHGs.
  • We are told to anticipate that the default procedure is that all biomass combustion will wear a GHG charge as if it was fossil fuel combustion. Then obligated parties (US biomass feedstock and/or finished product producers and importers) will be permitted to surrender RINs to the US EPA as units of compliance with any future US GHG standard.

So the critical question is: what conditions will Canadian biomass feedstock and finished product exporters need to meet to receive authority from the US EPA to create and ship RINs with their biomass commodity exports?

EPA officials as well as legislation drafters in Senate and House representative offices all respond that the same procedures that are outlined in the RFS regulation will be carried through into all US renewable electricity/portfolio standard and GHG regulation. In other words, the full trade implications of any final US GHG legislation will not be obvious until the EPA finalizes regulations pursuant to that legislation. But it is reasonable to anticipate that those final regulations will reflect existing practice as outlined in the existing RFS.

Read the primary conditions “foreign suppliers” have to meet to gain authorization to ship product with RINs starting on page 109. The regulation outlines separate requirements for “small refiners”, “cellulosic ethanol refiners” and “all other foreign RIN owners”.

In my view, the obligations this existing law imposes on Canadian biomass feedstock and bioenergy suppliers to the US should be deemed entirely unacceptable. They include obliging Canadian producers that are certified to issue RINs to sign a contract stipulating that:

  • “any United States Environmental Protection Agency inspector or auditor must be given full, complete and immediate access to conduct inspections and audits of the foreign producer facility…
  • “Inspections and audits may be either announced in advance by EPA, or unannounced…
  • “Inspections and audits by EPA may include interviewing employees…
  • “any documents requested that are related to matters covered by inspections and audits must be provided to an EPA inspector or auditor on request….
  • “An agent for service of process located in the District of Columbia shall be named, and service on this agent constitutes service on the foreign producer or any employee of the foreign producer for any action by EPA or otherwise by the United States related to the requirements of this subpart…
  • “The forum for any civil or criminal enforcement action related to the provisions of this section for violations of the Clean Air Act or regulations promulgated thereunder shall be governed by the Clean Air Act, including the EPA administrative forum where allowed under the Clean Air Act…
  • “United States substantive and procedural laws shall apply to any civil or criminal enforcement action against the foreign producer or any employee of the foreign producer related to the provisions of this section…
  • “The foreign producer, or its agents or employees, will not seek to detain or to impose civil or criminal remedies against EPA inspectors or auditors, whether EPA employees or EPA contractors, for actions performed within the scope of EPA employment related to the provisions of this section…
  • “Sovereign immunity. By submitting an application to be an approved foreign producer…or by producing and exporting [feedstocks or finished products with RINs] to the United States under such approval, the foreign producer, and its agents and employees, without exception, become subject to the full operation of the administrative and judicial enforcement powers and provisions of the United States without limitation based on sovereign immunity, with respect to actions instituted against the foreign producer, its agents and employees in any court or other tribunal in the United States for conduct that violates the requirements applicable to the foreign producer under this subpart…
  • Bond posting. Any foreign producer shall…post a bond of the amount calculated using the following equation: Bond = G *$ 0.01 Where: Bond = amount of the bond in U.S. dollars. G = The largest volume of [RIN-related products] produced at the foreign producer’s facility and exported to the United States, in gallons, during a single calendar year among the most recent of the following calendar years, up to a maximum of five calendar years:..”

The regulations expressly states:

“Withdrawal or suspension of foreign producer approval. EPA may withdraw or suspend a foreign producer’s approval where any of the following occur:…

(2) A foreign government fails to allow EPA inspections as provided in paragraph (f)(1) of this section.

(3) A foreign producer asserts a claim of, or a right to claim, sovereign immunity in an action to enforce the requirements in this subpart.

(4) A foreign producer fails to pay a civil or criminal penalty that is not satisfied using the foreign producer bond specified in paragraph (g) of this section.”

If/when this existing practise—to date not challenged by any Canadian legislator—is incorporated in US GHG and renewable electricity/portfolio standard regulations, the US EPA will have completely bypassed Canadian legislators and made any major Canadian exporter of carbon-based products directly accountable to the US Congress and subject to US law.

When we are working together to develop an inventory-based methodology for accounting for forest and forest product carbon, I will be trying to ensure that the final methodology will have sufficient environmental integrity to both (1) meet with US standards and (2) support a WTO challenge of the current and anticipated future US EPA dictates that Canadian plants become directly subject to US laws.

For purposes of determining whether a biomass-based product is renewable and its producer will be authorized to issue RINs, the original RFS defines renewable energy that is cellulosic in origin somewhat ambiguously: “derived from any lignocellulosic or hemicellulosic matter that is available on a renewable or recurring basis, including dedicated energy crops and trees, wood and wood residues, plants, grasses, agricultural residues, fibers, animal wastes and other waste materials, and municipal solid waste…”

This original definition has spawned confusion and numerous disputes in the US market.  This led to significant amendments to the original RFS regulation—but no changes in the conditions that apply to foreign suppliers—and a new law was adopted on March 26, 2010.

I repeat: the above wording exists in existing law and determines how US distributors of gasoline and diesel will comply with existing US renewable fuel standards. The existing law does not, at this time, directly apply to renewable electricity and GHG standards. However, I have received many and frequent assurances from EPA officials and staff of elected Congress persons active on the climate change file that they see no need to develop an entirely separate procedure for demonstrating “renewable” for purposes of generating RINs to establish a zero-GHG charge for biomass used in all future regulated carbon-based products sold in the US.

The new version of the RFS states:

  • “This final rule also implements the revised statutory definitions and criteria, most notably the new greenhouse gas emission thresholds for renewable fuels and new limits on renewable biomass feedstocks. This rulemaking marks the first time tha greenhouse gas emission performance is being applied in a regulatory context for a nationwide program…
  • “it requires that all renewable fuel be made from feedstocks that meet the new definition of renewable biomass including certain land use restrictions…
  • “Parties that intend to generate RINs, own and/or transfer them, or use them for compliance purposes after July 1, 2010 will need to…modify their information technology (IT) systems to accommodate the changes…these changes include…adding a process for verifying that feedstocks meet the renewable biomass definition, and calculating compliance with four standards instead of one…
  • “We have established five categories of biofuel feedstock sources…These [include]:…2. Forest material including eligible forest thinnings and solid residue remaining from forest product production…
  • “the final renewable biomass recordkeeping and reporting provisions require that individual producers obtain documentation about their feedstocks from their feedstock supplier(s) and take the measures necessary to ensure  they know the source of their feedstocks and can demonstrate to EPA that they have complied with the EISA definition of renewable biomass. Specifically, EPA’s renewable biomass reporting requirements for producers who generate RINs include a certification on renewable fuel production reports that the feedstock used for each renewable fuel batch meets the definition of renewable biomass. Additionally, producers will be required to include with their quarterly reports a summary of the types and volumes of feedstocks used throughout the quarter, as well as maps of the land from which the feedstocks used in the quarter were harvested.

The EISA definition includes:

  • “…Planted trees and tree residue from tree plantations cleared prior to December 19, 2007 and actively managed on that date…
  • “Slash and pre-commercial thinnings from non-federal forestlands that are neither old-growth nor listed as critically imperiled or rare…
  • “Biomass cleared from the vicinity of buildings and other areas at risk of wildfire.”
  • “EPA’s final renewable biomass recordkeeping provisions require renewable fuel producers to maintain sufficient records to support their claims that their feedstocks meet the definition of renewable biomass, including maps or electronic data identifying the boundaries of the land where the feedstocks were produced, documents tracing the feedstocks from the land to the renewable fuel production facility…and for producers using planted trees or tree residue from tree plantations, written records that serve as evidence that the land from which the feedstocks were obtained was cleared prior to December 19, 2007 and actively managed on that date.

Both versions of the US RFS and more background can be downloaded here.

Aldyen Donnelly, May 18, 2010

Posted in Aldyen Donnelly | 1 Comment

Sources: A US$13-billion business

Posted on May 18, 2010 by energyprbe

Lawrence Solomon

May 14, 2010

Minerals Management Service: People Promoting Energy, the Environment, and the Economy

Minerals Management Service Disburses $10.68 Billion in FY 2009

Minerals Management Service: Royalty Relief

Minerals Management Service: Frequently Asked Questions

The Minerals Revenue Management (MRM) Program

Minerals Management Service: Milestones

Minerals Revenue Management: Guide to Royalty Information

Randall Luthi, Director of the Minerals Management Service, remarks at the International Oil and Ice Conference

Johnnie Burton, head of the US Minerals Management Service (MMS), speech at the Special Institute on Royalty Valuation and Management

Leasing Oil and Natural Gas Resources: Outer Continetal Shelf

Posted in Fossil Fuels | Leave a comment

Brain tumour risk in relation to mobile telephone use: results of the INTERPHONE international case–control study

Posted on May 17, 2010 by energyprbe

(May 17, 2010) A study on the possible health risks related to radiofrequency electromagnetic fields from cell phone technology. Continue reading →

Posted in Hormesis | Leave a comment

Interphone study reports on mobile phone use and brain cancer risk

Posted on May 17, 2010 by energyprbe

(May 17, 2010) The Interphone Study Group today published their results in the International Journal of Epidemiology (direct media link). The paper presents the results of analyses of brain tumour (glioma and meningioma) risk in relation to mobile phone use in all Interphone study centres combined. Continue reading →

Posted in Hormesis | Leave a comment

Brain tumour risk in relation to mobile telephone use: results of the INTERPHONE international case–control study

Posted on May 17, 2010 by energyprbe

Elisabeth Cardis;
Oxford University Press
May 17, 2010

Background: The rapid increase in mobile telephone use has generated concern about possible health risks related to radiofrequency electromagnetic fields from this technology.

Methods: An interview-based case–control study with 2708 glioma and 2409 meningioma cases and matched controls was conducted in 13 countries using a common protocol.

Results: A reduced odds ratio (OR) related to ever having been a regular mobile phone user was seen for glioma [OR 0.81; 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.70–0.94] and meningioma (OR 0.79; 95% CI 0.68–0.91), possibly reflecting participation bias or other methodological limitations. No elevated OR was observed ≥10 years after first phone use (glioma: OR 0.98; 95% CI 0.76–1.26; meningioma: OR 0.83; 95% CI 0.61–1.14). ORs were <1.0 for all deciles of lifetime number of phone calls and nine deciles of cumulative call time. In the 10th decile of recalled cumulative call time, ≥1640 h, the OR was 1.40 (95% CI 1.03–1.89) for glioma, and 1.15 (95% CI 0.81–1.62) for meningioma; but there are implausible values of reported use in this group. ORs for glioma tended to be greater in the temporal lobe than in other lobes of the brain, but the CIs around the lobe-specific estimates were wide. ORs for glioma tended to be greater in subjects who reported usual phone use on the same side of the head as their tumour than on the opposite side.

Conclusions: Overall, no increase in risk of glioma or meningioma was observed with use of mobile phones. There were suggestions of an increased risk of glioma at the highest exposure levels, but biases and error prevent a causal interpretation. The possible effects of long-term heavy use of mobile phones require further investigation.

Download the full study here. 

Posted in Hormesis | Leave a comment

Interphone study reports on mobile phone use and brain cancer risk

Posted on May 17, 2010 by energyprbe

International Agency for Research on Cancer
World Health Organization
May 17, 2010

The Interphone Study Group today published their results in the International Journal of Epidemiology (direct media link). The paper presents the results of analyses of brain tumour (glioma and meningioma) risk in relation to mobile phone use in all Interphone study centres combined. This interview-based case-control study, which included 2708 glioma and 2409 meningioma cases and matched controls was conducted in 13 countries using a common protocol. Analyses of brain tumours in relation to mobile phone use have been reported from a number of cohort and casecontrol studies, including several of the national components of Interphone. No studies, however,have included as many exposed cases, particularly long-term and heavy users of mobile phones, as this study.

Read the full study. 

Posted in Hormesis | Leave a comment