Daily on Energy: Canada outlines adaptation plans as smoke envelops Midwest

Now, Canada, which has long received criticism for its wildfire management strategies, has released a plan to coordinate its disjointed fire response efforts.

THE PLAN: Canada yesterday released a National Adaptation Strategy on Climate that would unify the country’s 10 provincial governments around a single response plan to fight wildfires, floods, and other natural disasters.

Unlike the U.S., where both federal and state budgets can allocate resources to fire prevention and response, each province or territory in Canada has its own budget allocation — leaving them, critics have said, woefully underfunded. The amount set aside by individual provinces can vary widely in scope, based on size, estimated risk, and wildfire patterns.

That’s a problem, especially since some provinces have taken an ax to funding recently. Ontario, for example, reduced its emergency firefighting budget by 67% in 2019, and Alberta slashed funding by around $30 million earlier this year.

Canada’s new plan is to spend more than $6 billion on climate adaptation and resilience at the federal level, and includes a series of goals on public health, forest management, and new forest and flood mapping.

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JAPAN CLEARS KEY HURDLE IN EFFORT TO RELEASE FUKUSHIMA WATER: Japan’s nuclear watchdog could issue approval as soon as next week to Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) to begin releasing treated wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear power plant, a major step in decommissioning the site of the 2011 disaster.

The head of Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority, Shinsuke Yamanaka, told reporters that TEPCO could pass its assessment as early as next week.

Japan had decided in 2021 to gradually begin releasing treated wastewater from the plant into the Pacific Ocean, after removing most radioactive elements, barring tritium. The treated water has been stored at around 1,000 tanks at the site, and plans to release it have been met with sharp objections from neighboring countries, including China and South Korea.

IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said his agency is also reviewing the plan, and will meet with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida next week.

…IN SPAIN, NUCLEAR BECOMES KEY ISSUE IN RUN-UP TO ELECTIONS: Meanwhile in Spain, nuclear power has become a key issue in the country’s upcoming elections, pitting the ruling Socialist Party, which had planned to begin powering down the reactors in 2027, against the conservative opposition People’s Party, which supports keeping the plants online.

Socialist Party leaders have pushed to accelerate the EU’s transition to a zero-carbon economy, largely through renewable energy sources such as solar and wind. They have argued that Spain’s abundance of sunlight and wind could make it a leader, and that keeping its reactors on could discourage new solar and wind investments.

Opponents have also cited the high repair costs that would be needed to extend the life of its existing reactors.

But nuclear power currently supplies roughly one-fifth of electricity in Spain—and People’s Party leaders argue that the country can scarcely afford to do away with a stable power source.

“We cannot unplug 21% of the energy installed in Spain without having another 21% capable of running with renewable energy,” the head of the opposition People’s Party, Alberto Nunez Feijoo said, adding that a swifter shift to wind and solar energy sources will require a grid overhaul, and that the “price of energy will rise exponentially” in the interim as a result. Read more from Reuters here.

TENSION BETWEEN LABOR AND OFFSHORE WIND IN MAINE: Maine Gov. Janet Mills yesterday vetoed legislation meant to ease permitting for offshore wind projects because it included language added by the Democratic legislature requiring “project labor agreements” for building – that is, built-in labor standards that can favor unions.

Mills said in a veto message that the offshore wind buildout “will require an ‘all-hands-on-deck’ approach.”

The move puts the Democratic governor in tension not just with labor groups in Maine, but also with the Biden administration, which has said that it places a priority on making jobs facilitated by Inflation Reduction Act subsidies high-paying union jobs.

EPA CLOSES CIVIL RIGHTS INVESTIGATION INTO ‘CANCER ALLEY’: The Biden administration dropped a civil rights investigation over whether two Louisiana state agencies discriminated in how they regulated their chemical plants in an industrial stretch of the Mississippi River Chemical Corridor—an area colloquially known as “Cancer Alley.”

In a court filing yesterday, the EPA said it had taken “significant actions” to protect vulnerable communities, including striking an agreement with the plants to cut emissions and handle their waste, and thus was dropping the probe.

The agreement was seen as a setback for some environmental justice advocates, however, as it did not compel the state of Louisiana to make any of its own commitments to better regulate waste and emissions from plants in the state.

“It is a dangerous precedent,” EarthJustice attorney Patrice Simms told the Associated Press. EarthJustice was one of several environmental groups that had asked the EPA to investigate Louisiana’s regulations in the corridor, which began last year.

The activist groups had argued that such a retreat from the Louisiana case would be “deeply problematic” if it represented a larger curtailing of other civil rights investigations, which have been a priority under the Biden administration.

RHINE WATER LEVELS PLUMMET, HURTING SHIPPING EFFORTS: Low water levels in the Rhine River are again hampering cargo vessels from traversing through the shallow waterways, threatening to hurt shipping in the region for the second summer in a row.

According to commodity traders in the area, cargoes were held up by the shallow water on most of the river south of Duisburg and Cologne, including the key chokepoint of Kaub, in Germany’s Middle Rhine Valley. The shallow waters are a problem since fully stocked cargoes cannot pass through, forcing vessel operators to impose surcharges on their usual freight prices.

The Rhine is a key waypoint in Europe by which commodities including grains, minerals, and coal and oil products are shipped. Last summer, high heat and drought conditions caused its water levels to plummet to record lows—threatening to cripple trade in the EU, and forcing some ships to completely unload their cargoes in order to pass through some of the most shallow parts of the river.

The Rundown

New York Times The crises of heat and smoke share a common thread: climate change

Energy News Network Ohio utilities could resume energy efficiency programs under bipartisan bill

E&E News ‘Never occurred before’: How the Arctic is sizzling Texas