Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.

India plans to triple underground coal mining to meet energy demand

Summary: India’s coal ministry has announced plans to increase its underground mining efforts three-fold by 2028 as part of a larger effort to align local energy production with increasing demand.

Context: Coal is by far the most-polluting and one of the most-emitting modern energy sources, but many countries, like China and India, rely heavily on it to provide energy for their sprawling populations, which are also rapidly becoming richer, which tends to mean more energy demand per person and for the whole of the economy; ministry representatives claim their approach to increasing production will be less-emitting than the surface-level, opencast mines that account for 95% of its current production, but that’s a contentious claim, as although digging underground is moderately better for local environments compared to stripping the local landscape, it still results in a lot more coal being burned, which is in opposition to global coal phase-down efforts.

—Financial Times

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Biden invokes Cold War-era measure to boost medical supplies

Summary: President Biden has announced new efforts to boost investment in US-based medicine and medical supply manufacturing, tying this type of production to national defense efforts.

Context: The idea is that relying on other countries for medical supplies and medicines, as was the case at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, leaves the US vulnerable to all sorts of threats and the whims of other countries, which is not something any government likes; this measure is just one of 30 new measures that will use the Defense Production Act to shore-up US-based manufacturing across a variety of industries, increasing the government’s ability to keep tabs on supply chains while giving business entities in the relevant spaces resources meant to incentivize local infrastructural investment.

—Reuters

The newest airline climate solution is burying sawdust

Summary: American Airlines has announced a new deal with carbon removal startup Graphyte as part of the US airline industry’s larger plan to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.

Context: There are many different approaches to soaking-up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, some of which are expensive and energy-intensive, like using big fans and filters, but this startup’s approach is simpler and cheaper, basically compressing agricultural waste materials that absorb CO2 into bricks and then sealing them up and burying them, which should keep that CO2 tucked underground forever, with tracer substances in place to make sure there aren’t any leaks; like all such efforts at the moment, this one is still in its early days and there’s a chance it will have flaws we don’t notice till later, but if it proves effective over time, it could represent an inexpensive alternative to those other, pricier options, and a means through which emissions-heavy industries like airlines can more affordably pull some of their emissions back out of the air as they struggle to find and implement methods of reducing or preventing those emissions in the first place.

—The Wall Street Journal

The world’s wealthiest nations will be advised by the UN’s Food & Agriculture Organization to temper their consumption of meat at the impending COP28 summit, as meat-consumption (especially beef) is incredibly polluting and emitting (and resource-intensive), and wealthy nations consume the lion’s share of meat, globally.

—Bloomberg

>2.9 million

Number of passengers the TSA screened at American airports last Sunday: a new record.

That means Sunday was the busiest flight-related travel day in US history (despite all sorts of storm-related weather alerts), almost certainly due to Thanksgiving holiday travel and pent-up demand for travel of any kind, following a pandemic-era dip in such journeys in recent years.

—Axios

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