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Tag: Materials industry

  • India stock markets have been volatile. Analysts say these sectors are worth watching

    India stock markets have been volatile. Analysts say these sectors are worth watching

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    The Indian government announced during the annual budget on Feb. 1 that the country will increase infrastructure spending by 33% to 10 trillion rupees ($122.29 billion) in the next fiscal year.

    Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

    Indian markets have been volatile as the Adani crisis continues to dominate headlines, but analysts say this could be a buying opportunity.

    In particular, some are bullish about the construction sector and say an infrastructure push could benefit cement stocks.

    In a January note, Bernstein analysts led by Venugopal Garre, said they were “generally optimistic about the real estate cycle and the potential for a better rural environment.”

    Investors can consider playing the country’s infrastructure sector through domestic cement names, Garre said. 

    Cement: UltraTech, Ambuja

    Bernstein likes UltraTech Cement — a company Garre said has the capacity to keep up with the growing number of real estate projects coming up in India. 

    He said “70% of cement demand comes from real estate, and 30% comes from infrastructure,” and added that when a new property is built, cement is needed from the first day the project cycle commences. 

    This is unlike electric equipment or circuitry that is only needed in the third or fourth year of the construction project, he explained. 

    Sanjiv Bhasin, director at IIFL Securities, also said UltraTech Cement is one of the firm’s “top picks,” along with Ambuja Cements.

    Shares of UltraTech Cement was trading at about 7,123.05 on Wednesday, lower by 0.21%. The stock is close to its 52-week intraday high, according to FactSet.

    The government’s spending on infrastructure is increasing and “we think cement prices are headed higher because we [are going] into a season where construction activity may be at the highest,” Bhasin said. 

    FactSet data showed shares of Ambuja Cements have fallen 34% year-to-date. Bhasin has said the stock is a buy and that it’s a “brilliant opportunity” despite the current market volatility.

    The Adani Group owns a 63.15% stake in Ambuja Cements, Refinitiv showed.

    The price for Ambuja Cements is falling “because it exists within the Adani umbrella,” said Praveen Jagwani, chief executive officer at UTI International Singapore.

    “This temporary fiasco is only a buying opportunity … We still think that UltraTech and Ambuja are very, very good plays on the cement side,” Bhasin said, adding than an impetus on infrastructure spending will cause these names to outperform in the next quarter.

    India’s infrastructure push

    Morgan Stanley is bullish on India’s industrials sector, its analysts said in a note on Feb. 1 after the budget announcement.

    “As the Budget supports capex and employment creation, we remain constructive on the domestic demand strength,” the financial services firm said.

    Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced during the annual budget last week that the country will increase infrastructure spending by 33% to 10 trillion rupees ($122.29 billion) in the next fiscal year. India’s fiscal year starts in April and ends in March the next year.

    India’s construction materials industry should see some upside from the rise in capital expenditure, but investors have to be “very careful” when picking cement stocks, Jagwani told CNBC.

    India needs more high quality commercial buildings, roads and airports, but the country’s infrastructure sector is also “super unpredictable and risky,” Jagwani warned.

    Return on investment would fall each year as infrastructure projects get delayed, Jagwani pointed out, claiming that it happens frequently in India. 

    Engineering: ABB India, Siemens India and more

    Engineering companies that focus on infrastructure and construction are also good buys, IIFL Securities said.

    They include ABB India, Siemens India, and Larsen & Turbo.

    Larsen & Turbo will be coming out with “higher double digit margins, and their order flows are the strongest,” Bhasin said. 

    UTI International also likes Berger Paints, which Jagwani said has the “ingredients” to see a continuous growth in sales and will benefit not just from new buildings being built, but older ones that need maintenance. 

    “Paint is in the replacement market. People need to get their houses and apartments painted every few years because of rain and excessive heat,” he said. 

    The shares, however, are down 4.5% year-to-date and close to their 52-week intraday low of 527.6 rupees. Berger Paints was trading at about 555.45 rupees on Wednesday. 

    — CNBC’s Michael Bloom contributed to this report. 

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  • Pentagon debuts its new stealth bomber, the B-21 Raider

    Pentagon debuts its new stealth bomber, the B-21 Raider

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    PALMDALE , Calif. — America’s newest nuclear stealth bomber made its debut Friday after years of secret development and as part of the Pentagon’s answer to rising concerns over a future conflict with China.

    The B-21 Raider is the first new American bomber aircraft in more than 30 years. Almost every aspect of the program is classified.

    As evening fell over the Air Force’s Plant 42 in Palmdale, the public got its first glimpse of the Raider in a tightly controlled ceremony. It started with a flyover of the three bombers still in service: the B-52 Stratofortress, the B-1 Lancer and the B-2 Spirit. Then the hangar doors slowly opened and the B-21 was towed partially out of the building.

    “This isn’t just another airplane,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said. “It’s the embodiment of America’s determination to defend the republic that we all love.”

    The B-21 is part of the Pentagon’s efforts to modernize all three legs of its nuclear triad, which includes silo-launched nuclear ballistic missiles and submarine-launched warheads, as it shifts from the counterterrorism campaigns of recent decades to meet China’s rapid military modernization.

    China is on track to have 1,500 nuclear weapons by 2035, and its gains in hypersonics, cyber warfare and space capabilities present “the most consequential and systemic challenge to U.S. national security and the free and open international system,” the Pentagon said this week in its annual China report.

    ”We needed a new bomber for the 21st Century that would allow us to take on much more complicated threats, like the threats that we fear we would one day face from China, Russia, ” said Deborah Lee James, the Air Force secretary when the Raider contract was announced in 2015.

    While the Raider may resemble the B-2, once you get inside, the similarities stop, said Kathy Warden, chief executive of Northrop Grumman Corp., which is building the bomber.

    “The way it operates internally is extremely advanced compared to the B-2, because the technology has evolved so much in terms of the computing capability that we can now embed in the software of the B-21,” Warden said.

    Other changes include advanced materials used in coatings to make the bomber harder to detect, Austin said.

    “Fifty years of advances in low-observable technology have gone into this aircraft,” Austin said. “Even the most sophisticated air defense systems will struggle to detect a B-21 in the sky.”

    Other advances likely include new ways to control electronic emissions, so the bomber could spoof adversary radars and disguise itself as another object, and use of new propulsion technologies, several defense analysts said.

    “It is incredibly low observability,” Warden said. “You’ll hear it, but you really won’t see it.”

    Six Raiders are in production. The Air Force plans to build 100 that can deploy either nuclear weapons or conventional bombs and can be used with or without a human crew. Both the Air Force and Northrop also point to the Raider’s relatively quick development: The bomber went from contract award to debut in seven years. Other new fighter and ship programs have taken decades.

    The cost of the bombers is unknown. The Air Force previously put the price at an average cost of $550 million each in 2010 dollars — roughly $753 million today — but it’s unclear how much is actually being spent. The total will depend on how many bombers the Pentagon buys.

    “We will soon fly this aircraft, test it, and then move it into production. And we will build the bomber force in numbers suited to the strategic environment ahead,” Austin said.

    The undisclosed cost troubles government watchdogs.

    “It might be a big challenge for us to do our normal analysis of a major program like this,” said Dan Grazier, a senior defense policy fellow at the Project on Government Oversight. “It’s easy to say that the B-21 is still on schedule before it actually flies. Because it’s only when one of these programs goes into the actual testing phase when real problems are discovered.” That, he said, is when schedules start to slip and costs rise.

    The B-2 was also envisioned to be a fleet of more than 100 aircraft, but the Air Force built only 21, due to cost overruns and a changed security environment after the Soviet Union fell. Fewer than that are ready to fly on any given day due to the significant maintenance needs of the aging bomber.

    The B-21 Raider, which takes its name from the 1942 Doolittle Raid over Tokyo, will be slightly smaller than the B-2 to increase its range, Warden said. It won’t make its first flight until 2023. However, Warden said Northrop Grumman has used advanced computing to test the bomber’s performance using a digital twin, a virtual replica of the one unveiled Friday.

    Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota will house the bomber’s first training program and squadron, though the bombers are also expected to be stationed at bases in Texas and Missouri.

    U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds, a Republican of South Dakota, led the state’s bid to host the bomber program. In a statement, he called it “the most advanced weapon system ever developed by our country to defend ourselves and our allies.”

    Northrop Grumman has also incorporated maintenance lessons learned from the B-2, Warden said.

    In October 2001, B-2 pilots set a record when they flew 44 hours straight to drop the first bombs in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 attacks. The B-2 often does long round-trip missions because there are few hangars globally that can accommodate its wingspan, which limits where it can land for maintenance. The hangars also must be air-conditioned because the Spirit’s windows don’t open and hot climates can cook cockpit electronics.

    The new Raider will also get new hangars to accommodate its size and complexity, Warden said.

    However, with the Raider’s extended range, ’it won’t need to be based in-theater,” Austin said. “It won’t need logistical support to hold any target at risk.”

    A final noticeable difference was in the debut itself. While both went public in Palmdale, the B-2 was rolled outdoors in 1988 amid much public fanfare. Given advances in surveillance satellites and cameras, the Raider was just partially exposed, keeping its sensitive propulsion systems and sensors under the hangar and protected from overhead eyes.

    “The magic of the platform,” Warden said, “is what you don’t see.”

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    Follow the AP’s coverage of the Air Force at https://apnews.com/hub/air-force.

    ———

    This story has been corrected to show the B-2 rollout was in 1988, not 1989.

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  • EPA proposes restrictions to block proposed Alaska mine

    EPA proposes restrictions to block proposed Alaska mine

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    ANCHORAGE, Alaska — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday proposed restrictions that would block plans for a copper and gold mine in Alaska’s Bristol Bay region that is home to the world’s largest sockeye salmon run.

    A statement from the regional EPA office said discharges of dredged or fill material into the waters of the U.S. within the proposed Pebble Mine footprint in southwest Alaska would “result in unacceptable adverse effects on salmon fishery areas.”

    “This action would help protect salmon fishery areas that support world-class commercial and recreational fisheries, and that have sustained Alaska Native communities for thousands of years, supporting a subsistence-based way of life for one of the last intact wild salmon-based cultures in the world,” regional EPA administrator Casey Sixkiller said in a statement.

    The decision will now be forwarded to the EPA Office of Water for the final determination. That office has 60 days to affirm, modify or rescind the recommendation.

    The EPA regional office also proposed to restrict the discharge of dredged or fill material with any future proposal for Pebble Mine that would be similar in size or bigger than what is currently proposed.

    Mine developer Pebble Limited Partnership, owned by Canada-based Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd., called the EPA’s decision a preemptive veto. It described the decision as political and without legal, environmental or technical merit.

    “We still firmly believe that the proposed determination should have been withdrawn as it is based on indefensible legal and non-scientific assumptions,” Pebble CEO John Shively said in a statement.

    “Congress did not give the EPA broad authority to act as it has in the Pebble case. This is clearly a massive regulatory overreach by the EPA and well outside what Congress intended for the agency when it passed the Clean Water Act,” Shively said.

    The debate over the proposed mine in an area of southwest Alaska known for its salmon runs has spanned several presidential administrations. The EPA has said the Bristol Bay region also contains significant mineral resources.

    “After twenty years of Pebble hanging over our heads, the Biden Administration has the opportunity to follow through on its commitments by finalizing comprehensive, durable protections for our region as soon as possible,” Alannah Hurley, executive director for the United Tribes of Bristol Bay, said in a statement.

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  • US nuclear waste repository begins filling new disposal area

    US nuclear waste repository begins filling new disposal area

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    ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Workers at the nation’s only underground nuclear waste repository have started using a newly mined disposal area at the underground facility in southern New Mexico.

    Officials at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant made the announcement this week, saying the first containers of waste to be entombed in the new area came from Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee — one of the many labs and government sites across the country that package up waste and ship it to WIPP.

    Known as Panel 8, the new area consists of seven separate rooms for placing special boxes and barrels packed with lab coats, rubber gloves, tools and debris contaminated with plutonium and other radioactive elements.

    Each room measures 33 feet (10 meters) wide, 16 feet (4.9 meters) high and runs the length of a football field minus the end zones.

    Carved out of an ancient salt formation about half a mile (0.8 kilometers) deep, the subterranean landfill located outside of Carlsbad received its first shipment in 1999. The idea is that the shifting salt will eventually entomb the radioactive waste left from decades of bomb-making and nuclear weapons research.

    In 2014, a fire and separate radiation release forced a nearly three-year closure of the repository and a costly overhaul of the policies and procedures that govern WIPP and the nation’s multibillion-dollar cleanup program for Cold War-era waste.

    Operations had to be reduced after the repository reopened because areas of the facility were contaminated and airflow needed for mining and disposal operations was limited. Now, a multimillion-dollar project is underway to install a new ventilation system, and state regulators are considering a permit change that some critics have said could lead to expanded operations.

    The state Environment Department’s Hazardous Waste Bureau issued a plan this month aimed at ensuring the public has opportunities to comment on modifications or permit renewal applications.

    Sean Dunagan, president and project manager of Nuclear Waste Partnership, the contractor that manages the repository, said in a statement that operations already have become more efficient with the new panel.

    Creating a panel requires mining nearly 160,000 tons of salt, and it takes about 2 1/2 years to fill it with waste. For example, Panel 7 is filled with 20,056 containers, with most of them being 55-gallon (208-litre) drums.

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  • Fire plan would cut 2.4 million New Jersey Pinelands trees

    Fire plan would cut 2.4 million New Jersey Pinelands trees

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    BASS RIVER TOWNSHIP, N.J. — Up to 2.4 million trees would be cut down as part of a project to prevent major wildfires in a federally protected New Jersey forest heralded as a unique environmental treasure.

    New Jersey environmental officials say the plan to kill trees in a section of Bass River State Forest is designed to better protect against catastrophic wildfires, adding it will mostly affect small, scrawny trees — not the towering giants for which the Pinelands National Refuge is known and loved.

    But the plan, adopted Oct. 14 by the New Jersey Pinelands Commission and set to begin in April, has split environmentalists. Some say it is a reasonable and necessary response to the dangers of wildfires, while others say it is an unconscionable waste of trees that would no longer be able to store carbon as climate change imperils the globe.

    Foes are also upset about the possible use of herbicides to prevent invasive species regeneration, noting that the Pinelands sits atop an aquifer that contains some of the purest drinking water in the nation.

    And some of them fear the plan could be a back door to logging the protected woodlands under the guise of fire protection, despite the state’s denials.

    “In order to save the forest, they have to cut down the forest,” said Jeff Tittel, the retired former director of the New Jersey Sierra Club, calling the plan “shameful” and “Orwellian.”

    Pinelands Commissioner Mark Lohbauer voted against the plan, calling it ill-advised on many levels. He says it could harm rare snakes, and adds that he has researched forestry tactics from western states and believes that tree-thinning is ineffective in preventing large wildfires.

    “We are in an era of climate change; it’s incumbent on us to do our utmost to preserve these trees that are sequestering carbon,” he said. “If we don’t have an absolutely essential reason for cutting down trees, we shouldn’t do it.”

    The plan involves about 1,300 acres (526 hectares), a miniscule percentage of the 1.1-million-acre (445,150-hectare) Pinelands preserve, which enjoys federal and state protection, and has been named a unique biosphere by the United Nations.

    Most of the trees to be killed are 2 inches (5 centimeters) or less in diameter, the state said. Dense undergrowth of these smaller trees can act as “ladder fuel,” carrying fire from the forest floor up to the treetops, where flames can spread rapidly and wind can intensify to whip up blazes, the state Department of Environmental Protection said in a statement.

    A Pinelands commissioner calculated that 2.4 million trees would be removed by using data from the state’s application, multiplying the percentage of tree density reduction by the amount of land affected.

    The department would not say whether it believes that number is accurate, nor would it offer a number of its own. But it did say “the total number of trees thinned could be significant.”

    “This is like liquid gasoline in the Pinelands,” said Todd Wyckoff, chief of the New Jersey Forest Service, as he touched a scrawny pine tree of the type that will most often be cut during the project. “I see a forest at risk from fire. I look at this as restoring the forest to more of what it should be.”

    Tree thinning is an accepted form of forest management in many areas of the country, done in the name of preventing fires from becoming larger than they otherwise might be, and is supported by government foresters as well as timber industry officials. But some conservation groups say thinning does not work.

    New Jersey says the cutting will center on the smallest snow-bent pitch pine trees, “and an intact canopy will be maintained across the site.”

    The state’s application, however, envisions that canopy cover will be reduced from 68% to 43% on over 1,000 acres (405 hectares), with even larger decreases planned for smaller sections.

    And scrawny trees aren’t the only ones that will be cut: Many thick, tall trees on either side of some roads will be cut down to create more of a fire break, where firefighters can defend against a spreading blaze.

    The affected area has about 2,000 trees per acre — four times the normal density in the Pinelands, according to the state.

    Most of the cut trees will be ground into wood chips that will remain on the forest floor, eventually returning to the soil, the department said, adding, “It is not anticipated that any material of commercial value will be produced because of this project.”

    Some environmentalists fear that might not be true, that felled trees could be harvested and sold as cord wood, wood pellets or even used in making glue.

    “I’m opposed to the removal of any of that material,” Lohbauer said. “That material belongs in the forest where it will support habitat and eventually be recycled” into the soil. “Even if they use it for wood pellets, which are popular for burning in wood stoves, that releases the carbon.”

    John Cecil, an assistant commissioner with the department, said his agency is not looking to make a profit from any wood products that might be removed from the site.

    But he said that if some felled trees “could be put to good use and generate revenue for the taxpayers, why wouldn’t we do that? If there’s a way to do this that preserves the essential goals of this plan and brings some revenue back in, that’s not the end of the world. Maybe you could get a couple fence posts out of these trees.”

    Created by an act of Congress in 1978, the Pinelands district occupies 22% of New Jersey’s land area, is home to 135 rare plant and animal species, and is the largest body of open space on the mid-Atlantic seaboard between Richmond, Virginia, and Boston. It also includes an aquifer that is the source of 17 trillion gallons (64 trillion liters) of drinking water.

    “It is unacceptable to be cutting down trees in a climate emergency, and cutting 2.4 million small trees will severely reduce the future ability to store carbon,” said Bill Wolfe, a former department official who runs an environmental blog.

    Carleton Montgomery, executive director of the Pinelands Preservation Alliance, supports the plan.

    The group said opponents are using the number of trees to be cut “to (elicit) shock and horror,” saying that by focusing on the number rather than size of trees to be cut, they “are quite literally missing the forest for the trees. The resulting forest will be a healthy native Pine Barrens habitat.”

    ———

    This story corrects the name of agency in paragraph 13 to New Jersey Forest Service, not Forest Fire Service.

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    Follow Wayne Parry on Twitter at www.twitter.com/WayneParryAC

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  • Hard-working Colombian beetles clean garbage, retire as pets

    Hard-working Colombian beetles clean garbage, retire as pets

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    TUNJA, Colombia — Three yellow-and-black beetles clung to the shirt of Germán Viasus Tibamoso, a Colombian environmental engineer who uses beetle larvae to transform food waste into fertilizers.

    As he encouraged them to move along, he murmured to them in Japanese — trying to get them accustomed, he said, to the sounds of their future homes.

    The not-so-little bugs — which can grow up to 17 centimeters (6.5 inches) long — have a remarkably productive and complicated life among the humans who breed and collect them.

    Viasus operates a company called Tierra Viva in a rural area around the city of Tunja, a city some 150 kilometers (95 miles) northwest of the Colombian capital of Bogota.

    An attempt as a postgraduate student to produce organic fertilizer with worms failed, Viasus said, but he found beetle larvae in the bags of earth that remained. He tried using them instead. And it worked.

    Tons of food scraps collected from nearby communities are spread in concrete ditches and covered with earth. Then beetle larvae — the stage between egg and adulthood — are introduced.

    They chew through the refuse and their digestive microorganisms transform it into a fertilizer rich in nitrogen and phosphorous.

    After four months or so, the product passes through a filter that separates the fertilizer from the larvae, who are at the point of becoming adult beetles.

    They mate, and their eggs are used to start the process anew. The adults, however, go on very different journeys. Some are headed for scientific labs. And a lucky few embark on a future across the Pacific in Japan, where beetles are popular as pets, and are even sold over online emporiums such as Amazon.

    Tierra Viva has been exporting the bugs — largely Hercules beetles — since 2004, and Viasus said they can bring as much as $150 each.

    This year the company sent 100 beetles to Tokyo — down from 300 last year — held in little plastic cases with air holes and food.

    The sales are often in the company’s variant of cryptocurrency, called “Kmushicoin” — a variant on a Japanese word for beetle.

    Viasus, 52, said he hopes the project can grow and prosper for another century — perhaps with its fertilizer used in reforestation projects.

    “It’s very difficult in Colombia … because we do it without any help from the state or any other entity. In any other country of the world, a project like this would get a lot of help,” he said.

    ———

    Associated Press writer Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo contributed to this report.

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  • Sanctioned tycoon says Russia wants to engage on climate

    Sanctioned tycoon says Russia wants to engage on climate

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    SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt — A Russian billionaire under sanctions by the United States and Europe over his alleged ties to the Kremlin said Wednesday that he was not surprised by protests against his country at this year’s U.N. climate talks, but insisted that Russia wants to remain engaged on the issue of global warming because it deeply affects the nation.

    Andrey Melnichenko, who heads the climate policy panel of Russian business lobby group RSPP, told The Associated Press that “regardless of the very terrible moment which we all experience now, we will participate, we will observe” at the meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.

    Pro-Ukraine activists disrupted the start of an event hosted by the Russian delegation at the climate talks Tuesday before being escorted out by security staff.

    “I wasn’t surprised,” said Melnichenko, who was speaking on the panel alongside Russian delegates. “What’s so surprising? That there are people who are deeply concerned about what’s happening in Ukraine and want to make their opinion known?”

    “I completely 100% understand that,” he said.

    His comments, while not directly critical of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, indicate a more nuanced view of the bloody conflict than the official Kremlin line, which describes the war as a “special military operation.”

    Since late February the war has devastated Ukraine, with bombs and shelling decimating towns and cities and killing thousands.

    The war has resulted in a raft of sanctions being imposed on Russian officials and prominent businesspeople linked to the Kremlin.

    Melnichenko — who now lives in Dubai — criticized Western sanctions on Russia, which he said were applied without regard for possible consequences, such as the effect restrictions on fertilizer exports would have on global food prices and Russia’s efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Russia is the world’s largest exporter of fertilizers.

    “Sanctions were put like a blanket on the Russian economy,” said Melnichenko, who once ran the fertilizer producer Eurochem and SUEK, one the the world’s largest coal companies. “It affects everything. Take for example food and fertilizer supply.”

    He claimed the sanctions had affected food supply for “hundreds of millions” of people worldwide.

    “Of course, this decision affects Russia’s possibility to move faster on the way of the decarbonization of its economy,” added Melnichenko.

    Russian participants at the climate talks in Egypt have kept a low public profile, with no top government officials attending. Although the Russian delegation is half the size of last year’s, it is still larger than that of the United States, according to an analysis by Carbon Brief.

    According to Melnichenko, Russia is particularly focused on efforts to reduce emissions and reliance on fossil fuels, along with rules for international carbon markets and carbon offsets — an issue where the Russian government sees great potential due to the country’s huge forests.

    Melnichenko said that Russia will continue to export fossil fuels to fulfill demand, and it should be left to markets to decide which forms of energy are the most competitive. Russia is a top exporter of oil and natural gas although it has faced sanctions from EU trading partners. Other countries, like India and China, continue to import Russian oil.

    “I believe that Russia’s fossil fuel production (is) very competitive globally in terms of the total cost, externalities included,” he said. “That’s why Russia will be able for a reasonably long period of time, a very long period of time, to maintain quite (a) big share of the fossil fuel market and … benefit from it also.”

    Melnichenko, who according to Forbes is worth some $23.5 billion, said the world community should pay more attention to the large share of greenhouse gas emissions that aren’t caused by human activity, such as respiration, decomposition and even volcanoes. Scientists say the global warming measured in recent decades is mainly caused by the large-scale burning of fossil fuels since industrialization.

    Asked what role concerns about climate change play in Russian civil society, he said that environmental issues such as air pollution had become more prominent in bigger cities over the past six to seven years

    Peaceful protests on the issue were possible, he insisted. “And the government really responds.”

    “That’s one of the area where you can have freedom of expression,” he said. “And that’s understandable because it’s pretty safe in terms of the political environment.”

    ———

    Follow AP’s climate and environment coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

    ———

    Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • California sues over ‘forever chemicals’ that taint water

    California sues over ‘forever chemicals’ that taint water

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    SAN FRANCISCO — A lawsuit filed Thursday by the state of California accuses 3M, Dupont and 16 smaller companies of covering up the harm caused to the environment and the public from chemicals manufactured by the firms that have over decades found their way into waterways and human bloodstreams.

    Attorney General Rob Bonta announced the lawsuit against the manufacturers of compounds that have been used in consumer goods and industry since the 1940s. The chemicals are found in firefighting foams, nonstick frying pans, cleaning sprays, water-repellent sports gear, stain-resistant rugs, cosmetics and countless other products.

    Bonta said these so-called forever chemicals are so strong that they do not degrade or do so only slowly in the environment and remain in a person’s bloodstream indefinitely.

    The companies knew for decades that the chemicals are “toxic and harmful to human health and the environment, yet they continued to produce them for mass use and concealed their harms from the public,” Bonta said.

    He said the court action comes following a multiyear investigation that found the companies marketed products containing PFAS, short for polyfluoroalkyl substances, despite knowing they cause cancer, developmental defects, reduced bone density and other health problems.

    Minnesota-based 3M said in a statement after the court filing that it “acted responsibly in connection with products containing PFAS and will defend its record of environmental stewardship.”

    Dupont, based in Delaware, said the company as it now exists should not have been named in the lawsuit.

    “In 2019, DuPont de Nemours was established as a new multi-industrial specialty products company. DuPont de Nemours has never manufactured PFOA, PFOS or firefighting foam. While we don’t comment on pending litigation, we believe these complaints are without merit, and the latest example of DuPont de Nemours being improperly named in litigation,” the statement said.

    The lawsuit, filed in Alameda County, is the first statewide legal action over PFAS contamination.

    It alleges violations of state consumer protection and environmental statutes and invokes a federal law that establishes a path to recoup the costs of cleaning up hazardous substances in soil and water.

    Bonta estimated penalties and cleanup costs sought by the lawsuit would reach hundreds of millions of dollars.

    U.S. manufacturers have voluntarily phased out compounds such as PFAS, but there are a limited number of ongoing uses and the chemicals remain in the environment because they do not degrade over time.

    The federal Environmental Protection Agency in June invited states and territories to apply for $1 billion under the new bipartisan infrastructure law to address PFAS and other contaminants in drinking water. Money can be used for technical assistance, water quality testing, contractor training and installation of centralized treatment, officials said.

    The EPA warned then that the chemicals are more dangerous than previously thought and pose health risks even at levels so low they cannot currently be detected.

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  • Neighborhoods evacuated near burning Georgia chemical plant

    Neighborhoods evacuated near burning Georgia chemical plant

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    BRUNSWICK, Ga. — Authorities evacuated neighborhoods Monday near a chemical plant where a large fire was burning in coastal Georgia.

    Smoke hazards and a risk of explosions prompted officials Monday morning to order people to evacuate three neighborhoods within a 1-mile (1.6-kilometer) radius of the Symrise chemical plant, Glynn County government spokesperson Katie Baasen said. People within a 3-mile (5-kilometer) radius were being told to shelter in place.

    The fire sent a thick plume of smoke rising into the air from the plant located outside the port city of Brunswick, about 70 miles (113 kilometers) south of Savannah.

    The fire had been contained and was expected to burn itself out, Baasen said in an email message to The Associated Press. She said hazards from the smoke posed the largest concern, though there was also a potential the fire could cause explosions.

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