PIPELINES: Colonial Pipeline resumes limited shipments after a cyberattack shut it down, though its hopes to “substantially” restart service this weekend may not be quick enough to prevent fuel shortages. (Politico, The Hill)
ALSO:
• The shutdown isn’t expected to cause shortages in New England due to the area’s reliance on foreign imports, but gas prices are already rising and with local outages from New York to Georgia. (Boston Globe, Post-Standard, WXTL)
• On the eve of a state deadline to shut down the Line 5 pipeline in Michigan’s Straits of Mackinac, Enbridge says it will only do so if ordered by a court. (Michigan Radio)
• Tribal members in Minnesota risk arrest as they maintain protests against Enbridge’s Line 3 pipeline. (Daily Climate)
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OFFSHORE WIND: The Biden administration will reportedly announce Vineyard Wind’s final permit today, marking the country’s first completely permitted, utility-scale offshore wind farm. (New York Times)
RENEWABLES: Renewable generation capacity surged 45% last year, an International Energy Association report finds, though growth is expected to plateau this year as government support ends. (Bloomberg)
INFRASTRUCTURE: The Colonial Pipeline hack highlights a lack of cybersecurity measures in President Biden’s infrastructure plan — a potentially huge liability for future clean energy products. (Grist)
OIL & GAS:
• Natural gas flaring decreased 5% worldwide in 2020, the World Bank finds, largely because of a pandemic-induced drop in demand for oil. (New York Times)
• A new project is using satellites to monitor natural gas flaring and compare its findings with companies’ self-reported data. (Axios)
• The Interior Department said Friday it would drop a Trump administration proposal that could have weakened rules for drilling in Arctic waters. (Associated Press)
GRID:
• An unreliable power grid, set to only worsen with climate change, is putting home medical device users at risk. (Undark)
• A report by a Connecticut emergency management agency finds that a Category 2 hurricane could cause month-long power outages in the state, while a Category 3 storm would knock out power for months. (NBC Connecticut)
POLLUTION: More than 17,000 deaths in the U.S. each year can be attributed to farm pollution, a study finds, with 80% attributable to animal agriculture. (Washington Post)
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CLIMATE:
• A West Virginia Republican congressmember seeks to straddle climate change and the coal lobby with a bipartisan bill to establish clean electricity standards. (E&E News, subscription)
• A pair of bipartisan congressmembers reintroduce a bill to tax carbon emissions. (E&E News, subscription)
• Gov. John Bel Edwards announces plans for Louisiana to join the U.S. Climate Alliance, which, paired with an executive order to make the state carbon-free by 2050, marks a major shift in a state long reliant on production of oil, gas and petrochemicals. (NPR)
• A Washington lawmaker says the legislature looked carefully at the shortfalls of California’s cap-and-trade system to avoid repeating mistakes in a recently passed climate bill. (U.S. News and World Report)
COMMENTARY:
• Former President George W. Bush’s treasury secretary and former President Bill Clinton’s chief of staff write in favor of carbon pricing. (Washington Post)
• Colonial Pipeline needs to reveal how it was hacked to help other companies and the government prevent a future attack, a columnist writes. (Bloomberg)