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House passes bill to study effects of abandoned oil wells in bipartisan vote

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Tuesday, April 30, 2024

The House passed legislation sponsored by Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) Tuesday, that aims to address environmental hazards from abandoned gas and oil wells, in a 333-75 vote. The bill, the Abandoned Wells, Remediation, Research and Development Act, would direct the Energy Department to develop a research and development program for abandoned wells. Pennsylvania has the second largest amount of abandoned and orphaned wells of any state, surpassed only by Texas. Some 27,000 abandoned wells have been documented across the Keystone State. The measure, co-sponsored by Rep. Stephanie Bice (R-Okla.), previously passed the House Science Committee in a unanimous vote last July. Abandoned wells have been linked to the release of toxic air pollutants and carcinogens, including methane and benzene. They have also been linked to drops in property values and, due to historical practices of “redlining” in minority neighborhoods, disproportionately hurt the health of people of color. “[U]ntil Congress takes action to invest in the identification and remediation of abandoned wells starting with the House passage of my bipartisan bill, tens of thousands of people in my district and across Pennsylvania will continue to be exposed to toxins in their air and explosive gasses, and lower property values,” Lee said in a statement. Lee’s office highlighted that the measure is the first she has sponsored that has passed the full House since she took office in 2023. It comes the week after she won the Democratic primary for her seat by 20 points, a closely watched contest that marked the first involving a member of the progressive “Squad” of House Democrats this cycle. Environmental groups praised the bill’s provisions and urged the Senate to take it up as soon as possible. “Orphaned oil and gas wells threaten public health and safety, the water we drink and the climate,” Environmental Defense Fund director and senior attorney for energy transition Adam Peltz said in a statement. “This essential bipartisan bill will fund the research necessary to improve well plugging practices, find unregistered orphan wells in hard-to-reach places like streams, forests, farmland and backyards, and develop beneficial clean energy uses for end-of-life wells." "This bill will create jobs and benefit public health, particularly for communities overburdened by legacy oil and gas development – and now the Senate should take up this bill so that President Biden can sign it into law," Peltz added.

The House passed legislation sponsored by Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) Tuesday, that aims to address environmental hazards from abandoned gas and oil wells, in a 333-75 vote. The bill, the Abandoned Wells, Remediation, Research and Development Act, would direct the Energy Department to develop a research and development program for abandoned wells. Pennsylvania has the...

The House passed legislation sponsored by Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) Tuesday, that aims to address environmental hazards from abandoned gas and oil wells, in a 333-75 vote.

The bill, the Abandoned Wells, Remediation, Research and Development Act, would direct the Energy Department to develop a research and development program for abandoned wells. Pennsylvania has the second largest amount of abandoned and orphaned wells of any state, surpassed only by Texas. Some 27,000 abandoned wells have been documented across the Keystone State.

The measure, co-sponsored by Rep. Stephanie Bice (R-Okla.), previously passed the House Science Committee in a unanimous vote last July.

Abandoned wells have been linked to the release of toxic air pollutants and carcinogens, including methane and benzene. They have also been linked to drops in property values and, due to historical practices of “redlining” in minority neighborhoods, disproportionately hurt the health of people of color.

“[U]ntil Congress takes action to invest in the identification and remediation of abandoned wells starting with the House passage of my bipartisan bill, tens of thousands of people in my district and across Pennsylvania will continue to be exposed to toxins in their air and explosive gasses, and lower property values,” Lee said in a statement.

Lee’s office highlighted that the measure is the first she has sponsored that has passed the full House since she took office in 2023. It comes the week after she won the Democratic primary for her seat by 20 points, a closely watched contest that marked the first involving a member of the progressive “Squad” of House Democrats this cycle.

Environmental groups praised the bill’s provisions and urged the Senate to take it up as soon as possible.

“Orphaned oil and gas wells threaten public health and safety, the water we drink and the climate,” Environmental Defense Fund director and senior attorney for energy transition Adam Peltz said in a statement. “This essential bipartisan bill will fund the research necessary to improve well plugging practices, find unregistered orphan wells in hard-to-reach places like streams, forests, farmland and backyards, and develop beneficial clean energy uses for end-of-life wells."

"This bill will create jobs and benefit public health, particularly for communities overburdened by legacy oil and gas development – and now the Senate should take up this bill so that President Biden can sign it into law," Peltz added.

Read the full story here.
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Why some quantum materials stall while others scale

In a new study, MIT researchers evaluated quantum materials’ potential for scalable commercial success — and identified promising candidates.

People tend to think of quantum materials — whose properties arise from quantum mechanical effects — as exotic curiosities. But some quantum materials have become a ubiquitous part of our computer hard drives, TV screens, and medical devices. Still, the vast majority of quantum materials never accomplish much outside of the lab.What makes certain quantum materials commercial successes and others commercially irrelevant? If researchers knew, they could direct their efforts toward more promising materials — a big deal since they may spend years studying a single material.Now, MIT researchers have developed a system for evaluating the scale-up potential of quantum materials. Their framework combines a material’s quantum behavior with its cost, supply chain resilience, environmental footprint, and other factors. The researchers used their framework to evaluate over 16,000 materials, finding that the materials with the highest quantum fluctuation in the centers of their electrons also tend to be more expensive and environmentally damaging. The researchers also identified a set of materials that achieve a balance between quantum functionality and sustainability for further study.The team hopes their approach will help guide the development of more commercially viable quantum materials that could be used for next generation microelectronics, energy harvesting applications, medical diagnostics, and more.“People studying quantum materials are very focused on their properties and quantum mechanics,” says Mingda Li, associate professor of nuclear science and engineering and the senior author of the work. “For some reason, they have a natural resistance during fundamental materials research to thinking about the costs and other factors. Some told me they think those factors are too ‘soft’ or not related to science. But I think within 10 years, people will routinely be thinking about cost and environmental impact at every stage of development.”The paper appears in Materials Today. Joining Li on the paper are co-first authors and PhD students Artittaya Boonkird, Mouyang Cheng, and Abhijatmedhi Chotrattanapituk, along with PhD students Denisse Cordova Carrizales and Ryotaro Okabe; former graduate research assistants Thanh Nguyen and Nathan Drucker; postdoc Manasi Mandal; Instructor Ellan Spero of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE); Professor Christine Ortiz of the Department of DMSE; Professor Liang Fu of the Department of Physics; Professor Tomas Palacios of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS); Associate Professor Farnaz Niroui of EECS; Assistant Professor Jingjie Yeo of Cornell University; and PhD student Vsevolod Belosevich and Assostant Professor Qiong Ma of Boston College.Materials with impactCheng and Boonkird say that materials science researchers often gravitate toward quantum materials with the most exotic quantum properties rather than the ones most likely to be used in products that change the world.“Researchers don’t always think about the costs or environmental impacts of the materials they study,” Cheng says. “But those factors can make them impossible to do anything with.”Li and his collaborators wanted to help researchers focus on quantum materials with more potential to be adopted by industry. For this study, they developed methods for evaluating factors like the materials’ price and environmental impact using their elements and common practices for mining and processing those elements. At the same time, they quantified the materials’ level of “quantumness” using an AI model created by the same group last year, based on a concept proposed by MIT professor of physics Liang Fu, termed quantum weight.“For a long time, it’s been unclear how to quantify the quantumness of a material,” Fu says. “Quantum weight is very useful for this purpose. Basically, the higher the quantum weight of a material, the more quantum it is.”The researchers focused on a class of quantum materials with exotic electronic properties known as topological materials, eventually assigning over 16,000 materials scores on environmental impact, price, import resilience, and more.For the first time, the researchers found a strong correlation between the material’s quantum weight and how expensive and environmentally damaging it is.“That’s useful information because the industry really wants something very low-cost,” Spero says. “We know what we should be looking for: high quantum weight, low-cost materials. Very few materials being developed meet that criteria, and that likely explains why they don’t scale to industry.”The researchers identified 200 environmentally sustainable materials and further refined the list down to 31 material candidates that achieved an optimal balance of quantum functionality and high-potential impact.The researchers also found that several widely studied materials exhibit high environmental impact scores, indicating they will be hard to scale sustainably. “Considering the scalability of manufacturing and environmental availability and impact is critical to ensuring practical adoption of these materials in emerging technologies,” says Niroui.Guiding researchMany of the topological materials evaluated in the paper have never been synthesized, which limited the accuracy of the study’s environmental and cost predictions. But the authors say the researchers are already working with companies to study some of the promising materials identified in the paper.“We talked with people at semiconductor companies that said some of these materials were really interesting to them, and our chemist collaborators also identified some materials they find really interesting through this work,” Palacios says. “Now we want to experimentally study these cheaper topological materials to understand their performance better.”“Solar cells have an efficiency limit of 34 percent, but many topological materials have a theoretical limit of 89 percent. Plus, you can harvest energy across all electromagnetic bands, including our body heat,” Fu says. “If we could reach those limits, you could easily charge your cell phone using body heat. These are performances that have been demonstrated in labs, but could never scale up. That’s the kind of thing we’re trying to push forward."This work was supported, in part, by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy.

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Greenpeace threatens to sue crown estate for driving up cost of offshore wind

Environmental group accuses king’s property management company of ‘milking for profit’ its monopoly ownership of seabedGreenpeace is threatening to sue King Charles’s property management company, accusing it of exploiting its monopoly ownership of the seabed.The environmental lobby group alleges the crown estate has driven up costs for wind power developers and boosted its own profits, as well as the royal household’s income, due to the “aggressive” way it auctions seabed rights. Continue reading...

Greenpeace is threatening to sue King Charles’s property management company, accusing it of exploiting its monopoly ownership of the seabed.The environmental lobby group alleges the crown estate has driven up costs for wind power developers and boosted its own profits, as well as the royal household’s income, due to the “aggressive” way it auctions seabed rights.The crown estate, as the legal owner of the seabed around England, Wales and Northern Ireland, is responsible for auctioning offshore wind rights. It has benefited from the huge growth in the industry, commanding hefty option fees from renewable energy developers to secure areas of the seabed to build their windfarms.It made a £1.1bn profit in its financial year ended in March, double its level just two years ago.Will McCallum, co-executive director at Greenpeace UK, said the estate should be “managing the seabed in the interest of the nation and the common good, not as an asset to be milked for profit and outrageous bonuses”.“We should leave no stone unturned in looking for solutions to lower energy bills that are causing misery to millions of households,” he said.“Given how crucial affordable bills and clean energy are to the government’s agenda, the chancellor should use her powers of direction to ask for an independent review of how these auctions are run. If the problem isn’t fixed before the next round, we may need to let a court decide whether or not what’s happening is lawful.”Greenpeace argues the crown estate has a legal duty not to exploit its monopoly position as owner of the seabed around England, Wales and Northern Ireland, but that it is now in breach of this.The lobby group said it was concerned the crown estate was rationing supply of the seabed to protect high prices, and argued this could harm the development of offshore wind power in the UK.The crown estate has reportedly rejected Greenpeace’s claims, arguing the lobby group has misinterpreted the estate’s legal duties.About 12% of crown estate profits flow to the monarchy to fund its work. This was lowered from 25% in 2023 to offset the rise in profits from offshore wind projects.skip past newsletter promotionOur morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it mattersPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionThe UK’s wind industry is at a critical juncture as the government plans to double onshore wind and quadruple offshore wind power capacity by the end of the decade.The crown estate, which also includes a portfolio of London properties and rural real estate, is worth £15bn. The property assets in London, which is concentrated around Regent Street and St James’s, are valued at £7.1bn.A spokesperson for the crown estate said: “Greenpeace has misunderstood the crown estate’s legal duties and leasing processes. Option fees are not fixed by the crown estate. They are set by the developers through open, competitive auctions and reflect market appetite at the time. As our net revenue is returned to the Treasury, option fees help to ensure that taxpayers benefit from the requisite value from the development of our scarce and precious seabed resource.“The crown estate is accelerating offshore wind in line with government policy to move forward the energy transition at pace and improve energy security.”The Treasury was approached for comment.

Energy
Government

New England’s final coal plant shuts down years ahead of schedule

Poor economics drove the aging New Hampshire plant offline three years early, even as the Trump administration pushes to revitalize coal.

Even as the federal government attempts to prop up the waning coal industry, New England’s last coal-fired power plant has ceased operations three years ahead of its planned retirement date. The closure of the New Hampshire facility paves the way for its owner to press ahead with an initiative to transform the site into a clean energy complex including solar panels and battery storage systems. “The end of coal is real, and it is here,” said Catherine Corkery, chapter director for Sierra Club New Hampshire. ​“We’re really excited about the next chapter.” News of the closure came on the same day the Trump administration announced plans to resuscitate the coal sector by opening millions of acres of federal land to mining operations and investing $625 million in life-extending upgrades for coal plants. The administration had already released a blueprint for rolling back coal-related environmental regulations. The announcement was the latest offensive in the administration’s pro-coal agenda. The federal government has twice extended the scheduled closure date of the coal-burning J.H. Campbell plant in Michigan, and U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright has declared it a mission of the administration to keep coal plants open, saying the facilities are needed to ensure grid reliability and lower prices. However, the closure in New Hampshire — so far undisputed by the federal government — demonstrates that prolonging operations at some facilities just doesn’t make economic sense for their owners. “Coal has been incredibly challenged in the New England market for over a decade,” said Dan Dolan, president of the New England Power Generators Association. Read Next Nobody wants this gas plant. Trump is forcing it to stay open. Rebecca Egan McCarthy Merrimack Station, a 438-megawatt power plant, came online in the 1960s and provided baseload power to the New England region for decades. Gradually, though, natural gas — which is cheaper and more efficient — took over the regional market. In 2000, gas-fired plants generated less than 15 percent of the region’s electricity; last year, they produced more than half. Additionally, solar power production accelerated from 2010 on, lowering demand on the grid during the day and creating more evening peaks. Coal plants take longer to ramp up production than other sources, and are therefore less economical for these shorter bursts of demand, Dolan said. In recent years, Merrimack operated only a few weeks annually. In 2024, the plant generated just 0.22 percent of the region’s electricity. It wasn’t making enough money to justify continued operations, observers said. The closure ​“is emblematic of the transition that has been occurring in the generation fleet in New England for many years,” Dolan said. ​“The combination of all those factors has meant that coal facilities are no longer economic in this market.” Granite Shore Power, the plant’s owner, first announced its intention to shutter Merrimack in March 2024, following years of protests and legal wrangling by environmental advocates. The company pledged to cease coal-fired operations by 2028 to settle a lawsuit claiming that the facility was in violation of the federal Clean Water Act. The agreement included another commitment to shut down the company’s Schiller plant in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, by the end of 2025; this smaller plant can burn coal but hasn’t done so since 2020. At the time, the company outlined a proposal to repurpose the 400-acre Merrimack site, just outside Concord, for clean energy projects, taking advantage of existing electric infrastructure to connect a 120-megawatt combined solar and battery storage system to the grid. It is not yet clear whether changes in federal renewable energy policies will affect this vision. In a statement announcing the Merrimack closure, Granite Shore Power was less specific about its plans than it had been, saying, ​“We continue to consider all opportunities for redevelopment” of the site, but declining to follow up with more detail. Still, advocates are looking ahead with optimism. “This is progress — there’s no doubt the math is there,” Corkery said. ​“It is never over until it is over, but I am very hopeful.” This story was originally published by Grist with the headline New England’s final coal plant shuts down years ahead of schedule on Oct 12, 2025.

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Scientists Watch Fungi Evolve in Real Time, Thanks to a Marriage Proposal in a Cheese Cave

A new study pinpoints a disruption in a gene that made a beloved blue cheese's rind go from green to white

Scientists Watch Fungi Evolve in Real Time, Thanks to a Marriage Proposal in a Cheese Cave A new study pinpoints a disruption in a gene that made a beloved blue cheese’s rind go from green to white Sara Hashemi - Daily Correspondent October 10, 2025 3:27 p.m. The mold growing on batches of Bayley Hazen Blue cheese changed from green to white between 2016 and the present day. Benjamin Wolfe In 2016, Benjamin Wolfe, a microbiome scientist at Tufts University, was scheming. He’d convinced his former advisor, Rachel Dutton, to drive with him to Jasper Hill Farm in Greensboro, Vermont, to collect samples of a cheese called Bayley Hazen Blue. But the visit was about more than the sweet, creamy dairy product: It was a ruse so that Dutton’s boyfriend could propose at the farm, where they had first met. The surprise proposal went ahead as planned, and the biologist got his samples—scrapes from the cheese wheels’ rinds. He stored them in a freezer in his lab for years. “I’m notorious for not throwing samples away just in case we might need them,” he says in a statement. The cheese collected in 2016 was coated in a “very avocado-limey-green color,” Wolfe recalls to Elizabeth Preston at the New York Times. But a few years later, when graduate student Nicolas Louw went to pick up new samples at the farm, the rinds of the newer cheeses were completely white. The recipe hadn’t changed. Neither had the caves where the farm ages its blue cheese. Perhaps the mold had changed instead, the scientists surmised. “This was really exciting, because we thought it could be an example of evolution happening right before our eyes,” Wolfe says in the statement. “Microbes evolve. We know that from antibiotic resistance evolution [and] pathogen evolution, but we don’t usually see it happening at a specific place over time in a natural setting.” Did you know? A fungus among us According to a report from the American Academy of Microbiology, “Cheese is one of the few foods we eat that contains extraordinarily high numbers of living, metabolizing microbes.” Fungi are just the start—cheeses gain their flavors and textures from yeast (a type of fungus) and other microbes, like bacteria. Genetic analysis revealed the cheese rinds’ color change happened because of a disruption in ALB1, a gene involved in the production of melanin, which is known for its role in protection from ultraviolet (UV) radiation. In humans, melanin produces eye color as well as hair and skin pigmentation. In cheeses, melanin affects the appearance of the rind. It makes sense that fungi growing in a cave would shed a gene designed to produce melanin as it evolved, since it doesn’t need protection from ultraviolet light, Louw explains in the statement. The phenomenon, known as “relaxed selection,” is common in species that experience the removal of an environmental stressor. “By breaking that pathway and going from green to white, the fungi are essentially saving energy to invest in other things for survival and growth,” Louw says. The findings, published in the journal Current Biology last month, are a “perfect example of evolution in action,” Sam O’Donnell, a fungal genomicist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison who wasn’t involved in the work, tells the New York Times. Understanding how the Penicillium solitum fungi in the cheese evolve can also have other benefits. In the statement, the researchers say the work could be used to help prevent lung infections caused by other molds in the same family—or even help bolster global food security. “Around 20 percent of staple crops are lost pre-harvest due to fungal rot, and an additional 20 percent are lost to fungi post-harvest,” Louw says in the statement. “That includes the moldy bread in your pantry and rotting fruit on market shelves.” Being able to manage mold could help solve that issue. Next, Wolfe and his team will explore making new types of cheese with different tastes and textures based on their findings. They’ve already collaborated with the farm on a fresh brie with the white mold and found it tastes “nuttier and less funky,” Wolfe says in the statement. The cheeses will continue to be refined on the farm. “Seeing wild molds evolve right before our eyes over a period of a few years helps us think that we can develop a robust domestication process, to create new genetic diversity and tap into that for cheesemaking,” Wolfe adds. As for Dutton? She said yes. “We are very grateful to [her husband] for his elaborate marriage proposal,” the researchers note in the acknowledgments section of their paper. “It is because of his marriage proposal that the 2016 samples were collected.” Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

Energy
Food
Science

State approves Zenith Energy’s air quality permit

The DEQ found Zenith was in compliance with state law, had met all applicable rules and regulations and had submitted a complete permit application, including an updated land-use credential issued by the city of Portland.

The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality has issued Zenith Energy’s air quality permit, allowing the controversial company to continue storing and loading crude oil and renewable fuels at a hub in Northwest Portland. State regulators issued the permit on Thursday after evaluating more than 800 written and 60 verbal comments, many of them opposing the permit. Zenith needed the permit approval to continue operations at the Critical Energy Infrastructure hub on the Willamette River. The Houston-based Zenith’s presence in Portland has attracted fierce backlash in recent years from environmental activists and some city residents concerned with the company’s myriad violations and the potential for fuel spills and explosions in the event of a large earthquake in the region. Zenith is one of 11 fuel companies at the hub.Lisa Ball, an air quality permit manager with DEQ, said the agency issued the permit because it found Zenith was in compliance with state law, had met all applicable rules and regulations and had submitted a complete permit application, including an updated land-use credential issued by the city of Portland. The new permit requires less frequent state inspections and company reporting requirements than Zenith’s previous permit, Ball said, though the department retains the authority to inspect the company as needed or in the case of violations. Ball said the new permit is also more stringent than Zenith’s previous permit because it prohibits crude oil storage and loading starting in October 2027 and includes stricter emission standards. It requires Zenith to reduce by 80% the amount of emitted volatile organic compounds, known as VOCs, a group of air pollutants that can cause irritation to the eyes, nose and throat, damage to the liver, kidney and central nervous system and, in some cases, cause cancer. It also adds PM 2.5 and greenhouse gases – chiefly carbon dioxide – to the company’s regulated pollutants. PM 2.5 are tiny particles that are small enough to penetrate deep into the lungs and even enter the bloodstream. “This permit is more protective of human health and the environment,” Ball said.Environmental groups have disputed that characterization and said their own analysis – submitted as part of the public comments on the permit application – shows Zenith will not meet the emissions limits in the newly granted permit. “DEQ chose to accept Zenith’s mathematical sleight of hand despite expert analysis showing real-world pollution will be much worse,” said Audrey Leonard, an attorney with Columbia Riverkeeper, a Hood River-based environmental group focused on protecting the river. “The public knows better – Zenith’s expansion of so-called renewable fuels will result in more harm to our rivers, air and communities.” A previous analysis of Zenith’s draft air quality permit application by The Oregonian/OregonLive showed the permit, if approved, was not likely to lead to substantial emission reductions because Zenith is currently emitting far below the cap of its previous permit limits. The analysis also found the permit would likely pave the way for Zenith to significantly expand the amount of fuel it stores in Portland because renewable fuels such as renewable diesel or renewable naphta produce less pollution, allowing the company to store more of them without going over the permit limits. Zenith officials praised the permit approval and said the company’s transition to renewable fuel storage would ensure Oregon has the supply it needs to meet its carbon reduction goals. “The infrastructure investments being made during this transition will also ensure our terminal continues to operate at the highest standards of safety. We look forward to supporting regional leaders in creating a lower-carbon future,” Zenith’s chief commercial officer Grady Reamer said in a statement. In the meantime, Portland is still in the midst of an investigation into the potential violations of Zenith Energy’s franchise agreement, including whether Zenith violated the law when it constructed and used new pipes at an additional dock on the river – without reporting it to authorities – to load renewable and fossil fuels. City officials have said the investigation would likely conclude by the end of the year. Also ongoing: a legal challenge over the city’s land-use approval for Zenith, filed by environmental groups with the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals. Portland officials have had a complex relationship with the company. The city denied Zenith’s land-use credential in 2001 and defended the decision in court before reversing course and approving it with the condition that Zenith transition to renewable fuels and secure a new air permit with more stringent emission limits. In February, despite mounting opposition from local activists, city staff once again approved a land-use credential for Zenith.The approval came after DEQ last year found Zenith had been using the McCall dock and pipes to load and unload fuels without authorization. As part of the sanctions, DEQ officials required Zenith to seek a new land-use approval before continuing its air quality permit process.DEQ officials said they would reevaluate Zenith’s air permit if the legal case or city investigation led to any changes to the status of the land-use approval – such as if the city revoked it or the state land use panel invalidated it.The newly issued air permit is valid for five years. If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. 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