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A U.S. federal judge approved a $14.7 billion settlement in the Volkswagen "Dieselgate" scandal.
This is one of the largest consumer lawsuits affecting more than 475,000 diesel cars in the U.S. The settlement gives Volkswagen owners the option to sell their vehicle back or get a free fix.
"The settlement is fair, reasonable and adequate," U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer wrote in his order.
The German carmaker will also pay $4.7 billion for environmental programs and promotion of zero-emissions vehicles.
"Judge Breyer is making them pay the price. Volkswagen chose to poison our families with dangerous pollution just to pad its pocketbook," Kathryn Phillips, California director for the Sierra Club environmental group, said.
For a deeper dive:
Wall Street Journal, LA Times, Chicago Tribune, Reuters, Detroit News, USA Today, New York Times, NPR, Bloomberg
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A unique interactive website gives you a new perspective on your time on Earth.
BBC Earth's "Your life on earth" interactive takes your birthdate, gender and height to give you a personalized look at how the Earth has changed since you were born.
Factoids provided include: how many times your heart has beaten; how far you have travelled through space; the amount of sea level rise; how far the tectonic plates have moved; and the number of earthquakes and volcano eruptions experienced since your were born.
Find out what has changed during your life and compare with friends. The interactive website is available here.
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Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a proposal aiming to curb air pollution and toxic chemical emissions discharged by oil refineries, according to an agency press release. If the regulations are adopted, the move would mark the first change to the oil industry's emission standards in almost two decades.
The changes were brought about in part from a 2012 lawsuit filed by environmental attorneys with Earthjustice and the Environmental Integrity Project accusing the EPA of evading its responsibilities under the Clean Air Act by neglecting to review and update toxic air emissions standards by more than a decade.
“The common-sense steps we are proposing will protect the health of families who live near refineries and will provide them with important information about the quality of the air they breathe,” said EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy in a statement. “This proposal will help us accomplish our goal of making a visible difference in the health and the environment of communities across the country.”
Benzene and other toxic chemicals emitted by the oil industry can cause respiratory problems, such as asthma, and can increase the risk of developing cancer. The lawsuit pointed out that mainly low-income and minority people live within the vicinity of these refineries, and are therefore at disproportionate risk of air-quality-related illnesses.
“The companies that own these refineries must be required to use more efficient technology to control toxins and monitor what they emit instead of passing the costs on to us through the high health costs our communities are bearing because of their pollution,” said Juan Parras, of Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services.
The EPA estimates that once the proposed updates are fully implemented, toxic air emissions—including benzene, toluene and xylene—would be reduced by 5,600 tons per year. Volatile organic compound emissions would be cut by approximately 52,000 tons per year and 700,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent.
According to Earthjustice, the proposed updates include much needed improvements such as:
- Fenceline monitoring and a fenceline standard for the carcinogen benzene which would require refineries to measure toxic air pollution as it goes into the local community’s air.
- Improved monitoring and combustion efficiency operating requirements for flaring which is too often used routinely and, because it involves the burning of waste gas, it creates pollution communities must breathe.
- Tighter control requirements on emissions from various parts of refineries like delayed coker units and storage tanks.
- Removal of the unlawful loophole in the existing standards, so that refineries can no longer get away with violations that occur during startup, shutdown and malfunction periods.
“EPA’s proposed requirement for fenceline monitoring is greatly needed and will help identify toxic emissions from leaks and other sources that are not directly monitored,” said Sparsh Khandeshi, an attorney with the Environmental Integrity Project. “This monitoring will help target further reductions and provide valuable information about exposure levels to downwind communities.”
The EPA will take public comments on the proposals for 60 days after it is published in the Federal Register. The agency also plans to hold two public hearings, near Houston and Los Angeles, and will finalize the standards by April 2015.
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By Michael Goggin
New research released by an independent grid operator confirms that wind energy is drastically decreasing both the price of electricity and emissions of harmful pollutants. The study was led by PJM, the independent grid operator for all or parts of 13 Mid-Atlantic and Great Lakes states (Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia) and DC. The results are posted here.
Highlights of the study:
- Wind energy produces massive reductions in electricity production costs and wholesale prices. Obtaining 20 percent of PJM’s electricity from wind energy reduces the cost of producing electricity by $9 billion annually (about 25 percent of overall production costs of $37 billion), while 30 percent wind reduces production costs by $13 billion (about 35 percent) each year. Wholesale electricity prices are reduced by $9-21 billion annually across the 20 percent and 30 scenarios.
- Wind energy drastically reduces pollution. The 20 percent wind case reduced fuel use and carbon pollution by 18 percent more than the 2 percent wind base case, while 30 percent wind reduced fuel use and carbon emissions by more than 29 percent relative to the 2 percent wind base case. The 20 percent wind case reduced annual carbon pollution by around 80 million tons, while the 30 percent wind cases reduced pollution by around 140-200 million tons annually. These results include detailed modeling of how changing the output of fossil-fired power plants affects their emissions and efficiency. Even at high levels of wind energy, this power plant "cycling" has no significant negative impact on the efficiency or emissions of fossil-fired power plants, further confirming the results of a study released last month showing that such cycling only reduces the CO2 benefits of wind by 0.2 percent.
- The study found that obtaining 30 percent of electricity from renewable energy would cause no reliability problems, noting that “all the simulations of challenging days revealed successful operation of the PJM real-time market.” This confirms the results of dozens of other wind integration studies and independent grid operator analyses of real-world wind operations data. As PJM’s Senior Vice President Andy Ott and other experts explain in this video, changes in wind energy output are reliably accommodated using the same tools grid operators have always used to accommodate fluctuations in electricity demand as well as abrupt failures at conventional power plants.
- The PJM study also found that the grid upgrades needed to accommodate additional wind energy would have a reasonable cost, accounting for only 6 to 8 percent of the value provided by wind energy in nearly all scenarios. Importantly, other studies by independent grid operators have confirmed that these grid upgrades would more than pay for themselves by providing other benefits, such as improved electric reliability, reduced electricity prices, more competitive electricity markets, and higher efficiency of electricity transmission relative to today’s congested electric grid.
