Equilibrium/Sustainability — Presented by Southern Company — Metaverse data center to be powered by solar

Today is Thursday. Welcome to Equilibrium, a newsletter that tracks the growing global battle over the future of sustainability. Subscribe here: digital-staging.thehill.com/newsletter-signup. 

Three giant solar farms have come online in Georgia to power operations for Meta, the parent company of Facebook, The Walton Tribune reported. 

The solar farms, which have a collective capacity of 287 megawatts, will be furnishing Meta with 100-percent renewable energy at its Facebook Newton Data Center in Stanton Springs, about 40 miles east of Atlanta. The farms were constructed by 1,200 workers through a partnership between Walton Electric Membership Corp. and Silicon Ranch Corp., the Tribune reported.

“We are thrilled that these new solar projects are now online and will help us continue to meet our goal of supporting our data center in Newton County with 100-percent renewable energy,” Urvi Parekh, the head of renewable energy for Meta, told the Tribune. 

Today we’ll head to New England, where scientists are evaluating how much lead exposure is affecting Massachusetts public schools. Then we’ll look at how oil and gas companies’ actual production plans are standing in the way of their stated intention to cut emissions.

For Equilibrium, we are Saul Elbein and Sharon Udasin. Please send tips or comments to Saul at selbein@digital-staging.thehill.com or Sharon at sudasin@digital-staging.thehill.com. Follow us on Twitter: @saul_elbein and @sharonudasin. 

Let’s get to it.

 

School water fixtures exceed lead thresholds 

About 12 percent of water fixtures in more than a thousand Massachusetts public schools have lead levels that exceed the threshold at which the state requires shutting them down, a new study has found.

Researchers from Northeastern University observed that these fixtures — such as water fountains and faucets — contained lead levels that exceed 15 parts per billion (ppb), the point at which Massachusetts mandates that water should not flow from the systems. 

These dangerous levels were not evenly distributed, with 90 percent of the failures occurring at just 34 percent of the schools, according to the study, published in Environmental Science & Technology Letters.

First words: “Building water quality is hard to maintain and monitor because of factors such as the large number of fixtures, varying water use patterns, and complex plumbing network,” Kelsey Pieper, study co-author and an assistant professor at Northeastern’s College of Engineering, told Equilibrium in an email.

“This is then coupled with widespread use of lead-bearing plumbing materials in schools,” she continued. “This included ‘lead-free’ plumbing components which our team has shown can still release lead under certain water conditions.”

What were the scientists looking at? They analyzed 47,727 lead measurements at 1,094 schools across the state, taking an average of 44 samples per building. Massachusetts, meanwhile, has a total of 1,840 public schools, according to the state’s Department of Education.   

A well-established concern: The widespread occurrence of lead exposure in schools is well-established, but the enforcement date of the Environmental Protection Agency’s “Lead and Copper Rule Revisions” has faced bureaucratic delays, according to the study. 

Beginning to move forward: The Biden administration released its plans for removing the nation’s lead pipes on Thursday, announcing that the EPA would “begin to develop” new regulations for lead and copper pipes — allowing a long-delayed Trump administration rule to take effect, as our colleague Rachel Frazin reported for The Hill. 

While the White House provided few details about the plans, the EPA declared its intentions to strengthen the Lead and Copper Rule Revisions and said that it anticipates finalizing improvements to the rule prior to its initial compliance date, October 16, 2024. 

What has been proposed thus far? The Trump administration’s rule proposes a variety of monitoring requirements for schools and daycares constructed prior to January 1, 2014. Water agencies would need to take five samples “once and on request of the facility thereafter” at elementary schools and daycares, as well as at secondary schools “on request.”

The school samples would need to occur at “two drinking water fountains, one kitchen faucet used for food or drink preparation, one classroom faucet or other outlet used for drinking, and one nurse’s office faucet, as available,” according to the proposed rule.

MORE DATA, KNOWLEDGE NEEDED

Evaluating what works: The Northeastern researchers said they were aiming to evaluate both the magnitude of lead exposure and the ability of the EPA’s proposed five-sample approach to identify schools with water fixtures that exceeded the state’s threshold.

What did they find? They observed that 90 percent of the fixtures with samples that exceeded the threshold were located in just 376 Massachusetts schools — or just 34.4 percent of those sampled.

While the schools that participated in the study tended to be larger, the researchers found that lead levels did not vary based on school demographics. 

Meanwhile, the scientists determined that the five-sample strategy is effective at characterizing high lead contamination thresholds — those that warrant immediate corrective action — but less effective at assessing lower levels of contamination, which impacted most schools.

Last words: Pieper stressed the need for “a tiered approach for addressing lead in schools,” due to high incidence of measurements that exceeded state thresholds.

“There needs to be more data and knowledge generated about childcare facilities,” she toldEquilibrium. “And there needs to be funding focused on testing in schools as well as remediation of fixtures releasing lead.” 

 

A MESSAGE FROM SOUTHERN COMPANY

At Southern Company, we achieved our interim net zero energy goal ten years early. Today, we continue our work toward a net zero future. Learn more.

Oil, gas industries slow-walking emissions cuts 

Oil companies are planning for increased demand and production next year — despite a global push by governments, investors and the companies themselves about the need for a rapid energy transition.

Ironically, this is worsening the economic impacts that climate change is having on the industry itself.

First words: The world will not be successful in keeping global warming below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) unless the oil majors “step up and are part of the solution,” U.S. Deputy Energy Secretary David Turk told the World Petroleum Congress earlier this month.

“We can’t delude ourselves,” he added.

Are they stepping up? Not as much as they need to, according to a report by the S&P Market Intelligence unit. 

A pressing paradox: While 70 percent of oil and gas companies have now set net-zero goals, the report found, “few have concrete emissions goals until after 2025,” and the plans they have are more in line with “a rise of over 5 degrees [Celsius] in global temperatures,” S&P reported.

That raises an awkward question of “how an industry that is projected to dump millions of tons of carbon dioxide equivalent into the atmosphere can reverse that flow in time to meet the 2 degrees or less target of the Paris climate accord,” according to the report.

 

A PHILOSOPHICAL AND BUSINESS DIVIDE

The pledges that have been made show a difference in philosophy and business practice between European and American oil and gas producers when it comes to the energy transition, the report found. 

Cutting emissions: To invest or divest? European companies generally are cutting their carbon footprint by selling off their dirtiest assets and buying renewables, which critics say “just makes those emissions somebody else’s problem,” according to the report.

U.S. producers, meanwhile, are betting on frontier technologies like carbon capture and storage, and pushing — with questionable sincerity — for a sector-wide carbon tax. 

Either can work, Daniel Raimi of Resources for the Future told S&P. Raimi acknowledged, however, long-term advantages in the European path of “diversifying investments … to develop expertise in emerging technologies” which he said is not the oil and gas industry’s forte. 

Calculating the scope of emissions: Then there is the question of whether oil and gas companies’ net-zero pledges should apply to the actual combustion of their products by customers — or if they should only be responsible for making their own operations net-zero. This would abide by the logic that it’s up to, for example, Exxon’s customers to account for the emissions when they burn the fuel they bought.

European oil companies tend to take the first perspective, accounting for the full life-cycle of the product, while the Americans take the second, according to S&P. 

Is one better? Investors should be cautious of companies that can’t account for how to address customer or supply chain emissions — called Scope 3 emissions — Alex Dalman of London-based think tank Carbon Tracker told S&P.

“That ties into how they plan to make their business more resilient in a world that doesn’t need their products anymore,” Dalman said.

Everyone agrees on one thing: “From an investing standpoint, the key takeaway is that carbon pricing will need to continue escalating for there to be any chance of preventing global heating from topping 2 degrees,” energy analyst Pavel Molchnaov told S&P.

Warming is already impacting the oil industry: An estimated 40 percent of the world’s recoverable oil — 600 billion barrels — is being affected by extreme weather caused by climate change, with 10 percent under extreme risk, Reuters reported, citing a study from Verisk Maplecroft.  

These risks range from dust storms and water shortages in Saudi Arabia, to flooding and drought in the Niger Delta, to hurricanes in the U.S. Gulf Coast, the report found — disasters that will lead to price-hiking disruptions.

Last words: “These types of events are going to become more frequent and more extreme, creating even greater shocks within the industry,” Rory Clisby, environmental analyst at Verisk Maplecroft, told Reuters.

Thursday Threats

In danger: Federal prohibitions on the hunting of grizzlies, south China banyan trees, and a bunch of newly endangered animals.

Montana one step closer to approving grizzly hunts

• Montana wildlife officials signed on to an agreement with Wyoming and Montana that would allow grizzly hunting to resume around Yellowstone National Park — provided the states are successful in getting the federal government to lift protections of the bears, Montana Public Radio reported.
• Like similar debates around the gray wolf, this one — which has raged back and forth, with protections for Yellowstone valley grizzlies briefly delisted under Trump before a federal court reversed it — pits wildlife advocates against ranchers and big-game hunters, according to the Associated Press. 

Chinese government clears out officials who cleared banyan trees

• Ten government officials from Guangzhou, in southern China, have been fired for ordering the clearing of thousands of banyan trees, “a mainstay of the southern Chinese city’s landscape” — leading to disputes between municipal planners and local supporters of the trees, The Washington Post reported. 
• The “unprecedented” punishment suggests that President Xi Jinping approved the firing, likely sending a warning to other local officials. “Local officials [will be deterred] from doing something so visceral to change the landscape,” UC San Diego China politics expert Victor Shih told the Post. “People are going to complain, and some of these complaints will reach the desk of Xi Jinping.” 

10 US species threatened by climate change: national conservation network

• As the end of the year rolls around, the Endangered Species Coalition has assembled a list of the “10 U.S. Species Already Imperiled by Climate Change,” while urging world leaders to pay more attention to “the twin crises of climate and biodiversity loss.” Among the species at particular risk are the Florida Key deer, the Maui parrotbill, the Mexican long-nosed bat and the Monarch butterfly. 
• “Scientists have long known about the impact of greenhouse gasses and carbon pollution on the planet,” Leda Huta, executive director of the Endangered Species Coalition, said in a statement. “Plants and wildlife are going extinct at an unprecedented rate, and it’s way past time for our elected leaders to take bold action to protect our planet and all its inhabitants.”  

 

A MESSAGE FROM SOUTHERN COMPANY

 

At Southern Company, we achieved our interim net zero energy goal ten years early. Today, we continue our work toward a net zero future. Learn more.

That’s it for today. Please visit The Hill’s sustainability section online for the web version of this newsletter and more stories. We’ll see you Friday.

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