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Weekly Energy News Update-July 26th

Updates will be quite sparse for the coming two months. I am currently home in Montana and will be criss-crossing the Northern United States until late September. Being in Montana has made me painfully aware that there is one appropriate topic that perhaps has not been drawn into the Energy Anthropology fold as of yet: wildfires! In most of our work we are focused on harnessed energy that is put to use for cultural, social, economic and political purposes. We often forget that there is also a great deal of unharnessed energy out there in the world, much of which still has cultural, social, economic and political impacts. So today I begin by sharing a photo of a wildfire burning in the Bitterroot Mountains just behind my house. If you’re interested in learning more see the InciWeb post here

What most people in Montana have been talking about is the extremely wet Winter and Spring that led to rich growth in underbrush followed by an abominably hot and dry summer resulting in an explosive situation. Similar high pressure ridges creating these high temperatures and dry conditions have developed in California this summer, and, according to a Mother Jones interview with scientist Jeff Weber in Colorado, “persistent heat ridges are expected to be more common in a “climate change scenario,” although one can’t point to a single weather event and say it’s due to global warming.”

Wildfires Are About to Go From Bad to Worse in California (MotherJones)

And wildfires have been in the news across the globe this week:

Thousands evacuated after wildfire on France’s Mediterranean coast (Guardian)

Poor Visibility Hurts Wildfire Fight in Portugal (AP)

State of emergency in British Columbia extended as wildfires rage (Reuters)

One thing I find fascinating is how some people find wildfires to be a normal event, something that occurs every year, while others (such as my mother) find such events disturbing regardless of the fact that they do occur every year. My mother is particularly sensitive to the smoke and usually “evacuates” for the months of August and September to go see family in Wisconsin. She has been a traveling nurse for more than a decade and so acts like a modern day nomad at times. Long story short, there could be some excellent ethnographic opportunities for examining the impact of the unharnessed energy in wildfires on society. Or, perhaps such a study could even draw into question whether we ever have control over energy at all.


Finance

Malaysia’s Petronas scraps $29 billion western Canada LNG project (Reuters)

Spanish businessman Manuel Jove weighs sale of energy assets (Reuters)


Labor

Sri Lanka deploys military to maintain fuel supplies after strike (Reuters)

Pakistan fuel tanker owners end strike, bringing halt to panic buying (Reuters)

The butterfly effect that has rippled out from the explosion of the fuel tanker last month is more widespread than I could possibly have imagined.


Politics

EU warns U.S. it may respond swiftly to counter new sanctions on Russia (Reuters)

China urges halt to oil drilling in disputed South China Sea (Reuters)

Nigeria’s former oil minister battles slew of graft cases in oil sector (AFP)

China backs joint energy development with Philippines in disputed sea (Reuters)

Very significant developments in the S. China Sea, we’ll see how long this decision holds up.

U.S. electric industry knew of climate threat decades ago (Reuters)

BC Hydro shuffles leadership as NDP government prepares review of Site C (Globe and Mail)

U.S. energy secretary duped into fake interview with Russian comedians (Reuters)

Oh yes! You can hear the phone call here at Vesti

French court repeals law on regulated gas prices (Reuters)


Technology

The Transformers: Superheroes of Electrical Inventions (IEEE)

Vaclav Smil on Transformers (obviously not the variety seen on the silver screen)


Transportation

Britain to Ban New Diesel and Gas Cars by 2040 (NYTimes)

Will Volvo Really Kill the Gasoline Engine? (IEEE)

Toyota set to sell long-range, fast-charging electric cars in 2022 (Reuters)

After Tesla, Mercedes Benz seeks sops to aid India’s electric car ride (India Times)

Musk Claims “Verbal” Approval for a Hyperloop Tunnel From New York to D.C. (IEEE)


Grid

New meters mean Seattle City Light won’t visit homes anymore (Seattle Times)

China to extend power market reform to cross-region transmission lines (Reuters)

UP government launches free power connection scheme for BPL families (India Times)


Coal

Revealed! Coal India’s ‘secret’ plan to make reverse auction process transparent (India Times)

I love the headline :-p Feels like something out of National Enquire

Wastewater for India’s coal plants an impractical dream (IANS)


Gas

Government mulls LPG-like subsidy transfer for PDS foodgrain (India Times)


Hydropower

Cameroon’s forest people pay price for country’s hydropower ambitions (Reuters)

Of 4,862 large dams, only 349 have emergency disaster action plans (IANS)

NHPC is losing Rs 2.5 crore a day in TLDP III and IV in Darjeeling (India Times)


Nuclear

Romania’s U2 nuclear reactor reconnected to power grid (Reuters)

S.Korea’s new energy minister says to support nuclear reactor exports (Reuters)

Only slightly hypocritical…


Petroleum

At Oil Producers‘ Meeting, Tough Talk Fails to Convince Markets (NYTimes)

Greenpeace activists protest near oil rig in Norway’s Arctic sea area (Reuters)

Saudi Arabia’s new trick is turning off the US oil tap (Bloomberg)

China drafts new rules easing state oil majors’ grip on storage (Reuters)


Solar

NASA Seeking BIG Ideas for Solar Power on Mars (EnergyTrends)

The anthropology of interplanetary energy politics is just around the corner

Prospect of Trump tariff casts pall over U.S. solar industry (Reuters)

Domestic solar manufacturers hopeful of relief from DGAD investigation in Chinese solar dumping case (India Times)

Paw power: China plans 100 panda-shaped solar plants on new Silk Road (Reuters)

BTW, the panda solar projects are not goin away ;-p

SolarCity co-founder Peter Rive to quit Tesla (Reuters)

Weekly Energy News Update-July 17th

For the next week I will be attending a conference in Venice on labor and precarity in China, so comments will be sparse in this week’s update.  But I am sharing some “positive solar energy” from Venice for you all. I think we need some positivity after learning about the very disconcerting news coming from the Larsen C ice shelf this week. Enjoy the update!


Archaeology

Uncovering Ancient Clues to Humanity’s First Fires (Sapiens)

I don’t get enough opportunities to share Public Anthropology of Energy pieces, so very excited to make this our opening topic this week!


Finance

Cold storage: traders shift oil products out of tanks as short-term demand soars (Reuters)

Britain Aggressively Courts $2 Trillion Saudi Aramco Listing (New York Times)

The age of ‘stranded assets’ isn’t just about climate change (Reuters)

Plan enables Microsoft to buy more green power (AP)

Plenty of Energy+Google news out there, so not surprised to see Microsoft in the mix as well

The waning power of the petrodollar (Reuters)

OPEC oil supply is lost in a fog of data (Reuters)

China sets sights on oil benchmark after years of delays (Reuters)


Pipeline

Pipelines secured as wildfires rage in western Canada (Reuters)


Politics

Gaza electricity crisis: ‘It is the worst I can remember – but we expect it to get worse’ (Guardian)

UK energy network operators face tougher price controls from 2021 (Reuters)

Tamil Nadu electricity regulator award blow to Adani Green Energy (India Times)

First phase of Saudi Aramco’s energy industrial city complete in 2021 (Reuters)

Brazil clears Petrobras, advisors of wrongdoing in 2010 share offer (Reuters)

Trump administration reduces royalty rates in first U.S. oil, gas lease sale (Reuters)

U.S. appeals court voids Exxon enforcement of Venezuela award (Reuters)

Delhi set to undergo major power reform to ’empower’ tenants (India Times)

Transcript of Reuters interview with EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt (Reuters)

A bit surprised to see Reuters just publish a full transcript like this, which is not exactly normal practice for them.

Germany’s Siemens Says Russian Partner Violated Crimea Sanctions (Reuters)

Siemens rethinks some Russian business after turbines moved to Crimea (Reuters)

I actually didn’t share any news about this last week because it was not clear at the time what was really happening, but it seems that there are some repercussions coming down the line.


Technology

Non-Wires Alternatives: What’s up next in utility business model evolution (UtilityDive)

Siemens to provide IGBT technology for Indian Railways (India Times)

Waste human hair could help clean up oil spills in oceans (India Times)


Transport

Electric vehicles could lift UK peak power demand by 3.5 GW by 2030 (Reuters)

Elon Musk talks cars, and humanity’s fate , with governors (AP)

China could field nearly half of new electric car models by 2020 (Reuters)


Biofuels

Malaysia, Indonesia may take EU plan to curb palm oil imports to WTO (Reuters)


Coal

Coal mine crackdown dims prospects for Mongolia’s fortune seekers (Reuters)

High levels of arsenic and lead found in groundwater under a Tennessee coal-fired power plant (AP)

Bosnia’s 300 MW Gacko power plant back online (Reuters)

Coal plan sparks ire as Myanmar struggles to keep lights on (Reuters)


Hydrogen

Nuclear to Coal to Hydrogen: Sheldon Station Blazes a Trail (IEEE)

The Sheldon Station would make an outstanding historical field site to study energy transition considering how much has changed here in such a short amount of time!


Hydropower

Congo revamps Inga hydro project in bid to make it economical (Reuters)


Nuclear

France must define possible scenarios to reduce nuclear (Reuters)

French firm’s fresh proposal to NPCIL for Jaitapur nuclear power plant (India Times)

Dominion fights to get nuclear in Connecticut power procurement plan (Reuters)

U.N. nuclear watchdog to open uranium bank that may have no clients (Reuters)


Petroleum

North Korea fuel prices surge after China cuts oil sales (Reuters)

Venezuela oil exports to Cuba drop, energy shortages worsen (Reuters)

Syrian army takes more oil fields from Islamic State in Raqqa and eastern desert (Reuters)

Drilling for oil in disputed sea may resume this year (Reuters)

This message coming right after Vietnam and India announced a joint plant to beginning drilling in the S. China Sea in the past few weeks.

Peace at risk in Nigeria’s oil heartlands as locals’ patience wears thin (Reuters)

There are a number of tension-inducing issues taking place around the intersection of Military and Energy this week.

Trump administration approves Eni plan to drill offshore Alaska (Reuters)

Oil Discoveries Suggest Mexico’s Bet to Open Energy Sector Is Paying Off (New York Times)

Shell Pakistan says to pay fine for tanker fire that killed 217 (Reuters)

The fine was 257 million rupees or 2.4 million USD

Exxon Mobil fined for Louisiana refinery explosion that injured four (Reuters)

Statoil drills dry wells off Canada’s Newfoundland (Reuters)

Fire extinguished at Syncrude oil sands plant in Alberta (Reuters)

U.N.experts tell Peru to halt oil talks until pollution remedied (Reuters)


Solar

Switch it off on eclipse day (Nature)

Hopefully this comment is not paywalled: It is a good reminder that on Eclipse Day there will be a significant drop in Solar Energy, so it would be good for us all to reduce our electricity usage during that brief period of the day in August.

Hindustan Power to set up 15 solar power projects in Japan of 150 MW (India Times)

Solar power really is not dominated by  the old dichotomies of North/South, East/West or even Developed/Undeveloped that “modern” discourses are so accustomed to. We still see Japanese solar projects being developed in India, but there could equally as well be India solar projects developed in Japan!

As Zimbabwe’s homes go solar, its businesses lag behind (Reuters)

Punjab government aims to convert farmers into power producers (India Times)

In power-short Pakistan, switch to solar power hit by rumors (Reuters)

ReneSola Awarded 42MW of Solar Projects in Poland’s Electricity Auction (EnergyTrends)

Land-Use Group Tries to Stop Oregon Solar Farm (AP)


Wind

In coal-focused Pakistan, a wind power breeze is blowing (Reuters)

Interesting that right now in Pakistan solar is dealing with negative rumors while wind is being funded through Sino-Pakistan joint economic development agreements

French power giant EDF acquires wind farm projects in UK (AFP)

 

Weekly Energy News Update-July 9th

OK, so I was going to spend some time talking about the G20…

  

I mean, obviously it is important and there was some intense Energy going on in the streets of Hamburg these past few days

But there was also a lot of unproductive things that happened, such as the burning of resident’s cars. I have a good friend from Hamburg and was disappointed to hear his parents left the city for the weekend due to the protests.

And while the first article in the Politics section this week draws some more direct connections between the G20 and Energy, how could anything be more important than this:

China just built a solar power array that looks like a panda (Vox)

Right, so that is an artistic rendering of a solar power plant in China made in the shape of a Panda, but there’s a picture of the real deal in the article above (thanks Snopes!). Naturally, the name of the company is Panda Green Energy.

 

Actually, my friend from Hamburg loves pandas, so I wrote this for him! Hope everything soon returns to “normal”, whatever that means these days.

 

Enjoy this weeks Update everyone!


Events

Dubai to host conference on sustainability, green energy technologies (IANS)

For more about WETEX see its official website


Finance

Renewable energy has moved ahead of thermal power sector: India Ratings (India Times)

GE closes Baker Hughes deal, becomes No. 2 oilfield service provider (Reuters)

Low gas, renewables prices spur Idaho Power to phase out most coal generation (UtilityDive)

Cash-strapped Venezuela offers India’s ONGC oil stake (Reuters)


Grid

Tesla to build world’s biggest lithium ion battery in South Australia (Guardian)

India’s outdated electricity grid needs major upgrade (IANS)

ReneSola Connects 180 MW of Distributed Generation Projects in China (EnergyTrends)


Labor

The future of HR in oil and gas (McKinsey)

One of the primary  themes McKinsey sees as driving HR in the oil and gas sector is managing for value and energy, which sounds like typical corporate chatter and is defined as “the idea that each employee creates ever more business value with more automation and digital tools at his/her disposal, leading to increasing returns on investment in personalized development and support for top performers to get the most out of their efforts.”

Transnet suspends operations in Richards Bay after community protests (ANA)

Siemens inaugurates first digitalized factory in India (India Times)


Pipeline

Alberta regulators charge Nexen Energy over 2015 pipeline spill (Reuters)

Gas pipeline explosion kills 5, injures 89 in northeast China (Xinhua)

Canada’s new pipeline parts rules to lessen burden on operators (Reuters)

Anti-ONGC stir continues in TN; no pipeline crack, says DC (India Times)


Politics

G20 public finance for fossil fuels ‘is four times more than renewables’ (Guardian)

While these numbers are alarming, it should be noted that state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are not included in the analysis provided in the report. SOEs in China and India are investing massive amounts of money and expertise into renewables. Of course, SOEs around the world also invest 286 billion USD into fossil fuels, which, as the report notes, is four times as much money as the public finance discussed in the report. You can download it here

Vietnam renews India oil deal in tense South China Sea (Reuters)

The media has primarily focused on China’s construction of military bases on tiny atolls in the South China Sea but these tensions are also about that access to and the transport of energy resources in the region.

Power supplies hit in Hamas-run Gaza Strip as rivals ‘stop’ payments (AFP)

Nigeria cabinet approves national gas policy (Reuters)

Delhi Lt Governor for enhancing capacity of waste-to-energy plants (India Times)

Tanzania passes laws on renegotiation of mining, gas contracts (Reuters)

U.S. Energy Department helping power firms defend against cyber attacks (Reuters)

Russians Are Suspects in Nuclear Site Hackings, Sources Say (Bloomberg)

The hacking of US power plants has been persistently in the news for the past week.

U.S. to speed approval for oil, gas exploration on federal land (Reuters)

Court rejects Trump administration move to delay methane regulation (Reuters)


Technology

Researchers develop small device to detect spills (Energy Voice)


Transport

Is inequality bad for the environment? (Guardian)

This is a very general article about the relationship between inequality and environmental degradation, but there are two specific cases of car and air traffic that are relevant to this section. The evidence is mounting that environmental issues cannot be resolved without simultaneously engaging with political economy. I am sure many on the listserve have rightfully been making similar arguments for years! Hopefully more people will start listening.

What Happens When Carpooling Laws Suddenly Change? Chaos! (IEEE)

It was a big week for Transportation news. For the scholarly article published in Science discussed in this piece see here

Driving under the influence in car powered by whisky biofuel (Reuters)

This of course is one way to use draff and pot ale, but as any good brewer or distiller knows these also make great fertilizer and draff can still be used to make bread.

Volvo, Betting on Electric, Moves to Phase Out Conventional Engines (New York Times)

Hamburg Is Ready to Fill Up With Hydrogen. Customers Aren’t So Sure. (New York Times)

When Will Electric Cars Go Mainstream? It May Be Sooner Than You Think (New York Times)

Great that NYT has published this as the Bloomberg piece much of the data comes from tries to collect your personal information. Lots of excellent Energy News from NYT this week.

Tesla Model 3 to Begin Production This Week, Says Elon Musk (BizVibe)

And naturally he just posted pictures of the first production roll out of the Model 3 on twitter

France to ban sales of petrol and diesel cars by 2040 (Guardian)

China’s electric-vehicle market plugs in (McKinsey)


Biofuels

France to restrict use of palm oil in biofuels (Reuters)

Government to push for cut in bio-diesel tax with GST Council (IANS)

Indonesia palm oil group worries EU nations will follow French restriction (Reuters)

U.S. proposes cutting total biofuels requirements in 2018 (Reuters)


Coal

Gas

Poland says more U.S. LNG supply depends on Washington (Reuters)

Qatar to Ramp Up Gas Production Amid Feud With Arab Neighbors (New York Times)

Gazprom to start gas supplies to China via Siberia in December 2019 (Reuters)

Bangladesh LNG drive likely to hit its diesel, fuel oil demand (Reuters)

Hungary joins Gazprom pipeline, as Trump touts U.S. LNG (Reuters)


Geothermal

Alphabet lab turns out new geothermal company for residential heating and cooling (UtilityDive)

Geothermal doesn’t show up very often in the media (if you know of any geothermal media sites, please send my way), but the fact that this is coming out of Alphabet seems fairly significant. You can see the original blog post about Dandelion here


Hydropower

In drastic move, China’s top hydropower plants slash capacity (Reuters)

Pakistan’s Indus Cascade – a disaster in the making (IANS)

Bill in Congress seeks to preserve the Snake River dams (AP)


Nuclear

EDF’s Fessenheim 2 nuclear reactor restart delayed until Jan 2018 (Reuters)

Renewable energy surges past nuclear for 1st time in decades (AP)


Petroleum

Oil Exports, Illegal for Decades, Now Fuel a Texas Port Boom (New York Times)

Pakistan orders Shell subsidiary to pay $2.4 million for tanker blast (Reuters)

76,000 liter oil spill after CN rail car derails in Illinois; cleanup expected to take days (Global News)

Oddly, this spill happened last Friday, but it was not reported until the following Monday…

French doctor convicted of perjury over ties to oil firm Total (Reuters)

European Union-Norway crab row could fuel oil tensions in Arctic (AFP)

Nigeria parliament inquiry calls ex-president Jonathan over oil block sale scandal (Reuters)

Nigeria Delta Communities Demand Stake in Ex-Shell Oil Block (Bloomberg)

A lot of big news in Nigeria this week, see also the note about a shift to gas exploration in the Policy section.

Petrobras teams up with CNPC to finish Comperj unit (Reuters)

Low oil price hurts Norway’s economic case for northern drilling (Reuters)


Solar

Rooftop Solar Dims Under Pressure From Utility Lobbyists (New York Times)

Google to power Dutch data center with solar energy (Reuters)

Solar Farm Brings New Use to Abandoned Nuclear Power Plant Site (EnergyTrend)

When I was an undergrad at UW-Seattle we toured the Hanford Site in Central Washington as part of an Environmental Studies course about Energy Resources. At that time Hanford was covered in solar panels. I wonder what it looks like now.


Wind

Siemens Gamesa to supply 94 wind turbines to the Netherlands (AFP)

Brazil wind, solar projects stall as power demand remains sluggish (Reuters)

Google to start getting Norwegian wind power by September (Reuters)

Seabird tracking data could be used to assess impact of offshore wind farms (Energy Voice)

Apologies, as this news article could be behind a paywall for some readers. It is worth noting that the scholarly the author uses to support basis of their argument has nothing to do with offshore wind power at all. It was published in Ecological Applications and is open access.

China’s Shenhua says its first offshore wind plant underway (Reuters)

Weekly Energy News Update-July 2nd

Unfortunately, I could not find something fun to begin this week’s update. I spent five days this week at conferences and workshops so feeling a bit of academic overload at the moment but I’ll share a brief thought that came to mind. I remember hearing at one of the workshops in Olso that in terms of environmental impact flying a scholar overseas is equivalent to a few months of driving their car. This is not the first time I have heard such statements but have always felt Joseph Nevin’s study of the 2011 AAG makes this point more explicit (and accurate). I once wrote a blog (unfortunately the WCAA removed that part of their website) discussing the possibility of shifting academic conferences online, but was instantly cut down a peg or two by more established scholars who felt strongly about the irreplaceable need to “shake a colleagues hand” every now and then. Admittedly, I found this past week was extremely productive, but I am remain unconvinced that the academic benefit of meeting face to face at such conferences somehow outweighs the environmental costs. Then again, over the past year here in Oslo I have also been collaborating with a group of scholars from all corners of the globe focused on the problem of air pollution in China and there are aspects of our long-term interaction in a single location that absolutely could not be replicated online. Just as food for thought, with new energy regimes on the horizon, perhaps it makes sense for academics to “take our own medicine” by re-prioritize our own practices, including the way we interact with each other.


Efficiency

China energy demand may already have peaked (Reuters)

This peaking of energy demand is a combination of energy transition, but also increases in efficiency as old plants are continually shut down. There is some discussion in Chinese media that the economic slowdown in China has also had an impact, as has the transition to a technology/digital economy as discussed in the piece below.


Finance

Asian tech supplants oil as main fuel for emerging stocks (Reuters)

Actually the opening of this article may raise some eyebrows for those following the intersection between energy and finance: “Not very long ago, a 17 percent oil price fall would have sent emerging market stocks into a tailspin. But this year they are set for their best first half since 2014.

GE Energy Financial Services Raises Largest Solar Fund in Japan (EnergyTrends)

Sistema says court ‘arrests’ stake in its largest asset over Rosneft dispute (Reuters)


Grid

Ukraine power company says was hit by second cyber attack (Reuters)

ADB approves USD 150 million loan to support power supply in Nepal (India Times)

Australian firm looks to bring cheap, green energy to the poor (Reuters)

Smart Transformers Will Make the Grid Cleaner and More Flexible (IEEE)

New computer virus spreads from Ukraine to disrupt world business (Reuters)

It appears now that this week’s major virus attack was the result of initial attempts to take control of Ukraine’s power grid. As the first article notes, there was even a second attack later in the week.


Labor

Brazil unions protest Temer’s reforms amid political crisis (Reuters)

This article is a bit contradictory, the unions appear to be united in their strike action, but Petrobras claimed it has had “limited impact at oil refineries“.

Steelworkers union warns of strike at Philadelphia refinery (Reuters)


Pipeline

TigerSwan Faces Lawsuit Over Unlicensed Security Operations in North Dakota (The Intercept)

EPA’s New Water Safety Official Is a Lobbyist With Deep Ties to the Dakota Access Pipeline (The Intercept)

Still more important revelations about the implementation of DaPL in North Dakota

U.S. says it has issued permits for three U.S.-Mexico pipelines (Reuters)

ING bank says it will not finance major Canadian pipeline projects (Reuters)


Politics

Statoil moves key IT tasks from India back to Norway (Reuters)

A Vast Chinese Province Just Went a Week Without Fossil Fuels (Mother Jones)

While this sounds remarkable, there is also far more electricity produced in Qinghai than can be utilized by the 6 million people in the province, but it was recently reported that upwards of 30% of the electricity produced by solar and wind was unable to mount the national grid due to quotas taken up by coal-fired power plants.

Tanzania to pass laws next week to renegotiate minerals contracts (Reuters)

Also has implications for all forms of multinational extraction industries, such as oil and gas.

Rework power supply deals to boost renewables (India Times)

Trump seeks to project global power through energy exports (Reuters)

Maybe it is just me, but there seems to be something profoundly disturbing about seeing these white men standing in front of the words “Unleashing American Energy”.

Kick-starting an African clean energy revolution – one pedal at a time (The Ecologist)

Canada says it wants single body to assess major energy projects (Reuters)

Cyprus says to push ahead with energy plans despite challenges (Reuters)

Few resource-rich countries properly manage their natural resources (Reuters)

For those interested in the index used to come to conclusions discussed in this article see this website developed by the Natural Resource Governance Institute


Technology

Chilean scientists produce biodiesel from microalgae (Reuters)

China taps ‘combustible ice’ from sea floor, but extracting gas will be a costly challenge (AFP)

In May this was hailed as a major breakthrough in energy production by Chinese media, but since then there has been a wave of skepticism.

Panasonic HIT® Solar Module Sets Temperature Coefficient Record (EnergyTrends)

Advancements in Scottish clean energy (Hydrocarbon Engineering)

Don’t hear as much about hydrogen storage in the news, but here is project that seems to think they have a solution.


Transportation

Coal

EPA wins U.S. court reversal over coal jobs study (Reuters)

FYI the Robert Murray discussed in this case is the same that has brought a defamation case against John Oliver.

China to ban coal imports at small ports from July 1 (Reuters)

As Beijing Joins Climate Fight, Chinese Companies Build Coal Plants (New York Times)

Great article explaining that while China is taking measures to reduce their dependence on coal at home (which is one reason for the port ban above), abroad they are helping build more coal plants.

New coal power plants may block Japan’s carbon emissions goal (Reuters)

India’s policy panel proposes break up of Coal India into 7 firms (Reuters)

Fight over Rio’s mines means coal isn’t dead; Adani woes show it’s dying (Reuters)

Although Russell takes his typical financial perspective to analyze the “death” of coal, there are some important insights to take from his analysis of the sale of various Rio mines currently on the table. Food for thought at least. Here is the result of the Rio-Yancoal deal.

 


Gas

How the gas industry can help fight climate change in Siberia (The Conversation)

Russia’s Rosneft set for global gas tussle with Gazprom (Reuters)

In Blow to ‘Clean Coal,’ Flawed Plant Will Burn Gas Instead (New York Times)

Actually IEEE has followed this project closely and have written a detailed account of what went wrong here.

Brazilian study urges Petrobras to cut Bolivian natural gas purchases (Reuters)

China pumps cash into African floating LNG projects in strategic push (Reuters)

 


Hydropower

Hydropower projects with 13,363 MW capacity register cost overruns (India Times)


Nuclear

Nuclear reactor at Kalpakkam: World’s envy, India’s pride (India Times)

Quote from the tagline: “This novel nuclear reactor is a kind of an ‘akshaya patra’, the mythical goblet with a never-ending supply of food.

U.S. trade group says no nuclear power plants have been hacked (Reuters)

U.S. warns businesses of hacking campaign against nuclear, energy firms (Reuters)

I would like to draw your attention to the timing of these two articles. The U.S. trade group article was released half an hour before the article about the U.S. government report, which does go against a kind of causal logic regarding the timing of releasing information and reacting to that release of the information. Of course, the government report had already been circulated within the Energy Corporate community for a few days, so the industry spokesman (whoever that might be) had time to prepare a (typically vague) statement. Notice, though, that the author of these two pieces is the same. The point is that the media is quite capable of warping our sense of the flow of time as well as the link between action and reaction. It may be useful to think about to what purpose does this warping serve as well as whether or not it is even intentional (a slippery slope) or just the result of institutional gears grinding away.

French regulator says Flamanville reactor is fit for service (Reuters)


Petroleum

Brazil’s Petrobras to review diesel, gasoline prices more frequently (Reuters)

UK taxpayers face multi-billion burden for dismantling of North Sea rigs (Guardian)

Militant group withdraws threat to attack Niger Delta oil industry (Reuters)

Poland’s PKN and Lithuanian railways strike deal over fuel transport costs (Reuters)

In disaster’s wake, BP doubles down on deepwater despite surging shale (Reuters)

Anyone done research on the names of BP’s deepwater platforms (Thunder Horse, Atlantis, Na Kika and Mad Dog)…the author describes them as audacious…not sure that’s the adjective I would choose.


Solar

Solar Trade Case, With Trump as Arbiter, Could Upend Market (New York Times)

And Americans think protectionism is a good way to protect jobs…well here is a clear example of where it won’t.

Local solar manufacturers seek ‘Safeguard Duty’ (India Times)

Californians take a shine to solar power (AFP)

Thai Packing Factory Buildings Install Solar Frontier’s CIS Solar Panels (EnergyTrends)


Wind

For the First Time, Offshore Wind Power Will Be Profitable Without Subsidies (IEEE)

Dutch govt: zero subsidy bidders get first shot at North Sea wind project (Reuters)

World’s first floating windfarm to take shape off coast of Scotland (Guardian)

Wind power’s big bet: turbines taller than skyscrapers (Reuters)

The approaching Era of the Megaturbine…Seems a bit dramatic, but I imagine there must be a point of peak efficiency with regard to turbine size. Perhaps some one on the listserve could write a post about this topic?