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Visiting the First EV Charging Station Funded by the Federal Infrastructure Law

The Ohio charging station signals the start of a wave of new projects paid for by the 2021 law.

The charging equipment at the Pilot Travel Center near London, Ohio is part of a partnership between General Motors, Pilot Company and EVgo. Credit: Dan Gearino/Inside Climate News — *The charging equipment at the Pilot Travel Center near London, Ohio is part of a partnership between General Motors, Pilot Company ,and EVgo. Credit: Dan Gearino/Inside Climate News*

By Dan Gearino, Inside Climate News

LONDON, Ohio—On the western outskirts of Columbus, Ohio, two doors down from a Waffle House, is a truck stop that, as of last Friday, has the first electric vehicle charging station in the country to be financed in part by the 2021 federal infrastructure law.

The Pilot Travel Center at I-70 and U.S. 42 has four charging ports. They are part of a partnership between General Motors and Pilot that the companies say will lead to chargers being installed at 500 Pilot and Flying J locations.

At about 10:30 a.m. on a Tuesday, nobody was using the chargers.

The larger significance of this installation is that the federal government is showing progress in turning $5 billion worth of charger funding into completed projects. The expansion of the charging network is an essential part of supporting a shift away from gasoline and reducing emissions from the transportation sector.

“I am very glad to see some steel in the ground,” said Samantha Houston, an analyst for the Union of Concerned Scientists who specializes in issues related to EV charging. “I think this is a major milestone. What I would like to see and expect to see is an acceleration of away-from-home infrastructure.”

Ohio was one of the leaders in securing a share of this money and stands to receive $140 million over five years to construct charging stations along major travel routes.

“Electric vehicles are the future of transportation, and we want drivers in Ohio to have access to this technology today,” said Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, in a statement.

The arrival of charging stations at the truck stop chain is a counterpoint to concerns from some EV drivers that the nation’s charging network isn’t nearly robust enough and too many chargers are broken or located in places without amenities.

At this truck stop, people can go inside to eat at an Arby’s, a Cinnabon, and from a large selection of other food and drink. They can buy merchandise like a Bud Light baseball cap and a T-shirt that says “The Only Thing Tougher than a Trucker Is a Trucker’s Wife.”

The chargers are capable of offering up to 350 kilowatts, which allows for faster charging than many other stations.

“To see this project go from the whiteboard to drivers charging their EVs is a wonderful and unique experience,” said Tim Langenkamp, vice president of business development for sustainability for Pilot, in an email.

Pilot has chargers at 18 locations in nine states. The Ohio location is the first of those to benefit from the federal program.

Langenkamp said customers have had about 5,000 charging sessions on the company’s network since the first ports went online in September.

The federal money comes from the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program, which is one of many parts of the $1.2 trillion infrastructure law.

The country had 141,714 public charging ports as of the end of June, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. The Biden administration has set a goal of getting this number to 500,000 by 2030 and would like to see them available at 50-mile intervals on major highways.

Many more federally funded chargers will follow the one in Ohio. The National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program lists projects in Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, and Pennsylvania.

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Is Orlando seeking to benefit land development by breaking its pledge to ‘forever’ protect environmentally sensitive airport lake?

Orlando's airport wants to renege on its "forever" promise to protect the environment of Mud Lake on airport property, alleging its birds are a threat to aircraft and that there is no access to the lake for an emergency response. But in 2015, airport personnel took the Orlando Sentinel to the lake, launching boats for the routine task of removing fish as a way to discourage birds from foraging there. During that outing, Johnny Metcalf, an airport wildlife management supervisor seen here, scoops up largemouth bass out of Mud Lake. At the time, the airport went to great lengths to keep birds away from runways, including importing racoons and bobcats, and removal of largemouth bass from the secluded lake. Audubon suspects the airport's intention is to develop or sell land at Mud Lake. (Jacob Langston/Orlando Sentinel) — Orlando’s airport wants to renege on its “forever” promise to protect the environment of Mud Lake on airport property, alleging its birds are a threat to aircraft and that there is no access to the lake for an emergency response. But in 2015, airport personnel took the Orlando Sentinel to the lake, launching boats for the routine task of removing fish as a way to discourage birds from foraging there. During that outing, Johnny Metcalf, an airport wildlife management supervisor seen here, scoops up largemouth bass out of Mud Lake. At the time, the airport went to great lengths to keep birds away from runways, including importing raccoons and bobcats, and removal of largemouth bass from the secluded lake. Audubon suspects the airport intends to develop or sell land at Mud Lake. (Jacob Langston/Orlando Sentinel)

By KEVIN SPEAR | kspear@orlandosentinel.com | Orlando Sentinel, December 10, 2023, 7 a.m.

Orlando’s airport is trying to nullify protections for a large expanse of environmentally sensitive land its managers long ago promised to safeguard “forever.”

The 1,100-acre tract that includes Mud Lake and wetlands is tightly surrounded by high-profile and surging development. Airport officials claim its ecosystem value has been degraded, that it poses a risk to aircraft and that federal rules require revenue from areas not used for aviation.

It is yet another current attempt by local government to renege on a legal preservation pledge in the face of the high-intensity growth of east Orange and Osceola counties.

Audubon Florida’s policy director, Beth Alvi, said in a letter of protest that the airport contends it is “obliged to monetize” available real estate. But she is concerned airport officials are using federal rules as cover for their “operating philosophy” to develop or sell Mud Lake property.

Read the full story here

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Proposed NYC budget cuts ‘devastating’ for community composters

Cuts to the New York City Sanitation Department could lead to dozens of layoffs, the closure of several mid-sized community composting facilities, and the delayed rollout of curbside organics service.

Two brown DSNY organics collection bins on the side of a street — New York City compost bins distributed by DSNY in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn. *The image by Tdorante10 is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0*

By Jacob Wallace, Waste Dive

Mayor Eric Adams is proposing eliminating the New York City community composting program and delaying rollout of curbside residential organics collection in certain boroughs by seven months as part of sweeping budget cuts.

The proposal, published Thursday, is part of across-the-board 5% budget cuts Adams has directed all city agencies to make as the city faces a projected budget shortfall beginning this fiscal year and extending into future years. The mayor has indicated an additional 5% cut may be necessary again in January.

The cuts would have ripple effects throughout the city’s management of organics and waste: reducing litter cleanup, shuttering farmer’s market food waste drop-off sites, and ending funding for several mid-sized community composting sites, those familiar with the funding said.

“It’s a tremendous loss,” Beth Slepian, vice chair of the Brooklyn Solid Waste Advisory Board, said. “This creates a huge access issue for people to composting.”

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Appalachian hydrogen hub companies and projects finally revealed

By ANYA LITVAK, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

After more than a year of speculation, the Appalachian Regional Clean Hydrogen Hub finally lifted the cloak and named names.

The mammoth consortium that has been selected by the U.S. Department of Energy for up to $925 million in funding to establish a hub for methane-derived hydrogen production and use, includes 15 projects and more than a dozen companies.

Shawn Bennett, energy and resilience division manager at Battelle, and a former DOE assistant secretary, said he’s never been involved in anything this big. What some have derided as a lack of transparency has been a mad-dash, super-competitive process that’s still not over, he said. Negotiations with DOE are slated to last the next few months until the award is secured.

Still, “the cloak of competition has been removed,” said Melanie White, director of strategic engagement with Allegheny Science and Technology who is leading community engagement efforts for the hub.

Ms. White and Mr. Bennett unveiled the projects at a DOE-run public webinar.

The map they presented on Tuesday was different from the one Mr. Bennett showed during a presentation at an oil and gas industry conference, Shale Insight, last month. Most notably, it included the names of the companies and which projects they were developing. It also slimmed down its Pennsylvania inventory.

The map shows two dots in the Keystone State: one, in Fayette County, is EQT’s planned natural gas-derived hydrogen facility that would turn some of it into aviation fuel and sell the rest to Air Liquide, a French chemical company that plans to turn hydrogen into ground transportation fuel. The other is KeyState Zero’s project in Clinton County. This expanding effort has been in the works for years. It aims to marry onsite gas drilling with hydrogen, ammonia, and urea production and carbon sequestration.

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Hydrogen Storage, Distribution, and Transportation: Developments in Hydrogen Carriers

By Clare Frederick, Jason A. Engel of K&L Gates

According to the joint EPO-IEA report summarizing patent trends in the hydrogen economy (summarized here), technologies related to storage, distribution, and transportation of hydrogen are among the most critical challenges for large-scale deployment. Standardized infrastructure for hydrogen trade is essential to allow the market to function and flow.

While trends show that established technologies have generated high levels of patent-related activities, emerging technologies such as the use of hydrogen carriers are key to encouraging widespread hydrogen distribution systems. Patent filings in the fields of liquid organic hydrogen carriers (LOHCs) and ammonia cracking, two example hydrogen carriers discussed below, have increased since 2011.

Conventional storage and transportation of hydrogen relies on liquid-compressed hydrogen, which is stored at either extremely high pressures or extremely low temperatures. LOHCs and ammonia cracking enable hydrogen to bond with a stabilized carrier, which allows for safer and more economical transportation. The two examples below illustrate the types of improvements that have been patented recently.

Ammonia Cracking

Ammonia cracking is the process of using ammonia as an energy carrier for transporting hydrogen. In this process, hydrogen is first produced through means such as electrolysis and then combined with nitrogen extracted from ambient air using an air separator to produce green ammonia, which can be transported using conventional means. Once the green ammonia arrives at its destination, the compound is separated into hydrogen and nitrogen using an ammonia-cracking process.

Topsoe A/S recently received US Patent No. 11,511,991 (‘991 Patent) issued 29 November 2022, entitled “Autothermal Ammonia Cracking Process.” The ‘991 Patent discloses a process for ammonia cracking that reduces or eliminates the need to remove residual nitrogen oxides from the cracked gas. (NOx), a common byproduct of ammonia cracking, are gases that contribute to air pollution and present health hazards.

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Chemical recycling aims to scale fast in an effort to manage plastic waste, even as questions remain

Chemical recycling proponents are investing in major projects to scale up the technology. Yet lingering policy and business factors will affect the trajectory of this fast-developing recycling sector.

A worker stands in front of ExxonMobil's advanced recycling facility in Baytown, Texas. — ExxonMobil’s “advanced recycling” facility in Baytown, Texas, which started operations in 2022, is meant to process more than 80 million pounds of plastic a year. It’s one of numerous large-scale chemical recycling projects in progress in the U.S. Courtesy of ExxonMobil

Megan Quinn, Senior Reporter, Waste Dive

Chemical recycling is at a turning point in proving its financial viability and ability to scale to meet the demands of a changing plastics recycling industry.

Years ago, many of the technologies that made chemical recycling possible were still in the developmental stage, with companies focusing on getting their work out of the lab and into the real world.

But now companies such as Dow, Eastman, LyondellBasell, ExxonMobil, PureCycle, Cyclyx, and others are investing millions of dollars a year in scaling those technologies, saying the investments will speed up the process of keeping hard-to-recycle plastics out of landfills and funnel them into feedstocks for new products.

Chemical recycling, also called advanced recycling or molecular recycling by the plastics industry, is a broad term for numerous processing technologies that break down recovered plastics to the molecular level to become “building blocks” for new plastics or other products. Common techniques include pyrolysis, gasification, and depolymerization.

Companies have poured millions of dollars into expanding capabilities in recent years, and they say those investments are finally paying off as they move on from small-scale experiments and open new facilities or ink offtake agreements. Mechanical recyclers and waste companies are also getting involved. Meanwhile, recently passed laws could make it easier to open facilities in certain states.

But some environmental and health experts say chemical recycling companies aren’t able to manage the volumes of material they claim, fueling an unsustainable reliance on plastic instead of taking steps to reduce or eliminate plastic use. They also worry the facilities create harmful health impacts.

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‘Forever’ contaminant PFAS found in 70% of PA rivers and streams

Water flows down the Wissahickon Creek in view of the Autumn foliage Thursday, Oct. 29, 2015, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

By Zoë Read, WHYY News

Several rivers and creeks around Philadelphia contain the toxic class of chemical PFAS — from the Schuylkill River, to the Wissahickon, Neshaminy, and Valley creeks — according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

PFAS can remain in the bloodstream for years, and the chemicals are linked to serious health problems, including some cancers, thyroid disease, ulcerative colitis, and developmental delays in children. That has led to numerous lawsuits against companies that make the products, such as DuPont and its successor companies, and 3M.

The USGS tested 161 Pennsylvania rivers and streams for PFAS, and found 76% contained one or more types of the chemical. The highest concentrations of PFAS were found in high-population areas, including Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

The study was a collaboration between the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and the Susquehanna River Basin Commission.

Known as “forever chemicals,” PFAS are commonly used in products from nonstick cookware to firefighting foam, and can remain in the environment for years. So, experts say detecting PFAS in waterways is not surprising.

However, the USGS report determines the sources of contamination in each waterway. Researchers say that could guide PFAS regulations statewide, and help water providers determine whether they need to monitor PFAS in surface water.

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Ever hear of the e-vehicle maker VinFast? Neither did we

VinFast, the Vietnamese electric vehicle startup destined for North Carolina, is currently the world’s third-largest automaker by market capitalization as its blistering Wall Street debut continues to surprise. At market close Monday, a share of VinFast stock sold for $82.35 a share — up from $22 per share on Aug. 15, its first day as a public company. VinFast currently has a market value above $191 billion. For comparison, the market value of Ford, General Motors, and Honda combined is only $145 billion. Tesla is the world’s most valuable car company, with a market cap around $750 billion, and Toyota is second with a market cap of approximately $225 billion. Both automakers are profitable and have sold millions of cars. In contrast, VinFast has only delivered tens of thousands of vehicles and still registers steep losses

BY BRIAN GORDON, (Raleigh News & Observer)

Tesla. Toyota. VinFast. VinFast.

The Vietnamese electric vehicle startup destined for North Carolina, is currently the world’s third-largest automaker by market capitalization as its blistering Wall Street debut continues to surprise.

At market close Monday, a share of VinFast stock sold for $82.35 a share — up from $22 per share on Aug. 15, its first day as a public company. VinFast currently has a market value above $191 billion. For comparison, the market value of Ford, General Motors, and Honda combined is only $145 billion. Tesla is the world’s most valuable car company, with a market cap around $750 billion, and Toyota is second with a market cap of approximately $225 billion. Both automakers are profitable and have sold millions of cars. In contrast, VinFast has only delivered tens of thousands of vehicles and still registers steep losses.

On Monday, VinFast was among the market’s most searched and actively traded companies. According to the platform Stock Analysis, it was the day’s top trending company by a wide margin based on page views, attracting more interest than Amazon, Microsoft, Tesla, and Apple. As of 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, VinFast stock was down 35% on the day, but the company was still the market’s third-most valuable automaker. Having arrived to the NASDAQ exchange earlier this month after merging with a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, VinFast turned heads on its first day as a publicly traded company. Its share price jumped 68% to finish at more than $37 a share, which has since more than doubled.

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Whoa! Hold on a Minute

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Evening Paddle on Hopewell Lake

Lazy, warm summer evenings are a wonderful time for being on the water, especially in a location as beautiful as French Creek State Park. Join Valley Forge Audubon Society and DCNR naturalist Jared Brandt for an evening paddle on Hopewell Lake as we look and listen for birds, beavers, and other wildlife in the evening twilight. Last year the Nighthawks put on a show for us – what will we discover this time?

The minimum age to participate is 10 years old.

This is a bring-your-own-boat event, although there will be a limited number of kayaks for rent. Please note that rentals must be reserved in advance. For cost information

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NJ girl becomes youngest to ever play in FIFA World Cup

16-year-old Casey Phair becomes the youngest-ever player in history to play at the FIFA Women's World Cup! 🇰🇷 pic.twitter.com/S8ukNYUUlk
— FOX Soccer (@FOXSoccer) July 25, 2023

NJ teen, Casey Phair, becomes the youngest ever World Cup player at 16 years and 26 days of age

SYDNEY, Australia — Throughout South Korea’s Women’s World Cup opener against Colombia on Tuesday, players stayed loose behind the goal. Early in the 78th minute, one player broke away from the group. Casey Phair, at 16 years and 26 days, stepped onto the field and became the youngest player to do so in a World Cup – women’s or men’s.

“Going on, I was really, really nervous,” said Phair, who has an American father and a South Korean mother and was raised in Warren Township, New Jersey. “It was a scary moment, but then going on and running around, I think it just settled in.”

The record previously was held by the late Ifeanyi Chiejine, who was 16 years and 34 days old when she played for Nigeria in the 1999 Women’s World Cup.

In the 17 minutes she spent on the field in South Korea’s 2-0 loss, Phair was near the ball at all times, competing with Colombian players for possession every chance she got.

“She deserved the chance to play,” South Korea’s head coach Collin Bell said. “She trained really well, just as well as anybody. I wanted to throw her on to give her that experience.”

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Ammonia Cracking

Water flows down the Wissahickon Creek in view of the Autumn foliage Thursday, Oct. 29, 2015, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

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