Tag: Clean Energy

Cleaner Energy = Cleaner Water

Published on October 6th, 2023 by - Blog Posts

 

The Michigan legislature is poised to require that 100 percent of electric power come from carbon-free sources by 2035, in what would be among the most comprehensive clean energy initiatives in the country. The ambitious legislative agenda, fulfilling Governor Whitmer’s MI Healthy Climate Plan, would also increase energy efficiency standards, address energy equity in disadvantaged communities, and empower the Michigan Public Service Commission to consider climate change, affordability, and equity in its decision-making. The passage of the bills would save Michigan ratepayers an estimated $5.5 billion through 2050. 

These benefits to Michigan are on top of the energy investments flowing from the federal Inflation Reduction Act that have catalyzed an estimated over $21 billion in new investment in Michigan, helped create almost 16,000 good-paying clean energy jobs, and brought 24 major new clean energy manufacturing projects to Michigan – more than any other state.

But these are not the only measurable benefits that the energy transition brings to Michigan. As we celebrate Michigan’s newfound leadership in clean energy, it’s vitally important to underscore the positive impact the energy transition will have on Michigan’s water resources.

Decarbonizing Michigan’s Economy Will Dramatically Improve Water Quality

Governor Whitmer’s MI Healthy Climate Plan will not only accelerate Michigan’s clean energy transition and decarbonize our economy, it will provide long-term benefits to Michigan’s water resources.

As we retire fossil fuel-based energy sources and replace them with clean energy technologies – wind and solar power, green hydrogen, electric vehicles, and energy storage devices – we will markedly and measurably reduce the harmful impacts that producing and burning fossil fuels have on our Great Lakes, rivers and streams, and groundwater. 

Unlike fossil fuels which are finite, costly, inherently dirty, and cause billions of dollars of negative environmental and health impacts, wind and solar energy are free, clean, and are almost without harmful impacts to the environment and human health.

Impacts from Thermoelectric Generation

Water and energy have always been highly interdependent. Producing power uses tremendous amounts of water. From the first water wheels used to ground grain 6,000 years ago, through the Roman age of invention where water was moved great distances to irrigate crops and provide drinking water, to the production of energy from hydropower, fossil-fuel, and nuclear power plants, water has always been an essential component of energy production.

Electricity generated by steam from burning coal or natural gas, and nuclear fission – called thermoelectric generation – accounts for 67 percent of water use in the Great Lakes Region, and 74 percent of all water use in Michigan. Thermoelectric generation causes significant, harmful, and destructive direct impacts on our water resources. 

Power plants need massive amounts of cooling water to operate. Water pumped from the Great Lakes and their tributary rivers “entrains” or kills millions of fish and aquatic organisms, including early-life-stage fish, eggs, and larvae. Once heated, water released from power plants causes thermal impacts that stress and kill fish and other aquatic organisms. Warm water also can change fish populations, decrease dissolved oxygen levels, propagate algae, and alter “benthic communities” – the broad ecological biome of animals (including crustaceans and mussels), plants, and bacteria that live in the water and the lake bottom.

Impacts from Coal

Michigan’s coal plants are also responsible for the widespread pollution of our Great Lakes. Available data show that Michigan-based coal-fired plants emit approximately 3000 lbs. of mercury (a powerful neurotoxin) every year.. Coal plants are responsible for 57 percent of all mercury present in the Great Lakes, resulting in  official health advisories cautioning the public to limit consumption of Great Lakes fish. In 2016 alone, thermoelectric power plants in Michigan also emitted 101,950 tons of sulfur dioxide, 57,819 tons of nitrogen oxide, and 58,644,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide.

In addition to these contaminants, coal combustion produces air emissions that contain lead, particulates, and various other heavy metals that are deposited in our lakes, rivers , and streams. Coal combustion also produces fly ash and slag, which have been deposited in unlined landfills for many decades. Recent research has revealed that of the 52 known coal ash landfills in Michigan, almost all are leaking heavy metals into Michigan’s groundwater. 

Mining coal also consumes huge amounts of water In 2021, 50 to 59 gallons of water were used for each of the 577 million tons of coal mined.

Impacts from Oil and Gas 

There are more than 900,000 active oil and gas wells in the United States. Oil and gas production from shale formations uses 1.5 to 16 million gallons of water for each well. This water becomes contaminated with a variety of chemicals and oil and gas constituents.

Oil and gas produced from shale formations require “hydraulic fracturing,” a process using large volumes of water, chemicals, and sand pumped under high pressure to keep pore spaces open so that oil and gas can be recovered. The drilling process yields contaminated “flow-back” water, as well as naturally occurring brine that is pumped out with the oil and gas. This chemical laden water is then disposed of by pumping it back deep underground. 

Burning natural gas produces emissions that include nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, volatile organic compounds, and particulate matter – all of which inevitably find their way into Michigan’s surface waters.

Pipelines transport crude oil and gas to refineries, and refined oil and gas to their end use. Between 1998 and 2017 there were 11,758 pipeline spills in the United States that were classified as “significant” by the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.

Included among them is the most catastrophic pipeline failure in United States history. The Enbridge pipeline rupture near Marshall, Michigan in July 2010, released more than 1 million gallons of tar sands oil into a direct tributary of the Kalamazoo River. The rupture of Enbridge’s Line 6B resulted in pervasive contamination and massive ecological damage to the waters and surrounding wetlands. 

Another oil pipeline now threatens the world’s most valuable fresh surface water system. The 70-year-old Line 5, also owned and operated by Enbridge, traverses the Straits of Mackinac at the confluence of Lakes Michigan and Huron. The free spanning underwater pipeline has been repeatedly struck by ship’s anchors and cables dragged by passing vessels have damaged the pipeline and its supports. Line 5 is uniquely vulnerable to multiple impacts that could result in irreversible environmental harm and billions of dollars of damage to the Great Lakes regional economy.

Climate Change and Michigan Waters 

We are only beginning to understand the pervasive impact climate change is having on our lakes, rivers, and other water-dependent resources. Climate change brings specific climate related impacts, risks, and challenges to the protection and management of public water resources.

The combustion of fossil fuels has raised regional temperatures 2.3 degrees since 1951. Warming temperatures destabilize lake, river, and stream ecology, altering conditions and habitat for fish and aquatic organisms. Like the oceans, the Great Lakes are absorbing excess heat. Lake Superior, despite its size, is one of the fastest warming lakes in the world with temperatures increasing 3-4 degrees fahrenheit.

Warming temperatures are changing our weather. The National Climate Assessment forecasts both increased frequency and severity of storm events in the Great Lakes region. Increased flooding will cause sewer overflows that reach our Great Lakes; increased soil erosion; and more fertilizer, pesticides, and herbicides washing into our streams and rivers.

The Energy/Water Nexus. 

We can mitigate or even potentially avoid the most severe effects of climate change by implementing Governor Whitmer’s energy and climate plans. The transition from fossil fuels to clean energy cannot come soon enough. 

The benefits of the proposed energy transition to our water resources are not speculative, they are measurable and based in science. Wind and solar energy are now the cheapest new energy infrastructure available worldwide. Every megawatt-hour of wind and solar energy saves 8,240 gallons of water from being used for themal cooling.

An acre of solar panels producing electricity keeps 121 to 138 metric tons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, every year.  That same acre of solar panels can power an electric vehicle 40 to 100 times farther than ethanol produced from the same acre of corn. And ethanol production can require up to 865 gallons of water for each gallon of fuel produced. 

The benefits of clean energy, significant as they are, pale when compared to the harms that clean energy can help us avoid. The economics of clean energy do not include the difficult to quantify but very real aggregate cost of “negative externalities” – the harmful environmental and health impacts that flow from the use of fossil fuels. 

Annual environmental and health damages linked to coal mining, processing, and combustion have been estimated at $345 billion annually (2010 dollars). The annual environmental and health damages from burning fossil fuels has been estimated at up to $970 billion annually.

Globally, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates that pollution from fossil fuels cost the world’s economy more than $5.6 trillion in 2022. This amount, when added to the cost of fossil fuels, is roughly equivalent to total annual global energy expenditures. The favorable economics of clean energy technologies are undeniable. There is an overwhelming and compelling basis to transition from fossil fuels as quickly as possible.

Governor Whitmer’s clean energy and climate initiatives redound with multiple benefits to public health, the environment, the business community, and Michigan citizens at large.  And thanks to the Governor’s policies that are being advanced today, the largest, most extraordinary fresh surface water system in the world – our Great Lakes – will also enjoy long-term future benefits and be preserved and protected for our future generations.

The Clean Energy Transition: Minimizing Risks to the Great Lakes

Published on October 18th, 2022 by - Blog Posts

Waves roll in on Lake Superior. (Photo/NPS)

About the author: Nancy Langston is the Distinguished Professor of Environmental History at Michigan Technological University in Houghton, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Langston is the author of five books, including two on the Great Lakes. She served for six years on the Lake Superior Binational Forum.

By Nancy Langston

In a warming world, clean water is the world’s most precious and vulnerable resource. The choices we make today to protect the Great Lakes are critical, given that the Great Lakes contain nearly 21% of the world’s fresh surface water. Lake Superior, for example, is among the world’s fastest warming lakes, with water temperatures increasing at nearly twice the rate of air temperatures. It’s clear that we must do everything possible to halt emissions of fossil fuels and transition to a clean energy future.

Nancy Langston is the Distinguished Professor of Environmental History at Michigan Technological University.

It’s clear that we must do everything possible to halt emissions of fossil fuels and transition to a clean energy future. But what happens when doing so risks the water quality of the Great Lakes?

But what happens when doing so risks the water quality of the Great Lakes? How do we decide between one good—building the renewable infrastructure necessary for a clean energy transition—when it might conflict with another good—minimizing mining and other infrastructure risks to Great Lakes water quality?

Consider the case of energy storage. Renewables such as solar and wind are intermittent, which means that the wind doesn’t always blow and the sun doesn’t always shine when we want that energy. There’s a solution, of course: energy storage, typically in batteries. But batteries require minerals—particularly lithium, cobalt, nickel, and copper. A report from the International Energy Agency (IEA) calculates that a concerted effort to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement (stabilizing temperature increases below 2°C) would require quadrupling mineral inputs. Mineral demands for electric vehicles and battery storage alone might grow thirty-fold.

Batteries require minerals—particularly lithium, cobalt, nickel, and copper—that would require quadrupling mineral inputs. Mineral demands for electric vehicles and battery storage alone might grow thirty-fold. Where will these minerals come from?

Where Will These Minerals Come From?

Where will these minerals come from? Two-thirds of current cobalt supply now comes from the Congo, where human-rights advocates have raised concerns about child labor and toxic working conditions. Lithium largely comes from Chile, where its mining is creating massive water stress. Nickel is produced in strip mines that have “decimated rainforests in Indonesia and the Philippines,” or else in the enormous Norilsk mine in Russia, whose toxic plumes are visible from space. The only American nickel mine is Michigan’s Eagle Mine, ten miles from Lake Superior, and that is due to close in 2026. Current supply chains for these minerals pose significant security risks, as Russia’s brutal war in Ukraine makes all too clear.

Mining exploration data suggest that significant reserves of nickel, copper, and possibly lithium lie in the upper Great Lakes Basin.

Mining exploration data suggest that significant reserves of nickel, copper, and possibly lithium lie in the upper Great Lakes Basin. The industry argues that quickly extracting these minerals is essential for a clean energy transition, and that means relaxing permitting standards, possibly eliminating National Environmental Policy Act review and public input that can slow the process. Even though Sen. Joe Manchin’s permit reform efforts recently stalled in Congress, pressures to speed permits continue.

Talon Metals is moving forward with exploration for a massive nickel mine in northern Minnesota, 50 miles from Lake Superior, and thealso acquired 400,000 acres of Upper Peninsula lands for mineral exploration it says are “critical for a clean energy transition.”

For example, Talon Metals is moving forward (in partnership with Elon Musk’s Tesla) with exploration for a massive nickel mine in northern Minnesota, 50 miles from Lake Superior. In August 2022, Talon Metals also acquired 400,000 acres of Upper Peninsula lands for mineral exploration, arguing in both cases that these proposed mines will be “critical for a clean energy transition.”  Twin Metals, owned by Chilean mining company Antofagasta, is suing the Biden administration for blocking mineral leases necessary for its proposed copper-nickel mine draining into the Boundary Waters Canoe Wilderness in Minnesota,  claiming the administration’s action is “creating energy insecurity.” Tribes, First Nations, and other local citizen groups are increasingly framed as obstructionists blocking the world’s clean energy transition.

How Should We Respond?

How should we respond? What do those of us who love the Great Lakes—and understand that climate change is indeed an existential threat to our shared futures—do to help a clean energy transition, without once again allowing Indigenous territories and the Great Lakes to become sacrifice zones? It’s easy enough to say that we must focus on a just energy transition. But what does that mean in practice? How do we avoid NIMBYism—the “not in my backyard” local protests that often block clean infrastructure projects—without sacrificing water quality?

If environmental history teaches us anything, it teaches us that mining industries don’t protect environments and communities out of the goodness of their corporate hearts. Cleaner mining is possible, but it won’t happen on its own.

If environmental history teaches us anything, it teaches us that mining industries don’t protect environments and communities out of the goodness of their corporate hearts. When unregulated and unrestricted, mining has devastated water and sacrificed Indigenous territories in the name of someone else’s progress. The history of mining in North America is a history of Indigenous communities and watersheds becoming sacrifice zones to feed a growing hunger for minerals and profits. Cleaner mining is possible, but it won’t happen on its own.

Even as we protect ourselves against energy insecurity, we must also protect against water insecurity. This means that we cannot relax environmental standards—but we can streamline permitting.

Prioritizing Energy and Water Security

Even as we protect ourselves against energy insecurity, we must also protect against water insecurity. This means that we cannot relax environmental standards—but we can streamline permitting. Permit delays frequently develop because an industry applicant submits an incomplete application and then blames agencies or locals for the delays. Clearer standards and better permit applications will both help. Permit delays also develop because agencies lack funds to hire adequate staff. The federal infrastructure bill was designed to address those staffing issues.

Most importantly, permit delays develop because affected communities are brought in far too late in the permitting process. Consultation with local communities, particularly Indigenous communities, can’t be a box that agencies and industries check off at the very end. Instead, project planning needs to start with stakeholders, and stakeholders must be able to see that local benefits, not just burdens, flow to them. Free, prior, and informed consent needs to be at the core of project planning.

Most importantly, permit delays develop because affected communities are brought in far too late in the permitting process.

For example, the Batchewana First Nation near Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, entered into an agreement as full commercial partner to create the Bow Lake Wind Facility—the largest economic partnership between a First Nation and wind energy developer in Canada. At a recent public meeting on Great Lakes Water Quality, Chief Dean Sayers of the Batchewana First Nation told us that the community chose wind power because they had created their own permitting processes and determined that this particular project met their needs for energy and local social and environmental benefits.

Under the Obama administration, the Bureau of Land Management worked with planners and multiple stakeholders to identify lands ideal for solar development, and lands that should be off limits. Similar efforts could be useful for regional renewable energy planning in the Great Lakes.

To streamline clean energy transitions without sacrificing clean water, we should consider following this Indigenous example, initiating what energy analyst Jesse Jenkins calls “proactive pre-permitting to accelerate decarbonization.” Energy journalists Hal Harvey and Justin Gillis urge regional-scale planning efforts to “harness input from stakeholders, conservation organizations, and developers up front & pre-screen areas to identify zones ideal for development at the scale we need for decarbonization.” Under the Obama administration, the Bureau of Land Management worked with planners and multiple stakeholders to identify lands ideal for solar development, and lands that should be off limits. Similar efforts could be useful for regional renewable energy planning in the Great Lakes.   

Core to any project development must be what the Batchewana First Nations community accomplished: “an inclusive participatory planning process to ensure that economic and environmental benefits and burdens from decarbonization are shared equitably.”  Only then can we consider streamlining project review in areas that planners and communities agree are priority renewable energy zones.

We need to think more critically about the connection between increased mining and clean energy transitions.

Reuse Abandoned Mines as “Water Batteries”

Finally, we need to think more critically about the connection between increased mining and clean energy transitions. Yes, we will certainly need increased energy storage. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (2020) estimates we’ll need five times our current storage capacity of 23.2 GW. But that doesn’t necessarily translate into more mines. For utility-scale storage, recent research into “water batteries” or PUSH (pumped underground storage hydropower) suggests that abandoned mines can be repurposed into clean energy storage facilities, storing excess renewable energy when it’s produced, then releasing it when it’s needed.  The upper Great Lakes region is rich in abandoned mines, and the PUSH researchers identified nearly 1,000 suitable sites across 15 states. These have the potential to supply a significant proportion of the nation’s energy storage needs without the need for new mines.

Clean transportation will continue to require small batteries, because—well, it’s hard to fit an abandoned mine inside the trunk of your car. And yes, we will need to extract minerals for those batteries. But we should start by mining discarded batteries for a significant proportion of those minerals, a process known as recovery and recycling. The Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology Sydney calculates that recovery and recycling could reduce demand for energy storage minerals by 25 to 50%. Responsible sourcing and demand reduction strategies will help ease the clean energy transition as well.

Above all, we shouldn’t allow clean water and healthy communities in the Great Lakes to be pitted against effective responses to climate change.

Above all, we shouldn’t allow clean water and healthy communities in the Great Lakes to be pitted against effective responses to climate change. We must reframe the debate by participating in a planning process which protects communities and watersheds now and seven generations into the future.