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Air conditioning has become a hot-button geopolitical issue as rising temperatures create dangerous conditions around the globe. Air-conditioning units are increasingly being considered as “essential infrastructure” as summer heat waves turn into a deadly and increasingly regular occurrence. But while air conditioning inarguably saves lives, in the short term, they are simultaneously contributing to global warming and distracting from other, more important approaches to managing greenhouse gas emissions and mitigating climate change.…
Oil prices have just come off a fresh two-month high as the crude oil market has tumbled this week amid signals of de-escalation in the U.S.-Iran conflict. Despite the slump in crude prices and the extreme volatility in the past five months, the refined product market continues to tighten with refining margins at record highs because the supply of petroleum products is much tighter than crude supply. Refining margins held at record highs even as crude oil prices soared last week to $100 per barrel. That’s because global gasoline, diesel,…
“I feel like a jackass caught in a Texas hailstorm -- I can’t run, I can’t hide and I can’t make it stop.” U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson’s desperate comment to aide, Bill Moyers, came after a massive and sustained aerial bombing campaign in North Vietnam -- codenamed ‘Operation Rolling Thunder’ -- had failed in its aim of pressuring the North Vietnamese leadership into peace talks to end the spiralling conflict that became the 19-year Vietnam War. Shortly after, on 8 March 1965, following advice…
U.S. airlines are grappling with soaring jet fuel costs again after the return of hostilities in the Middle East shattered the three-week-long U.S.-Iran ‘deal to make a deal’ and sent Brent crude oil prices soaring past $100 per barrel again. The U.S. jet fuel market has been tightening since March, although there haven’t been concerns about any shortages in America, unlike in Europe, which in April was supposed to run out of stockpiles within six weeks. Europe didn’t see shortages, but the global markets tightened, and…
China has unveiled a daring new plan to integrate artificial intelligence throughout the nuclear energy life cycle. This week, at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai, researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) revealed a new plan for safely integrating artificial intelligence into the nuclear sector, called ADANES – the Accelerator-Driven Advanced Nuclear Energy System. The system “fundamentally changes the safety logic that governs conventional nuclear reactors” and marks a major turning…
Crop prices just hit a three-year high, indicating major downstream pain soon to come at the supermarket. There are two major factors leading to high crop prices and a potential global food crisis: heat waves and intensifying conflict in the Black Sea threatening to disrupt global grain trades, and volatility in fertilizer markets stemming from the war in Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) is referring to the unfolding situation in fertilizer supply chains as an “input crisis”…
Artificial intelligence is a double-edged sword for the energy sector. The rapid buildout of data centers to support widespread integration of large language models in virtually every economic sector imaginable, from our energy grids to your electric toothbrush – yes, really – is pushing energy demand growth projections to unprecedented levels, threatening to far outpace energy capacity additions and imperil energy security on a global scale. On the other hand, artificial intelligence holds enormous promise for improving energy efficiency…
Researchers at MIT have developed a new framework to map out geographical hotspots and pain points for our beleaguered electrical grids. As extreme weather events and soaring summer heat waves become more commonplace, and energy demands on the electric grid skyrocket thanks to data center hyperscalers, understanding the minutiae of climactic patterns as well as how they map onto regional trends in energy supply and demand will be critical to ensure grid stability and security going forward. This summer’s blistering heat waves have underlined…
The artificial intelligence boom has created an era of unprecedented uncertainty in the global economy. Large language models are evolving as quickly as they are being integrated, creating a major headache for anyone trying to project their future impact or even their current energy footprint. But while we don’t know exactly how much energy will be needed to power the tech sector in coming years, we do know that it will be a whole lot, and the market is already reacting accordingly. “Energy companies are raising money at IPO at their…
The global oil market is much more exposed to the latest re-escalation in the Middle East, as most of the buffers that cushioned the initial shock of the Iran war are wearing thin and unable to prevent the next oil price spike. For weeks, market participants were too complacent that the U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding would reopen the Strait of Hormuz and the oil flows would recover steadily by the end of the third quarter. The reality dawned on the oil market last week, when the re-escalation all but closed the Strait of Hormuz, again, and…
Scientists now know why solid-state batteries have repeatedly failed. Two separate studies have identified the physical processes responsible for the short circuits that have delayed commercialization for years, turning one of the industry’s biggest unknowns into a defined engineering problem. For years, engineers knew how solid-state batteries were failing, but not why. The batteries repeatedly developed internal short circuits as microscopic lithium structures formed inside the cell and eventually pierced the barrier separating the battery’s…
When Hurricane Maria flattened Puerto Rico's power grid in 2017, one building in the mountain town of Adjuntas never went dark. Casa Pueblo, a local environmental group, had already wired its headquarters with solar panels and batteries. That system kept the lights on while the rest of the island waited close to a year for power. It also became the seed for one of the country's most closely watched community microgrids. Nine years and several storms later, microgrids have moved well past the disaster-recovery story. They're showing up on military…
The world is turning toward nuclear power as a solution to the increasingly dire energy trilemma – the tricky issue of sourcing energy that is simultaneously affordable, sustainable, and secure. As the artificial intelligence boom pushes energy demand into the stratosphere in rich nations, and back-to-back oil shocks and soaring temperatures leave poor nations scrambling for alternative energy sources, the nuclear option is looking increasingly appealing for a broad range of national contexts. “With energy security now ranking alongside…
Global oil demand could decrease for the first time since 2020, following months of oil trade restrictions in the Middle East and ongoing geopolitical turmoil, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on 10th July. This expectation is echoed in OPEC's most recent 2026 global oil demand growth forecast. The global demand for oil is expected to fall by around 1 million bpd year-on-year in 2026, which would be the first annual decline since that which was experienced during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, according to a recent IEA report. The IEA…
Two shocks are hitting energy investors at once, and they point in opposite directions. The first is obvious. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard declared the Strait of Hormuz closed again on July 11, the U.S. answered with three straight nights of strikes, and roughly a fifth of the world’s seaborne oil trade is once more moving in a trickle or not at all. Brent punched back above $86 this week, a one-month high, and crude is up around 40 percent since January. Repeated U.S. bombing has not broken Tehran’s grip on the…
Europe’s largest economy is walking a precarious tightrope toward carbon neutrality, trying to balance energy security with climate goals as this summer’s heat waves create mounting pressure on the continent’s energy grids while simultaneously highlighting the importance of mitigating emissions. The German government aims to source 100 percent of the national energy mix from renewables by 2035, but has hedged some of its energy-transition rhetoric in recent months against the backdrop of major energy market volatility. Germany…
As might be expected in the zero-sum game of global energy, there is much more than meets the eye to the acquisition by Abu Dhabi-headquartered international investment company XRG of an additional equity interest in Trains (self-contained production facilities) 4 and 5 of the U.S.’s flagship Rio Grande liquefied natural gas (LNG) project at the Port of Brownsville, Texas. In practical terms, this gives the firm that is wholly owned by the UAE’s oil and gas giant Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) much deeper exposure to one of…
Supermajors are set to report bumper profits for the second quarter thanks to the surge in oil and gas prices, driven higher by the hostilities between the United States, Israel, and Iran. This is a problem for governments—notably the Trump administration, but politicians in Europe are angry at Big Oil’s good fortune again. Oil prices soared fourfold earlier this year after U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran prompted the latter to shut traffic via the Strait of Hormuz—something Tehran had been threatening it would do for decades…
An unconventional approach to nuclear energy production just got one step closer to reality. A prototype reactor canister just arrived at its installation site in Kansas, where it will soon be part of a proof of concept for a first-of-its-kind underground small modular reactor system. California-based startup Deep Fission believes that by burying a small nuclear reactor deep under the ground, they can make nuclear energy cheaper and safer at a time when round-the-clock carbon-free energy is needed more than ever before. “The prototype has…
Kazakhstan is growing more possessive of its petroleum products as a gasoline shortage tightens its grip in Russia and the US-Iran conflict reignites. Kazakh officials have established new police checkpoints on almost 60 roads along the country’s lengthy border with Russia to curb ‘gasoline tourism,’ according to local news reports. In addition, new restrictions have been introduced at border checkpoints, limiting trucks and cars to one crossing per day. In recent weeks, as gasoline shortages have spread across Russia caused by…
A United States firm just got one step closer to realizing the development of a thorium reactor – using a 3D printer. The Florida-based advanced nuclear energy company AMPERA successfully fabricated a nuclear reactor module using a 3D printer, which will serve as the basis for what the firm hopes will be the first thorium-powered nuclear power system that is entirely factory-built, subcritical, and solid-state. “This next-generation nuclear core and pressure vessel sets the foundation for factory-built, mass-produced nuclear energy,”…
A team of scientists at Texas A&M University accidentally discovered a new method for producing a critical component in lithium-ion batteries. The team, based in College Station, Texas, was trying to study an entirely different phenomenon when they discovered that they could produce graphene oxide directly from natural gas. Not only does this discovery mean that a critical battery component could be produced more efficiently and cheaply, the process also creates green hydrogen as a byproduct. Initially, the team was trying to experiment with…
Donald Trump is trying to push forward a nuclear power renaissance in the United States as the AI boom presents the country with a major looming energy deficit. The federal government recently announced over $17 billion in federal loans as part of a scheme to encourage investment in revitalizing the nation’s ageing nuclear fleet. The move comes as part of a broader desire on the part of the Trump administration to “produce lasting American dominance in the global nuclear energy market.” However, it will take a lot more than a…
Nigeria is trying to rebuild its energy industry from the ground up, not only trying to recover lost crude production, but working to turn itself into Africa’s dominant refining, gas, capital markets and energy export hub. The clearest test is the Dangote Refinery. The 650,000-barrel-per-day plant has already changed Nigeria’s fuel market and is now preparing for what could become the largest IPO in African history. Dangote Refinery is seeking to raise around $4 billion at a valuation of roughly $40 billion, a listing that would place…
