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$4B A YEAR IS CHEAP IF IT SAVES COAL PLANTS, SAYS COAL GROUP: A coal group is arguing that spending $4 billion each year to subsidize coal and nuclear plants is not that much for consumers to bear because it would create energy security and boost national security.

‘Not trivial’: “While $4 billion per year is not trivial, it is tiny compared to other investments for national security,” argues a new paper from the pro-coal American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity that will be released Monday.

Compared to defense: The paper goes on to explain that Defense Department spending over the past three fiscal years averaged about $645 billion per year. Therefore, “paying an additional $4 billion per year to promote national security would represent less than 0.6 percent of federal funding for the same purpose,” the paper added.

Where the numbers come from: The coal group’s analysis uses a number from a recent ICF study that showed subsidizing the fixed number of coal and nuclear plants readying to close, as the Trump administration has proposed, would cost between $1 billion and $4 billion per year.

White House memo: The group paired the ICF study with the national security argument for keeping the plants open, which a White House National Security Council memo had laid out. The memo argues that ordering many of these uneconomic power plants to stay open was necessary for national security because they “have a secure on-site fuel supply,” which makes them “essential to support the nation’s defense facilities, critical energy infrastructure, and other critical infrastructure.”

Compared to wind and solar: “Our best-guess cost of $4 billion per year is considerably smaller than federal tax subsidies that have supported renewable energy sources for four decades,” the group’s report said. “For example, wind and solar will have received tax subsidies averaging $7.3 billion per year over the period 2016-2020, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation,” the paper continues. “Wind and solar do not provide fuel security.”

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SOLAR INVESTMENT RUNS INTO TROUBLE IN 2018: Solar energy investment is running into some challenges in the first half of 2018. Solar investment has slipped by 19 percent/, driven in part by China’s waning solar boom, according to new report by Bloomberg New Energy Finance released Monday morning.

‘Mixed picture’: But the results of the study showed a “mixed picture” for global clean energy investment emerging, with “dollar investment in solar under pressure while commitments to wind power and energy smart technologies such as electric vehicles and batteries are running above last year’s levels,” according to the report’s summary.

The solar-wind split: “A sectoral split for the first half of 2018 shows solar investment down 19 percent compared to the same period last year at $71.6 billion,” according to the report. But wind energy investments are up 33 percent at $57.2 billion.

Race for subsidies: “We see U.S. wind investment increasing in 2018-2019 as developers rush to finish projects in time to qualify for federal tax credits,” said Amy Grace, Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s  head of North American research.

Solar slips as China cools off: “The slippage in solar reflects two main developments – significantly lower capital costs for photovoltaic projects, and therefore fewer dollars spent per megawatt installed; and a cooling-off in China’s solar boom,” the report showed. “These trends are set to gather pace in the second half.”

EXPERTS SAY TRUMP’S TOUGH IRAN POLICY MEANS HIGHER OIL, GAS PRICES: President Trump is beating up on the oil cartel OPEC, but experts say his own policies are partially to blame for rising oil prices that could lead to higher gas prices just months before the midterm elections.

The rub: In June, the Trump administration said it would take a zero-tolerance approach to enforcing sanctions on Iran after it abandoned the nuclear agreement with Iran in May. The White House wants countries to stop importing oil from Iran by November, and if that happens, most are expecting higher prices for oil and gas.

‘Polar opposite extremes’: “These are two polar opposite extremes, if Trump wants to cut off 2.4 million per day of oil and have prices stay stable if not go down,” said Richard Nephew, a senior research scholar at at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy who directed sanctions policy at the State Department in the Obama administration.

“I am not aware of there being sufficient spare capacity to being able to make that up,” Nephew told Josh. “The only way this gets resolved is higher prices. That’s simply math.”

Iran is OPEC’s third largest producer, and sells around 2.4 million barrels a day, or more than 2 percent of global supplies, since the lifting of sanctions in 2016.

Prices rising: Since a Trump administration official suggested a zero-tolerance policy with Iran on June 26, the price of Brent crude oil, the international benchmark, rose from $74 to $77, and the U.S. benchmark oil price jumped from $66 to $74.

U.S. gasoline prices were an average of $2.87 on Monday, down a bit from the four-year high they hit on Memorial Day.

Scary sentiment: Experts say the White House’s zero-tolerance policy has the oil market expecting the worst, which is why oil prices keep rising and why gas prices are expected to follow.

“The thing that is moving oil prices upward is the sentiment of what the Trump administration wants to see removed from the market, which seems like pretty much everything,” said Sarah Ladislaw, senior vice president and director of the Energy and National Security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

U.S. LOOKS TO INDIA FOR OIL EXPORTS AMID CHINA’S TARIFFS: As a trade war heats up between the U.S. and China, American oil producers are looking toward India as a new destination for crude oil.

China cuts demand: Refiners in China were the top buyers of American crude oil in May, according to Bloomberg. But with China readying to impose new tariffs on U.S. oil imports that will change. U.S. oil exports will be more expensive and less desirable by Chinese refineries to make into gasoline and diesel fuel.

The shift toward India: Experts say that will force U.S. crude oil sellers to look for alternative buyers, which means India, another top consumer of crude oil will come sharply into focus.

LIBYA’S OIL PRODUCTION FREEFALL GOING TO GET WORSE: Libya’s oil production will continue to fall every day if major ports stay closed due to clashes among various armed groups, the head of the country’s state energy producer said Monday.

Free falling: “Today, production is 527,000 barrels a day, tomorrow it will be lower, and after tomorrow it will be even lower and everyday it will keep falling,” Mustafa Sanalla, chairman of the National Oil Corp., said in a video statement on the company’s Facebook page.

Libya was producing more than twice that amount before fighting in February forced an oil field in western Libya to shut down, he said.

More pain: The country’s problems come as oil prices have rallied even more than OPEC expected in recent months. Some countries restricted production more than the amount targeted under an output cut agreement, and other unintended supply disruptions have occurred, such as Venezuela’s loss of 50,000 barrels per day of production.

EVERYTHING IS BIGGER IN TEXAS, EXCEPT FOR METHANE EMISSIONS, SAYS REPORT: The Obama administration may have exaggerated data on methane emissions in order to push forward new regulations, according to a new report released Monday by natural gas and fracking proponents in Texas.

Texas is the reason: The group Texans for Natural Gas, described as a grassroots organization supported by large drillers like XTO Energy, conducted a review of available federal data that suggests emissions of methane, a short-lived but powerful greenhouse gas, have actually been on the decline.

Key findings: Two of the report’s key findings show that methane emissions from venting and flaring natural gas during oil production dropped 17 percent between 2013 and 2016, even as domestic oil production increased by 19 percent. Second, methane emissions from hydraulically fractured, or fracking, natural gas wells declined 82 percent between 2013 and 2016.

‘Inflated’ numbers: The group says the Obama administration “may have relied on inflated estimates of methane emissions” in order to justify last-minute rules on drillers known as the Waste Prevention Rule. The rule was issued by the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management in December 2016, weeks before former President Barack Obama left office.  

Obama’s 11th-hour regs: “Curiously, the Obama administration used emissions data from the EPA to try to justify its 11th-hour venting and flaring rule, claiming those data were representative of what’s occurring on federal and Indian lands,” said Steve Everley, spokesman for the natural gas group.

‘Half of what they were’: “But the [Environmental Protection Agency] now says methane emissions are half of what they were when the BLM finalized this costly regulation. At the very least, this raises legitimate questions about the venting and flaring rule, in addition to the legal problems that are still being sorted out in court.”

PRUITT’s PARTING GIFT TO POLLUTING TRUCKS: Before resigning from the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt moved to stop the agency from enforcing an Obama-era restriction on the manufacturing of trucks that use old engines built before modern emissions standards.

The EPA in its own modeling has projected that so-called glider trucks emit 20 to 40 times as much of the pollutants nitrogen oxide and soot as trucks with new engines.

Swayed by industry: But Pruitt was swayed by intense lobbying from manufacturers who sell glider trucks to stop enforcing, through the end of 2019, an annual cap of 300 gliders per manufacturer that had been imposed in January, the New York Times reported Friday.

The main producer of glider trucks, Fitzgerald Glider Kits of Crossville, Tenn., argues they are cheaper to run, and that emissions from them cannot be regulated under the EPA’s Clean Air Act.

Study says: Pruitt’s move to help Fitzgerald comes after a university produced a study showing that pollution from glider trucks was the same as trucks with modern emissions controls, then reversed itself and asked the EPA to disregard the study.

Philip B. Oldham, the president of Tennessee Technological University, warned the EPA in April that “experts within the university have questioned the methodology and accuracy” of the study, which was funded by Fitzgerald, the manufacturer of glider trucks.

STARBUCKS TO STOP USING PLASTIC STRAWS BY 2020: Starbucks will stop providing plastic straws with the drinks it sells by 2020 in an effort to clean up the environment, the company said Monday.

Major user: Starbucks said that it will replace plastic straws with recyclable “strawless lids,” as well as straws made from biodegradable materials. The coffee giant uses more than 1 billion plastic straws per year, the Washington Post reports. It is the largest retailer to pledge to eliminate plastic straws.

Broader movement: A number of local governments have already done so, including Seattle, where Starbucks is headquartered.

New York City is considering a ban on plastic straws in order to cut down on the amount of plastic trash, and several other cities have already taken that step.

The House of Representatives in June voted to ban the use of plastic drinking straws from its cafeterias.

GROUP CALLS FOR LOWER FERTILITY RATES TO MARK WORLD POPULATION DAY: World Population Balance, a 25-year-old advocacy group, issued a warning to governments on Monday that it said is backed by 15,000 scientists

Cut ‘fertility rates’: Calling population a “main driver” of “ a “worsening environmental crisis,” the group calls for reduced fertility rates “through education, family planning and rallying leaders behind the goal of establishing a sustainable human population.”

Second warning: This is second warning issued by the group since November, “following a lack of meaningful response” to the first warning.”

“The environmental crisis described by the scientists is so severe…we cannot afford to ignore their warning. We must act now,” said Dave Gardner, executive director of World Population Balance, in a statement.

NISSAN ADMITS TO ‘MISCONDUCT’ IN EMISSIONS TESTS: Nissan, the Japanese carmaker, said Monday it discovered instances of “misconduct” involving falsified data in fuel economy tests. The company said the data tampering occurred on 19 models across five plants in Japan, Reuters reported.

‘Serious issue’: “This is a deep and serious issue for our company,” Nissan Chief Operating Officer Yasuhiro Yamauchi told reporters at a briefing. “We realize that our compliance awareness remains lacking.” The company says it will carry out an investigation into the misconduct, which it expects to take a month or more.

Nissan in October had already recalled 1.2 million vehicles after it discovered that vehicle inspections had been done by uncertified technicians.

Global problem: Nissan’s problems are the latest fallout from the global emissions cheating scandal that ensnared Volkswagen in 2015, when the company admitted it sold “clean diesel” vehicles containing software designed to beat U.S. emissions tests.

RUNDOWN

New York Times Scott Pruitt, fallen EPA chief, may rise again in Oklahoma

Houston Chronicle Who is Michael Honeycutt? Controversial Texas toxicologist plays against type in key EPA role

Bloomberg For the state of American coal, check out West Virginia’s mining

Wall Street Journal Pricier fuel to test airline profits

Reuters As Arctic warms, reindeer herders tangle with new industries