Biden cancels Alaska oil leases, protects millions of acres in Arctic Refuge
The Biden Administration and Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland have canceled seven oil and gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in Alaska, along with protecting 13 million acres of the National Petroleum Reserve.
ANWR is one of the largest areas of pristine wildlife habitat in America and is home to indigenous peoples. But it also sits atop around ten billion barrels of oil, and thus, for decades, Republicans and oil companies have been trying to drill in it.
For the most part, these attempts were refused until 2017. At that time, a Republican Congress passed – and President Trump signed – a bill giving huge tax breaks to the wealthy, adding $1.5 trillion to the deficit and raising taxes on the middle class. However, this tax bill also opened up 1.5 million acres in ANWR to oil drilling.
On January 6, 2021 (yes, that January 6), the US government held a rushed oil and gas lease sale and issued 10-year leases on 430,000 acres. But 15 days later, on President Biden’s first day in office, he issued an executive order suspending those leases, stating that they did not undergo proper environmental review.
Today’s action permanently cancels those suspended leases, finding that they did not undergo proper review under the National Environmental Policy Act. However, two of the three purchasers had already requested that their leases be canceled and refunded, and the only remaining holder of these leases was the state of Alaska itself.
In addition to canceling the leases, the Department of the Interior will now give maximum protection to 13 million acres within the 23.6 million acre National Petroleum Reserve – Alaska (NPRA), which sits to the west of ANWR. And it will prohibit any new leasing on 10.6 million acres, over 40% of the NPRA’s total area.
The newly protected areas are listed as “Special Areas,” a designation afforded to “areas with significant surface value” within the NPRA. Here’s a map showing them in Northwest Alaska:
This news comes months after Biden approved the “Willow project,” a large oil project within the NPRA, a move opposed by people who would prefer the planet to remain livable rather than turn into a burning hellscape in the name of oil industry profits. Today’s action does not reverse that approval – Willow will be allowed to continue as planned.
Electrek’s Take
Biden has been getting a lot of flack from environmentalists for allowing oil & gas lease sales, and this flack is deserved. If we want to avoid climate change, we have absolutely zero options other than keeping oil in the ground where it belongs. If we allowed all currently owned and explored oil reserves to be drilled and burned, we would overshoot necessary carbon targets by around 4x (see Bill McKibben’s excellent article “Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math” about this).
That said – and this has not been a popular take among environmentalists (of which I am one) – I never found these oil leases to be all that disturbing. Because I kind of thought they would (or at least must) eventually be canceled, likely before they got very far into construction. And they did. So that’s good.
The government has been holding plenty of oil and gas lease sales lately, even while touting historic climate actions. This is dumb, and they shouldn’t hold these leases. However, we’ve also seen instances of companies not bothering to show up to purchase these leases, and all major US banks have given up on funding Arctic oil leases anyway. Everyone knows the oil companies have more than enough leases already and probably won’t ever be able to use them all – at least if the health of the planet matters to anyone (jury’s out on that one).
So these lease sales are kind of a waste of time for everyone involved, in my opinion. Instead of spending time leasing and unleasing land, we should work harder on protecting more of it. This is a good start, but I’d like to see more leases canceled – even on land that’s already being used for production, like Los Angeles wants to do.
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China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited (CATL) has unveiled its latest battery cell technologies, which charge as quickly as filling up a gas tank while potentially lowering costs without compromise.
CATL has quickly become the world’s largest battery manufacturer by a wide margin. It is one of, if not the biggest, force for advancing electric transportation.
A big part of CATL’s success is due to its advancements in lithium-iron phosphate battery cells, also known as LFP. LFP cells are cheaper than nickel-rich batteries, but they used to have much lower energy density.
The Chinese battery manufacturers managed to close the gap somewhat while maintaining lower costs, resulting in LFP cells becoming popular for entry-level EVs.
Now, CATL is looking to do the same with sodium-ion batteries.
Like LFP cells, sodium-ion battery cells have the potential to be cheaper than more common Li-ion cells, but they also offer potential for superior performance, particularly in terms of faster charging and longer lifecycles.
CATL has unveiled today Naxtra, its new sodium-ion battery cells, and it claimed some truly impressive specs.
The new cell reportedly achieves an energy density of 175 Wh per kg (385 Wh per lb), on par with the higher-end of LFP battery cells.
The new cells also offer potential for significant safety improvements.
CATL shared several intense stress tests, including drilling into a cell and even cutting it in half without any thermal event:
The next-gen sodium cells could help further lower the cost of electric vehicles without compromising performance, and while increasing safety.
On top of the new Naxtra cell, CATL has also unveiled its next-gen Shenxing LFP battery cells.
Its charge rate is truly impressive. CATL shared several examples of cars charging at around 1,000 kW and maintaining over 500 kW at over 50% state of charge:
The new cell is being described as capable of adding 300 miles (482 km) of range in about 5 minutes – depending on the EV model.
That’s virtually as quick as filling up a tank of gas.
CATL says that the Shenxing will be in 67 electric vehicle models by the end of the year.
The next-gen cell was unveiled after BYD, CATL’s biggest competitor, also unveiled its latest technology, capable of charging electric vehicles at extremely high speeds.
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New York State has announced an extra $30 million for point-of-sale rebates to lease or buy more than 60 new EV models.
The rebates are available to consumers through New York’s Drive Clean Rebate program, which offers a point-of-sale rebate off the manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP) of an EV at participating car dealerships in New York State.
The rebate is available in all 62 counties, with the highest rebate of $2,000 available for EVs with a greater-than-200-mile range. (For a 40- to 199-mile range, the rebate is $1,000.) The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) runs the program.
NYSERDA President and CEO Doreen M. Harris said, “Converting to EVs reduces the total cost of vehicle ownership through lower fuel and vehicle maintenance costs, and NYSERDA is proud to help provide New Yorkers with more purchasing power through these rebates.”
The Drive Clean Rebate program has issued over 190,000 rebates to consumers since 2017, contributing to the more than 280,000 EVs on the road in New York State.
NYSERDA also boosted its EV charging incentives. Through the Charge Ready NY 2.0 program, the state is boosting the cash available for Level 2 charger installations at apartment buildings, workplaces, and hotels from $2,000 to $3,000 per port. And if the chargers go into disadvantaged communities, that amount jumps to $4,000 per port.
New York has racked up over 17,000 public EV chargers, making it second only to California for charger count. On top of that, there are more than 4,000 semi-public stations tucked into workplaces and multifamily buildings across the state.
Read more: New York awards $60M to Revel to install 267 DC fast chargers
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LTL carrier ArcBest Freight (ABF) announced plans to add five new Orange EV electric terminal tractors to its existing ZEV fleet, bringing its total deployment of these battery electric HDEVs to 14 … with even more to come.
LTL stands for “Less than Truck Load,” and basically means that, since whatever you’re shipping won’t take up a full container, you can share the costs of shipping with other customers with goods going the same way. You save a little more money and the shipper makes a little more money, making it a rare win-win scenario in the shipping space. And that’s important, because LTL containers amount to a massive 15% of total US shipping.
ABF has been putting Orange EV yard dogs to work in their LTL traffic terminals since their initial deployment of four trucks in June 2022. The company added five more a few years later, and just purchased five more — further underscoring their confidence in the benefits of transitioning their fleet to electric power.
“The Orange EV terminal trucks meet our operational requirements and expectations for safe, reliable, and affordable service and performance,” explains Matthew Godfrey, ABF Freight president. “We’re committed to responsible environmental management, and our investment in EVs aligns with our continuous efforts to enhance efficiency while maintaining exceptional service standards.”
ABF joins other large logistics companies like YMX and DHL in deploying the Orange EV terminal trucks, which have logged hundreds of thousands of hours of service for their customers.
Electrek’s Take
Over at The Heavy Equipment Podcast, we had a chance to talk to Orange EV founder Kurt Neutgens ahead of last year’s ACT Expo for clean trucking. On the show (embedded, above), Kurt explained how his experience at Ford helped inform his design ideology, and that the Orange EV was designed to be cost competitive with diesel options, even without subsidies.
Give it a listen, then let us know what you think of the big yard dogs in the comments.
SOURCE | IMAGES: Orange EV; via PR Newswire.
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