University of Minnesota expert Peter Neff.
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department unsealed charges on Thursday accusing four Russian officials of carrying out a series of cyberattacks targeting critical infrastructure in the United States, including a nuclear power plant in Kansas, and evidently compromising a petrochemical facility in Saudi Arabia.
The announcement covered hackings from 2012 to 2018, but served as yet another warning from the Biden administration of Russia’s ability to conduct such operations. It came days after President Biden told businesses that Moscow could wage such attacks to retaliate against countries that have forcefully opposed the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“Although the criminal charges unsealed today reflect past activity, they make crystal clear the urgent ongoing need for American businesses to harden their defenses and remain vigilant,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco said in a statement. “Russian state-sponsored hackers pose a serious and persistent threat to critical infrastructure both in the United States and around the world.”
The four officials, including three members of Russia’s domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Security Service, or F.S.B., are accused of breaching hundreds of energy companies around the world, showing the “dark art of the possible,” a Justice Department official said at a briefing with reporters.
The indictments essentially confirm what cyberresearchers have said for years, that Russia was to blame for the intrusions. None of the Russian officials accused of the attacks have been apprehended.
In his warning to private companies on Monday, Mr. Biden urged them to strengthen their defenses. National security experts have said that companies should report any unusual activity to the F.B.I. and other agencies that can respond to potential breaches.
In one of the indictments unsealed on Thursday, a computer programmer for the Russian Ministry of Defense, Evgeny V. Gladkikh, 36, is accused of using a type of malware known as Triton to infiltrate a foreign petrochemical plant in 2017, leading to two emergency shutdowns at the facility. The indictment did not identify the location of the plant, but the details of the attack suggest the facility was in Saudi Arabia.
Investigators believed at the time that the intrusion was meant to trigger an explosion, but said that a mistake in the code prevented one. The safety system detected the malware and prompted a system shutdown, leading researchers to discover the code.
Undeterred, the next year Mr. Gladkikh and other hackers researched refineries in the United States and tried to breach the computers of an American company that managed similar critical infrastructure facilities in the United States, according to court filings.
Mr. Gladkikh was charged with one count of conspiracy to cause damage to an energy facility, one count of attempt to cause damage to an energy facility and one count of conspiracy to commit computer fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.
Cybersecurity experts consider the Triton malware to be particularly dangerous because of its potential to create disasters at power plants around the world, many of which use the same software that was targeted in the Saudi Arabian plant. Its use in 2017 signaled a dangerous escalation of Russia’s cyberabilities, demonstrating that Russia was willing and able to destroy critical infrastructure and inflict a cyberattack that could have deadly consequences.
“It was different than what we’d seen before because it was a new leap in what was possible,” said John Hultquist, a vice president of intelligence analysis at the cybersecurity firm Mandiant.
Continue reading “Russians Charged in Cyber Attacks on Nuclear Plant, Energy Infrastructure”In a separate indictment, federal prosecutors accused three Federal Security Service officers, Pavel A. Akulov, 36, Mikhail M. Gavrilov, 42, and Marat V. Tyukov, 39, of a yearslong effort to target and compromise the computer systems of hundreds of energy sector businesses around the world.
Remember, an ice “shelf” is the tongue of ice that floats out on the sea surface in front of a larger, more massive ice “sheet”. The Sheet is where the big mass of ice is, and they move slowly (in human terms), but the shelf is often what buttresses the sheet against more rapid movement.
This event is notable because it takes place in East Antarctica, where the greatest volume of ice is locked up, and where we have the least observations.
More information needed.
An ice shelf about the size of Rome has completely collapsed in East Antarctica within days of record high temperatures, according to satellite data.
The Conger ice shelf, which had an approximate surface area of 1,200 sq km, collapsed around 15 March, scientists said on Friday.
East Antarctica saw unusually high temperatures last week, with Concordia station hitting a record temperature of -11.8C on 18 March, more than 40C warmer than seasonal norms. The record temperatures were the result of an atmospheric river that trapped heat over the continent.
There are versions of this story happening all over the country.
In the last decade, Utilities have on the whole, come around strongly in support of renewable energy, in particular the large wind and solar projects that they can roll into their rate base and profit from directly. Lately we’ve been seeing them push back on smaller systems, that home, business, or farm owners might put on their own roofs, or grounds.
There are usually formulas by which smaller solar generators get compensated for electricity they generate and put back on the grid. From the homeowner’s perspective, they want to get compensated at a rate near to the rate that they themselves would pay for the electricity they buy, the “retail rate”.
Utilities would rather compensate, if at all, with the “wholesale rate” which is quite a bit lower. In the case below, in Florida, if I understand correctly, there is currently a “credit” system that goes directly to the customer’s bill.
(Experts, I know you’re out there, so set me straight on the details here if necessary)
The basic argument utilities make is that, since they provide the grid that smaller users will need at night or on cloudy days, they should not have to pay small producers as generously. In some cases, they advocate for a regular additional charge for solar owners, which can sometimes be considerable.
It’s a big fight that goes right to the heart of what most people think of when they consider solar energy, and it can lead to a lot of anger against the utilities and what they are finally doing that’s right. The truth is, we need both big and small scale clean energy.
A broader solution might be a more fundamental change in the way that utilities are paid.
A lot of smart people believe that utilities should be less in the business of generating power, so much as maintaining the grid and distributing power from a large number of different generators, big and small.
They are after all, monopolies created by the state for our benefit. We made them. We ought to be able to think of a smart way to change them.
For right now, this conflict is being approached in different ways in several states.
In just days, a bill passed by the Florida Legislature will come before Governor Ron Desantis for signature. It will help shape the fate of rooftop solar in the Sunshine State.
The controversial bill lowers the credits power companies are required to provide to rooftop solar customers for the power they provide to the grid. Solar advocates say this will disincentive Florida residents from investing in solar panels, crippling the rooftop solar industry.
House Bill 741 will soon become law unless Gov. DeSantis vetoes it.
“A signature will mean the end to solar as we know it here in Florida,” says former Navy Seal Steve Rutherford, now the owner of Tampa Bay Solar, “Basically it is a gun to the solar rooftop industry’s head.”
So why is this bill so consequential? Because right now homeowners with rooftop solar are compensated by the power companies for the excess energy they produce on sunny days. This is called net metering.
The energy flows into the grid and supplements energy the power companies would otherwise have to provide, thus helping lower demand overall.
The compensation rooftop solar owners receive is a credit which they can then use at night when the sun does not shine. This keeps electricity bills down and in some cases near zero for energy charges. For many solar owners, it also allows them to pay off the large upfront investment required for solar panels.
Continue reading “Florida Bill “a Gun to the Head” of Rooftop Solar”“I haven’t had an electric bill all year,” says retired St Petersburg police officer Leonard Leedy – a customer of Rutherford. But he says he still pays the minimum payment to his utility of $30 dollars per month.
The link between clean energy, energy efficiency, and democracy has always been clear to those who follow the issue closely. Tragic that it has taken the direst of circumstances for that appreciation to reach urgent policy level.
Other countries are planning to increase their natural gas exports to Europe as well; Kerry met with Israel’s IEA delegation and said that country stepping up their gas production could account for about 10% of what Russia currently supplies to Europe.
But the US climate envoy said non-fossil fuel options — like electric heat pumps — have also been part of the conversation. Heat pumps are energy-efficient heating systems that can replace natural gas furnaces.
“There’s a lot of discussion going on right now about heat pumps specifically and about other things that we can do to assist Europe to minimize the impact of the loss of Russian gas and oil,”(President Joe Biden’s Special Envoy for Climate John) Kerry said. “Not all these plans have been carved in stone at this point. I think heat pumps are a very real alternative to the burning of fuel that takes place today.”
Kerry said he thinks it makes the most sense for Europe to manufacture their own heat pumps, and for the US to jump in and manufacture more if the demand grows.
“Europe makes terrific heat pumps,” Kerry said. “I would imagine the Europeans are hot to trot in their own market here; I don’t think they’re sitting around waiting for the US to necessarily do it. But where it might be necessary — yes, it makes sense for other markets to contribute the products where the demand exists.”
Democratic Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico recently told CNN he’s been having discussions with top economic officials in the White House about increasing the US production of heat pumps to send to Europe.
Heinrich said he met with National Economic Council Director Brian Deese and White House American Rescue Plan coordinator Gene Sperling last week and pushed the idea of ramping up heat pump production.
“There’s certainly a lot of interest,” Heinrich told CNN of the meeting, adding Sperling and Deese “are both very aware of what we’re pushing, and seem receptive.”
Dow Inc. sees nuclear power as essential in eliminating carbon emissions from its operations and is considering buying electricity from two small nuclear plants in the U.S., Chief Executive Officer Jim Fitterling said.
The chemical manufacturer, which plans to be “carbon neutral” by 2050, is already one of the world’s top users of renewable energy but the intermittency of wind and solar mean nuclear will become a critical power source, Fitterling said at the World Petrochemical Conference 2022 in Houston Wednesday.
“We’re in a process right now looking at two sites in the United States to be an offtaker for a small-scale modular reactor,” he said. Nuclear will become “another tool in the arsenal to take us to net zero.”
The high cost and potential hazards of nuclear power have become major roadblocks for the industry even as the demand for carbon-free power becomes greater with each passing year. Dow believes some of these obstacles can be overcome if companies back small-scale plants potentially tied to major industrial facilities.
“We need to double down on all forms of energy in this country,” Fitterling said. “If you didn’t think we needed to do that before Russia-Ukraine, you really think we need to do it now.”
For the chemical industry, there’s another advantage of nuclear power plants, beyond the power they produce: They also generate large quantities of steam, which can be used for some manufacturing operations.
“A lot of our operations would need that balance,” between electricity and steam, Fitterling said.
In response to the energy shock caused by the war in Ukraine, many countries are looking for new sources of energy. In the US much of the focus is on increasing oil and gas supply, and in Europe and Asia, coal consumption may increase over the next year. This will inevitably slow the world’s progress toward net zero in the near term.
Longer-term, I believe that recent events will actually accelerate the shift toward greener sources of energy in many parts of the world. During the pandemic, we saw how a crisis can act as a catalyst for innovation. Businesses, governments, and scientists came together to develop and deploy vaccines at scale in record time.
We’ve already seen European policy makers promoting investment in renewables as an important component of energy security. Germany, for example, plans to accelerate its use of renewable energy and reach 100% clean power by 2035, 15 years ahead of its previous pre-war target. More than ever, countries that don’t have their own energy sources will need to fund and develop them – which for many will mean investing in wind and solar power.
Higher energy prices will also meaningfully reduce the green premium for clean technologies and enable renewables, EVs and other clean technologies to be much more competitive economically. However, energy prices at this level are also imposing a terrible burden on those people who can least afford it. We will not have a fair and just energy transition if they remain at these levels.
Continue reading “BlackRock CEO: Shades of Brown to Shades of Green”To date, government planning has only focused on supply without addressing demand. We need public policy to take a more holistic and long-term approach to the world’s energy needs. Among other challenges, as demand for renewable sources of energy and use of clean technology increases, we must consider what this means for the underlying commodities on which these green sources of energy and technology depend. We will also need to accelerate infrastructure investments to support greater use of clean energy and technology. For example, as consumer demand for electric vehicles accelerates, the public and private sector will need to work together to build more charging stations to meet demand.
Bad News and Good News? Big gains could be had relatively cheaply.
Limiting emissions of climate-warming methane from oil and gas (O&G) is a major opportunity for short-term climate benefits. We deploy a basin-wide airborne survey of O&G extraction and transportation activities in the New Mexico Permian Basin, spanning 35 923 km2, 26 292 active wells, and over 15 000 km of natural gas pipelines using an independently validated hyperspectral methane point source detection and quantification system. The airborne survey repeatedly visited over 90% of the active wells in the survey region throughout October 2018 to January 2020, totaling approximately 98 000 well site visits. We estimate total O&G methane emissions in this area at 194 (+72/–68, 95% CI) metric tonnes per hour (t/h), or 9.4% (+3.5%/–3.3%) of gross gas production. 50% of observed emissions come from large emission sources with persistence-averaged emission rates over 308 kg/h. The fact that a large sample size is required to characterize the heavy tail of the distribution emphasizes the importance of capturing low-probability, high-consequence events through basin-wide surveys when estimating regional O&G methane emissions.
95 percent less water demand, much smaller footprint, close to Urban markets. But big energy demand.
