Another methane greenwashing scheme

I hadn't known about this one, which has apparently been around for a while.

Certified natural gas – or methane gas that is purportedly produced in a low-emissions manner – is a “dangerous greenwashing scheme”, a group of progressive senators wrote in a letter to federal regulators on Monday…

Amid increasing public concern about gas usage and the climate crisis, a new industry of third-party gas “certifiers” has cropped up. These companies develop standards that they use to proclaim that certain producers are reducing emissions from their fracking wells, pipelines and storage facilities, and therefore generating gas sustainably.

The companies can then deem certain gas “certified”, “responsibly produced” or “differentiated”, allowing producers to sell it at a premium. Utilities in New York, Vermont, New Jersey, Michigan and Virginia have purchased certified natural gas and plan to pass on the additional costs to customers, the non-profit watchdog organization Revolving Door Project found last year. - The Guardian

Clean energy money goes to greenwash CAFOs

This is just one example of the sort of thing that's happening too often in too many ways. Corn-based ethanol fuel is the biggest example, overall.

Now, a controversial energy source claims a larger share of these federal dollars in Wisconsin than systems like solar and wind. Biogas, a fuel created from livestock waste, has become increasingly popular on farms nationwide in the past two decades, and in Wisconsin, biogas projects are receiving a growing portion of REAP funding.

Analysis of the national program funding for rural clean energy in Wisconsin since 2012 found biogas digester projects have received more money in the past two years than every solar project combined since 2012. Wisconsin biogas projects funded by REAP receive $1.3 million on average, roughly 18 times the average amount REAP gave to upgrade outdated machinery and energy-hogging equipment on farms and rural businesses. Wisconsin biogas projects funded by REAP receive 50 times the average funding compared to their solar counterparts...

Critics of biogas say the technology only exists because of the massive amount of waste created on farms with thousands of heads of livestock. These Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, or CAFOs, have been linked to various cancers and public health risks caused by waste runoff. Some research suggests that the climate benefits of digesters aren’t as great as the industry claims. - Barn Raiser

Big Plastics goes for ultra-greenwashing

A lot of people don't know that most plastics don't get recycled. Nor is the technology there to really change that, any time soon. And based on long experience I certainly know who I'm going to believe, between industry and environmentalists, in any context.

The newest flashpoint in a political battle between environmental groups and the plastics industry over “chemical” or “advanced” recycling has to do with the kinds of claims that can be made and still be truthful with American consumers.

The Federal Trade Commission is weighing its first changes in 10 years to its Green Guides, which establish guidelines for companies’ environmental advertising and labeling claims. The FTC’s review goes far beyond plastic recycling and includes concepts such as “net zero” related to greenhouse gas emissions, biodegradability, sustainability, and organic products...

The industry says that through advanced recycling a “circular” plastics economy can be created that reduces the need to tap virgin fossil fuels to make its products. Environmentalists say advanced recycling is in many cases tantamount to “greenwashing”—an energy-intensive process with a high carbon footprint that essentially incinerates much of the waste and turns a small percentage into feedstocks for new plastics, or more fossil fuels. - Mother Jones

Expect a boom in ever-more-flagrant greenwashing

A particularly odious example.

A major exporter of U.S. liquefied natural gas is “seeking to greenwash” its operations in order to portray gas exports as a climate solution and clear the way for further expansion, according to a new report...

In recent months, Cheniere Energy, the largest LNG exporter in the United States, has begun providing emissions data, which it calls “carbon emissions tags,” or CE tags, for its gas.

The tags quantify the greenhouse gas emissions of a given LNG cargo, with the aim of easing buyers’ concerns. The CE tags include emissions from where the gas is drilled upstream, all the way down to the point of export on the coast. The logic is to offer transparency to buyers overseas by disclosing the emissions of each shipment, which would help to clean up the supply chain over time.

But a new report from Oil Change International and Greenpeace USA says the program is riddled with flaws and is broadly aimed at portraying LNG as a clean fuel, rather than actually cleaning up the supply chain, at a time when gas developers are hoping to take advantage of the war in Ukraine to expand operations. - DeSmog

There's nothing much that's "green" about Amazon

From yesterday. Certainly it is preferable to buy legitimately eco/climate-friendly products, when you can. But don't buy the hype.

You’ve probably heard: Amazon Prime Day is happening today and tomorrow (July 12 and 13). There are deals galore, and the internet is alive with timely listicles of Amazon products for every niche—including “eco-friendly” Amazon deals. But the problem is, there’s no such thing. For all its promises and posturing, Amazon is a company with massive negative environmental impacts, and Prime Day embodies some of its worst traits.

First off, there’s all that packaging and waste. Then there’s the transportation emissions ramped up by super-fast delivery. Adding insult to injury are the company’s half-measure, corporate carbon pledges, a flawed emissions self-reporting strategy, and fossil fuel partnerships. So, before you buy into the hype and add a ‘green’ products wishlist into your shopping cart, know that Amazon’s climate track record isn’t so prime. - Earther

Big Oil is bringing the greenwashing

This article covers a bunch of aspects of that. I found these paragraphs most notable.

Meanwhile, Hollub announced at her panel that Occidental doesn’t “expect to be an oil company in the next 15-20 years. We’ll be a carbon management company.”

What, exactly, does a “carbon management company” do? Based on Hollub’s answers, it seems the task involves mostly wrapping fossil fuels in a nicer-looking package. In January, Occidental completed its first shipment of what the company is calling “carbon-neutral oil,” which seems to be just normal oil that comes bundled with a bunch of carbon offsets for both the production and usage sides. Next, Occidental is apparently looking to start producing “net-zero oil,” which will be oil made with carbon capture and sequestration technologies attached to its production. (No fancy labels can do away with the fact that that oil, eventually, gets burned, and that downstream burning is the biggest source of emissions.)

The idea of simply stopping emissions at the source or even more wildly, sucking carbon out of the air, is the great white whale for oil companies who want, above all else, to keep producing their product while telling us they’re doing good and cutting emissions. Since emissions come from the production, transport, and burning of fossil fuels, there are two avenues the industry wants to deploy. The first is capturing carbon at the source of fossil fuel production, to either be stored permanently or used in a different way later. The other is a larger idea of simply removing carbon from the air more generally. Unfortunately, the former technology is tricky, expensive, and tough to implement; the latter has never been proven at scale. - Earther