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China just broke ground on a revolutionary new hybridized energy production and storage facility. The power plant will store excess energy in the form of molten salt, and then produce electricity during peak demand times through a supercritical carbon dioxide system. The goal of the project is to limit energy waste while also stabilizing the local power grid. The project could also inform future next-gen energy and energy storage systems, including for application in the nuclear power sector and even on the moon. Construction of the Ruitan…
Emerging economies are going to see an explosion of energy demand over the coming decades. Countries like Brazil, India, Nigeria, and Indonesia are racing to expand their energy production and imports in order to keep up with rapid economic development. While the leaders of these and other emerging economies are making a concerted effort to expand their renewable energy capacity, meeting demand will require an all-of-the-above approach to energy that will extend the life of oil and gas, according to a new report from S&P Global. According to…
Power technologies are usually compared by asking how much their electricity costs. That is no longer enough. Electricity demand is accelerating, driven by data centers, electrification, new factories and cooling. The International Energy Agency expects global data-center consumption alone to more than double to around 945 TWh by 2030—slightly more than Japan consumes today. A power plant that is cheap in 2035 cannot supply a data center that wants to connect in 2028. As demand begins arriving faster than conventional generating capacity,…
Some of the world’s largest oil and gas companies have adopted a new modus operandi ever since the historic oil price crash of 2020 devastated energy companies, prioritizing returning more cash to shareholders while expansion plans have been put on the back burner. Indeed, over the past five years, Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM), Chevron (NYSE:CVX), British Petroleum (NYSE:BP), Shell (NYSE:SHEL) and TotalEnergies (NYSE:TTE) have collectively spent more than $100 billion annually in dividends and buybacks, good for nearly 80% of their earnings. Hardly…
Liquefied natural gas prices on the spot market are moving higher as demand picks up seasonally and Asian importers are souring on the fuel. European buyers are stepping up purchases, however, despite the price. They have no choice. Asian demand for liquefied gas is set to decline this month—and over the year—according to analysts. September flows of LNG into Asian countries are estimated at 20.09 million tons by Kpler, which would be down from 22.27 million tons a year ago, and 22.25 million tons a month ago, Reuters’ Clyde Russell…
French President Emmanuel Macron is calling the G7 back to the table to discuss another release of emergency oil stocks as Europe loses Saudi crude deliveries and diesel prices push deeper into record territory. Macron said Friday that he will convene G7 countries in the coming weeks to coordinate stock levels, exports and production capacity and consider tapping strategic reserves. France is also working to secure diesel, jet fuel and natural gas supplies for the coming months. Europe has a useful card left to play. Unlike the U.S. Strategic Petroleum…
The United States is desperate to claw back some of the global critical minerals share from China. Beijing has established near-total dominance in international supply chains over the last several decades through its far-reaching Belt and Road Initiative in addition to other deals and programs that have given China a massive presence in mineral-rich countries and emerging markets across the globe. This gives Beijing critical economic and political leverage as these materials become ever more sought after to power the global tech manufacturing sector,…
Argentina's controversial right-wing president, Javier Milei, slashed inflation with a brutal dose of economic austerity, but this came at a steep social cost. The cost of living is spiraling higher, fueling household debt, loan delinquencies, and economic hardship. Industrial output, since Milei took office, has declined sharply, with local companies closing at an alarming rate. While parts of the economy are falling into chaos, Argentina's oil and gas sector is experiencing a generational boom driven by the Vaca Muerta shale. Argentina's vital…
The artificial intelligence boom is driving a new wave of autonomous cyberattacks, posing a major and growing threat to critical infrastructure, including the energy grid. Ninety percent of state government chief intelligence officers recently reported that cyberattacks on critical services – including threats to water and wastewater systems, hospitals, transportation, and energy and communication networks – is a matter of great concern, according to a new report from the National Association of State Chief Information Officers and…
Scientists at MIT have discovered a new way to extract high-purity hydrogen from ammonia while using a lot less energy than previous technologies. The breakthrough could provide a critical inroad toward reducing the energy and ecological footprint of the hydrogen sector, which powers a wide range of industrial processes and technologies from fuel cells to computer chip manufacturing. Green hydrogen has often been touted as a silver-bullet solution for decarbonizing hard-to-abate sectors like the shipping industry and steelmaking, as…
This week’s oil price surge sharply raised the odds of a Fed interest rate hike next week and re-launched the recession conversation, for the first time since the early weeks of the Iran war. The price spike this week saw Brent Crude prices topping $100 per barrel for the first time since July and the U.S. benchmark, WTI Crude, exceeding $100 a barrel as well, after the U.S.-Iran tensions escalated again with no talks of a deal in sight. For six months during the Iran war, the global and U.S. economies have remained resilient in the face…
Electricity theft is a global problem, and it’s getting more dire all the time. While the problem is most common in developing countries, where grid infrastructure is limited and utilities and state authorities have lower oversight capacities, developed countries are not immune either. This theft can occur in many forms and at many scales, from individuals tapping into power lines to power their individual residences to large-scale and sophisticated theft schemes to power entire cryptocurrency mining farms. Just this week, Mexican authorities…
Brent is sitting a touch above $104 this morning, down slightly from yesterday's surge. The Strait of Hormuz, which used to move something like a fifth of the world's oil and LNG before the war, has been effectively shut since March. Saudi output dropped around 1.9 million barrels a day in August, tanker rates are breaking records, and the EIA doesn't see Middle East production back near pre-conflict levels until the second quarter of 2027. Meanwhile, the European Union imports 57 percent of the energy it consumes and spent €340 billion on…
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Europe desperately needs to ramp up its energy storage capacity if it wants to avoid another energy crisis. In the wake of Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine back in 2022, the European Union made major strides in building up its own energy production capacities in an effort to wean itself off of Russian oil and gas. Much of this buildout has been in the form of wind and solar energy, which is great news for energy independence and the bloc's climate goals, but poses key challenges in terms of energy security. As more and more of Europe's energy…
Copper futures in London reached a record high on Tuesday as expectations of US tariffs drew record volumes from the seaborne market into US warehouses, tightening availability elsewhere despite subdued demand. As we highlighted on Monday, deteriorating conditions across global mining operations are adding to supply woes. Benchmark three-month futures on the LME gained nearly 1% to reach $14,533 a ton, exceeding January's peak before trimming some of those gains. Dr. Copper is breaking out...but this isn’t mainly…
Rosneft has shipped the first crude oil cargo from the Vostok Oil project in Eastern Siberia, despite sanctions targeting Russia’s energy industry and the exit of Western business partners. At peak capacity, the project is expected to produce between 50 and 100 million tons of crude annually. The Vostok Oil project is Russia's largest new oil development, comprising a group of fields in Krasnoyarsk Krai, some already producing and the rest new discoveries. A total of 2,000 wells have been drilled at the site, Rosneft’s chief executive…
The biggest oil companies in the United States are playing hardball in unionized labor negotiations in a bid to get more concessions from workers’ unions in the new contracts. Over the past few years, some of the top U.S. refining companies have resorted to lockouts to ensure most of the company management’s proposals in new labor contracts are accepted. The trend began earlier this decade with Exxon locking out in 2021 as many as 650 workers out of the Beaumont refinery for 10 months. This was the longest labor dispute at a U.S. refinery…
Northeast Asia is experiencing a rapid nuclear energy revival as Japan and South Korea move to prioritize the baseload clean energy source into their energy security strategies. Not only are the two major economies ramping up nuclear energy expansion, they are also changing the geopolitics of how and with whom they plan these expansions. As the artificial intelligence boom pushes an all-of-the-above approach to energy expansion and the war in Iran catalyzes a transition away from reliance on international fossil fuel supply chains, a new nuclear…
The world is undergoing a transformation driven by the exponential growth of artificial intelligence (AI)—a pace of change unprecedented in human history. Consequently, many people fear massive unemployment, along with other implications that could affect their livelihoods and quality of life. Is this truly the case? Yes—or perhaps not entirely. The purpose of this short article is to explore the potential benefits of AI and its implications for human society. It is still too early to fully assess the potential benefits of AI, but they…
Big Tech is betting trillions of dollars on artificial intelligence, with a lot of that to be spent on building the data centers that would power large language models. Stock markets are reflecting this in Big Tech stocks, but that’s not the only industry riding the artificial intelligence wave. Because that wave runs on electricity and the equipment that brings it from generator to consumer. There have been reports about a chip shortage caused by the AI rush, and higher compute prices overall resulting from AI-related demand growth in electronics.…
As the artificial intelligence boom drives major energy demand growth and catalyzes an all-of-the-above approach to energy development, enhanced geothermal energy is catching a windfall of investment dollars and renewed policy interest. A new wave of next-gen geothermal energy projects and startups may have the backing it takes to bring the cutting-edge, round-the-clock clean energy technology out of the lab and into commercial markets across the United States. Geothermal energy is not a new technology, but its applications are severely limited…
Solar energy is going gangbusters. The world is adding photovoltaic solar panels at a blistering rate, shattering its own records year after year, buoyed by a flood of ever-cheaper solar panels out of China. “We have a plentiful and cheap source of electricity that can be built quickly, almost anywhere in the world,” NewScientist wrote in an article published late last year. “Is it fanciful to imagine that solar could one day power everything?” But the growth of solar power is uneven around the globe, with some regions seeing…
The renewed trade war between the United States and Canada adds even more uncertainty to the complex steel and aluminum supply chains critical for heavy manufacturing and North America’s automotive industry. Last week’s breakdown in trade talks led to a quick escalation of tariffs and counter-tariffs, which the two close trading partners announced on each other’s imports. The trade war escalation will hit trade in key metals such as steel and aluminum and force producers and importers to seek longer-term solutions to the heightened…
